Over 1,200 Motivational And Inspirational Quotes

We have collected and put over 1,200 Motivational And Inspirational Quotes. Enjoy reading these insights and feel free to share this page on your social media to inspire others.

Inspirational means making you feel full of hope or encouraged. Inspirational quotes and motivational sayings have an amazing ability to change the way we feel about life. Everyone needs some inspiration, and these motivational quotes will give you the edge you need to create your success. So read on and let them inspire you.

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Motivational and Inspirational Quotes

A friend is a person with whom you dare to be yourself. – Anonymous

Money talks—mostly lies.- Anonymous

If you don’t read the newspaper, you’re uninformed; if you do read the newspaper, you’re misinformed.- Anonymous

The true measure of a man is how he treats someone who can do him absolutely no good.- Anonymous

We too often love things and use people, when we should be using things and loving people.- Anonymous

Choose a job that you like, and you will never have to work a day in your life.- Anonymous

It is good pride to desire to be the best of men.- Anonymous

A nation reveals itself not only by the people it produces, but also by the people it honors and remembers.- Anonymous

For one rich person that is content, there are a hundred who are not.- Anonymous

Thirty is the turning point in a person’s life.- Anonymous

You gain power over another person by winning his heart or by breaking his spirit.- Anonymous

The gods delight to see a man struggling to succeed.- Anonymous

The grand essentials to happiness in this life are something to do, something to love, and something to hope for. – Joseph Addison

When men are easy in their circumstances, they are naturally enemies to innovations. – Joseph Addison

A little nonsense now and then
Is relished by the wisest men. – Joseph Addison

No Vices are so incurable as those which Men are apt to glory in. – Joseph Addison

Even if all spiritual fathers, patriarchs, hierarchs, and all the people forgive you, you are unforgiven if you don’t repent in action. – St. Kosmas Aitolos

The human mind is fickle. Man wants to fulfill all his desires—[a task] as impossible as filling a sieve with water. – Acaranga Curni

I have heard and experienced that bondage and liberation are within yourself. – Akaranga Sutra

Influenced by greed, a person resorts to untruth. – Akaranga Sutra

Life is full of misery, loneliness, and suffering; and it’s all over much too soon. – Woody Allen

The only normal people are the ones you don’t know very well. – Foe Ancis

People who have no knowledge at all, none, about a subject will stand around talking about what is and isn’t true. It is really crazy. I can never figure out what is going through their minds. I envision them thinking “I don’t know anything at all about this subject. I have no clue. Never cared about it, never will. But that doesn’t mean I don’t have an opinion, and my opinion is right.” – Jalon Anderson / Happeh

I communicate by having a friendly conversation and trying to awaken a person’s imagination and thought processes. The scientific people here have no imagination. They can only handle cut and dried facts that are exactly square at 90 degree angles. They have no ability to change. – Jalon Anderson / Happeh

A good lie contain 80% of the truth. A good newspaper front shows both sides, with an obvious slant towards one side. – Jalon Anderson / Happeh

The world is a very complicated place with many layers to it. It is naive to dismiss something offhand that you really know nothing about, and you have never thought about until I posted about it a few days ago. – Jalon Anderson / Happeh

General Grant had a simple, childlike for meeting life … “I am terribly afraid, but the other fellow is afraid, too.” – Sherwood Anderson

Nowadays treatment [for mental illnesses] by medical doctors nearly always means psychoactive drugs… In fact, most psychiatrists treat only with drugs, and refer patients to psychologists or social workers if they believe psychotherapy is also warranted. … [A]bout 10 percent of Americans over age six now take antidepressants. – Marcia Angell

The price for the top-selling drugs now averages about $100 for a month’s prescription of that drug. It’s well over $1,000 a year. The price per drug is increasing about three times the rate of inflation. – Marcia Angell

For all of life’s discontents, according to the pharmaceutical industry, there is a drug and you should take it. Then for the side effects of that drug, then there’s another drug, and so on. – Marcia Angell

[C]hildren are often treated with drugs that were never approved by the FDA for use in this age group and have serious side effects. The apparent prevalence of “juvenile bipolar disorder” jumped forty-fold between 1993 and 2004, and that of “autism” increased from one in five hundred children to one in ninety over the same decade. Ten percent of ten-year-old boys now take daily stimulants for ADHD—”attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder”—and 500,000 children take antipsychotic drugs. – Marcia Angell

It is simply no longer possible to believe much of the clinical research that is published, or to rely on the judgment of trusted physicians or authoritative medical guidelines. I take no pleasure in this conclusion, which I reached slowly and reluctantly over my two decades as an editor of The New England Journal of Medicine. – Marcia Angell

The most useful piece of learning for the uses of life is to unlearn what is untrue. – Antisthenes

A madman is not cured by another running mad also. – Antisthenes

Beware of the person of one book. – Thomas Aquinas

It is requisite for the relaxation of the mind that we make use, from time to time, of playful deeds and jokes. – Thomas Aquinas

The more I want to get something done, the less I call it work. – Aristotle

It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it. – Aristotle

There are two things people want more than sex and money… recognition and praise. – Mary Kay Ash

Most people live and die with their music still unplayed. They never dare to try. – Mary Kay Ash

…Rather than assume the responsibility of directing their own footsteps, they [people] wait until someone takes the lead, and then away they stampede after him. – William Walker Atkinson

…the occultist should proceed to kill out the lower desires that he finds within his nature, and also to kill out the “attachment” for things. Regarding this last we would say that all true occultist know that even the best “things” are not good enough to rule and master one—nothing is good enough for the soul to allow itself to be unduly attached to it so that the thing rules the soul instead of the should mastering the thing. That is what the teachings mean—avoidance of “attachment.” – William Walker Atkinson

Desire is a frightful master—like fire it sweeps away the supports of the soul, leaving nothing but smoldering ashes. But, also like Fire Desire is a splendid servant and by its harnessed power we are able to generate the steam of the Will and Activity, and to accomplish much in the world. Without proper Desire the world would be without activity. – William Walker Atkinson

Man acts not upon EVERY desire, but upon the STRONGEST Desire, or the Average of his Strongest Desires. This Average of Desires is that which constitutes his Nature or Character. – William Walker Atkinson

And here is where the Mastery of the “I” comes in! Man need not be a slave or creature of his Desires if he will assert his Mastery. He may control, regulate, govern and guide his Desires in any directions that he pleases. Nay, more, he may even CREATE DESIRES by an action of his Will… – William Walker Atkinson

Students of history find a continuous chain of reference to the mysterious influence of one human mind over that of others. In the earliest records, traditions and legends may be found giving reference to the general belief that it was possible for an individual to exert some weird uncanny power over the minds of other persons, which would influence the latter for good or evil. And more than this, the student will find an accompanying belief that certain individuals are possessed of some mental power which bends even “things” and circumstances to its might. – William Walker Atkinson

Trust not the world, for it never pays that it promises. – St. Augustine

Miracles are not contrary to nature; they are only contrary to what we know about nature.

To many, total abstinence is easier than perfect moderation. – St. Augustine

If two friends ask you to judge a dispute, don’t accept, because you will lose one friend. But if two strangers approach you with the same request, accept, because you will gain one friend. – St. Augustine

Even limited knowledge of scriptures is beneficial to a person whose inner eye as opened, just as the light of even one lamp is sufficient to show the path to a person whose eyes are open. – Avasyaka Niryukti

Just as when the water becomes clearer, one is able to view the reflection with greater clarity, so when the self becomes inspired to know the reality, one starts acquiring knowledge with greater consistency. – Avasyaka Niryukti

Collection of Zoroastrian scriptures. – Avesta

Doing good to others is not a duty—it is a joy, for it increases your own health and happiness. – Avesta

If money be not thy servant it will be thy master. – Francis Bacon

Nature, to be commanded, must be obeyed. – Francis Bacon

The price one pays for pursuing any profession or calling is an intimate knowledge of its ugly side. – James Baldwin

Real happiness is cheap enough, yet how dearly we pay for its counterfeit! – Hosea Ballou

In nine times out of ten, the slanderous tongue belongs to a disappointed person. – George Bancroft

One may know how to gain a victory, and know not how to use it. – Pedro Calderon de la Barca

I hate mankind, for I think myself one of the best of them, and I know how bad I am. – Joseph Baretti

[I]n almost every act of our daily lives, whether in the sphere of politics or business, in our social conduct or our ethical thinking, we are dominated by the relatively small number of persons–a trifling fraction of our hundred and twenty million-who understand the mental processes and social patterns of the masses. It is they who pull the wires which control the public mind, who harness old social forces and contrive new ways to bind and guide the world. – Edward Bernays

[the] average citizen is the world’s most efficient censor. His own mind is the greatest barrier between him and the facts. His own ‘logic proof compartments,’ his own absolutism are the obstacles which prevent him from seeing in terms of experience and thought rather than in terms of group reaction. – Edward Bernays

[P]hysical loneliness is a real terror to the gregarious animal, and that association with the herd causes a feeling of security. In man this fear of loneliness creates a desire for identification with the herd in matters of opinion. … [Once within the “herd,” the “gregarious animal” still wishes to express his or her opinion. Therefore, the public relations counsel must] appeal to individualism [which] goes closely in hand with other instincts, such as self-display. – Edward Bernays

Human desires are the steam which makes the social machine work. Only by understanding them can the propagandist control that vast, loose-jointed mechanism which is modern society. – Edward Bernays

Propaganda is of no use to the politician unless he has something to say which the public, consciously or unconsciously, wants to hear. – Edward Bernays

Those who manipulate the unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country. We are governed, our minds molded, our tastes formed, our ideas suggested largely by men we have never heard of. This is a logical result of the way in which our democratic society is organized. Vast numbers of human beings must cooperate in this manner if they are to live together as a smoothly functioning society. In almost every act of our lives whether in the sphere of politics or business in our social conduct or our ethical thinking, we are dominated by the relatively small number of persons who understand the mental processes and social patterns of the masses. It is they who pull the wires that control the public mind. – Edward Bernays

If you can influence the leaders, either with or without their conscious cooperation, you automatically influence the group which they sway. But men do not need to be actually gathered together in a public meeting or in a street riot, to be subject to the influences of mass psychology. Because man is by nature gregarious he feels himself to be member of a herd, even when he is alone in his room with the curtains drawn. His mind retains the patterns which have been stamped on it by the group influences. – Edward Bernays

Trotter and Le Bon concluded that the group mind does not think in the strict sense of the word. In place of thoughts it has impulses, habits and emotions. In making up its mind its first impulse is usually to follow the example of a trusted leader. This is one of the most firmly established principles of mass psychology. It operates in establishing the rising or diminishing prestige of a summer resort, in causing a run on a bank, or a panic on the stock exchange, in creating a best seller, or a box-office success. – Edward Bernays

We are governed, our minds molded, our tastes formed, our ideas suggested, largely by men we have never heard of. This is a logical result of the way in which our democratic society is organized. Vast numbers of human beings must cooperate in this manner if they are to live together as a smoothly functioning society. – Edward Bernays

In theory, everybody buys the best and cheapest commodities offered him on the market. In practice, if every one went around pricing, and chemically tasting before purchasing, the dozens of soaps or fabrics or brands of bread which are for sale, economic life would be hopelessly jammed. To avoid such confusion, society consents to have its choice narrowed to ideas and objects brought to it attention through propaganda of all kinds. There is consequently a vast and continuous effort going on to capture our minds in the interest of some policy or commodity or idea. – Edward Bernays

It might be better to have, instead of propaganda and special pleading, committees of wise men who would choose our rulers, dictate our conduct, private and public, and decide upon the best types of clothes for us to wear and the best kinds of food for us to eat. But we have chosen the opposite method, that of open competition. We must find a way to make free competition function with reasonable smoothness. To achieve this society has consented to permit free competition to be organized by leadership and propaganda. – Edward Bernays

But when the example of the leader is not at hand and the herd must think for itself, it does so by means of clichés, pat words or images which stand for a whole group of ideas or experiences. Not many years ago, it was only necessary to tag a political candidate with the word interests to stampede millions of people into voting against him, because anything associated with “the interests” seemed necessary corrupt. Recently the word Bolshevik has performed a similar service for persons who wished to frighten the public away from a line of action.Edward Bernays

By playing upon a old cliché, or manipulating a new one, the propagandist can sometimes swing a whole mass group emotions. – Edward Bernays

It is evident that the successful propagandist must understand the true motives and not be content to accept the reasons which men give for what they do. – Edward Bernays

The voice of the people expresses the mind of 3 the people, and that mind is made up for it by the group leaders in whom it believes and by those persons who understand the manipulation of public opinion. It is composed of inherited prejudices and symbols and clichés and verbal formulas supplied to them by the leaders. – Edward Bernays

The unenlightened uses millions of lives to eliminate the effects of karma, whereas the disciplined and spiritually wise person destroys them in one moment. – Bhagavati Aradhana

The frenzied elephant is controlled and held captive by the chains, so also the unstable mind is controlled and held captive by the chains of knowledge. – Bhagavati Aradhana

As scarce as truth is, the supply has always been in excess of the demand. – Josh Billings

Grown men can learn from very little children—for the hearts of little children are pure. Therefore, the Great Spirit may show them many things that older people miss. – Black Elk

A fool sees not the same tree that a wise man sees. – William Blake

He whose face gives no light, shall never become a star. – William Blake

The hours of folly are measured by the clock, but of wisdom no clock can measure. – William Blake

Think in the morning. Act in the noon. Eat in the evening. Sleep in the night. – William Blake

The only one who is wiser than anyone is everyone. – Napoleon Bonaparte

The best cure for the body is a quiet mind. – Napoleon Bonaparte

The human race is governed by its imagination. – Napoleon Bonaparte

True heroism consists in being superior to the woes of life, in whatever shape they may challenge us to combat. – Napoleon Bonaparte

There is no place in a fanatic’s head where reason can enter. – Napoleon Bonaparte

A celebrated people lose dignity upon a closer view. – Napoleon Bonaparte

Men are lead by trifles. – Napoleon Bonaparte

A leader is a dealer in hope. – Napoleon Bonaparte

A throne is only a bench covered with velvet. – Napoleon Bonaparte

Men are more easily governed through their vices than through their virtues. – Napoleon Bonaparte

The crowd that follows me with admiration would run with the same eagerness if I were marching to the guillotine. – Napoleon Bonaparte

Power is founded upon opinion. – Napoleon Bonaparte

Nothing is more important in war than unity in command. – Napoleon Bonaparte

With trifling considerations, small vanities, and petty passions, it is never possible to accomplish anything great. – Napoleon Bonaparte

There are no precise or fixed rules. Everything depends upon the character nature has bestowed upon the general, on his qualities and faults, on the character of the troops, on the range of arms, on the season, and on a thousand circumstances that are never the same. – Napoleon Bonaparte

War is composed of nothing but accidents, and, although holding to general principles, a general should never lose sight of everything to enable him to profit from these accidents; that is the mark of genius. In war there is but one favorable moment; the great art is to seize it. – Napoleon Bonaparte

In war, nothing is accomplished except through calculation… If I take so many precautions, it is because my habit is to leave nothing to chance. – Napoleon Bonaparte

Sometimes the good plans fail as a result of accidental circumstances, and occasionally bad ones succeed through some freak of fortune. – Napoleon Bonaparte

The art of being sometimes audacious and sometimes very prudent is the secret of success. – Napoleon Bonaparte

A general should say to himself many times a day: “If the hostile army were to make its appearance in front, on my right, or on my left, what should I do?” And is he is embarrassed, hi arrangements are bad; there is something wrong. He must rectify his mistake. – Napoleon Bonaparte

Persons of high self-esteem are not driven to make themselves superior to others; they do not seek to prove their value by measuring themselves against a comparative standard. Their joy is being who they are, not in being better than someone else. – Nathaniel Branden

A person in solitude is subject to all kinds of doubts and uncertainties at every moment. Hence, the company of the holy and virtuous should be sought. – Brhatkalpa-bhasya

People have the illusion that all over the world, all the time, all kinds of fantastic things are happening; when in fact, over most of the world, most of the time, nothing is happening. – David Brinkley

The great gift of conversation is less about displaying it ourselves than in drawing it out of others. Anyone who leaves your company pleased with himself and his own cleverness is very well pleased with you. – Jean de la Bruyere

Two people cannot remain friends for long if they cannot forgive each other’s little failings. – Jean de la Bruyere

Men blush less for their crimes than for their weaknesses and vanity. – Jean de la Bruyere

You think he is your dupe; but if he pretends to be so, then who is the greater dupe: him or you? – Jean de la Bruyere

Surely if living creatures saw the results of all their evil deeds, they would turn away from them in disgust. But selfhood blinds them, and they cling to their obnoxious desires. … – Buddha

Thus they continue to move in the coil and can find no escape from the hell of their own making. And how empty are their pleasures, how vain are their endeavors!—hollow like the plantain-tree, and without contents like the bubble. – Buddha

Water surrounds the lotuses, but does not wet its petal. On the other hand, sensuality of all kinds is enervating. The sensual man is a slave of his passions, and pleasure-seeking is degrading. – Buddha

But to satisfy the necessities of life is not evil. To keep the body in good healthy is a duty, for otherwise we shall not be able to trim the lamp of wisdom, and keep our mind strong and clear.Buddha

This is the Middle Path, O bhikshus, that keeps aloof from both extremes. – Buddha

The wise man will use the light he has to receive more light. He will constantly advance in the knowledge of truth. – Buddha

…Let your happiness depend, not upon external things, but upon your own mind. – Buddha

The man who walks in the noble path lives in the world, and yet his heart is not defiled by worldly desires. – Buddha

… If a man speaks or acts with an evil thought, pain follows him, as the wheel follows the foot of the ox that draws the carriage. …. If a man speaks or acts with a pure thought, happiness follows him, like a shadow that never leaves him. – Buddha

He who lives looking for pleasures only, his senses uncontrolled, immoderate in his food, idle, and weak—Mara will certainly overthrow him, as the wind throws down a weak tree. – Buddha

As a fletcher makes straight his arrow, a wise man makes straight his trembling and unsteady thought, which is difficult to guard, difficult to hold back. – Buddha

Let the wise man guard his thoughts, for they are difficult to perceive, very artful, and they rush wherever they list: thoughts well guarded bring happiness. – Buddha

If one man conquers in battle a thousand times a thousand men, and another conquers himself, the second man would have a far greater conquest. For one’s own self conquered is better than victory over other people. Not even the gods in heaven or the demons in hell can change into defeat the victory of such a man. – Buddha

He who lives a hundred years, ignorant and unrestrained, a life of one day is better if a man is virtuous and reflecting. – Buddha

He who lives a hundred years, idle and weak, a life of one day is better if a man has courage and earnest striving. – Buddha

Let no man think lightly of evil, saying in his heart: “It will not come to me.” As water drop by drop fills a jar, the foolish man soon becomes full of evil, even as he gathers it little by little. – Buddha

Let no man think lightly of good work, saying in his heart: “It will not come to me.” As water drop by drop fills a jar, the wise man soon becomes full of goodness, even as he gathers it little by little. – Buddha

Let a man avoids evil deeds like a merchant who carries much wealth but with a small escort, avoids a dangerous road, or like a man who loves his life avoids poison. – Buddha

He who has no wound on his hand may touch poison because it does not affect him; the man who has no evil, cannot be affected by evil. – Buddha

There is an old saying, Atula, which is not a saying of today: They blame him who is silent, they blame him who speaks much, they also blame him who says little; no one can escape blame in this world. – Buddha

If by forsaking a small pleasure one finds a greater pleasure, he who is wise will leave the small and look for the great. – Buddha

The disciples of Gotama are ever awake and vigilant, and their thoughts day and night are always set on the Dhamma, their law. – Buddha

There is a great pleasure that is born of pain. – Edward Robert Bulwer-Lytton

That is not the best sermon which makes the hearers go away talking to one another, and praising the speaker, but which makes them go away thoughtful and serious, and hastening to be alone. – Gilbert Burnet

I’d rather be a failure at something I love than a success at something I hate. – George Burns

Everyday happiness means getting up in the morning, and you can’t wait to finish your breakfast. You can’t wait to do your exercises. You can’t wait to put on your clothes. You can’t wait to get out. And you can’t wait to come home, because the soup is hot. – George Burns

Too often we underestimate the power of a touch, a smile, a kind word, a listening ear, an honest compliment, or the smallest act of caring, all of which has the potential to turn a life around. – Leo Buscaglia

Truth is stranger than fiction. – Lord George Gordon Noel Byron. (“Don Juan”)

A little experience often upsets a lot of theory. – Samuel Parkes Cadman

Men willingly believe what they wish to be true. – Julius Caesar

My childhood was wasted by being entirely committed to becoming a successful candidate in the imperial examinations. My youth was devoted to pedantic learning, a scholasticism confined to explaining the classics and annotating historical works. I began to discover its limitations at the age of 30. – Cai Yuanpei

We must follow the general rule of freedom of thought and freedom of expression, and not allow any one branch of philosophy or any one tenet of religion to confine our minds, but always aim at a lofty universal point of view which is valid without regard to space or time. For such an education I can think of no other name than education for a world View. – Cai Yuanpei

Whereas in the past we boasted of our own superiority, now, as a result of repeated defeats and humiliations, we have begun to worship everything foreign and depreciate everything native. We have willingly adopted theories and practices accepted by other nations but refused to experiment for ourselves. – Cai Yuanpei

People say that what we are all seeking is meaning for life. I think that what we’re really seeking is an experience of being alive, so that our life experiences on the purely physical plane will have resonance within our innermost being and reality, so that we can actually feel the rapture of being alive. – Joseph Campbell

Nobody realizes that some people expend tremendous energy merely to be normal. – Albert Camus

The courage we desire and prize is not the courage to die decently, but to live manfully. – Thomas Carlyle

Do the duty which lies nearest to you, the second duty will then become clearer. – Thomas Carlyle

…We have a master mind here in our business, and that mind is made up of more than a score of people who constitute my personal staff of superintendents and managers and accountants and chemists and other necessary types. No one person in this group is the master mind of which I speak, but the sum total of the minds in the group, coordinated, organized and directed to a definite end in a spirit of harmonious cooperation is the power that got my money for me. – Andrew Carnegie

No two minds in the group are exactly alike, but each person in the group does the thing that he is supposed to do and he does it better than any other person in the world could do it. – Andrew Carnegie

Most men begin, not by thinking about the other fellow’s views and desires, not by trying to find a common ground of agreement, but by unloading their own opinions. – Dale Carnegie

For example, I have heard hundreds of speeches on the hotly contested subject of prohibition. In almost every instance, the speaker, with all the tact of a bull in a china shop, opened with some positive and perhaps belligerent statement. He showed once and for all which direction he faced and under which flag he fought. He showed that his mind was made up so firmly that there was not the slightest chance of it being changed; yet he was expecting others to abandon their cherished beliefs and to accept his. The effect? About the same that results from all arguments: no one was convinced. Instantly, he lost by his blunt, aggressive opening the sympathetic attention of all who differed with him; instantly, they discounted all he said and would say; instantly, they challenged his statements; instantly, they held his opinions in contempt. His talk served but to entrench them more strongly behind the bulwark of their own beliefs. – Dale Carnegie

You see, he made, at the very outset, the fatal mistake of prodding his listeners, of getting them bending backwards and saying through their shut teeth: “No! No! No!” – Dale Carnegie

Is not that a very serious situation if one wishes to win converts to his way of thinking? – Dale Carnegie

“A ‘No’ response is a most difficult handicap to overcome. When a person has said ‘No,’ all his pride of personality demands that he remain consistent with himself. He may later feel that the ‘No’ was ill advised; nevertheless, there is his precious pride to consider! – Dale Carnegie

… [The main] problem of getting people to accept our beliefs or to act upon our suggestions, is just this: to plant the idea in their minds and to keep contradictory and opposing ideas from arising. He who is skilled in doing that will have power in speaking and profit in business. – Dale Carnegie

Liken what you wish people to accept to something they already believe. – Dale Carnegie

Interest is contagious. The audience is sure to catch it if the speaker himself has a bad case of it. But it cannot be won by the mechanical adherence to mere rules. – Dale Carnegie

One must train oneself, by small and frequent efforts, to dominate one’s feelings. – Alexis Carrel

The average strong, competent man thinks—“I am independent. I am on my own. I have my own firm and my own employees. I must concentrate upon my own interests and pay attention to my own affairs.” – Herbert N. Casson

Quite true—up to a point. Be independent, but don’t stand up against the whole world. No matter how strong you are, the world can easily roll over you. – Herbert N. Casson

Men whose counsels you would not take as individuals lead you with ease in a crowd. – Cato

It requires as much reflection and wisdom to know what is not to be put into a sermon as what is. – Cecil

He preaches well that lives well. – Miguel De Cervantes

The money paid, the work delayed. – Miguel De Cervantes

The best sauce is hunger, and that is never wanting to the poor. – Miguel De Cervantes

It requires a long time to know anyone. – Miguel De Cervantes

You are a king by your own fireside, as much as any monarch is in his throne. – Miguel De Cervantes

The only comfort of the miserable is to have partners in their woes. – Miguel De Cervantes

Make hay while the sun is shining. – Miguel De Cervantes

One swallow alone does not make a summer. – Miguel De Cervantes

Until death, all is life. – Miguel De Cervantes

It must be admitted that it is impossible to live in the world without playing an act from time to time. What distinguishes the honest man from the rogue is that he plays an act only if he must, and to escape danger; whereas the other actively seeks out occasions to do so. – Nicolas Chamfort

Though it is commonly thought that the “art of pleasing” is a great way to achieve wealth, there is something that works far better: knowing how to be bored. In fact, the talent of acquiring wealth, like the one for succeeding with women, can be reduced practically to that. – Nicolas Chamfort

He who cannot resort to the use of a joke, and who is inflexible in the spirit, is very often placed between the need for being false or pedantic—an annoying alternative from which an honest man withdraws himself, for the ordinary one, by grace and cheerfulness. – Nicolas Chamfort

It must be admitted that in order to live happily in the world, there are sides of your soul that must be completely paralyzed. – Nicolas Chamfort

If you want to discover how much people are corrupted by their social calling/status, it is only necessary to observe what people are like when they are old and have been long exposed to its influence. Observe old courtiers, priests, judges, lawyers, and doctors. – Nicolas Chamfort

In this world, I have seen people unceasingly sacrifice the regard of decent people for the consideration, and rest with the celebrity. – Nicolas Chamfort

Not being worked by anyone’s hand, being no one’s person, and drawing one’s principles and feelings from no one else—this is the rarest thing I have seen. – Nicolas Chamfort

We obliterate our character out of fear of being noticed and stared at, and fling ourselves headlong into nullity in order to escape the threat of portrayal. – Nicolas Chamfort

There are two classes of moralists and statesmen: those who see human nature only from its unpleasant or ridiculous side—these make up the majority: Lucian, Montaigne, La Bruyere, La Rochefoucauld, Swift, Mandeville, Helvetius, etc—and those who see only the beautiful side and its perfections, such as Shaftesbury and some others. – Nicolas Chamfort

The former do not know the palate of which they saw only the latrines, the latter are romantics who divert their eyes far from what offends them but nevertheless exists. – Nicolas Chamfort

Est in medio verum [the truth lies somewhere in between]. – Nicolas Chamfort

Philosophy, like medicine, has many drugs, very few good remedies, and almost no specific [cures]. – Nicolas Chamfort

It would be interesting to have a book containing all the corrupting ideas—intellectual, social, and moral—that are developed themes in the most famous writings of the most venerated authors; ideas that propagate/favor religious superstition, bad political maxims, despotism, the vanity of rank, and all kinds of popular prejudices. – Nicolas Chamfort

It would become readily apparent that almost all books are corrupters, and that the best do almost as much evil as good. – Nicolas Chamfort

Oftentimes, a customary opinion seems absurd in our early youth, but appears less absurd when we advance in life and discover its reason. Must we then conclude that certain customs are less ridiculous? At times, you might be led to think that they were established by people who had read the whole book of life, and are judged by people who—in spite of their spirit—had only read some pages of it. – Nicolas Chamfort

All passions lead to exaggeration—that is why they are passions. – Nicolas Chamfort

Nowadays, people who love nature are accused of being romantic. – Nicolas Chamfort

The most wasted of all days is one where you did not once laugh. – Nicolas Chamfort

Oftentimes the mind is to the heart just what the chateua library is to the lord of the manor. – Nicolas Chamfort

A man who is poor but independent of others is at the command of necessity alone. A man who is rich but dependent may be at the command of another or others. – Nicolas Chamfort

The great calamity of the passions is not the torments they cause, but the wrongs and base actions they lead to committing, and which degrade people. Without such hindrances, the advantages of the passions would greatly outweigh those of cold reason, which makes no one happy. – Nicolas Chamfort

The passions make a person live; wisdom only makes him endure. – Nicolas Chamfort

It is not true, as Rousseau claimed, following Seneca, that the more you think, the less you feel.
However, it is true that the more you judge, the less you love. Few people tempt you to make any exception to this rule. – Nicolas Chamfort

People’s ideas are like card-playing or any other game: ideas that in the past I have seen considered reckless, have since become commonplace, almost trivial, and adopted by people unworthy of sharing them; and ideas that now seem extraordinary will be regarded as feeble and totally ordinary by our descendants. – Nicolas Chamfort

We are happy or unhappy for a multitude of reasons that are never mentioned and never can be mentioned. – Nicolas Chamfort

A person of foresight is a rather sad figure. He disturbs his friends by predicting the problems likely to arise as a result of their imprudence, and they refuse to believe him. And when he is proved correct, they are amazed at the accuracy of his prediction, and they feel offended and have their pride hurt. And when they meet this friend, who otherwise would have been able to console them, and who they would have approached if they had not felt shamed, they feel humiliated. – Nicolas Chamfort

They say that every day you must make an effort to reduce your needs. This principle applies specially to our conceit, whose demands are the most insistent, and thus need to be most strongly resisted. – Nicolas Chamfort

Man arrives as an apprentice at all the times of his life. – Nicolas Chamfort

Man arrives as a novice at each age of his life. – Nicolas Chamfort

When a man and a woman have an overwhelming passion for each other, it seems to me, in spite of such obstacles dividing them as parents or husband, that they belong to each other in the name of Nature, and are lovers by Divine right, in spite of human convention or the laws.Nicolas Chamfort

Whatever evil a man may think of women, there is no woman but thinks more.Nicolas Chamfort

Success makes success, like money makes money.Nicolas Chamfort

If we would please in society, we must be prepared to be taught many things we know already by people who do not know them. – Nicolas Chamfort

Don’t try to be like Jackie. There is only one Jackie. – Jackie Chan

I’m crazy, but I’m not stupid. – Jackie Chan

So it is with those who employ themselves exclusively in the attainment of intellectual wealth. Faith that this is the one great good incites them to unwearied labor,—causes them to forget food, sleep, friends, everything, in order that they may acquire abundant stores of learning; and all because they have taken as their creed, “I believe that learning is better than all beside, and for this will I labor day and night.” – Mary G. Chandler

A man was not made to shut up his mind in itself; but to give it voice and to exchange it for other minds. – William Ellery Channing

A clean, comfortable dwelling, with wholesome meals, is no small aid to intellectual and moral progress. A man living in a damp cellar or a garret open to rain and snow, breathing the foul air of a filthy room, and striving without success to appease hunger on scanty or unsavory food, is in danger of abandoning himself to a desperate, selfish recklessness. Improve, then, your lot. Multiply comforts, and, still more, get wealth if you can by honorable means, and if it do not cost too much. – William Ellery Channing

The chun tzu venerates the high/worthy, but tolerates all. …. If I am high/worthy, whom should I not tolerate? And if I am lower, who should put me away? – Tzu Chang

I don’t believe that the public knows what it wants; this is the conclusion that I have drawn from my career. – Charlie Chaplin

Love, friendship, and respect do not unite people as much as a common hatred for something. – Anton Chekhov

…With regard to mankind, we must not draw general conclusions from certain particular principles, though, in the main, true ones. We must not suppose that, because a man is a rational animal, he will therefore always act rationally; or, because he has such or such a predominant passion, that he will act invariably and consequentially in the pursuit of it. No. We are complicated machines: and though we have one main-spring, that gives motion to the whole, we have an infinity of little wheels, which, in their turns, retard, precipitate, and sometimes stop that motion. – Lord Chesterfield / Philip Stanhope

A favor may make an enemy, and an injury may make a friend. – Lord Chesterfield / Philip Stanhope

However frivolous a company may be, still, while you are among them, do not show them, by your inattention, that you think them so… [and do not manifest] your contempt for them. There is nothing that people bear more impatiently, or forgive less, than contempt; and an injury is much sooner forgotten than an insult. – Lord Chesterfield / Philip Stanhope

Men are much more unwilling to have their weaknesses and their imperfections known than their crimes; and if you hint to a man that you think him silly, ignorant, or even ill-bred, or awkward, he will hate you more and longer, than if you tell him plainly, that you think him a rogue. – Lord Chesterfield / Philip Stanhope

This principle of vanity and pride is so strong in human nature that it descends even to the lowest objects; and one often sees people angling for praise, where, admitting all they say to be true (which, by the way, it seldom is), no just praise is to be caught. One man affirms that he has rode post an hundred miles in six hours; probably it is a lie: but supposing it to be true, what then? Why he is a very good post-boy, that is all. Another asserts, and probably not without oaths, that he has drunk six or eight bottles of wine at a sitting; out of charity, I will believe him a liar; for, if I do not, I must think him a beast. – Lord Chesterfield / Philip Stanhope

When a man wants your advice he generally wants your praise. – Lord Chesterfield / Philip Stanhope

We love to be pleased better than to be informed
If you will please people, you must please them in their own way. – Lord Chesterfield / Philip Stanhope

Remember that the wit, humor, and jokes, of most mixed companies are local. They thrive in that particular soil, but will not often bear transplanting. Every company is differently circumstanced, has its particular cant and jargon; which may give occasion to wit and mirth within that circle, but would seem flat and insipid in any other, and therefore will not bear repeating. – Lord Chesterfield / Philip Stanhope

When you go into good company… observe carefully their turn, their manners, their address; and conform your own to them. But this is not all neither; go deeper still; observe their characters, and pray, as far as you can, into both their hearts and their heads. Seek for their particular merit, their predominant passion, or their prevailing weakness; and you will then know what to bait your hook with to catch them. – Lord Chesterfield / Philip Stanhope

If you can once engage people’s pride, love, pity, ambition (or whatever is their prevailing passion) on your side, you need not fear what their reason can do against you. – Lord Chesterfield / Philip Stanhope

If you would convince others, seem open to conviction yourself. – Lord Chesterfield / Philip Stanhope

To govern mankind, one must not overrate them. – Lord Chesterfield / Philip Stanhope

Patience is the most necessary quality for business, many a man would rather you heard his story than grant his request. – Lord Chesterfield / Philip Stanhope

Politicians neither love nor hate. Interest, not sentiment, directs them. – Lord Chesterfield / Philip Stanhope

Without some dissimulation no business can be carried on at all. – Lord Chesterfield / Philip Stanhope

Many things which seem extremely probable are not true. – Lord Chesterfield / Philip Stanhope

In order to know people’s real sentiments, I trust much more to my eyes than to my ears: for they can say whatever they have a mind I should hear; but they can seldom help looking, what they have no intention that I should know. – Lord Chesterfield / Philip Stanhope

People of your [young] age have, commonly, an unguarded frankness about them; which makes them the easy prey and bubbles of the artful and the experienced; they look upon every knave or fool, who tells them that he is their friend, to be really so; and pay that profession of simulated friendship, with an indiscreet and unbounded confidence, always to their loss, often to their ruin. – Lord Chesterfield / Philip Stanhope

Have a real reserve with almost everybody; and have a seeming reserve with almost nobody; for it is very disagreeable to seem reserved, and very dangerous not to be so. – Lord Chesterfield / Philip Stanhope

Every excellency, and every virtue, has its kindred vice or weakness; and if carried beyond certain bounds, sinks into one or the other. Generosity often runs into profusion, economy into avarice, courage into rashness, caution into timidity, and so on:—insomuch that, I believe, there is more judgment required, for the proper conduct of our virtues, than for avoiding their opposite vices. Vice, in its true light, is so deformed, that it shocks us at first sight, and would hardly ever seduce us, if it did not, at first, wear the mask of some virtue. But virtue is, in itself, so beautiful, that it charms us at first sight; engages us more and more upon further acquaintance; and, as with other beauties, we think excess impossible; it is here that judgment is necessary, to moderate and direct the effects of an excellent cause. – Lord Chesterfield / Philip Stanhope

Choose your pleasures for yourself, and do not let them be imposed upon you. – Lord Chesterfield / Philip Stanhope

Better to understand a little than to misunderstand a lot. – Lord Chesterfield / Philip Stanhope

Every murderer is probably somebody’s old friend. – Agatha Christie

Poor human reason, when it trusts in itself, substitutes the strangest absurdities for the highest divine concepts. – St. John Chrysostom (of Antioch)

Ching [mind concentration] is a virtue that is vital for all people. Each person comes in the course of his life to a crossroad where, if his thoughts are confused and he loses a grip over himself, he can go the wrong way and even become insane. But if he controls himself, he can take the right way and become a Sage. – Chu Chih-yu

One can learn everywhere. – Chu Chih-yu

But in our daily affairs there needs to be ethical nurture, so that when the time comes for action we may act intelligently. If we act hastily and without self-control, delaying preparation until it is too late, then by sheer neglect we fail to keep pace with events. – Chu Hsi

I have always maintained that each and every thing under T’ien has its own distinct standard/way/pattern. – Chu Hsi

Han and Wei were contending about some territory that one of them had wrested from the other. Tzu-hwa Tzu went to see the marquis Kao-hsi [of Han], and, finding him looking sorrowful, said, “Suppose now that all the states were to sign an agreement before you to the effect that ‘Whoever should with his left hand carry off [the territory in dispute] should lose his right hand, and whoever should do so with his right hand should lose his left hand, but that, nevertheless, he who should carry it off was sure to obtain the whole kingdom;’ would your lordship feel yourself able to carry it off?” 
The marquis said, “I would not carry it off.”
Tzu-hwa rejoined, “Very good. Looking at the thing from this point of view, your two arms are of more value to you than the whole kingdom. But your body is of more value than your two arms, and Han is of much less value than the whole kingdom. The territory for which you are now contending is further much less important than Han. So, your lordship, since you feel so much concern for your body, you should not be endangering your life by indulging your sorrow.”
The marquis Kao-hsi said, “Good! Many have given me their counsel about this matter; but I never heard what you have said.”
Tzu-hwa Tzu may be said to have known well what was of great importance and what was of little. – Chuang Tzu

Lieh Tzu was reduced to extreme poverty, and his person had a hungry look. A visitor mentioned the case to Tzu-yang [the premier] of Kang, saying, “Lieh Yu-khau, I believe, is a scholar who has attained tao . Is it because our ruler does not love [such] scholars, that he should be living in his state in such poverty?”
zu Yang immediately ordered an officer to send to him a supply of grain.
When Lieh-Tzu saw the messenger, he bowed to him twice, and declined the gift, on which the messenger went away.
On Lieh-Tzu’s going into the house, his wife looked to him and beat her breast, saying, “I have heard that the wife and children of someone who possesses tao enjoy plenty and ease. And yet, now we look starved, and although the ruler has seen his error and sent you a present of food, you would not receive it. Is this [your so-called] ‘Destiny.’?”
Lieh Tzu smiled and said to her, “The ruler does not himself know me. Because of what someone said to him, he sent me the grain; but should another person speak [differently] of me to him, he may look on me as a criminal. This was why I did not receive the grain.”
In the end it did come about, that the people, on an occasion of trouble and disorder, put Tzu-Yang to death. – Chuang Tzu

The way of the superior man may be compared to what takes place in traveling, when to go to a distance we must first traverse the space that is near, and in ascending a height, when we must begin from the lower ground. – Chung Yung

When we have intelligence resulting from ch’eng, this condition is to be ascribed to nature; when we have ch’eng resulting from intelligence, this condition is to be ascribed to instruction. But given the ch’eng, and there shall be the intelligence; given the intelligence, and there shall be the ch’eng. – Chung Yung

Where he falls short, ‘tis Nature’s fault alone;
Where he succeeds, the merit’s all his own. – Charles Churchill

Modern man is frantically trying to earn enough to buy things he’s too busy to enjoy. – Frank A. Clark

It’s hard to detect good luck—it looks so much like something you’ve earned. – Frank A. Clark

We ought to be on our guard, in case our conscience has stopped troubling us, not so much because of its being clear but because of its being immersed in sin. – St. John Climacus

Every great batter works on the theory that the pitcher is more afraid of him than he is of the pitcher. – Ty Cobb

It is by attempting to reach the top in a single leap that so much misery is produced in the world. – William Cobbett / Peter Porcupine

Learning gives us a fuller conviction of the imperfections of our nature; which one would think, might dispose us to modesty. – Jeremy Collier

Half of our mistakes in life arise from feeling where we ought to think, and thinking where we ought to feel. – John Churton Collins

If you are under obligations to many, it is prudent to postpone the recompensing of one, until it be in your power to remunerate all; otherwise you will make more enemies by what you give, than by what you withhold. – Charles Caleb Colton

We hate some persons because we do not know them; and we will not know them because we hate them. – Charles Caleb Colton

Imitation is the sincerest of flattery. – Charles Caleb Colton

It is always safe to learn, even from our enemies, seldom safe to venture to instruct, even our friends. – Charles Caleb Colton

There is a paradox in pride: it makes some men ridiculous, but prevents others from becoming so. – Charles Caleb Colton

We should pray with as much earnestness as those who expect everything from God; we should act with as much energy as those who expect everything from themselves. – Charles Caleb Colton

Those who trust to chance must abide by the results of chance. – Calvin Coolidge

We cannot do everything at once, but we can do something at once. – Calvin Coolidge

Rather than caring about whether or not you have a position, care about being fit to occupy a position. Rather than caring about whether or not you are known, strive to be worth knowing. – Confucius

The chun tzu values te; the hsiao jen values land. The chun tzu values fairness; the hsiao jen values [unfair] exemptions/generous treatment. – Confucius

… Recognizing that you know what you know, and recognizing that you do not know what you do not know—this is knowledge. – Confucius

Learning without thinking is misleading. Thinking without learning is confusing. – Confucius

When kindness is returned for kindness, the people are stimulated. When injury is returned for injury, the people are warned. – Confucius

The small man is not ashamed of what is not benevolent [jen], nor does he fear to do what is not righteous. Without the prospect of gain he does not stimulate himself to what is good, nor does he correct himself without being moved. – Confucius

Once, Duke Ai of Lu said to Confucius, “Despite the well know saying ‘getting *bewildered due to a lack of advice,’ why is it that in my own experience administering the state affairs, consulting with my body of officials tends to lead to disorder?”
Confucius said, “When an enlightened sovereign asks ministers abut state affairs, one minister might know while another might not—and if that is the case, an enlightened sovereign can preside over a conference while the ministers earnestly discuss the affairs before him.
“But nowadays, the officials of Lu all conform their words to Chi Sun’s opinion, and the whole sate of Lu falls under the sway of the same bias—and thus, even though you consult with everybody within the state boundaries, the state cannot help but become disorderly.” – Confucius

T’an T’ai appeared to be a superior person. Confucius regarded him as having great potential, so he took him in as a disciple. However, after interacting with him for a while, Confucius discovered that his conduct did not match what he appeared to be.
Ts’ai Yu’s speech was brilliant and cultivated. Confucius regarded him as having great potential, so he took him in as a disciple. However, after interacting with him for a while, Confucius discovered that his wisdom did not match his speaking skill.
Thus, Confucius said, “Should I pick people based on their appearance? I made a mistake with T’an-t’ai. Should I pick people based on their speech? I made a mistake with Ts’ai Yu.” – Confucius

Tzu Hsia said to Confucius, “What do you think of Yen Hui?”
Confucius said, “Yen Hui has compassion—more than I do.”
“And Tzu Kung?”
“Tzu Kung is a better speaker than I am.”
“And Tzu Lu?”
“Tzu Lu is incredibly brave—much more than I am.”
“And Tzu Chang?”
“Tzu Chang he can keep dignity better than I can.”
Tzu Hsia then remarked, “So how come all four of them study under you?”
Confucius said, “Sit down and let me tell you. Yen Hui is compassionate, but is also inflexible about it. Tzu Kung is a great speaker, but he does not know when to stop talking. Tzu Lu is very brave, but he lacks prudence. Tzu Chang is very dignified, but unpleasant in social interaction.
“Even if I could, I would not exahnge their virtues for my own. And that is why they are intent on learning from me.” – Confucius

The chun tzu is multi-perspectived and not one-sided. The hsiao jen is one-sided and not multi-perspectived. – Confucius

Though the chung yung has supreme te , the people seldom follow it for long. – Confucius

Excess native substance and deficient wen results in an uncultivated person. Excess wen and deficient native substance results in a superficial person. Only a proper blend of native substance and wen can result in a chun tzu. – Confucius

Confucius was gracious yet grave, imposing yet un-abusive, and respectful yet composedly calm. – Confucius

Respectfulness without li becomes petty. Prudence without li becomes timid. Intrepidity without li becomes rash. Uprightness without li becomes intolerance. – Confucius

When people fear the dangers of a path that has killed one in ten men, then fathers and sons, elder brothers and younger, warn one another that they must not go out on a journey without a large number of retainers—and is it not a mark of wisdom to do so? But there are dangers which men incur on the mats of their beds, and in eating and drinking; and when no warning is given against them—is it not a mark of error? – Confucius

The superior man does not confine himself to praising men with his words; and so the people prove loyal to him. Thus, when he asks about men who are suffering from cold, he clothes them; or men who are suffering from want, he feeds them; and when he praises a man’s good qualities, he confers rank on him. – Confucius

Therefore the superior should by all means be careful in what he likes and dislikes. This will make him an example to the people. – Confucius

He does not [hastily] agree with those who think like himself, nor condemn those who think differently. So does he stand out alone among others and take his own solitary course. Thus he takes his stand alone, and pursues his course, unattended. – Confucius

The scholar is not cast down, or cut from his root, by poverty and mean condition; he is not elated or exhausted by riches and noble condition; he feels no disgrace that rulers and kings [may try to inflict]; he is above the bonds that elders and superiors [may try to impose]; and superior officers cannot distress him. Hence he is styled a scholar. Those to whom the multitude nowadays give that name have no title to it, and they constantly employ it to one another as a term of reproach. – Confucius

The chun tzu composes himself before trying to move others. Confucius

A person who lacks jen cannot abide in adversity for long, or abide in joy enduringly. The jen person is satisfied with jen . The wise person makes jen his gain. – Confucius

Though riches and honors are what people generally desire, if they cannot be obtained with accordance to tao , they should not be held. Though poverty and disgrace are what people generally detest, if they cannot be avoided with accordance to tao , they should not be avoided. – Confucius

If the chun tzu abandons jen , how can he fulfill that name? The chun tzu does not abandon jen even for the space of a meal. During haste/urgency/trials, he cleaves/adheres to it; during distress/difficulty, he cleaves to it. – Confucius

When the chun tzu deals with the world, he is not [biased] for or against anything—he [just] follows what is yi . – Confucius

Confucius was entirely free of four things. He had no foregone conclusions, no arbitrariness, no obstinacy/inflexibility/set/insist/certainly/bigotry, and no egoism. – Confucius

The chun tzu leaves a blank space where he does not know something. …
The chun tzu avoids careless speech. – Confucius

Only the jen person can love others and can hate others. – Confucius

When you see hsien, think of emulating it.
When you see non hsien, inwardly examine yourself. – Confucius

The chun tzu is tough, but not indiscriminately inflexible. – Confucius

Yen P’ing Chung was good at interpersonal relations. No matter how long the acquaintance, there would always be respectfulness. – Confucius

At first, my method/attitude/evaluation with others was to listen to what they *said, and expect them to act accordingly.

Now my method with others is to listen to what they say, and then observe what they do. – Confucius

The chun tzu is in harmony, but does not merely conform.
The hsiao jen merely conforms, but is not in harmony. – Confucius

Tzu Kung said, “Suppose there is someone who is extensively beneficent to the people, to the point of assisting everyone. What would you say of him? Would you call him jen ?”
Confucius said, “Why only call him jen ? Mustn’t such a person be a Divine Sage? Even Yao and Shun had difficulty living up to this.
“The jen person, wishing to be established himself, also seeks to establish others; and wishing to be enlarged/realize/arrive himself, also seeks to enlarge others. Being able to exemplify the distant from what is at hand—this is the way of jen.” – Confucius

hsueh and practicing it on due occasion—isn’t this satisfying? Having friends coming from distant quarters—isn’t this delightful? But suffering no discomposure if others do not know—isn’t this characteristic of a chun tzu ? – Confucius

I do not instruct those who lack eagerness, and I do not guide those whose who lack a feeling of urgency. If I present a corner and the person does not come back with the other three, I will not continue. – Confucius

Be chung in urging your friend and skillful in leading him to tao. But if this does not work, stop, and do not make yourself vulnerable to indignity.” – Confucius

When tao prevails in your surrounding, speak audaciously high and act audaciously high. When tao does not prevail in your surrounding, act audaciously high, but speak with reserve. – Confucius

There was Yen Hui; he loved hsueh. He did not misdirect anger; he did not repeat mistakes. – Confucius

Though [even] the Combined Army can have its commander taken away, there is not a single individual who can have his free will taken away. – Confucius

The practice of jen comes from a person himself—can it really be from others? – Confucius

Advance the upright and set aside the crooked, and the people will submit. Advance the crooked and set aside the upright, and the people will not submit. – Confucius

The chun tzu is dignified/confident/self-possessed but not arrogant and vain. The hsiao jen is arrogant and vain, but not dignified. – Confucius

Someone who cares not about what is distant will soon encounter worries at hand. – Confucius

By tao them with laws/rules/government and controlling/regulating/ordering them with punishments, the people will [merely] seek to avoid/escape/evade them, but have no sense of shame [over wrongdoing]. – Confucius

Warming up the old and acquiring the new—this can be an adequate teacher. – Confucius

If you hear tao in the morning, you can die content in the evening. – Confucius

The ancients were uneager to say things*, because they considered it shameful for their actions to fail to come up to what they said. – Confucius

Confucius said, “I am not seeing people who are tough.
Someone said, “Shen Ch’eng.”
Confucius said, “What Ch’eng has is much desire and emotion—how can that be the same as toughness?” – Confucius

After being made governor, Yuan Ssu declined his salary.
Confucius said, “Do not do so. Can’t you distribute it to your neighbors and villagers?” – Confucius

Hui is certainly very hsien.
Living in a narrow lane with a dish of rice and a bowl of water—though others could not even endure such hardship, his serenity remains entirely unaffected by it. – Confucius

With simple food to eat, water to drink, and my bent arm for a pillow—I can still find joy in the midst of this. – Confucius

The opportunity to acquire riches and honors through non yi — this is [something that I am content with allowing to pass and go] like a floating cloud. – Confucius

Do you disciples think I conceal things? I do not conceal anything from you. There is nothing I do that I do not express to you. This is Ch’iu. – Confucius

Can’t anyone agree with words of worthy/correct/exemplary/upright/just/model admonition/directives/maxims? Their value, however, is in cultivation. – Confucius

Can’t anyone delight in words of gentle/kindly/choice/select/deferential/reverent promotion/praise/compliments/advice? Their value, however, is in practice/live-up-to/progress/reflection? – Confucius

As for someone who delights without progressing, and agrees without cultivating—I can really do nothing with him. – Confucius

In presiding over lawsuits, I may be peerless—but what is best/imperative is to avoid lawsuits. – Confucius

Tzu Chang asked, “What must the shih be in order to be called ‘penetrating’?”
Confucius said, “What do you mean by ‘penetrating’?”
Tzu Chang replied, “Being famous through your state, and famous through your own private circle.”
Confucius said, “That is [mere] ‘fame,’ not ‘penetration.’ The penetrating person is upright and loves rightness. … As to the person who is [merely] famous, he assumes an outward show of jen while acting contrary to it, and remains satisfied with himself.” – Confucius

Tzu Kung asked, “‘All the people in the neighborhood approve/love of him’—how about that/what do you think about such a person?”
Confucius said, “That is insufficient.”
“‘All the people in the neighborhood disapprove of/hate him’—how about that?”
Confucius said, “That is insufficient. It would be better if the good people in the neighborhood approve, and if the bad people disapprove.” – Confucius

[Hsien said,] “Not being competitive, boastful, envious, or greedy—can this be considered jen ?”
Confucius said, “It can be considered difficult, but I do not know whether or not it can be considered jen .” – Confucius

The ancients learned for the sake of themselves.
Nowadays people learn for the sake of others. – Confucius

Tsang Wan—wasn’t he a thief of position! He knew the hsien of Liu-hsia Hui, but did not give him a position. – Confucius

he chun tzu hates to die without having done anything to distinguish himself. – Confucius

The chun tzu is jin er dignified, but does not fight for it.
He is sociable, but not clannish. – Confucius

The individual can make tao great.
tao does not make the individual great. – Confucius

When it comes to jen , we should not yield its perfomance to anyone—even our teacher. – Confucius

Love of jen without a love of learning will be beclouded by foolishness/being-deceived. Love of knowledge/wisdom without a love of learning will be beclouded by vagueness/speculation/self-indulgence/instability/superficial-generalization. Love of hsin without a love of learning will be beclouded by deception/harm/insensibility. Love of straightforwardness/candor without a love of learning will be beclouded by rudeness/misdirected-judgment. Love of valor/boldness without a love of learning will be beclouded by unruliness/lack-of-control/turbulence. Love of persistence/firmness without a love of learning will be beclouded by stubbornness/foolishness/rashness.” – Confucius

These base people—how can we work with them in doing our duty? When not in office, their worry is that they cannot get it; and when in office, their worry is not losing it—and with their worry being not losing it, there is nothing they are unwilling to do. – Confucius

Petty people are very difficult to deal with. If you are familiar with them, they are disrespectful/immodest/insolent; if you maintain a distance, they are resentful. – Confucius

But if our unconscious is the source of many of our ills, it can also bring about the cure of our physical and mental ailments. It can not only repair the ill it has done, but cure real illnesses, so strong is its action upon our organism. – Emile Coue

Unless the man who works in an office is able to “sell” himself and his ideas, unless he has the power to convince others of the soundness of his convictions, he can never achieve his goal. He may have the best ideas in the world, he may have plans which would revolutionize entire industries. But unless he can persuade others that his ideas are good, he will never get the chance to put them into effect. – Robert E. M. Cowie

You often get a better hold upon a problem by going away from it for a time and dismissing it from your mind altogether. – Frank H. Crane

The trouble with facts is that there are so many of them. – Samuel McChord Crothers

The greatest deception men suffer is from their own opinions. – Leonardo da Vinci

Whenever a wise man notices himself deviating from the path of righteousness in thought, word or deed, he should immediately withdraw himself from that misdeed like a horse controlled by tightened reigns. – Dasavaikalika-Curni

When a sinful deed is committees intentionally or unintentionally, one should immediately desist from that with a resolve not to repeat it. – Dasavaikalika Sutra

The highest possible stage in moral culture is when we recognize that we ought to control our thoughts. – Charles Darwin

Never be haughty to the humble; never be humble to the haughty. – Jefferson Davis

Painting is easy when you don’t know how, but very difficult when you do. – Edgar Degas

It is beautiful to impede an unjust man; but, if this is not possible, it is beautiful not to act in conjunction with him. – Democrates

It is hard to be governed by these who are worse than ourselves. – Democrates

Reflect upon your present blessings, of which every man has many–not on your past misfortunes, of which all men have some. – Charles Dickens

Religion should be the rule of life, not a causal incident to it. – Benjamin Disraeli

Nurture your mind with great thoughts. To believe in the heroic makes heroes. – Benjamin Disraeli

Beware of endeavoring to become a great man in a hurry. One such attempt in ten thousand may succeed. These are fearful odds. – Benjamin Disraeli

If you limit your actions in life to things that nobody can possibly find fault with, you will not do much. – Charles Lutwidge Dodgson / Lewis Carroll

As those who believe in the visibility of ghosts can easily see them, so it is always easy to see repulsive qualities in those we despise and hate. – Frederick Douglass

I prefer to be true to myself, even at the hazard of incurring the ridicule of others, rather than to be false and to incur my own abhorrence. – Frederick Douglass

Liberty is meaningless where the right to utter one’s thoughts and opinions has ceased to exist. That, of all rights, is the dread of tyrants. It is the right which they first of all strike down. – Frederick Douglass

[On escaping slavery:] I prayed for twenty years but received no answer until I prayed with my legs. – Frederick Douglass

One thing that I’ve learned as of late is that I’m a much better mom, and a much better person when I’m not stressed, when I’ve taken time to myself to go for a walk, or read a book, or just breathe a little. – Maggie Doyne

The ideal never comes. Today is ideal for him who would make it so. – Horatio W. Dresser

Efficiency is intelligent laziness. – David Dunham

History is so indifferently rich, that a case for almost any conclusion from it can be made by a selection of instances. – Ariel & Will Durant

Nothing is so often irrevocably neglected as an opportunity of daily occurrence. – Marie Ebner-Eschenback

Mortal existence is an enigma. Every day is a mystery. – Mary Baker Eddy

Restlessness is discontent, and discontent is the first necessity of progress. Show me a thoroughly satisfied man and I will show you a failure. – Thomas Alva Edison

I find my greatest pleasure, and so my reward, in the work that precedes what the world calls success. – Thomas Alva Edison

The culture of the individual is always, in my view, unjustified. It strikes me as unfair, and even in bad taste, to select a few for boundless admiration, attributing superhuman powers of mind and character to them. This has been my fate and the contrast between the popular estimate of my powers and achievements and the reality is simply grotesque. – Albert Einstein

Imagination is more important than knowledge. – Albert Einstein

Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler. – Albert Einstein

Self-discipline is the main object, and through it, one becomes a man. – Kaibara Ekken

The main object of learning is to… discipline ourselves and thus become true men. – Kaibara Ekken

… [Let us] continue learning and be true men as long as we can breathe. – Kaibara Ekken

Tao is extensive and the principles of rightness are subtle, and not easy to explore or fully comprehend. Even brilliant individuals cannot do so by by their own individual talents. – Kaibara Ekken

We should suspend judgment and remain skeptical regarding whatever we have even the the slightest doubt about, but also avoid being overly credulous; we should value broad learning and wide experience, and avoid relying on inadequate information; we should be fair, objective, and avoid stubborn attachment to our own point of views; and we should reflect before making judgements, and avoid forming precipitate judgments. – Kaibara Ekken

We should not blindly regard all we has heard as true, reject what others say merely because they disagree, or be stubborn and refuse to admit mistakes. Having inadequate information, being overly credulous about what we have seen and heard, ridigly adhereing to our own interpretations, or making a determination in a precipitate manner—all of these four modes of thinking are erroneous. – Kaibara Ekken

Even the ancients spoke of comprehensive knowledge. However, they often made empty pronouncements, since they were not accustomed to personally testing things. And thus, many mistaken views have perpetuated. If someone speaks nonsense and it is passed on by the multitude, it will be eventually taken to be facts. – Kaibara Ekken

We are not Sages, and cannot always be right. – Kaibara Ekken

Sincerity is the mind of the kami [gods]… if one has a mind of sincerity, the kami will surely respond. – Kaibara Ekken

Yen Chih-t’ui said, “It is difficult to be born with a human body. Do not pass your time in vain.” – Kaibara Ekken

He said this because being born as a human and being superior to other things is truly fortunate. If people could be reborn in in this world, even if they were negligent this time and did not know the human Way, they could rely on being born next time as a human. But since we cannot be reborn, we ought to live as a human being by learning tao and morally cultivating ourselves. Kaibara Ekken

We should not carelessly waste our time. If we do not know the Human Way and if we live aimlessly, it is of no avail to have been born as a human. This is lamentable. – Kaibara Ekken

Since it is extremely difficult to be born a human, we should not forget to relish the fact that we have received our precious body miraculously, and we should feel anxious about living aimlessly in this world and not knowing the Way of humans. – Kaibara Ekken

I believe that being born a human and not studying is the same as not being born; studying ant not knowing tao is the same as not studying; and knowing tso and not practicing it is the same as not knowing it. – Kaibara Ekken

Study is for the sake of knowing tao. Studying poorly and not knowing tao is the same as not having studied. Furthermore, knowing tao is for the sake of practicing it. Studying and knowing tao without practicing it is the same as not having learned it.
Thus, being born a human, we must study; and those who study must learn tao.
If we know the way we will inevitably practice it well. Not practicing it is still not knowing tao.
If we want to know tao, we ought to follow the method of respecting the Sages’ teachings, and using wise people’s teachings as a guide. ….
If we lack a will to know tao, if we have poor teachers, and if our path of scholarship is wrong, we will lack results even we make an effort throughout our lives and study diligently.
Thus, if we think we will study tao, we must set our minds upon learning tao at the beginning, follow illuminating teachers, associate with high caliber friends, and choose the art of learning.
The art of learning is the method of study. If it is a bad method, we will lack an understanding of tao even if we make a lifetime effort.
Once we lose tao, it is difficult to return to the correct tao.
Thus, we ought to first choose the art of learning. – Kaibara Ekken

Even the ancient Sages were instructed by their teachers—so how much more so should ordinary people nowadays. – Kaibara Ekken

The basis of learning is establishing a resolve. The resolve is the mind/heart’s direction. Establishing a resolve is knowing and practicing tao by thinking earnestly and fervently with a mind/heart with an aim of becoming a chun tzu. – Kaibara Ekken

If we study without a goal, we will not be successful.
Thus the ancients said, “….Establishing one’s resolve is half of learning.”
For example, establishing a one’s resolve is like shooting an arrow aiming at a target, or setting out on a road aiming at a destination.
For all tasks, we must first make an effort at the beginning. Establishing a goal is the root of learning. In establishing a goal, we must have courage and not be lazy or timid. If we are lazy or ineffectual, we will not progress. …
Thus, it is good to keep single-mindedly on tao, and not become enamored by extraneous things.
In the History, it says, “If we trifle with things we will lose our aim.”
Trifling with things means that we distort the mind/heart by pampering the sense, indulging the desires, being fond of extraneous things, or becoming overly fond of various useless skills. If we become enamored by extraneous things, we will lose the great goal of becoming a chun tzu by studying tao. By trifling with and enjoying extraneous things we will lose our resolve.
Master Ch’eng said, “Unless we are single-minded, we will not accomplish our task immediately.”
This means it is difficult to achieve something without single-mindedness.
Single-mindedness is like a cat watching for a mouse or a hen warming her eggs: they cannot have other aims.
When the mind is divided and moving here and there, learning and morality’s aim declines and falls into disuse. …
Establishing a goal can be compared to the example of a person in the west thinking “I wil go east.” Each day as he walks, he constantly thinks “Day and night I will proceed east.” This is establishing one’s resolve to go west. If he does this, he without a doubt will ulitmaltey arrive at his destination.
We must be sincerely resolute in tao. – Kaibara Ekken

Humankind cannot stand very much reality. – TS Eliot

I’m not sure when my perspective changed. It might have been when I met a biologist who writes fake scientific articles for the drug industry. It could have been when a friend confided that he used to produce fake television news stories promoting new drugs, or when a physician-researcher in Alabama was sent to federal prison for faking data in a clinical trial of the antibiotic Ketek. But the real turning point probably occurred when I came across a community of professional research subjects who fake their medical histories to get into high-paying clinical studies, then fake painful side effects when they want to get out. Fake science, fake news fake researchers, fake subjects: – Carl Elliott

[W]hat is at issue here is evaluating the danger of what might happen to our humanity in the present half-century, and distinguishing between what we want to keep and what we are ready to lose, between what we can welcome as legitimate human development and what we should reject with our last ounce of strength as dehumanization. I cannot think that choices of this kind are unimportant. – Jaques Ellul

To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment. – Ralph Waldo Emerson

To the body and mind which have been cramped by noxious work or company, nature is medicinal and restores their tone. The tradesman, the attorney comes out of the din and craft of the street, and sees the sky and wood, and is a man again. In their eternal calm, he finds himself. The health of the eye seems to demand a horizon. We are never tired, so long as we can see far enough. – Ralph Waldo Emerson

To be great is to be misunderstood. – Ralph Waldo Emerson

Peace cannot be achieved through violence; it can only be attained through understanding. – Ralph Waldo Emerson

No man is free who is not master of himself. – Epictetus

It is the chiefest point of happiness that a man is willing to be what he is. – Desiderus Erasmus

We are so vain that we even care for the opinion of those we don’t care for. – Marie Ebner von Eschenbach

The same man cannot be well skilled in everything. Each has his own special excellence. – Euripides

When great the theme, ‘tis easy to excel. – Euripides

Now there are some people out there that ain’t nothing but animals. And they make you fight them to survive. And if you don’t fight them, they just keep picking at you and picking at you until you ain’t got nothing left. – James Evans Sr.

The resolute grappling of a man with his own life is one of the most searching tests of character, for most people are willing to grapple with anything else under heaven, from international problems to spiritualism, rather than to face squarely their individual responsibility for their own lives. – Harry Emerson Fosdick

Would you persuade, speak of Interest, not of Reason. – Benjamin Franklin

Games lubricate the body and the mind. – Benjamin Franklin

Don’t count on others to hand your life to you. – Sonya Friedman

No matter what you do in life, someone important to you isn’t going to like it. – Sonya Friedman

Some people are not capable of giving you what you’re trying to get from them. – Sonya Friedman

Don’t fight forces; use them. – Richard Buckminster Fuller 

I am convinced all of humanity is born with more gifts than we know. Most are born geniuses and just get de-geniused rapidly. – Richard Buckminster Fuller 

Now there is one outstanding important fact regarding spaceship earth, and that is that no instruction book came with it. – Richard Buckminster Fuller 

… [Children are] so original, so independent. They’re everything you wish adults were. But adults are consistently herd-minded, conformant, subject to group pressure. They’re moving in the wrong direction. They’re moving away from the individual toward the herd. – Allen Funt

Life is a risk. – Diane Von Furstenberg

In any great organization it is far, far safer to be wrong with the majority than to be right alone. – John Kenneth Galbraith

The possession of great powers no doubt carries with it a contempt for mere external show. – James A. Garfield

Tell me what you pay attention to and I will tell you who you are. – Jose Ortega y Gasset

You have to be careful, if you’re good at something, to make sure you don’t think you’re good at other things that you aren’t necessarily so good at. – Bill Gates

I was part of that strange race of people aptly described as spending their lives doing things they detest to make money they don’t want to buy things they don’t need to impress people they dislike. – Emile Henry Gauvreau

You just can’t make everyone happy. It is a law. But if you try, and go a little bit out of your way, you could make someone smile. It is a law. – Jon Gery

You must never try to make all the money that’s in a deal. Let the other fellow make some money too, because if you have a reputation for always making all the money, you won’t have many deals. – George Getty

I would rather earn 1% off a 100 people’s efforts than 100% of my own efforts. – J. Paul Getty

The meek shall inherit the earth, but not the mineral rights. – J. Paul Getty

In times of rapid change, experience can sometimes be your worst enemy. – J. Paul Getty

…The distinctive aspect of mysticism is something that cannot be understood by study, but only by dhawq [tasting / immediate experience]… There is a big difference between knowing the meaning and the causes of health and satiety, and being healthy and satisfied. – Abu Hamid Al-Ghazali

A son is a son ’til he gets a wife, but a daughter is a daughter all her life. Emily Giffin

You will recognize your own path when you come upon it, because you will suddenly have all the energy and imagination you will ever need. – Jerry Gillies

He benefits himself, that doth Good to others. – Gnomologia

Friendships multiply Joys, and divide Griefs. – Gnomologia 

A good Friend is my nearest Relation. – Gnomologia

Take this as a most certain expedient to prevent many afflictions, and to be delivered from them: meddle as little with the world, and the honors, places and advantages of them, as thou canst. And extricate thyself from them as much, and as quickly as possible. – Thomas Fuller

Man is a being of a rational and an irrational nature. – William Godwin

If you want to get pleasure out of life, you must attach value to the world. – Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

If we had to depend for our life upon the favor of others, we should never have lived at all; from their desire to appear important themselves, people gladly ignore our very existence. – Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

The wisest word it is mocked, if the listener is an inclined/dull ear. – Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

The man who is born with a talent which he is meant to use, finds his greatest happiness in using it. – Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

I respect the man who knows distinctly what he wants. – Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

Secrecy has many advantages. When you tell someone the purpose of any object right away, they often think there is nothing to it.

One can be very happy without demanding that others agree with him. – Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

All theory, my friend, is grey. But green is life’s golden tree. – Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

Like everyone else I feel the need of relations and friendship, of affection, of friendly intercourse, and I am not made of stone or iron, so I cannot miss these things without feeling, as does any other intelligent man, a void and deep need. I tell you this to let you know how much good your visit has done me. – Vincent Van Gogh

I am seeking, I am striving, I am in with all my heart. – Vincent Van Gogh

Keep matters for a time in suspense. Admiration at their novelty heightens the value of your achievements. It is both useless and insipid to play with your cards on the table. … A resolution declared is never highly thought of—it only leaves room for criticism. And if it happens to fail, you are doubly unfortunate. Besides, you imitate the divine way when you inspire people to wonder and watch. – Baltasar Gracian

Do not explain too much. Most people do not esteem what they understand and venerate what they do not see. To be valued things should cost dear; what is not understood becomes overrated. You have to appear wiser and more prudent than is required by the people you are dealing with if you want to give a high opinion of yourself. Yet in this there should be moderation and no excess. – Baltasar Gracian

Do not condemn alone that which pleases all. There must be something good in a thing that pleases so many—even if it cannot be explained it is certainly enjoyed. Peculiarity is always hated and, when in the wrong, laughed at. – Baltasar Gracian

Nothing depreciates a person more than to show he is just like anyone else. The day he is seen to be all too human he ceases to be thought divine. – Baltasar Gracian

Do not waste influence. The great as friends are for great occasions. One should not make use of great confidence for little things, for that wastes a favor. The emergency anchor should be reserved for the last resort. – Baltasar Gracian

Things pass for what they seem, not for what they are. Few see inside, many get attached to appearances. It is not enough to be right if your actions look false and ill. – Baltasar Gracian

One half of the world laughs at the other, and fools are they all. Everything is good or everything is bad according to who you ask. What one pursues another persecutes. … We need not lose heart if something does not please someone, for others will appreciate I; nor need their applause turn our head, for there will surely be others to condemn it. – Baltasar Gracian

What is flattery to one is offense to another, and in attempting to be useful you may become insulting. It often costs more to displease someone than it would have cost to please him—you thereby lose both gift and thanks because you have lost the compass that steers for pleasure. – Baltasar Gracian

Know how to appreciate. There is no one who cannot teach somebody something, and there is no one so excellent that he cannot be excelled. To know how to make use of everyone is useful knowledge. Wise men appreciate everyone, for they see the good in each and know how hard it is to make anything good. – Baltasar Gracian

Do not be the slave of first impressions. Some marry the very first account they hear, all others must live with them as concubines. – Baltasar Gracian

Do not go with the latest speaker. There are people who go by the latest thing they have heard and thereby go to irrational extremes. – Baltasar Gracian

Know what is lacking in yourself. Many would have been great people if they had not had something wanting, without which they could not rise to the height of perfection. It is remarkable that some people could be much better if they could be just a little better in something. They do not perhaps take themselves seriously enough to do justice to their great abilities. – Baltasar Gracian

Do not become bad from sheer goodness—that is, by never getting angry. Such people without feeling are scarcely to be considered human. It does not always arise from laziness, but from sheer inability. To feel strongly on occasion shows personality; birds soon mock at the scarecrow. It is a sign of good taste to combine bitter and sweet. All sweets is diet for children and fools. It is a great evil to sink into such insensibility out of too great goodness. – Baltasar Gracian

Never die of another’s bad luck. Notice those who stick in the mud, and observe how they call others to their aid so as to console themselves with a companion in misfortune. They seek someone to help them to bear misfortune, and often those who turned the cold shoulder on them in prosperity now give them a helping hand. There is great caution needed in helping the drowning without endangering oneself. – Baltasar Gracian

The subconscious processes are always at work; the only question is, are we to be simply passive recipients of this activity, or are we to consciously direct the work? – Charles F. Haanel

…When you have learned to control yourself you will have found the “World Within” which controls the world without; you will have become irresistible; men and things will respond to your every wish without any apparent effort on your part. – Charles F. Haanel

…In order to express power, abundance or any other constructive purpose, the emotions must be called upon to give feeling to the thought so that it will take form. How may this purpose be accomplished? … The reply is, by exercise. Mental strength is secured in exactly the same way that physical strength is secured, by exercise.
We think something, perhaps with difficulty the first time; we think the same thing again, and it becomes easier this time; we think it again and again; it then becomes a mental habit. We continue to think the same thing; finally it becomes automatic; we can no longer help thinking this thing; we are now positive of what we think; there is no longer any doubt about it. We are sure; we know. – Charles F. Haanel

…[Be] still, and inhibit all thought as far as possible. … Relax, let go, let the muscles take their normal condition; this will remove all pressure from the nerves, and eliminate that tension which so frequently produces physical exhaustion.
Physical relaxation is a voluntary exercise of the will and the exercise will be found to be of great value, as it enables the blood to circulate freely to and from the brain and body.
Tensions leads to mental unrest and abnormal mental activity of the mind; it produces worry, care, fear and anxiety. Relaxation is therefore an absolute necessity in order to allow the mental faculties to exercise the greatest freedom.
Make this exercise as thorough and complete as possible, mentally determine that you will relax every muscle and nerve, until you feel quiet and restful and at peace with yourself and the world. The Solar Plexus will then be ready to function and you will be surprised at the result. – Charles F. Haanel

Montaigne’s vanity led him to talk perpetually of himself, and as often happens to vain men, he would rather talk of his own failings than of any foreign subject. – Hallam

Man is never satisfied with his life: he is forever seeking something that is better. Until he learns wisdom, he looks for it in pleasure, in sense gratification of various kinds, in wealth, luxury and possession.
…Happiness, however, is to be found in service. Not if we seek happiness in service, and serve in order to be happy, but if we serve others for the sake of serving we find the only happiness that will endure and satisfy.
One has only to observe the lives of those who are always selfishly seeking and grabbing, who are hard in their dealings, and always ‘looking after number one,’ in order to see how impossible it is for self-seekers to be happy. – Henry Thomas Hamblin

Man is bound to the wheel, yet at the same time, he has free will. – Henry Thomas Hamblin

He who trusts others can be manipulated by others. – Han Fei Tzu

For the most part, the difficulty in persuading people is found in reading/knowing someone else’s mind/heart and adapting your words to conform to it. – Han Fei Tzu

… Those who attemps remonstration, persuasion, explanation, or discussion before the throne must be careful to first observe the sovereign’s loves and hates. – Han Fei Tzu

Praise other people who have similar actions to the person you are talking to, and esteem tasks that are in under the same category that his tasks are. … – Han Fei Tzu

In ancient times, Mi Tzu Hsia became popular with the ruler of Wei State. At the time, the laws of Wei State stated, “The punishment for using the royal carriage without permission is a double foot amputation.”
One day, someone went into the palace late at night and informed Mi Tzu Hsia that his mother was sick. Upon hearing this, he forged a fake request from the ruler in order to use his carriage, and then took it to go see his mother.
When the ruler found out about this, [not only was he not offended,] he only had good things to say, and remarked, “What a filial child! Over his concern for his mother, he went so far as to risk having his feet cut off!”
Another time, Mi Tzu Hsia was walking outdoors with the ruler, and began eating a peach. Tasting how delicious it was, he offered the remaining half to the ruler, who remarked, “Your love for me is truly genuine!—so much so that you have put your own appetite aside, and instead cocnern youself with offering me tasty food!”
But many years later, when Mi Tzu Hsia’s looks had faded and the ruler was not enamored with him anymore, a charge was brought against him by the ruler, who remarked, “Don’t forget, this is the same guy who stole my carriage and offered me his half-eaten peach!”
Although Mi Tzu Hsia’s actions remained the same, he was initially praised from them, and later charged with wrongdoing—and this was all because the ruler’s love for him had converted into disdain. – Han Fei Tzu

If the ruler only takes advice from ministers of high rank, does not compare different opinions and testify to the truth, and uses only one person as a channel of information, then ruin is possible.
If posts and offices can be sought through influential personages, and rank and bounties can be obtained by means of bribes, then ruin is possible. …
If the ruler does not take the capable people of the country into his service, and if he does not make tests according to meritorious services but instead appoints and dismisses officials only according to their reputations, till foreign residents are exalted and enabled to surpass his old acquaintances, then ruin is possible. … – Han Fei Tzu

… The superior person takes the inner feelings but leaves the outer appearances, likes the inner qualities but hates the outer decorations. – Han Fei Tzu

Eels are similar to snakes. Silkworms are similar to caterpillars. People are scared when they see snakes, and surprised when they see caterpillars. And yet, fishermen are willing to hold eels in their hands, and women are willing to pick up silkworms. So, when there is profit, people turn as brave as Meng Pen and Chuan Chu. – Han Fei Tzu

In all-under-Heaven there are three truths: Even wise people will find certain tasks unattainable; even strong people will find certain objects unmovable; and even brave people will find certain opponents unbeatable
For example, even if someone as wise as Yao cannot accomplish the great without the support of the masses; even someone as mighty as Wu Huo cannot elevate himself with other people’s assistance; and even someone as strong as Meng Pen and Hsia Yu cannot remain undefeated without upholding law or tact. – Han Fei Tzu

Tzu Chang was pulling a push-cart to go across the arch of a bridge, but was unable to bear the weight. So, he sat on the shaft and began singing. Meanwhile, the passers-by from the front stopped, and those from the rear ran forward to help him, until the push-cart reached the top of the arch.
Suppose Tzu Chang had no technique to attract people. Then even if he exhausted himself to death, the cart would not have been able to go across the bridge. The reason why he did not exhaust himself while the cart went up the arch of the bridge was because he had the technique to make use of people. – Han Fei Tzu

Tsao Fu managed four horses. He drove them at maximum speed, maneuvered them expertly, and could go in any direction he wanted. He could mange the horses in whatever way he wanted because he was in control of the whip and reins. But, when a jumping pig scared the horses, Tsao Fu lost control of the horses. This is not because the severity of the whip and rein decreased. This is because his authority over the horses was superceded by the impact of the jumping pig. – Han Fei Tzu

And if someone only looked at a person’s features, clothing, and speech, even Confucius would not be able to say what sort of a person he is. Yet if one tests him in government position and sees what he does, then even someone with so-so judgment would be able to know if he is wise or not. – Han Fei Tzu

A certain peace is to be preferred to an expected victory. – Hannibal

We will either find a way, or make one. – Hannibal

Many things which nature makes difficult become easy to the man who uses his brains. – Hannibal

Never be afraid to sit awhile and think. – Lorraine Hansberry

Be what you are. This is the first step towards becoming better than you are. J – ulius Charles Hare and Augustus William Hare

It is the individual who knows how little they know about themselves who stands the most reasonable chance of finding out something about themselves before they die. – SI Hayakawa

Cunning is the art of concealing our own defects, and discovering other people’s weaknesses. – William Hazlitt

There is a pleasure in madness, which none but madmen know. – William Hazlitt

The definition of genius is that it acts unconsciously; and those who have produced immortal works, have done so without knowing how or why. The greatest power operates unseen. – William Hazlitt

No matter what side of the argument you are on, you always find people on your side that you wish were on the other. – Jascha Heifetz

Man is most nearly himself when he achieves the seriousness of a child at play. – Heraclitus

War is death’s feast. – George Herbert

Unhappiness is not knowing what we want, and killing ourselves to get it. – Don Herold

When I was young, I admired clever people. Now that I am old I admire kind people. – Abraham Joshua Heschel

No man ought to look a given horse in the mouth. – John Heywood

Many hands make light work. – John Heywood

Love me, love my dog. – John Heywood

It’s an ill wind that blows no good. – John Heywood

When the sun shineth, make hay. – John Heywood

The moon is made of a green cheese. – John Heywood

When the iron is hot, strike. – John Heywood

The more the merrier. – John Heywood

The fat is in the fire. – John Heywood

The green new broom sweepeth clean. – John Heywood

The tide tarrieth for no man. – John Heywood

Two heads are better than one. – John Heywood

Went in one ear and out the other. – John Heywood

Look before you leap. – John Heywood

A hard beginning maketh a good ending. – John Heywood

A penny for your thoughts. – John Heywood

All is well that ends well. – John Heywood

Better late than never. – John Heywood

Half a loaf is better than none. – John Heywood

Haste makes waste. – John Heywood

Butter would not melt in her mouth. – John Heywood

Beggars shouldn’t be choosers. – John Heywood

A man may well bring a horse to the water, but he cannot make him drink. – John Heywood

Mad as a march hare. – John Heywood

Rome was not built in a day. – John Heywood

More things belong to marriage than four bare legs in a bed. – John Heywood

Out of the frying pan into the fire. – John Heywood

Nothing is impossible to a willing heart. – John Heywood

One swallow maketh not a summer. – John Heywood

One good turn deserves another. – John Heywood

The truly upright is that which flows out of your genuine innermost self as a result of the sincerity shown by the kami [gods]; on all occasions, you must exert this sincerity to the utmost, even in the most minor of your activities. – Moshimasa Hikita

It is a well known fact that one comes, finally, to BELIEVE whatever one repeats to one’s self, whether the statement be true or false. – Napoleon Hill

All thoughts which have been emotionalized (given feeling) and mixed with faith begin immediately to translate themselves into their physical equivalent or counterpart. – Napoleon Hill

Thoughts which are mixed with any of the feelings of emotions constitute a “magnetic” force which attracts… other similar or related thoughts. – Napoleon Hill

The man who actually knows just what he wants in life has already gone a long way toward attaining it. – Napoleon Hill

Some people are successful as long as someone else stands back of them and encourages them, and some are successful in spite of Hell! Take your choice. – Napoleon Hill

Soldiers followed Napoleon to certain death without flinching, because of the impelling or attracting nature of his personality… – Napoleon Hill

Everyone needs a change of mental environment at regular periods, the same as a change and variety of food are essential.
The mind becomes more alert, more elastic and more ready to work with speed and accuracy after it has been bathed in new ideas, outside of one’s own field of daily labor. – Napoleon Hill

There are no lazy people. What may appear to be a lazy person is only an unfortunate person who has not found the work for which he is best suited. – Napoleon Hill

Give a person something to do that he likes to do, and keep him busy doing it, and he will not be apt to degenerate into a disorganizing force. – Napoleon Hill

If I am not for myself, who is for me? And when I am [solely] for myself, what am I? If not now, when? – Hillel, (Pirke Avot 1:15 or 1:14)

Doing nothing is sometimes a good remedy. – Hippocrates

The great mass of people will more easily fall victim to a big lie than a small one. – Adolph Hitler

Make the lie big, make it simple, keep saying it, and eventually they will believe it. – Adolph Hitler

Sooner will a camel pass through a needle’s eye than a great man be “discovered” by an election. – Adolph Hitler

The art of leadership… consists in consolidating the attention of the people against a single adversary and taking care that nothing will split up that attention. – Adolph Hitler

The leader of genius must have the ability to make different opponents appear as if they belonged to one category. – Adolph Hitler

By the skillful and sustained use of propaganda, one can make a people see even heaven as hell or an extremely wretched life as paradise. – Adolph Hitler

I use emotion for the many and reserve reason for the few. – Adolph Hitler

Some things have to be believed to be seen. – Ralph Hodgson

It is easier to love humanity than to love your neighbor. – Eric Hoffer

Nonconformists travel as a rule in bunches. You rarely find a nonconformist who goes it alone. And woe to him inside a nonconformist clique who does not conform with nonconformity. – Eric Hoffer

A successful social technique consists perhaps in finding unobjectionable means for individual self-assertion. – Eric Hoffer

No one has a right to happiness. – Eric Hoffer

Life is an end in itself, and the only question as to whether it is worth living is whether you have had enough of it. – Oliver Wendell Holmes

One accurate measurement is worth a thousand expert opinions. – Admiral Grace Murray Hopper

Wisdom at proper times will forget. – Horace

To win real rewards, we must firmly decline the deceptive rewards offered by society. – Vernon Howard

Even minor taos have something worth attention—but if they are carried out to what is remote, there is a danger of their proving inapplicable/becoming fanatical. Therefore, the chun tzu does not practice them. – Tzu Hsia

When someone does not transgress the ‘fence’ in major te, he should tolerate some deviations in minor te. – Tzu Hsia

To a patient a doctor can say, “Before you try to satisfy any particular hunger, look well as to whether it is a hunger that can be satisfied, or one that ought to be subdued.” – Tehyi Hsieh Quotes 

Every cemetery has a voice that tells living people to hurry up if they can expect to accomplish anything. – Tehyi Hsieh Quotes

The chun tzu says: Learning should never stop.
Blue [dye] comes from the indigo plant, yet it is bluer than the indigo. Ice is made from water, yet it is colder than water.
A piece of wood as straight as a plumb-line can be steamed and bent into a circle with a curvature conforming to the compass; and if it is later dried in the sun, the wood will not return to its previous straightness. This is because the bending process has caused this change in it.
Wood pressed against a plumb line will be straight. Metal put to the whetstone will be sharp.
The chun tzu makes his learning broad and examines himself daily in order to have his knowledge precise and his actions faultless. – Hsun Tzu

No Divinity is greater than self-transformation with tao . No happiness is greater than being without unhappiness. – Hsun Tzu

When you locate good in yourself, approve of it with determination. When you locate evil in yourself, despise it as something detestable. – Hsun Tzu

Without climbing to a high mountain, you will not know T’ien’s height. Without looking down into a into a deep gorge, you will not know Earth’s depth. Wihtout hearing the words inherited from the Ancient Kings, you will not know the greatness of learning/knowledge. – Hsun Tzu

“I have thought for a whole day, but it was not as effective as learning for one moment. I have stood on tiptoe, but it was not as effective as going up to a high place.”
If someone goes up on a high place and waves, his arm does not become longer, yet it can be seen distantly. If someone shouts with the wind, his voice does not become stronger, yet it can be heard more clearly. If someone uses a horse and carriage, his own feet are not aided, yet he can travel hundreds of miles. If someone uses boats and oars, even if he cannot swim, he will be able to cross rivers.
…the chun tzu is good at using [external] things [to nourish his nature and actions] – Hsun Tzu

In learning, nothing is more advantageous than being near a worthy learner. Next best is exalting li.
Someone who is unable to devoted to such people or honor li will merely be learning disordered information or mechanically following texts, and thus will never be anything more than an unlearned/absurd Aspirant. – Hsun Tzu

Do not answer a person whose questions are vulgar. Do not question a person who is vulgar. Do not listen to a person whose theories are vulgar. Do not engage in disputation with a person who is merely looking to quarrel. – Hsun Tzu

He who correctly criticizes me is my teacher; he who correctly tells me I am right is my friend; and he who flatters me is my culprit. – Hsun Tzu

Not having heard it is not as good as having heard it. Having heard it is not as good as having seen it [be done]. Having seen it is not as good as knowing it. Knowing it is not as good as doing it.
Learning reaches its pinnacle in putting it into practice [for the sake of yi]. By putting it into practice, one understands it. By understanding it, one becomes a Sage. – Hsun Tzu

The best horse can’t cover ten paces in one stride. A worn out nag can do so in ten periods. – Hsun Tzu

Achievement depends on using time. – Hsun Tzu

By carving incompletely, a piece of rotten wood cannot be cut through. By carving steadfastly, metal and stone can be carved. – Hsun Tzu

An earthworm does not have claws and teeth, nor is it strong, but it can eat dirt and drink spring water. It has heart purposefulness. A crab has six legs and two claws, but it has no home unless it finds the hole of a snake or eel. It has heart misdirection.
Thus, without a steadfast purpose, clear perception, and determined striving, there will be no illustrious accomplishment.
The person attempting to travel two roads at once will get nowhere. The person attempting to serve two masters will not be favored by either. The eye cannot look at two directions [simultaneously] and see clearly. The ear cannot listen to two things [simultaneously] and hear clearly.
A cloud dragon has no feet, but flies. A squirrel has five talents [flying, climbing, swimming, digging, running], but is reduced [because it does not utilize and perform any of them well.] …
Thus, the chun tzu has knot-like [and noble] steadfastness. – Hsun Tzu

Thus, by moving steps followed by steps and by continuing, a lame turtle can travel hundreds of miles; by piling up mounds and mounds and by continuing, a high mound will be formed; and by blocking sources and breaking down banks, great rivers will be dried.
But with one going forward and another going back, and with one moving left and another moving right, even the [royal thoroughbred] Six Horses would get nowhere.
People’s abilities are by no means as widely differing as a lame turtle and the Six Horses—yet the lame turtle reaches the goal, and the Six Horses do not.
The only reason is this: one does, the other does not do.
Even if the tao is short, if a person does not travel on it, he will never arrive. Even if a matter is small, if a person does not do it, it will never be accomplished.
If a person takes many days resting, he will not progress much on tao. – Hsun Tzu

A thoroughbred can cover hundreds of miles in a day, but even an old nag can cover great distances over time. Will you attempt to exhaust the inexhaustible, and pursue the endless [i.e. the courses of logicians and mystics that do not go anywhere]? If you do, then even if you wear out your bones and muscles until the day you die, you will most certainly fail to reach your goal. – Hsun Tzu

In matters of conduct, the chun tzu does not esteem indecorous yet difficult feats. In explanations, he does not prize improper investigations. In matters of reputation, he does not value unsuitable traditions.
Instead, he only esteems what is fitting to the occasion. – Hsun Tzu

The chun tzu uses learning in order to purify himself. The hsiao jen uses learning in order to gain others’ attention. – Hsun Tzu

…he [the chun tzu] cannot be subverted by considerations of power and profit, swayed by cliques and common masses, or deterred by all the world. He follows it from life to death. – Hsun Tzu

Discipline your will, and you will have greater nobility than wealth and eminence. Consider tao to be your riches, and you will not need to be discomposed standing before kings and dukes. Thoroughly examine yourself internally, and you will disregard external things. – Hsun Tzu

The chun tzu is able to make himself worthy of honor, but cannot necessarily cause others to honor him. He is able to make himself trustworthy, but cannot necessarily cause others to trust him. …
Thus the chun tzu is ashamed of remaining uncultivated, but is not ashamed of being publicly reviled.
Proceeding along tao, unswervingly committed to rectifying himself and not allowing himself to be deflected by things—such a person might be called a ch’eng chun tzu. – Hsun Tzu

The chun tzu is unvigilant in pursuing profit, but vigilant in avoiding harm. He is timid in avoiding disgrace, but intrepid in practicing tao requirements. – Hsun Tzu

The chun tzu is easy to come to know, but difficult to be familiar with. He is easily made apprehensive, but difficult to intimidate. He dreads suffering, but will not avoid what is required by his moral duty, even at the risk of death. He desires what is beneficial, but will not do what is wrong. He is considerate in his interpersonal relations, but not partial. He makes discriminations in his discussions, but not disordered formulations. – Hsun Tzu

When it comes to his abilities, the chun tzu is magnanimous, generous, tolerant, and straightforward—thus opening the way to instruct others. When it comes to his in-capabilities, he is respectful, reverent, moderate, and modest—and thus he is awe-inspired, and undertakes to serve others.
When it comes to his capabilities, the hsiao jen is rude, arrogant, perverted, and depraved—thus, he is filled with an overwhelming pride around others. When it comes to his in-capabilities, he is envious, jealous, resentful, and given to backbiting—thus he subverts and undermines others. – Hsun Tzu

The chun tzu is magnanimous, but not negligent. He is scrupulous, but does not inflict suffering. He debates, but does not cause quarreling. He is critical, but does not provoke others.
When he upholds an upright position, he is not merely interested in victory. When hard and strong, he is not haughty. When flexible and tractable, he does not merely drift with the demands of the occasion.
He is respectful, reverent, attentive, and cautious, but still remains inwardly at ease. – Hsun Tzu

When seeing something desirable, think of whether it also could eventually involve what is detestable. When seeing something beneficial, think of whether it also could eventually involve harm.
Weigh the total of one against that of the other, maturely calculate, and then determine the relative merits of choosing or reusing your desires and aversions. This way, you will regularly avoid failure and becoming ensnared by your choices.
In general, the calamities that beset mankind result from prejudices and the damages they cause. – Hsun Tzu

The chun tzu is cautious about untried doctrine, actions which have not been previously seen, and plans that may have been unheard among people. – Hsun Tzu

The common people’s standard of te is that goodness consists of following custom, that life’s superlative treasure is possessions and wealth, and that supporting/nurturing parents/life is to be already taking the supreme tao. – Hsun Tzu

Rather than regarding seniority, advance the worthy and the able, dismiss the incompetent and the incapable at once, put incorrigible ringleaders to death without trying to reform them, and develop the common people without waiting to compel them by laws. …
Even if someone is the descendant of a king, duke, prefect, or officer, relegate him to the common ranks if he does not observe li and yi.
Even if someone is the descendant of a commoner, elevate him to prime minister, officer, or prefect if he has acquired learning, developed good character, and is able to observe li and yi.
As for lewd people, scandal-mongers, evildoers, people of perverted abilities, shirkers, and unreliable people, they should be trained, given employment, and time for reformation. Stimulate them by rewards; warn them by punishments. If they are satisfied with employment, then keep them; if they are not satisfied to work, then deport them.
The disabled, deaf, and blind should be received and cared for. If they have ability, they should be given positions. The authorities should employ them and clothe and feed them; they should all be cared for without exception.
Those who are incorrigible should be put to death without mercy. For this is what is called Heaven’s virtue; this is the government of a king. – Hsun Tzu

The chun tzu avoids listenting to the praise of people who are his friends and intimates, or who are his partisans or cronies. … He avoids being close to people who are full of suspicion and envy, or those who attempt to obstruct or conceal others. – Hsun Tzu

For the chun tzu to cultivate/nurture his heart, there is nothing better than ch’eng.
Someone who has attained ch’eng will need/concern nothing—he will just uphold jen and practice yi. – Hsun Tzu

… The Sage purifies his T’ien ruler, rectifies his T’ien senses/facilities, makes his T’ien nourishment sufficient/complete, obeys T’ien government/rule, and nourishes his T’ien emotions, in order to develop to perfection Natural usefulness/achievement.
When he acts like this, he knows what he should/can and should not do. Then T’ien and Earth fulfill their proper function, and he can employ all things as his foot soldiers. And then his actions are completely governed, the nourishment completely obtained, and in his life he does no injury.
This is what is meant by “knowing T’ien.”
For great skill consists in “non-doing,” and great wisdom consists in “not reflecting.”
If a person who has a responsible post attends to what belongs to T’ien, the people of themselves will keep to the right tao. – Hsun Tzu

The Son of T’ien does not look and yet sees, does not listen and yet hears, does not contemplate and yet know, does not act and yet is successful. Like a clod he sits alone and the whole world follows him like a single body, like four limbs following the heart. – Hsun Tzu

The starting point of wisdom must be to consider the desires necessary, but to guide them. …
Although desires cannot be removed, their pursuit can be temperate. …
Although desire cannot be removed, if what he wants cannot be obtained, the person who reflects will desire to restrain his pursuit. – Hsun Tzu

All things are one section of tao .
One thing is a section of all things.
The stupid person sees only one section of one thing and thinks he knows tao—but he lacks this knowledge.
Shen Tzu [said that the worthy should not be rewarded, and the able should not be given office] has insight about what is behind/leading back but none about what is before/leading the way. Lao Tzu [discussed the bent being better than the straight and the weak overcoming the strong] has insight about the bent/bending, but not about the straight/straightening. Mo Tzu [advocate of universal love] has insight about what is universal, but not about the individual. Sung Tzu has insight about the few/reducing, but not about the many/increasing.
If one considers what is behind, but not what is before, then the common people cannot enter the gate of progress/opportunity. If one considers the bent but not the straight, then the noble and base are not distinguished. If one considers the universal but not he particular, then the government cannot operate. If one considers the few but not the many, then the common people will no progress/transformed. – Hsun Tzu

People tend to suffer from a proneness to being beclouded by a single corner, thereby causing the Great Order to remain hidden from them. – Hsun Tzu

And thus, although princes of erring/chaotic countries and members of erring/disorderly schools may genuinely seek to be right, and consider themselves to be the judge of right and wrong, their partiality causes them to be in error, averse to tao, and misled by others who cater to what they follow.
Partial to what they have accumulated, they fear hearing its evilness. And leaning on their partialness, they fear hearing the praise of differing arts—even if they inquire into them. – Hsun Tzu

The major scholars of earlier times were beclouded—and from them came the disordered schools.
Mo Tzu was beclouded by [narrow standards of] utility, and did not know life’s elegancies [that are also beneficial]. Sung Tzu [,believing that desires naturally seek little amd should be given reign to] was beclouded by desire and did not know virtue. Shen Tzu [emphasized having one prince and using laws; taught that worthy officials, honoring the worthy, and employing the able are not that important] was beclouded by law, and did not know hsien. Shen Tzu [(not the same person as the aforementioned Shen Tzu) believed that the ruler should only delegate his power to a person of talent] was beclouded by power/technique/method, and did not know wisdom. Huei Tzu [Neo-Mohist leader who stressed dialectic] was beclouded by words and did not know reality. Chuang Tzu [mystical philosopher] was beclouded by Nature, and did not know man.
If we consider tao from the standpoint/perspective of utility, it will merely be seeking gain. If we consider tao from the perspective of desire, it will merely be seeking satisfaction. If we consider tao from the perspective of law, it will merely be an art. If we consider tao from the perspective of power, it will merely be convenience. If we consider tao from the perspective of words, it will merely be dialectic. If we consider tao from the standpoint of Nature, it will merely be relying on things as they are.
These different presentations are all an aspect of tao.
But tao is constant, and includes all changes. One aspect is not sufficient to present the whole.
Those with partial knowledge perceive an aspect of tao, but are unable to know its totality—and thus, they think it is sufficient, and they gloss things over.
They confuse themselves and they mislead others.
Rulers end up beclouding inferiors, and inferiors end up beclouding superiors. – Hsun Tzu

In general, when people choose, they never get only what they desired, and never lose only what they disliked.
[In other words, they always end up with some sort combination of what they desired and dislked.] – Hsun Tzu

In ancient times, Yao had nine assistants, Shun seven, and Wu Wang had five. Yao, Shun and Wu Wang were not experts in any one thing, like their assistants. They sat in their offices receiving the reports of successful operations. They were, however, masters in their estimate of the abilities of men. – Huai Nan Tzu

The excellent vision of Li Chu could see the point of a needle from the distance of more than a hundred paces; yet he could not discern the fish in a pool. The intelligence of [Master Musician] Shih Kuang could distinguish the winds from the eight quarters and harmonize the five notes of the eight scales; but his fine sense of hearing could not discern anything more than a few miles off.
Hence one man’s strength, however much, is not enough to regulate even a terrain of a mile. But the man who conforms to the art of tao, in accordance with the natural way of Heaven and Earth, would find it easy to manage the whole world. – Huai Nan Tzu

In olden times during the days of Chao, Kung Sung Lung said to his disciples, “I have no use for men without talent.”
A guest came along, wearing rough serge and a girdle of common hemp. He said, at an interview: “Your servant has the talent of being able to shout.”
Kung Sung looked him up and down and said to his disciples “Have we any criers?”
“We have none,” was the reply, and thereupon, the King ordered this stranger to be entered on the register.
A few days later, the disciples went to call on Yen Wang for consultation: on coming to a river, the ferry boat was found to be far away at the opposite bank. So the newly-enlisted crier was ordered to vociferate his loudest. The boat came, after he shouted once.
It is written that the Sage does not readily overlook the service of any man with ability. – Huai Nan Tzu

Once on a time, Chao Wen Tzu asked Shu Hsiang which of the six generals of Tsin would die first. He replied that it would be Chih of the center army—“because,” he said, “this man in administering, carried on his examination with harshness; he informed himself of vexatious details; he regarded loyalty to consist in being stingy to his underlings; and he reckoned that merit lay in gaining many good marks from the government. – Huai Nan Tzu

No nature is wholly free from some shortcoming. It is enough to weigh the general purpose of the life. A trifling shortcoming must not be allowed to entangle the whole person.
Of course, if a person fails to have any great scheme or purpose in life, then he is useless for great office, even though he may be well-spoken-of in his village.
Yen Hsin Chu of Liang Fu was a bandit, but rose to be a loyal minister of Ch’i. Tuan Kan Mu was a piece-goods broker of Ts’in, and became the instructor of Baron Wen. Meng Mao married his sister-in-law and had five sons by her, but became the Prime Minister of Wei, pacified its turbulence, and dissipated the national troubles. Ching Yang was an unkempt drunkard and whoremonger, but as a General of Wei, he brought the Feudal Lords to their knees.
Now all these men had each his shortcomings; yet their work and renown have not perished. – Huai Nan Tzu

What can be expected from one person should not be above what one man’s strength can bear. – Huai Nan Tzu

In ancient times, Tsang Hsieh invented the written character, Yung Ch’eng made charts of the heavenly bodies and almanacs, Hu Ts’ao was the creator of clothes, Hou Chi invented the System of agriculture, I Ti made wine, and Hsi Chung was the creator of carriages.
These six men in their inventions were divinely gifted, and possessed the traditions of the wise.
The inventions that men have transmitted to posterity could not all have been done by one individual. Each man is expert in his own speciality, and concentrates on that which he desires to be proficient in. These results have become of use to the whole world.
Had these six men changed about from that in which each was superior to another, these inventions would never have accrued.
Why so?
Because creation is vast, and one person’s knowledge is not enough to compass the whole. – Huai Nan Tzu

Pei li Hsi was a cattle-broker, I Yin a cook, T’ai Kung was a butcher, Ning Ch’i a ballad singer. But subsequently their merits as ministers are not forgotten. Before they rose to power, the multitude only saw the lowliness of their avocations and their degrading occupations. They failed to appreciate their general excellencies and thought of them as degenerates. It needed the penetration of the kingly mind to see their worth. It was only after they became the assistants of Kings and were made the Prime Ministers of the Feudal Barons, that the populace saw their worth and realized that they were exceptional men. …It required the penetration of Yao to discern their merits, whilst they were as yet undistinguished. This is the way Yao knew Shun. The populace only became cognizant of his merits after he had completed his great work and established his reputation. …
Were anyone to rely merely on his own eyes and intelligence, without having the proper methods of judging a worthy, and were he to go and try to find him in palace or hamlet, he would assuredly miss many a one. Ordinary men cannot go and imitate Yao in his discovery of Shun, since they have not the acumen for discovering men.
…Mediocre princes and governors of the world may be deceived easily by appearances. A white bone much resembles ivory; most men fail to distinguish the one from the other. So with men. The specious kind appear to have goodness—but this Is not so. The bravado kind do not really have courage.
Now, if people really appeared as distinct in character as a jade does from stone, or beauty from ugliness, it would be easy to judge them. There are four varieties of plants very much alike and difficult to be distinguished, so that people often mistake them. Similarly, a sword-maker may err in thinking a Sword is like the Mo Hsieh sword, whereas only an expert like O Yen could give an authoritative opinion; a diamond-cutter may mistake a piece of jade as being an imitation stone, the P’I, whereas only someone like I Tun would never miss the luster; the prince of An was mistaken in a wicked minister who had only the devices and sharpness of a knave. – Huai Nan Tzu

Persons who see into the heart of things are not to be deceived by appearances.
Many men of the world esteem what is ancient and despise the modern, hence, plausible speakers make use of the authority of the God of Agriculture, or Huang Ti, to gain an entrance into men’s minds. Ignorant rulers of an anarchical age magnify these sources of antiquity and honor the speakers by giving them office. Scholars, confused by traditional hearing, captivated by the authority of distinguished names, reverently sit down, and, adjusting their dress, repeating and chanting. …
Hsiang T’o, a child of seven years, was a teacher of Confucius who paid heed to his words. A youth speaking to an elder generally gets his face slapped; but this boy was saved a castigation by the wisdom of his words. …
A man of Ts’u boiled a monkey and invited his neighbors to partake of it. When told it was broth made of dog’s flesh, they enjoyed it. But hearing later it was monkey’s broth, they vomited it all up. The symptom was governed by mental conditions.
The musician, Han Tan, composed a new tune, giving out it was the creation of li Ch’i. Everybody strove to learn it. But on hearing later that it was not his creation, they gave it up. They really didn’t judge from its merit as music. They hadn’t the taste for that. They were enamored of a name. …
However, an expert does not look on things in that light. A swordsman desires edge on his sword rather than a mere renown of name such as a Mei Yang, or a Mo Hsien sword. An organist seeks tone, volume, harmony in his instrument rather than merely a celebrated name such as Lan Hsieh, Hao Chung. What a rider wants is a horse that can travel hundreds of miles a day, not mere famous names. A poet or scholar wants reason and solid matter in his books and not merely names such as Hung Fan and Shang Sung. The Sage discriminates between the true and false in literature, just as his eye distinguishes light and dark, or as the ear discriminates bass from tenor. …
Now if a new and great writer appears and composes a book, should it be attributed to Confucius or Mencius, litterateurs thumb each sentence and finger each word. Many will accept and read it. Beauties need not all be of the kind of Hsi Shih. Savants need not be of the type of Confucius or Mencius to express clearly the knowledge they have of matters. Hence, in composing a book, a writer aims at a clear expression of ideas to gain appreciative readers. When a reader of intelligence is found whose mind reflects as in a mirror the truth expounded, he doesn’t mind whether the book he reads is of ancient or modern date. A writer could die without regret feeling that he had written his work with clearness for the information of his readers.
Of old Duke Ping of Ts’in, Shansi, ordered his foundry-man to cast a bell. When this was done, he asked the minister of music, Shih Kuang, for his opinion on its tone. Shih Kuang replied that it was imperfect. Duke Ping, in turn, said that the opinions of the expert artificers were all favorable. How then did he consider it imperfect? Shih Kuang replied that it might do if posterity were without a person who understood music: but a true musician would at once discern its imperfection. Thus the wish of Shih Kuang was for a perfect-toned bell to satisfy the ear of a musician of all times. – Huai Nan Tzu

The Sage, then, will influence the people by that which commands their goodwill and restrain evildoers by following what the people detest. …
Similarly the Sage, by a few acts, is able to reach and rule the wide stretches of empire. – Huai Nan Tzu

No calamity is greater than the grabbing of territory in order to satisfy the lust of an ambitious individual. – Huai Nan Tzu
Take the cases of Chieh of Hsia and Chou of Yin. If they had been taken in hand immediately, when the people began to suffer, it would have never come about that a person would be roasted on hot irons, as happened after the iniquitous reign had gone on for long.
Again, if li of Tsin and Kang of Sung, who lost their lives and ruined their countries by unprincipled acts, had been arrested early in their evil course, it could never have come about that they robbed in their aggression and in their violence as they did.
Anarchy of the realm causes general suffering to the people. One man, by pandering to his vicious desires, fills the land with woe. Such outrages are intolerable to the law of Heaven. – Huai Nan Tzu

The bow must be stretched on a frame to give it shape. The sword must be ground to give it edge. The jade of incomparable hardness must be carved with figures of beasts, by the application of the stone file. Wood, straight as a line, may be bent into the shape of a wheel so that it becomes exactly circular by the force of the beveling tool. The hardest quality of the T’ang jade stone may be made into serviceable utensils by scalloping and cutting. How much more so may the mind of man be improved by training.
The human spirit is plastic and impressionable, subtle and tenuous. …
The superior man, by constant application and laborious investigation, sharpens his talents: by intensive understanding and scientific review over the wide field of matter, he apprehends the complexity of the material world, seeing the clews to the beginning and the end of things: he views the illimitable frontiers; he moves in the sphere of the profound, preeminently independent and unhampered by the conventions of the world. – Huai Nan Tzu

The farmer who is not energetic will never have overflowing granaries. The charioteer who does not train his mind, will never be an expert in his art. Generals and statesmen who are not forceful, will never bring any labor to consummation. Kings and dukes who are indolent, will have no renown in posterity. – Huai Nan Tzu

When society is orderly, a fool alone cannot disturb it. When society is chaotic, a sage alone cannot bring it order. – Huai Nan Tzu

Chi Huang, Ch’en Chung Tzu were worthy men and independent in action. They refused to enter the unwholesome atmosphere of the Court, nor would they eat the food of anarchy—and thus they died of hunger. Their idealism failed wholly to save the country and throne, because they lost the conception of the general good in a narrow view of personal integrity. – Huai Nan Tzu

It would be useless to tell the fish in the well about the horizon of the great ocean, because it is cribbed in a narrow place. It would be vain to speak of the cold of winter to the creeping things that know only of the summer’s heat: they are cognizant only of their own seasons. It would be useless to discuss broad views with a narrow-minded scholar: he is bound to the conventional and tied to his own orthodoxy. – Huai Nan Tzu

There is a Principle of Creation that is uncreated; there is a Principle of Change that is unchanging. The Uncreated is able to create life; the Unchanging is able to effect change. The created cannot but continue creating; the changed cannot but continue evolving. Hence, there is constant creation and constant changing. The law of constant creating and of constant changing at no time ceases to operate. So is it with the Yin and the Yang, so is it with the Four Seasons. – Hu Tzu

In business, sometimes, prospects may seem darkest when really they are on the turn. A little more persistence, a little more effort, and what seemed hopeless failure may turn to glorious success. – Elbert Hubbard

Be yourself and speak your mind today, though it contradict all you have said before. – Elbert Hubbard

The best way to prepare for life is to begin to live. – Elbert Hubbard

Your enemy is one who misunderstands you—why should you not rise above the fog and see his error and respect him for the good qualities you find in him? – Elbert Hubbard

The only way to entertain some folks is to listen to them. – Kin Hubbard

Some folks can look so busy doing nothing that they seem indispensable. – Kin Hubbard

It’s pretty hard to be efficient without being obnoxious. – Kin Hubbard

The fellow that agrees with everything you say is either a fool or he is getting ready to skin you. – Kin Hubbard

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. – Margaret Wolfe Hungerford

Merely fact-minded sciences make merely fact-minded people. – Edmund Husserl

I discovered early on that by playing the scientific game I lost the PR game. As a scientist I have to qualify my answers, and this does not make for good PR or good sound bites. For example, when the CIA remote viewing experiments story broke and Nightline had a show on it, I was supposed to be on but Ed May objected to my participation so they got the head of the CIA on instead. But he didn’t really know the statistics or the research protocol. And even when I did do some shows on it, like Larry King Live, they mostly wanted to talk about the waste of tax payers money. They definitely did not want to talk about the data, the research methods, or the statistics. – Ray Hyman

Small mishaps may, if they do not discourage one, lead on to fortune. – I Ching 

Good people enjoy life. – I Ching

The chun tzu acquaints himself with many sayings of the ancients and deeds of the past, in order to strengthen his character. – I Ching 

When we minutely investigate the nature and reasons of things till we have entered into the inscrutable and spiritual in them, we attain to the largest practical application of them; when that application becomes quickest and readiest and personal poise is secured, our virtue is thereby exalted. Proceeding beyond this, we reach a point which it is hardly possible to comprehend; we have thoroughly mastered the inscrutable and spiritual and understand the processes of transformation. This is the fulness of virtue. – I Ching

Rob/deprive the average man of his life-illusion and you rob him also of his happiness. – Ibsen

In that second it dawned on me that I had been living here for eight years with a strange man and had borne him three children. – Ibsen

Human beings have an incredible ability to avoid work or things that require concentration, and social media has definitely fed into that. – Matthew Ingram

The irresolute and fleeting mind that is difficult to be controlled and conquered becomes steadfast and tranquil by meditation. – Jaina Scripture, (Atmavabodhakulakam 9)

The greatest and supreme science among sciences is the study that frees man from all kinds of miseries. – Jaina Scripture, (Isibhasiya 7:1) M

Those who eat moderate amounts of wholesome and healthy food—they do not become sick or need a doctor’s services. They are their own doctors. – Jaina Scripture, (Ogha-niryukti 578)

Due to wrong faith, the attitude of a person becomes perverted. Religion is as unattractive to him as sweet juice to a person suffering from fever, for he cannot relish it. – Jaina Scripture, (Pancastikaya 1:6)

Faith, knowledge and conduct together constitute the path of liberation; this is the path to be followed. The saints have declared that if it is followed in the right way, it will lead to the liberation; otherwise, it will lead to the bondage. – Jaina Scripture, (Pancastikaya 16:4 or 164)

The deepest principle of human nature is the craving to be appreciated. – William James

Nothing is so fatiguing as the hanging on of an uncompleted task. – William James

Whenever two people meet there are really six people present. There is each man as he sees himself, each man as the other person sees him, and each man as he really is. – William James

Everybody should do at least two things each day that he hates to do, just for practice. – William James

We must make automatic and habitual, as early as possible, as many useful actions as we can. – William James

If you want a quality, act as if you already had it. Try the “as if” technique. – William James

Any object not interesting in itself may become interesting through becoming associated with an object in which interest already exists. – William James

Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. – Jesus , (Matthew 5:8)

So let your light so shine before people, that they may see your good works, and may glorify your Father who is in Heaven. – Jesus , (Matthew 5:16)

For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? Or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul? – Jesus , (Matthew 16:26)

The scribes/teachers-of-the-law and the Pharisees sit in Moses’s seat. So obey whatever they tell you to do—but do not do what they do, for they do not practice what they preach. They bind heavy burdens and lay them on men’s shoulders, but they themselves will not move them even with a finger. Everything they do is for the sake of being seen by others: they make their phylacteries broad and the borders of their garments enlarged, they love the honorary room at feasts and the chief seats in the synagogues, and they love to be greeted respectfully in the markets and have men call them “Rabbi, Rabbi.” Jesus , (Matthew 23:2-7)

…The Kingdom of God is within you. – Jesus , (Luke 17:21)

Don’t be surprised that I said unto you all, “You must be ‘born again.’” – Jesus , (John 3:7)

There is no riches above the riches of the health of the body: and there is no pleasure above the joy of the heart. – Jesus ben Sirach / Ecclesiasticus, (30:16)

All wisdom comes from the Lord, and is with him forever. – Jesus ben Sirach / Ecclesiasticus, 1:1

All wisdom is from the Lord God, and has been always with him, and is before all time. – Jesus ben Sirach / Ecclesiasticus, 1:1

For there is a shame that brings sin; and there is a shame that brings glory and grace. – Jesus ben Sirach / Ecclesiasticus, 4:21

Be in peace with many: nevertheless have but one counsellor of a thousand. – Jesus ben Sirach / Ecclesiasticus, 6:6

Neither consult with a woman touching her of whom she is jealous; neither with a coward in matters of war; nor with a merchant concerning exchange; nor with a buyer of selling; nor with an envious man of thankfulness; nor with an unmerciful man touching kindness; nor with the slothful for any work; nor with an hireling for a year of finishing work; nor with an idle servant of much business: hearken not unto these in any matter of counsel. – Jesus ben Sirach / Ecclesiasticus, 37:11

In the midst of the unwise, keep in the word till its time: but be continually among men that think. – Jesus ben Sirach / Ecclesiasticus, (27:13)

…Hide your counsel from they who envy you. – Jesus ben Sirach / Ecclesiasticus, 37:7

If you would get a friend, try him before you take him, and do not credit him easily. For some man is a friend for his own occasion, and will not abide in the day of thy trouble. – Jesus ben Sirach / Ecclesiasticus, 6:7-8

Envy not the glory of a sinner: for you know not what shall be his end. – Jesus ben Sirach / Ecclesiasticus, 9:11

….many have been deceived by the beauty of a woman… – Jesus ben Sirach / Ecclesiasticus, 9:8

Many therefore have refused to lend for other men’s ill dealing, fearing to be defrauded. Yet have thou patience with a man in poor estate, and delay not to shew him mercy. – Jesus ben Sirach / Ecclesiasticus, 29:7-8

A losing football team looks at excuses. A championship football team looks at solutions. – Jimmy Johnson

Two men examining the same question proceed commonly like the physician and gardener in selecting herbs, or the farmer and hero looking on the plain; they bring minds impressed with different notions, and direct their inquiries to different ends; they form, therefore, contrary conclusions, and each wonders at the other’s absurdity. – Samuel Johnson

We have less reason to be surprised or offended when we find others differ from us in opinion, because we very often differ from ourselves. – Samuel Johnson

…How is it that we hear the loudest yelps for liberty among the drivers of negroes? – Samuel Johnson

Labor, if it were not necessary for existence, would be indispensable for the happiness of man. – Samuel Johnson

Much time is lost in regretting the time which had been lost before. – Samuel Johnson

Such is the common process of marriage. A youth and maiden exchange meeting by chance, or brought together by artifice, exchange glances, reciprocate civilities, go home, and dream of one another. Having little to divert attention, or diversify thought, they find themselves uneasy when they are apart, and therefore conclude that they shall be happy together. They marry, and discover what nothing but voluntary blindness had before concealed; they wear out life in altercations, and charge nature with cruelty. – Samuel Johnson

The man who threatens the world is always ridiculous; for the world can easily go on without him, and in a short time will cease to miss him. – Samuel Johnson

A man should be careful never to tell tales of himself to his own disadvantage. People may be amused and laugh at the time, but they will be remembered, and brought out against him upon some subsequent occasion. – Samuel Johnson

A man ought to read just as inclination leads him; for what he reads as a task will do him little good. – Samuel Johnson

Those who will not take the trouble to think for themselves, have always somebody that thinks for them… – Samuel Johnson

If we will have the kindness of others, we must endure their follies. He who cannot persuade himself to withdraw from society, must be content to pay a tribute of his time to a multitude of tyrants; to the loiterer, who makes appointments which he never keeps; to the consulter, who asks advice which he never takes; to the boaster, who blusters only to be praised; to the complainer, who whines only to be pitied; to the projector, whose happiness is to entertain his friends with expectations which all but himself know to be vain; to the economist, who tells of bargains and settlements; to the politician, who predicts the fate of battles and breach of alliances; to the usurer, who compares the different funds; and to the talker, who talks only because he loves to be talking. – Samuel Johnson

There is nothing which we estimate so fallaciously as the force of our own resolutions, nor any fallacy which we so unwillingly and tardily detect. He that has resolved a thousand times, and a thousand times deserted his own purpose, yet suffers no abatement of his confidence, but still believes himself his own master; and able, by innate vigour of soul, to press forward to his end, through all the obstructions that inconveniences or delights can put in his way. – Samuel Johnson

That this mistake should prevail for a time, is very natural. When conviction is present, and temptation out of sight, we do not easily conceive how any reasonable being can deviate from his true interest. What ought to be done, while it yet hangs only on speculation, is so plain and certain, that there is no place for doubt; the whole soul yields itself to the predominance of truth, and readily determines to do what, when the time of action comes, will be at last omitted. – Samuel Johnson

It has been commonly remarked, that eminent men are least eminent at home, that bright characters lose much of their splendour at a nearer view, and many, who fill the world with their fame, excite very little reverence among those that surround them in their domestick privacies. – Samuel Johnson

The most authentick witnesses of any man’s character are those who know him in his own family, and see him without any restraint, or rule of conduct, but such as he voluntarily prescribes to himself. If a man carries virtue with him into his private apartments, and takes no advantage of unlimited power, or probable secresy; if we trace him through the round of his time, and find that his character, with those allowances which mortal frailty must always want, is uniform and regular, we have all the evidence of his sincerity, that one man can have with regard to another; and, indeed, as hypocrisy cannot be its own reward, we may, without hesitation, determine that his heart is pure. – Samuel Johnson

What is read with delight is commonly retained, because pleasure always secures attention… – Samuel Johnson

That every day has its pains and sorrows is universally experienced, and almost universally confessed; but let us not attend only to mournful truths; if we look impartially about us, we shall find that every day has likewise its pleasures and its joys. – Samuel Johnson

But, however we may labour for our own deception, truth, though unwelcome, will sometimes intrude upon the mind. – Samuel Johnson

We are inclined to believe those whom we do not know because they have never deceived us. – Samuel Johnson

It is common to overlook what is near, by keeping the eye fixed upon something remote. In the same manner, present opportunities are neglected, and attainable good is slighted, by minds busied in extensive ranges, and intent upon future advantages. – Samuel Johnson

There would however be few enterprises of great labour or hazard undertaken, if we had not the power of magnifying the advantages which we persuade ourselves to expect of them. … – Samuel Johnson

The understanding of a man, naturally sanguine, may, indeed, be easily vitiated by the luxurious indulgence of hope, however necessary to the production of every thing great or excellent, as some plants are destroyed by too open exposure to that sun which gives life and beauty to the vegetable world. – Samuel Johnson

It is not often that any man can have so much knowledge of another as is necessary to make instruction useful. We are sometimes not ourselves conscious of the original motives of our actions; and when we know them, our first care is to hide them from the sight of others, and often from those most diligently, whose superiority either of power or understanding may entitle them to inspect our lives; it is, therefore, very probable, that he who endeavours to cure our intellectual maladies, mistakes their cause; and that his prescriptions avail nothing, because he knows not which of the passions or desires is vitiated. – Samuel Johnson

Every thing future is to be estimated, by a wise man, in proportion to the probability of attaining it and its value, when attained… – Samuel Johnson

The tribe is likewise very numerous of those who regulate their lives, not by the standard of religion, but the measure of other men’s virtue; who lull their own remorse with the remembrance of crimes more atrocious than their own, and seem to believe that they are not bad while another can be found worse. – Samuel Johnson

The desire of excellence is laudable, but is very frequently ill directed. We fall, by chance, into some class of mankind, and, without consulting nature or wisdom, resolve to gain their regard by those qualities which they happen to esteem. I once knew a man remarkably dimsighted, who, by conversing much with country gentlemen, found himself irresistibly determined to sylvan honours. His great ambition was to shoot flying, and he therefore spent whole days in the woods pursuing game; which, before he was near enough to see them, his approach frighted away. … – Samuel Johnson

We see multitudes busy in the pursuit of riches, at the expense of wisdom and of virtue; but we see the rest of mankind approving their conduct, and inciting their eagerness, by paying that regard and deference to wealth, which wisdom and virtue only can deserve. – Samuel Johnson

Criticks, like the rest of mankind, are very frequently misled by interest. The bigotry with which editors regard the authors whom they illustrate or correct, has been generally remarked. Dryden was known to have written most of his critical dissertations only to recommend the work upon which he then happened to be employed: and Addison is suspected to have denied the expediency of poetical justice, because his own Cato was condemned to perish in a good cause. – Samuel Johnson

Praise, like gold and diamonds, owes its value only to its scarcity. – Samuel Johnson

Every man, however hopeless his pretensions may appear to all but himself, has some project by which he hopes to rise to reputation; some art by which he imagines that the notice of the world will be attracted; some quality, good or bad, which discriminates him from the common herd of mortals, and by which others may be persuaded to love, or compelled to fear him. – Samuel Johnson

No place affords a more striking conviction of the vanity of human hopes than a public library; for who can see the wall crowded on every side by mighty volumes, the works of laborious meditations and accurate inquiry, now scarcely known but by the catalogue… – Samuel Johnson

Men are seldom satisfied with praise introduced or followed by any mention of defect. – Samuel Johnson

I have often known very severe and lasting malevolence excited by unlucky censures, which would have fallen without any effect, had they not happened to wound a part remarkably tender. Gustulus, who valued himself upon the nicety of his palate, disinherited his eldest son for telling him that the wine, which he was then commending, was the same which he had sent away the day before as not fit to be drunk. Proculus withdrew his kindness from a nephew, whom he had always considered as the most promising genius of the age, for happening to praise in his presence the graceful horsemanship of Marius. And Fortunio, when he was privy counsellor, procured a clerk to be dismissed from one of the publick offices, in which he was eminent for his skill and assiduity, because he had been heard to say that there was another man in the kingdom on whose skill at billiards he would lay his money against Fortunio’s. – Samuel Johnson

Sir, there is nothing by which a man exasperates most people more, than by displaying a superiour ability or brilliancy in conversation. They seem pleased at the time; but their envy makes them curse him in their hearts. – Samuel Johnson

No cause more frequently produces bashfulness than too high an opinion of our own importance. … The truth is, that no man is much regarded by the rest of the world. He that considers how little he dwells upon the condition of others, will learn how little the attention of others is attracted by himself. – Samuel Johnson

A request made with diffidence and timidity is easily denied, because the petitioner himself seems to doubt its fitness… – Samuel Johnson

The same actions performed by different hands produce different effects, and instead of rating the man by his performances, we rate too frequently the performances by the man. – Samuel Johnson

The folly of untimely exultation and visionary prosperity, is by no means peculiar to the purchasers of tickets; there are multitudes whose life is nothing but a continual lottery; who are always within a few months of plenty and happiness, and how often soever they are mocked with blanks, expect a prize from the next adventure. – Samuel Johnson

To strive with difficulties, and to conquer them, is the highest human felicity; the next is, to strive, and deserve to conquer: but he whose life has passed without a contest, and who can boast neither success nor merit, can survey himself only as a useless filler of existence; and if he is content with his own character, must owe his satisfaction to insensibility. – Samuel Johnson

It has been formerly remarked by The Guardian, that the world punishes with too great severity the errours of those, who imagine that the ignorance of little things may be compensated by the knowledge of great; for so it is, that as more can detect petty failings than can distinguish or esteem great qualifications, and as mankind is in general more easily disposed to censure than to admiration, contempt is often incurred by slight mistakes, which real virtue or usefulness cannot counterbalance. – Samuel Johnson

….He who expects from mankind, that they should give up established customs in compliance with his single will, and exacts that deference which he does not pay, may be endured, but can never be approved. … – Samuel Johnson

The pride of men will not patiently endure to see one, whose understanding or attainments are but level with their own, break the rules by which they have consented to be bound, or forsake the direction which they submissively follow. All violation of established practice implies in its own nature a rejection of the common opinion, a defiance of common censure, and an appeal from general laws to private judgment: he, therefore, who differs from others without apparent advantage, ought not to be angry if his arrogance is punished with ridicule; if those whose example he superciliously overlooks, point him out to derision, and hoot him back again into the common road. – Samuel Johnson

The pride of singularity is often exerted in little things, where right and wrong are indeterminable, and where, therefore, vanity is without excuse. But there are occasions on which it is noble to dare to stand alone. – Samuel Johnson

Whoever commits a fraud is guilty not only of the particular injury to him who he deceives, but of the diminution of that confidence which constitutes not only the ease but the existence of society.Samuel Johnson

Some hindrances will be found in every road of life, but he that fixes his eyes upon any thing at a distance necessarily loses sight of all that fills up the intermediate space, and therefore sets forward with alacrity and confidence, nor suspects a thousand obstacles by which he afterwards finds his passage embarrassed and obstructed. Some are, indeed, stopped at once in their career by a sudden shock of calamity, or diverted to a different direction by the cross impulse of some violent passion; but far the greater part languish by slow degrees, deviate at first into slight obliquities, and themselves scarcely perceive at what time their ardour forsook them, or when they lost sight of their original design. – Samuel Johnson

The folly of desisting too soon from successful labours, and the haste of enjoying advantages before they are secured, is often fatal to men of impetuous desire, to men whose consciousness of uncommon powers fills them with presumption, and who having borne opposition down before them, and left emulation panting behind, are easily persuaded to imagine that they have reached the heights of perfection, and that now, being no longer in danger from competitors, they may pass the rest of their days in the enjoyment of their acquisitions, in contemplation of their own superiority, and in attention to their own praises, and look unconcerned from their eminence upon the toils and contentions of meaner beings. – Samuel Johnson

It is true, that no diligence can ascertain success; death may intercept the swiftest career; but he who is cut off in the execution of an honest undertaking has at least the honour of falling in his rank, and has fought the battle, though he missed the victory. – Samuel Johnson

Almost all absurdity of conduct arises from the imitation of those whom we cannot resemble. – Samuel Johnson

Scarce any man becomes eminently disagreeable but by a departure from his real character, and an attempt at something for which nature or education has left him unqualified. – Samuel Johnson

We seldom require more to the happiness of the present hour than to surpass him that stands next before us. – Samuel Johnson

No estimate is more in danger of erroneous calculations than those by which a man computes the force of his own genius. – Samuel Johnson

Ardour of confidence is usually found among those who, having not enlarged their notions by books or conversation, are persuaded, by the partiality which we all feel in our own favour, that they have reached the summit of excellence, because they discover none higher than themselves, and who acquiesce in the first thoughts that occur, because their scantiness of knowledge allows them little choice, and the narrowness of their views affords them no glimpse of perfection of that sublime idea which human industry has from the first ages been vainly toiling to approach. – Samuel Johnson

Leisure and curiosity might soon make great advances in useful knowledge, were they not diverted by minute emulation and laborious trifles. – Samuel Johnson

The world, in its best state, is nothing more than a larger assembly of beings, combining to counterfeit happiness which they do not feel, employing every art and contrivance to embellish life, and to hide their real condition from the eyes of one another. – Samuel Johnson

That kind of life is most happy which affords us most opportunities of gaining our own esteem. – Samuel Johnson

Sir, as a man advances in life, he gets what is better than admiration,—judgement, to estimate things at their true value. – Samuel Johnson

Madness frequently discovers itself merely by unnecessary deviation from the usual modes of the world. My poor friend Smart showed the disturbance of his mind, by falling upon his knees, and saying his prayers in the street, or in any other unusual place. Now although, rationally speaking, it is greater madness not to pray at all, than to pray as Smart did, I am afraid there are so many who do not pray that their understanding is not called in question. – Samuel Johnson

Those who have attempted much, have seldom failed to perform more than those who never deviate from the common roads of action: many valuable preparations of chymistry are supposed to have risen from unsuccessful enquiries after the grand elixir: it is, therefore, just to encourage those who endeavour to enlarge the power of art, since they often succeed beyond expectation; and when they fail, may sometimes benefit the world even by their miscarriages. – Samuel Johnson

That it is vain to shrink from what cannot be avoided, and to hide that from ourselves which must sometime be found, is a truth which we all know, but which all neglect, and perhaps none more than the speculative reasoner, whose thoughts are always from home, whose eyes wander over life, whose fancy dances over meteors of happiness kindled by itself, and who examines every thing rather than his own state. – Samuel Johnson

Every man has something to do which he neglects; every man has faults to conquer which he delays to combat. – Samuel Johnson

I have now spent fifty-five years in resolving: having, from the earliest time almost that I can remember, been forming plans of a better life. I have done nothing. The need of doing, therefore, is pressing, since the time of doing is short. – Samuel Johnson

Many things necessary are omitted, because we vainly imagine that they may be always performed; and what cannot be done without pain will forever be delayed, if the time of doing it be left unsettled. – Samuel Johnson

No sooner do we sit down to enjoy our acquisitions, than we find them insufficient to fill up the vacuities of life. – Samuel Johnson

The desires of man increase with his acquisitions; every step which he advances brings something within his view, which he did not see before, and which, as soon as he sees it, he begins to want. Where necessity ends, curiosity begins; and no sooner are we supplied with every thing that nature can demand, than we sit down to contrive artificial appetites.

By this restlessness of mind, every populous and wealthy city is filled with innumerable employments, for which the greater part of mankind is without a name; with artificers, whose labour is exerted in producing such petty conveniencies, that many shops are furnished with instruments, of which the use can hardly be found without inquiry, but which he that once knows them quickly learns to number among necessary things. – Samuel Johnson

He that in the latter part of his life too strictly inquires what he has done, can very seldom receive from his own heart such an account as will give him satisfaction. – Samuel Johnson

Many, indeed, who enjoy retreat only in imagination, content themselves with believing, that another year will transport them to rural tranquility, and die while they talk of doing what, if they had lived longer, they would never have done. – Samuel Johnson

Of those that spin out trifles and die without a memorial, many flatter themselves with high opinions of their own importance, and imagine that they are every day adding some improvement to human life. – Samuel Johnson

Pleasure is … seldom such as it appears to others, nor often such as we represent it to ourselves. Of the ladies that sparkle at a musical performance, a very small number has any quick sensibility of harmonious sounds. But every one that goes has her pleasure. She has the pleasure of wearing fine clothes, and of showing them, of outshining those whom she suspects to envy her; she has the pleasure of appearing among other ladies in a place where the race of meaner mortals seldom intrudes, and of reflecting that, in the conversations of the next morning, her name will be mentioned among those that sat in the first row. – Samuel Johnson

The best teachers of humanity are the lives of great men. – Samuel Johnson

Nothing makes you more tolerant of a neighbor’s noisy party than being there. – Franklin P. Jones

I never looked at the consequences of missing a big shot… When you think about the consequences you always think of a negative result. – Michael Jordan

This is the age of snap judgements; a habit greatly intensified by the press. Twenty-four hours after a sensational murder, it’s difficult to find people who have not already formulated a judgement about the case. These people have usually read and accepted the highly-colored newspaper account and have almost discovered the murderer, tried him and sentenced him.
We know nothing of the trials, sorrows, and temptations of those around us; or of the secret struggles and worries, of perhaps a life-tragedy that may be hidden behind a smile. At times we even say to one who seems calm and smiling, “You ought to be supremely happy, you have everything a heart could wish for.” And it may be that at that very moment the person is passing alone through some grief when living seems like an agony from which there is no relief. Then our misjudgements only make them feel isolated from the rest of humanity.
Let us not add to the burden of another the pain of our judgements. If we are to guard our mouths from expressing them, then we must control our minds and stop continually assessing the acts of others, even in private. – William George Jordan

The most selfish man in the world is the one who is most unselfish with his sorrows. He does not leave a single misery untold to you, or unsuffered by you. He gives you all of them. The world becomes to him a dumping ground of his private cares, worries and trials. – William George Jordan

Man’s conscious influence, when he is on dress-parade, when he is posing to impress those around him,–is woefully small. But his unconscious influence, the silent, subtle radiation of his personality, the effect of his words and acts, the trifles he never considers,–is tremendous. – William George Jordan

Few there are who feel the positive joy of living, whose blood tingles and surges with the thrill of delight just at being alive. It means loving life in a big, free, unquestioning way, feeling it a wondrous, gladsome privilege, drinking it all in, with all it is and has of good or ill, not heroically from a half-filled cup but joyously and unstintedly as from some ever-gushing spring. – William George Jordan

The greatest things in life are the commonplace. Their very profuseness, their wide distribution, their unfailing constancy have in a way cheapened them in our eyes as some people unconsciously grow to think too little of a friend they see too often. Familiarity throws an obscuring veil of illusion over them that hides from us their wonder and their revelation. The more we know them the less we know of them. – William George Jordan

The earth and myself are of one mind. – Chief Joseph

I believe much trouble and blood would be saved if we opened our hearts more. – Chief Joseph

A thought is often original, though you have uttered it a hundred times. It has come to you over a new route, by a new and express train of associations. – Joseph Joubert

Children need models more than they need critics. – Joseph Joubert

In order to be happy, think of the ills you have been spared. – Joseph Joubert

We begin life with the world presenting itself to us as it is. Someone—our parents, teachers, analysts—hypnotizes us to “see” the world and construe it in the “right” way. These others label the world, attach names and give voices to the beings and events in it, so that thereafter, we cannot read the world in any other language or hear it saying other things to us. The task is to break the hypnotic spell, so that we become undeaf, unblind and multilingual, thereby letting the world speak to us in new voices and write all its possible meanings in the new book of our existence. Be careful in your choice of hypnotists. – Sidney Jourard

Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves. – Carl Jung

The most terrifying thing is to accept oneself completely. – Carl Jung

Men who are unequal to the labor of discussing an argument or wish to avoid it, are willing enough to suppose that much has been proved because much has been said. – Junius

No sooner is it a little calmer with me than it is almost too calm, as though I have the true feeling of myself only when I am unbearably unhappy. – Franz Kafka

Do you think that, by bearing with insulting persons, I shall fall into dishonor? – Kang-Hsi’s Sacred Edict

Though at the height of fame, you ought in the watches of the night to lay your hand on your breast and ask yourself, “Have I cause of shame or not?” – Kang-Hsi’s Sacred Edict

Men can never acquire respect by benevolence alone… – Immanuel Kant

It takes more courage to reveal insecurities than to hide them, more strength to relate to people than to dominate them, more “manhood” to abide by thought-out principles rather than blind reflex. Toughness is in the soul & spirit, not in muscles & an immature mind. – Alex Karras

Although the world is full of suffering, it is full also of the overcoming of it. – Helen Keller

Many people have the wrong idea of what constitutes true happiness. It is not attained through self-gratification, but through fidelity to a worthy purpose. – Helen Keller

The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched. They must be felt with the heart. – Helen Keller

I am only one, but still I am one. I cannot do everything, but still I can do something; and [just] because I cannot do everything, I will not refuse to do the something that I can do. – Helen Keller

Habit is overcome by habit. – Thomas A. Kempis

Love the moment and the energy of that moment will spread beyond all boundaries. – Corita Kent

When you accept yourself completely you do not have to maintain a phony front, drive yourself to achieve or feel insecure if people tune-in to you and what you are doing. – Ken Keyes, Jr.

People who postpone happiness are like children who try chasing rainbows in an effort to find the pot of gold at the rainbow’s end. – Ken Keyes, Jr.

Reason is a gift given to us like any other faculty of mind, like imagination. But it is a part of mind: if it becomes all the mind, it spoils it all. – Hazrat Inayat Khan

A responsible person is worth more than a thousand men who labor. – Hazrat Inayat Khan

Overlook the greatest fault of another, but do not partake of it in the smallest degree. – Hazrat Inayat Khan

Every soul has a definite task, and the fulfillment of each individual purpose can alone lead man aright; illumination comes to him through the medium of his own talent. – Hazrat Inayat Khan

One single moment of a sincere life is worth more than a thousand years of a life of falsehood. – Hazrat Inayat Khan

Reality itself is its own evidence. – Hazrat Inayat Khan

The more a man explores himself, the more power he finds within. – Hazrat Inayat Khan

He is an unbeliever who cannot believe in himself. – Hazrat Inayat Khan

The first birth is the birth of man; the second birth is the birth of God. – Hazrat Inayat Khan

Life confuses man so much that there is hardly one among a thousand who really knows what he wants; and perhaps there is one among a million who knows what he wants; and perhaps there is one among a million who knows why he wants it; and even among millions you will not find one with the knowledge of why he should want it, and why he should not want it. – Hazrat Inayat Khan

My father used to play with my brother and me in the yard. Mother would come out and say, “You’re tearing up the grass.” “We’re not raising grass,” Dad would reply. “We’re raising boys” – Harmon Killebrew

People who have a stake in their society protect that society—but when they don’t have it, they unconsciously want to destroy it. – Martin Luther King Jr.

Discipline and concentration are a matter of being interested.Tom Kite

You can concede to an opponent something he hasn’t earned. It’s one thing to underestimate an opponent. But maybe the worst thing is to overestimate. You always play your strengths. But that doesn’t mean you become predictable. – Chuck Knox

When we overgeneralize, we render ourselves unsane. – Alfred Korzybski

He who trusts petty men will lose gentelmen of worth. – Tzu Kung

Kung-sun Ch’ao of Wei asked Tzu Kung, “From whom did Confucius get his learning/warning?” – Tzu Kung 

Tzu Kung said, “Wen and Wu’s tao has not totally fallen—it can be found among people. The worthy remember the greater principles, and others of less hsien remember small parts—thus all possess Wen and Wu’s tao. There was no one * Confucius could not learn from, yet there was no one who was his only teacher.” – Tzu Kung

It is a double pleasure to deceive the deceiver. – La Fontaine

The wise distrust the unknown. – La Fontaine

It is never becoming to mock the miserable. – La Fontaine

Everyone has his faults which he continually repeats; neither fear nor shame can cure them. – La Fontaine

We must laugh before we are happy, for fear we die before we laugh at all. – La Fontaine

We do not wish ardently for what we desire only through reason. – Francois duc de La Rochefoucauld

Reason alone is insufficient to make us enthusiastic in any matter. – Francois duc de La Rochefoucauld

Leadership is a matter of having people look at you and gain confidence, seeing how you react. If you’re in control, they’re in control. – Tom Landry

The tao that can be tao is not the absolute tao. The name that can be named is not the absolute name. – Lao Tzu / Tao Te Ching

Therefore, the Sage abides by wu wei [ non-action] in his activities, and practices with no-words in his teachings. He produces but does not possess, acts but does not assume, and accomplishes but does not wallow/take credit. And not wallowing, there is no departing. – Lao Tzu / Tao Te Ching

tao is empty. Its use is inexhaustible.
So deep, it is the source of all things.
It dulls sharpness, untangles tangles, dims light, and unites with dust.
Deep and present —
I do not know whose child it is.
It preceded God. – Lao Tzu / Tao Te Ching

T’ien endures and Earth is lasting. Why can T’ien and Earth endure and be lasting? Because they do not live selfishly. That is why they endure.
Thus, the Sage goes back and is in front, detaches/outside and is preserved/within.
Not self-fixated, her Self is fulfilled. – Lao Tzu / Tao Te Ching

Filling to the extreme is not as good as stopping at the right amount/in time. Sharpening too much can wear away.
Filling the hall with gold and jewels will result in less safety. Wealth and approval are slavery.
When work is accomplished, a person walks away: T’ien’s tao. – Lao Tzu / Tao Te Ching

When the Great tao is abandoned, [external superficial forms and labels of] “jen” and “yi” appear.
When “knowledge” and “wisdom/circumspection/reason/shrewdness” appear/professed, we have great hypocrisy.
When families are inharmonious/forgotten, “filialness” and “love/affection” begin.
When the country and clans become chaotic, “loyalty”? and “patriotism” are born. – Lao Tzu / Tao Te Ching

Throw out “holiness/saintliness/reason” and “wisdom/reason,” and people will live a hundred times better. Throw out “jen” and “yi,” and people will return to social harmony and love. Throw out industry/cleverness” and profit/greed, and there will be no thieves. – Lao Tzu / Tao Te Ching

These three are not enough. – Lao Tzu / Tao Te Ching

Thus, it is said: Hold fast to what will endure. Reveal your simple self. Preserve you pureness. Check/lessenyour selfishness with desires fewer. ?Throw away knowledge, and problems will disappear? – Lao Tzu / Tao Te Ching

If you would take, you must first give—this is the beginning of intelligence. – Lao Tzu / Tao Te Ching

Fame or the self: which is more important? Money or the self: which is more valuable? Success of failure: which is more dangerous?

A wrong perspective leads to loss. Obsession with wealth leads to a lack of security. – Lao Tzu / Tao Te Ching

If I have ever so little knowledge, walk in the great tao. It is but expansion that I must fear.Lao Tzu / Tao Te Ching

The Great tao is very simple, but people are fond of side paths. – Lao Tzu / Tao Te Ching

When the palace is very splendid, the fields are very weedy and the granaries very empty. – Lao Tzu / Tao Te Ching

Wearing ornaments and fine clothing, carrying sharp swords, eating and drinking excessively, and having many costly items—this is the vanity of robbers, and is surely not tao. – Lao Tzu / Tao Te Ching

Take [preventive] action before things happen. Control/order before disorder has begun. – Lao Tzu / Tao Te Ching

The tree that fills the arms grows from a small sprout. The tower of nine levels starts with a heap of dirt. The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. – Lao Tzu / Tao Te Ching

There are occasions that seem worthless, and the average person thinks he is wasting time while he is passing through such states, but no matter how worthless the occasion may seem to be the one who makes the best use of it while he is in it will get something of real value out of it; in addition, the experience will have exceptional worth, because whenever we try to turn an occasion to good account we turn everything in ourselves to good account. – Christian D. Larson

The average person is full of artificial desires, desires that have been suggested by what other people possess or require. But the question is not what we need now to compete with other people so as to make more extravagant external appearances than other people. The question is, what do we need now to make our present life as full, as complete and as perfect as it possibly can be made now. – Christian D. Larson

Ask yourself this question and your artificial desires will disappear. – Christian D. Larson

Happiness, however, is not the result of any one single cause. It is the result of many ideal states of being grouped together into one harmonious whole. … – Christian D. Larson

He who reforms himself, has done more toward reforming the public, than a crowd of noisy, impotent patriots. – Johann Kaspar Lavater

He knows very little of mankind who expects, by any facts or reasoning, to convince a determined party-man. – Johann Kaspar Lavater

He who has not forgiven an enemy has not yet tasted one of the most sublime enjoyments of life. – Johann Kaspar Lavater

Act well at the moment, and you have performed a good action to all eternity. – Johann Kaspar Lavater

Beware of him who hates the laugh of a child. – Johann Kaspar Lavater

Say not you know another entirely, till you have divided an inheritance with him. – Johann Kaspar Lavater

The more honesty a man has, the less he affects the air of a saint. – Johann Kaspar Lavater

Trust not him with your secrets, who, when left alone in the/your room, turns over your papers. (Aphorisms on Man) – Johann Kaspar Lavater

If you wish to appear agreeable in society, you must consent to be taught many things which you know already. – Johann Kaspar Lavater

In a crowd every sentiment and act is contagious, and contagious to such a degree that an individual readily sacrifices his personal interest to the collective interest. – Gustave Le Bon

There is not a summing-up of or an average struck between the element of a crowd. What really takes place is a combination followed by the creation of new characteristics… – Gustave Le Bon

Whoever be the individuals that compose a crowd, however like or unlike be their mode of life, their occupations, their character, or their intelligence, the fact that they have been transformed into a crowd puts them in possession of a sort of collective mind which makes them feel, think, and act in a manner quite different from that in which each individual of them would feel, think, and act were he in a state of isolation. – Gustave Le Bon

As soon as a certain number of living beings are gathered together, whether they be animals or men, they place themselves instinctively under the authority of a chief. – Gustave Le Bon

…[a crowd] knows neither doubt nor uncertainty. … A suspicion transforms itself as soon as announced into incontrovertible evidence. – Gustave Le Bon

The violence of the feelings of crowds is also increased, especially in heterogeneous crowds, by the absence of all sense of responsibility. – Gustave Le Bon

Crowds are only cognisant of simple and extreme sentiments; the opinions, ideas, and beliefs suggested to them are accepted or rejected as a whole, and considered as absolute truths or as not less absolute errors. This is always the case with beliefs induced by a process of suggestion instead of engendered by reasoning. – Gustave Le Bon

Personal interest is very rarely a powerful motive force with crowds, while it is almost the exclusive motive of the conduct of the isolated individual. It is assuredly not self-interest that has guided crowds in so many wars, incomprehensible as a rule to their intelligence—wars in which they have allowed themselves to be massacred as easily as the larks hypnotised by the mirror of the hunter. – Gustave Le Bon

Even in the case of absolute scoundrels it often happens that the mere fact of their being in a crowd endows them for the moment with very strict principles of morality. – Gustave Le Bon

As soon as a certain number of living beings are gathered together, whether they be animals or men, they place themselves instinctively under the authority of a chief. – Gustave Le Bon

Affirmation pure and simple, kept free of all reasoning and all proof, is one of the surest means of making an idea enter the mind of crowds. The conciser an affirmation is, the more destitute of every appearance of proof and demonstration, the more weight it carries. – Gustave Le Bon

I had looked for happiness in fast living, but it was not there. I tried to find it in money, but it was not there either. But when I placed myself in tune with what I believe to be the fundamental truths of life, when I began to develop my limited ability, to rid my mind of all kinds of tangled thoughts, and fill it with zeal and courage and love, when I gave myself a chance by treating myself decently and sensibly, I began to feel the stimulating, warm glow of happiness. – Gustave Le Bon

Affirmation, however, has no real influence unless it be constantly repeated, and so far as possible in the same terms. It was Napoleon, I believe, who said that there is only one figure in rhetoric of serious importance, namely, repetition. The thing affirmed comes by repetition to fix itself in the mind in such a way that it is accepted in the end as a demonstrated truth. – Gustave Le Bon

In literature, art, and philosophy the successive evolutions of opinion are more rapid still. Romanticism, naturalism, mysticism, &c., spring up and die out in turn. The artist and the writer applauded yesterday are treated on the morrow with profound contempt. – Gustave Le Bon

The possession of prestige does not suffice, however, to assure the success of a candidate. The elector stickles in particular for the flattery of his greed and vanity. He must be overwhelmed with the most extravagant blandishments, and there must be no hesitation in making him the most fantastic promises. If he is a working man it is impossible to go too far in insulting and stigmatising employers of labour. As for the rival candidate, an effort must be made to destroy his chance by establishing by dint of affirmation, repetition, and contagion that he is an arrant scoundrel, and that it is a matter of common knowledge that he has been guilty of several crimes. It is, of course, useless to trouble about any semblance of proof. Should the adversary be ill-acquainted with the psychology of crowds he will try to justify himself by arguments instead of confining himself to replying to one set of affirmations by another; and he will have no chance whatever of being successful. – Gustave Le Bon

The mystery of life is not a problem to be solved; it is a reality to be experienced. – Aart van der Leeuw

…The modern marketplace is a conspiracy to confuse, to trick the mind into believing that our most banal choices are actually extremely significant. Companies spend a fortune trying to convince us that only their toothpaste will clean our teeth, or that only their detergent will remove the stains from our clothes, or that every other cereal tastes like cardboard. – Jonah Lehrer

Life is what happens while you’re busy making other plans. – John Lennon

Statistics are like a bikini. What they reveal is suggestive, but what they conceal is vital. – Aaron Levenstein

Worthies can be familiar with others and yet respect them; can stand in awe of others and yet love them. They love others and yet acknowledge the evil that is in them. They accumulate [wealth], yet can part with it. They rest in what gives them satisfaction, yet can seek satisfaction elsewhere [when it is desirable to do so]. – Li Chi

Do not positively affirm what you have doubts about; and [when you have no doubts], do not let what you say appear [simply] as your own view. – Li Chi

The practice of right living is deemed the highest, the practice of any other art lower. Complete virtue takes first place; the doing of anything else whatsoever is subordinate. – Li Chi

What others consider right and wrong can never serve as a standard for me. – Li Chi

Once people’s minds have been given over to received opinions and moral principles… What else can there be but phony people speaking phony words, doing phony things, and writing phony writings? And when the people become phonies, everything becomes phony. And then is someone speaks phony talk to the phonies, the phonies are pleased; if one does phony things like the phonies do, the phonies are pleased; and if one discourses with the phonies through phony writings, the phonies are pleased. Everything is phony, and everybody is pleased. – Li Chi

Confucius, in teaching people, taught them only to [personally] seek jen. If they sought it and failed to achieve it, that was that—nothing more could be said. – Li Chi

Each human being T’ien gives birth to has his own individual function, and he does not need to learn this from Confucius. – Li Chi

The most exhausting thing in life is being insincere. This is why so much of social life is exhausting. – Anne Morrow Lindbergh

Only in growth, reform, and change—paradoxically enough—is true security to be found. – Anne Morrow Lindbergh

If we could read the secret history of our enemies, we shall find in each man’s life sorrow and suffering enough to disarm all hostility. – Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

We judge ourselves by what we feel capable of doing, while other judge us by what we have already done. – Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Just as the indigenous residents of Hispaniola could not “see” Columbus’ ships because the concept did not exist in their reality or experience, we choose to ignore facts right before our eyes if they conflict with our personal version of reality. We don’t see things as they are, we see thing as WE are. – Bonnie Lu

There is danger in assuming that it is possible to do any research with the expectation of total objectivity. There is a phenomenon called the “Hawthorne effect” which (to paraphrase) results in subtle changes in research outcomes based on just the act of being studied. The observer introduces another variable into the equation by their mere presence. In addition, it is extremely difficult (if not impossible) to design human research due to the countless permutations of variables in such a complex biological system. For example, how can you make such a sweeping statement as, “Show me the data that proves the efficacy of acupuncture in treating female infertility.”? Are we talking about infertility due to PCOS, or endometriosis, or PID, or endocrine imbalance, or fibroid tumors, or the myriad other causes including idiopathic? – Bonnie Lu

The refusal to acknowledge as valid anything that originated outside of western culture is typical of the ethnocentric imperialistic paternalistic view of the world and nature as something to be conquered and dominated. Western medicine has been notorious in its stubborn resistance to such generally accepted practices such as sterile technique, introduced by Semmelweis in 1847, for which he was persecuted and ostracized by his peers. – Bonnie Lu

Western biomedical science continues to insist on more of a Newtonian, linear, mechanistic view of the universe with their insistence on “one cause, one cure”. – Bonnie Lu

As much as we would like to think of scientific research as a pure and honest search for the truth, in reality it is rife with outright lying, cheating, cherry picking and distortion of facts for less than honest motives. – Bonnie Lu

What we see depends mainly on what we look for. – John Lubbock

The measure of a man’s real character is what he would do if he knew he would never be found out. – Lord (Thomas Babington) Macaulay

Here arises the question: whether it is better to be loved than feared, or feared than loved. Obviously, it can be answered that one should choose to be both, but since the two rarely come together for one person… [anyone who must choose between the two] will find it safer to be feared than to be loved… – Niccolo Machiavelli

Love is preserved by an obligatory link in which men, being mean, may break whenever it is advantageous for them to do so. But fear is preserved by the dread of punishment, which never fails. – Niccolo Machiavelli

…Men love according to their own will, and fear according to the will of the prince. [Thus,] A wise prince should establish himself on that which is in his own control, and not in that of others. – Niccolo Machiavelli

Nevertheless, a prince ought to inspire fear in such a way that, if he does not win love, he avoids hatred; because he can endure very well being feared whilst he is not hated. – Niccolo Machiavelli

…Anyone who seeks to deceive will always find someone who will allow himself to be deceived. – Niccolo Machiavelli

…To keep his servant honest, the prince ought to study him, honoring him, enriching him, doing him kindnesses, sharing with him the honors and cares; and at the same time let him see that he cannot stand alone, so that many honors not make him desire more, many riches make him wish for more, and that many cares may make him dread changes. When, therefore, servants and princes are this way, they can trust each other; but when it is otherwise, the end will always be disastrous for either one or the other. – Niccolo Machiavelli

…[The only way to guard oneself from flatterers is by] letting men understand that telling you the truth doesn’t offend you. However, when every one is allowed to tell you the truth, the respect for you lessens. – Niccolo Machiavelli

Therefore, a wise prince should hold a third course by choosing the wise men in his state, and giving only them the freedom of speaking the truth to him, and only on those things that he inquires of, and of none others. But he [the prince] should question them upon everything, listen to their opinions, and then form his own conclusions. – Niccolo Machiavelli

With these councilors… [the prince] should carry himself in a way that will let each one of them understand that the more freely he [the councilor] speaks, the more he will be preferred. Outside of these [councilors], he [the prince] should listen to no one, and pursue what is resolved on, and be firm in his resolutions. He who does otherwise is either overthrown by flatterers, or is so frequently changed by varying opinions that he falls into being disrespected [by the people]. – Niccolo Machiavelli

I am my own experiment. I am my own work of art. – Madonna

The dread of ridicule extinguishes originality in its birth. – Maga

There are subjects upon which we cannot reason, we can only feel. – Maga

Mind control is not one’s birthright. The successful few owe their success to their perseverance. – Ramana Maharshi

To be free is not merely to cast off one’s chains, but to live in a way that respects and enhances the freedom of others. – Nelson Mandela

Unless you are prepared yourself to profit by your chance, the opportunity will only make you ridiculous. A great occasion is valuable to you in proportion as you have educated yourself to make use of it. – Orison Swett Marden

…Most people’s gaze is fixed upon something beyond, something to come. They are not really settled today, do not really live in the now, but they are sure they will live tomorrow or next year when business is better, their fortune greater, when they move into their new house, get their new furnishings, their new automobile, get rid of things that now annoy, and have everything around them to make them comfortable. Then they will be happy. – Orison Swett Marden

The trouble with us is that we expect too much from the great happenings, the unusual things, and we overlook the common flowers on the path of life, from which we might abstract sweets, comforts, delights. – Orison Swett Marden

Real happiness is so simple that most people do not recognize it. It is derived from the simplest, the quietest, the most unpretentious things in the world. – Orison Swett Marden

If we get the good that belongs to us here and now, we must extract the sweetness of each passing minute while it is ours. That is the real art of living in the today. – Orison Swett Marden

A man can have no greater delusion than that he can spend the best years of his life coining all of his energies into dollars, neglecting his home, sacrificing friendships, self-improvement, and everything else that is really worthwhile, for money, and yet find happiness at the end! – Orison Swett Marden

No man can be happy when he despises his own act… – Orison Swett Marden

Play is as necessary to the perfect development of a child as sunshine is to the perfect development of a plant. – Orison Swett Marden

He alone is the happy man who has learned to extract happiness, not from ideal conditions, but from the actual ones about him. – Orison Swett Marden

One of the saddest things in life is to see men and women who started out with high hopes and proud ambitions settle down in mediocre positions, half satisfied just merely to get a living, to plod along indifferently. – Orison Swett Marden

There are scores of people in our great cities who do not really live at all. They merely exist. They are the slaves of a morbid ambition and a greed that has grown to be a monster. Many of these people take very little comfort; they are always on a strain to keep up appearances, to “Keep up with the Jones,” and they keep themselves constantly worried over it, killing their legitimate comfort and enjoyment through the exhaustion of the strain and stress—and all for nothing that is real or permanent, nothing that adds to their character or well being. … – Orison Swett Marden

Everything about them is deceiving. They live masked lives. Few people know them as they really are. They only know them as they pretend to be. – Orison Swett Marden

Do you know that nothing is more demoralizing to the life, weakening to the character, than to be constantly wishing and dreaming of the great things we are going to do without a corresponding effort to actualize our dreams? Wishing without a corresponding effort to realize degenerates the mind, destroys initiative. – Orison Swett Marden

It often occurs that a man marries a beautiful, bright, cheerful girl who is always bubbling over with animal spirits, and in a short time everybody notices a complete change in her character, brought about by the perpetual suppression of her husband, who is severe in his criticisms and unreasonable in his demands.The wife is surrounded with this atmosphere of sharp criticism or severity until she entirely loses her naturalness and spontaneity, and self-expression becomes impossible. The result is an artificial, flavorless character. – Orison Swett Marden

Everywhere we see people starving for love, famishing for affection, for some one to appreciate them. – Orison Swett Marden

On every hand we see men and women possessing material comfort, luxury, all that can contribute to their physical well-being—who are able to gratify almost any wish—and yet they are hungry for love. They seem to have plenty of everything but affection. They have lands and houses, automobiles, yachts, horses, money—everything but love. – Orison Swett Marden

How many completely exhaust themselves in needless worrying and bickering over things which are not worth while! How many burn up their life force in giving way to a hot temper, in quibbling over trifles, in bargain hunting, in systemless work, in a hundred ways, when a little thought and attention to the delicate human instrument on which they are playing would prevent all this attrition and keep the instrument in splendid tune! – Orison Swett Marden

The passion for conquest, for power, the love of achievement, is one of the most dominant and persistent characteristics of human nature. – Orison Swett Marden

We have an instinctive feeling that we have been set in motion by a Higher Power; that there is an invisible spring within us—the imperious must—which impels us to weave the pattern given us in the Mount of Transfiguration of our highest moment, to make our life-vision real. A divine impulse constantly urges us to reach our highest ideal. There is something back of our supreme ambition deeper than a mere personal gratification. There is a vital connection between it and the great plan of creation, the progress, the final goal, of the race. … – Orison Swett Marden

These promptings of humanity and the yearning of every normal man and woman for a fuller, completer life the craving for expansion, for growth; the desire to objectify our life-visions, to give birth to the children of our brain, to exercise our inventiveness, our ingenuity, to express our artistic temperament, our talents, whatever they maybe; the inherent, instinctive longing to become that which we were intended to be; to weave the life-pattern given us at birth—these are the impelling motives for a creative career. – Orison Swett Marden

One man expresses himself, or delivers his message to humanity, through his inventive ability to give his fellow men that which will emancipate them from drudgery; another delivers his message through his artistic ability; another through science; another through oratory, through business, or his pen, and so on through all the modes of human expression, each delivers himself according to his talent. In every case the highest motive is beyond the question of mere living-getting. – Orison Swett Marden

The great artist does not paint simply for a living, but because he must to express that divine thing in him that is struggling for expression. He has an unconquerable desire to put upon canvas the picture that haunts his brain. We all long to bring out the ideal, whatever it may be, that lives within us. We want to see it; we want the world to see it. – Orison Swett Marden

It is a most unfortunate thing for a boy to look upon his father as a taskmaster instead of a companion; to dread meeting him because he always expects criticism or scolding from him. – Orison Swett Marden

Some fathers constantly nag, find fault, and never think of praising their sons or expressing any appreciation of their work, even when they do it well. Yet there is nothing so encouraging to a boy, especially if he finds it hard to do what is right, as real appreciation of his effort. – Orison Swett Marden

Not long ago a young man whom I had not seen for several years called on me, and I was amazed at the tremendous change in him. When I had last seen him he was pessimistic, discouraged, almost despairing; he had soured on life, lost confidence in human nature and in himself. During the interval he had completely changed. The sullen, bitter expression that used to characterize his face was replaced by one of joy and gladness. He was radiant, cheerful, hopeful and happy. – Orison Swett Marden

The young man had married an optimistic wife, who had the happy faculty of laughing him out of his “blues” or melancholy, changing the tenor of his thoughts, cheering him up, and making him put a higher estimate on himself. His removal from an unhappy environment, together with his wife’s helpful, “new thought” influence and his own determination to make good, had all worked together to bring about a revolution in his mental make-up. The love-principle and the use of the right thought-force and had verily made a new man of him. – Orison Swett Marden

Are not some people so unfortunately constituted that they are unable to remember pleasant, agreeable things? When you meet them they always have some sad story to tell, something that has happened to them or is surely going to happen. They tell you about the accidents, narrow escapes, losses and afflictions they have had. The bright days and happy experiences they seldom mention. – Orison Swett Marden

We must shift America from a needs to desire culture. People must be trained to desire, to want new things, even before the old have been entirely consumed. We must shape a new mentality. Man’s desire must overshadow his needs… – Paul Mazur

Be sure that he who speaks evil of us does not wish us well. – Lorenzo de’ Medici

When Shun was living amid the deep retired mountains, dwelling with the trees and rocks, and wandering among the deer and swine, the difference between him and the savages of those remote hills appeared very small. But when he heard a single good word, or saw a single good action, he was like the swollen/bursting torrent of the Yang Tzu or Yellow River, which flows out in flood and cannot be restrained. – Mencius

When any one told Tzu Lu of his faults, he rejoiced. When Yu heard good words, he bowed. Shun was even greater in this. He regarded virtue as the common property of himself and others, delighting to make the virtue of others his own. While he was a farmer, a potter, a fisherman, and then Emperor, he was continually learning from others. Taking an example from others to practice virtue—this is helping them in the same practice. Thus, there is no attribute in the chun tzu greater than his helping people practice virtue. – Mencius

Only when someone does not do [certain] things will he be capable of [properly] doing [great] things. – Mencius

Only the shih is capable of maintaining a fixed/steady/constant heart/mind even without a certain/constant livelihood. As to the people, if they do not have a certain livelihood, they will not have a fixed heart/mind—and without a fixed heart/mind, they will be willing to participate in any depravity and abandonment. And if all the sovereign does is follow up and punish them after they commit crimes, he will merely be enrtrapping the people. How can such entrapping of the people be done under the rule of a jen person? – Mencius

[In circumstances of poverty, the people] only fearfully try to save themselves from death. What leisure do they have to cultivate li and yi? – Mencius

Though tao lies in what is near, people seek for it [in what is distant]. – Mencius

The Great Person never loses his child’s heart. – Mencius

… Although I could not be a disciple of Confucius, I have endeavored to cultivate my virtue [or learn his teachings] by means of others who were. – Mencius

Friendship should disregard a person’s age, station, or relatives. Friendship with someone is friendship with his qualities, and does not admit other assumptions. Meng Hsien Tzu was a a high ranking person. He had five friends: Yueh-Cheng Ch’iu, Mu Chung, and three others whose names I have forgotten. With those five men, Men Hsien Tzu maintained a friendship, treating them as if he did not possess high rank, and them likewise acting as if he did not have that high rank. If his rank had been taken into consideration, they would not have [truly] been friends. – Mencius

There is a T’ien nobility, and there is a human nobility. Jen, yi, devotion, honesty, with unwearied joy in these virtues—these constitute T’ien nobility. Being a king/duke/prince, a chancellor/prime-minister, or a great-officer—this constitutes human nobility. – Mencius

The desire to be honored/esteemed is the common among people’s hearts… The honor that people confer is not good/authentic/genuine/true honor. Those whom Chao Mung [the King Maker] honors, Chao Mung can make-mean/criticize/degrade/debase/put-down. – Mencius

jen subdues/overcomes non-jen just as water subdues fire. But nowadays, those who practice jen do it as if a cup of water can extinguish a wagonload of burning wood. And when the flames are not extinguished, they say that water cannot subdue fire. This greatly encourages those who are not jen, and ultimately ends to loss of jen. – Mencius

The prince of Lu wanted to commit the administration of his government to Yo Chang Tzu.
Mencius said, “When I heard of it, I was so glad that I could not sleep.”
Kung Sun Ch’au said, “Is Yo Chang magnanimous/vigor/valiant/strong-character?”
“No.”
“Is he wise/deep in council/thoughtful?”
“No.”
“Is he possessed of much/extensive/wide information/learning?”
“No.”
“What then made you so glad that you could not sleep?”
“He is a person who loves what is good.”
“Is the love of what is good sufficient?”
“The love of what is good is more than a sufficient qualification for the government of the Empire—and how much more for Lu State! If someone loves what is good, all within the four seas will consider hundreds of miles but a small distance to come and lay what is good before him. But if he does not love what is good, people will say ‘He seems conceited,’ and the language/air and looks/manner of his conceit will keep people off hundreds of miles. And when good people remain hundreds of miles away, calumniators, flatterers, and sycophants will make their appearance. When a minister lives among calumniators, flatterers, and sycophants, though he may wish the State to be well governed, is it possible for it to be so?” – Mencius

Worthies use their own enlightenment to make others enlightened. Nowadays, people [aim to] enlighten others by their own obscurity. – Mencius

There are many methods of teaching. Refusing to teach [a corrupt person] is to thereby teach. – Mencius

When the ancients of obtained [office], they were beneficent to the people. When they did not obtain [office], they [still] cultivated their personal character, and became illustrious in the world. When poor [and out of office], they attended to their own virtue in solitude. If advanced to dignity [of position], they united with the entire Empire in the practice of virtue. – Mencius

The common/mass of people wait for a [King] Wen before exerting themselves/receiving-a-rousing-impulse. Scholars distinguished from the mass [in hsien] will rouse themselves/put forth their strength and exert themselves even if there is no Wen. – Mencius

Good/kindly/humane words do not enter so deeply into people as does a reputation for [doing] goodness/kindness. … – Mencius

Mo Ch’i said, “I am far from being praised by people’s mouths / I suffer much wrong due to slanderous tongues” – Mencius

Mencius observed, “Why should that be a cause for concern? After all, scholars/good-people are more exposed than others to suffer from people’s mouths/are the prey of many mouths. The Odes say, ‘My heart is disquieted/anxious/sorry and grieved/sad/sorry, I am hated by a crowd of vulgar creatures’—this can be said about Confucius. ‘Though he/no-effort-could did not remove/stop their wrath/hatred, he did not let/injure fall his own fame’—this can be said of King Wen.” – Mencius

To nourish/keep/resolute the mind/heart, there is nothing better than restricting desires [to the essentials]. A person with restricted desires will have some but few things he may not be able to keep his heart/mind, whereas a person with unrestricted desires will have some but few things he may be able to keep his heart/mind. – Mencius

Happiness is not a matter of intensity but of balance, order, rhythm and harmony. – Thomas Merton

Art enables us to find ourselves and lose ourselves at the same time. – Thomas Merton

We must make the choices that enable us to fulfill the deepest capacities of our real selves. – Thomas Merton

In the last analysis, the individual person is responsible for living his own life and for “finding himself.” If he persists in shifting his responsibility to somebody else, he fails to find out the meaning of his own existence. – Thomas Merton

If our inward griefs were seen written on our brow, how many would be pitied who are now envied! – Metastasio

If the internal griefs of every man could be read, written on his forehead, how many who now excite envy would appear to be the objects of pity? – Metastasio

In my whole life I have only known ten or twelve persons with whom it was pleasant to speak—i.e., who keep to the subject, do not repeat themselves, and do not talk of themselves; men who do not listen to their own voice, who are cultivated enough not to lose themselves in commonplaces, and, lastly, who possess tact and good taste enough not to elevate their own persons above their subjects. – Klemens von Metternich

[His motto:] I am still learning. – Michelangelo

In every block of marble I see a statue as plain as though it stood before me, shaped and perfect in attitude and action. I have only to hew away the rough walls that imprison the lovely apparition to reveal it to the other eyes as mine see it. – Michelangelo

If people knew how hard I had to work to gain my mastery, it wouldn’t seem wonderful at all. – Michelangelo

I do like to write but I also like to get and out and play. – Michelangelo

If we really want liberty—if we really want liberty—then we need to go out and get it, we need to take it, because nobody is going to give it to us. And we need to do it now. – Michelangelo

I followed my heart and figured that if I tried and failed, at least I’d know that I tried. – Michelangelo

God gives man 100% grace and blessing when he sheds his ego. You, not God, begin the process. Shed your ego and you receive grace. Make room for fulfillment, and you will be fulfilled. – Tokuchika Miki

Effacement of ego means “One with God.” – Tokuchika Miki

It is very well to say that everything that happens to us is destiny; but man also has free will. He uses this free will and wisdom to figure out things. Then adding form and creativity to his decisions, he performs a work of art. Only in this way can a human being feel happy and fulfilled. – Tokuchika Miki

Your natural self-expression cannot be selfish if you have a clear understanding of your relative position with your fellowman, society, God, and the Divine Universal Plan. Life is Art. Man’s life is a struggle to overcome his limitations. Art is not an escape. It is a constructive and positive step forward. – Tokuchika Miki

When we say that “Life is Art,” we mean that each individual should express his unique personality given by God, but always in relationship to the Divine Plan, and always in reference to the Great Peace. This is true makoto. This is makoto unlimited for world peace. At that point where individual, home, group, race, nation, all express rightly their unique character, there lies the way to world understanding. – Tokuchika Miki

It is necessary to use emotion to develop a finer emotion—that is, to use it as material for your highest expression. Govern your emotion. Do not let your emotion govern you. Make your emotion into an art. – Tokuchika Miki

Man has emotions, and the change of his emotions affects his life. One’s emotional life must be controlled first of all. Unbalanced conditions of emotions result in unforeseen accidents, physical illness, family troubles, and general unhappiness. …Man can control his destiny by the proper control of emotion. – Tokuchika Miki

Approach your situations without preconceptions. There is no true joy of creation when we simply stereotype a former action. There is joy of life when we are inspired to add a new creative touch and do things differently. – Tokuchika Miki

When an expression has individuality it has value. When it has not, it has no value worthy of art. Art remains uncreated if we only feel it in our hearts or hold it in imagination. Nothing can be art until it is expressed. – Tokuchika Miki

We live together with many people, and we owe much to people everywhere. The clothes we wear, the food we eat, and even the thoughts we think—it is surprising how much we owe to others! Yet the real meaning behind our saying that “human life is relative” is that each man should aim at self-expression on his highest level. He should aspire to such self-expression as no one else has ever attained. – Tokuchika Miki

Those only are happy who have their minds fixed on some object other than their own happiness; on the happiness of others, on the improvement of mankind, even on some art or pursuit, followed not as a means, but as itself an ideal end. Aiming thus at something else, they find happiness by the way. – John Stuart Mill

The moment one gives close attention to anything, even a blade of grass, it becomes a mysterious, awesome, indescribably magnificent world in itself. – Henry Miller

You probably wouldn’t worry about what people think of you if you could know how seldom they do. – Olin Miller

The end of learning is to know God, and out of that knowledge to love Him and imitate Him. – John Milton

Young kids are pure id. They start off unable to wait for anything—whatever they want they need. But then, as I watched my own kids, I marvelled at how they gradually learned how to delay and how that made so many other things possible. – Walter Mischel

“Once you realize that will power is just a matter of learning how to control your attention and thoughts, you can really begin to increase it. – Walter Mischel

Honoring the worthy is the basis of good government. – Mo Tzu

As he was talking to Ch’eng Tzu, Mo Tzu cited Confucius. Ch’eng Tzu remarked, “You condemn Confucianism—so why did you just cite Confucius?” Mo Tzu said, “This has to do with what is right and cannot be altered. A bird will fly high after becoming aware there is danger of heat and drought, and a fish will swim low after becoming aware there is danger of heat and drought. In such circumstances, even Yu and T’ang’s judgment would follow. Should I never cite Confucius?” – Mo Tzu

Prince Wen of Lu Yang said to Mo Tzu, “Suppose someone is recommended as a loyal minister, and he bows when I allow him to bow down and bends back when I allow him to bend back, and he stays silent when let alone and answers when called. Can this be considered loyalty?” – Mo Tzu

Mo Tzu said, “Bowing when allowed and bending back when allowed—this is a mere shadow. Staying silent when not called for and answering when called—this is a mere echo. What benefit would you obtain from an echo or a shadow?

“Here is my idea of a loyal minister: He waits and warns when the superior is at fault, he tells the superior about his good ideas without revealing them to the world, he corrects irregularities and leads in goodness, and he identifies himself with the superior and does not ally himself with subordinates.” – Mo Tzu

[Mo Tzu’s follower] Meng Shan, praising Prince Tzu Lu, said, “Formerly, during Po Kung’s revolt, Prince Tzu Lu was held captive. Axes were at his waist, and spears pointed towards his heart. Po Kung told him, ‘Be Lord and live, or refuse and die.’ Prince Tzu Lu said, ‘That is an insult to me! You killed my parents, and are now trying to bait me with Ch’u State. If not righteous to do so, I would not even accept the entire Empire, let alone Ch’u State.’ And so, he refused [and was executed]. Wasn’t Prince Tzu Lu magnanimous?”
Mo Tzu said, “His decision was by all means difficult, but hardly magnanimous. If he felt that the Lord had gone astray from tao, shouldn’t he have taken the position and run the government? If he felt Po Kung was unrighteous, shouldn’t he have accepted the Lordship, executed Po Kung, and then the Lordship to the Lord? Thus I say that his decision was by all means difficult, but hardly magnanimous.” – Mo Tzu

Once conform, once do what others do because they do it, and a kind of lethargy steals over all the finer senses of the soul. – Michel Eyquem de Montaigne

Become a fool by too much wisdom – Michel Eyquem de Montaigne

Souls that are regular and strong of themselves are rare. – Michel Eyquem de Montaigne

I find no quality so easy to counterfeit as devotion. – Michel Eyquem de Montaigne

Men as often commend as undervalue me beyond reason. – Michel Eyquem de Montaigne

Greatness of soul consists not so much in soaring high and in pressing forward, as in knowing how to adapt and limit oneself. – Michel Eyquem de Montaigne

There is nothing that Nature seems to have inclined us to as much as society. – Michel Eyquem de Montaigne

The most universal quality is diversity. – Michel Eyquem de Montaigne

Wise people are foolish if they cannot adapt to foolish people. – Michel Eyquem de Montaigne

There is as much difference between us and ourselves as there is between us and others. – Michel Eyquem de Montaigne

You should speak with your mind—your inmost self. If it is sympathetic with others, you can become one with God and automatically know the truth of the Universe. – Sun Myung Moon

God is formless. If you think He is big, He is infinite; and if you think he is small, his is infinitesimal. – Sun Myung Moon

You have not converted a man because you have silenced him. – John Lord Morley

Even good opinions are worth very little unless we hold them in the broad, intelligent, and spacious way. – John Lord Morley

Exaggerated self-importance is deemed an individual fault, but a racial virtue. – John Lord Morley

There is really nothing more to say except why. But since why is difficult to handle, one must take refuge in how. – Toni Morrison

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

Self-help books are written to sell, not to help. – Luke Muehlhauser

Observe moderation in all you do, and if that is not possible, try to be near moderation. – Muhammad

Good thoughts are a part of worship. – Muhammad

The higher self argues possibilities and power for us greater than men and women now possess and enjoy. The lower self says we can only live and exist as men and women have lived and existed before us. – Prentice Mulford (Thoughts are Things)

Life as a whole is a ceaseless change… There is no sign of a physical limit yet. – Hermann Joseph Muller

Follow my example, but go beyond me. – Kurozumi Munetada

Everybody has something about themselves that they don’t like; something that causes them to feel shame, to feel insecure, or not “good enough.” It is the human condition to be imperfect, and feelings of failure and inadequacy are part of the experience of living a human life. – Kristin Neff

A man would do nothing if he waited until he could do it so well that no one could find fault. – John Henry Newman

If I have ever made any valuable discoveries, it has been due to patient attention more than to any other talent. – Isaac Newton

I do not know what I may appear to the world, but to myself I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the seashore, and diverting myself in now and then finding a smooth pebble, or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me. – Isaac Newton

At bottom every man knows well enough that he is a unique being, only once on this earth; and by no extraordinary chance will such a marvelously picturesque piece of diversity in unity as he is, ever be put together a second time. – Friedrich Nietzsche

The most vulnerable and equally most unconquerable of things is human vanity. – Friedrich Nietzsche

Experience, as something sought after, does not work. We must not study ourselves in the midst of having an experience. – Friedrich Nietzsche

In every real man, there is a child that wants to play. – Friedrich Nietzsche

People regard the obscure and unexplainable more seriously than the clear and explainable… Something that becomes clear ceases to concern us. – Friedrich Nietzsche

The badly paired [couple] are the most revengeful. They make everyone suffer due to the fact that they are not single anymore.

We ought to fear a man who hates himself, for we are at risk of becoming victims of his anger and revenge. Let us then try to lure him into self-love. – Friedrich Nietzsche

Without myth, every culture would lose its healthy creative power. – Friedrich Nietzsche

At any given moment there is an orthodoxy, a body of ideas of which it is assumed that all right-thinking people will accept without question. It is not exactly forbidden to say this, that or the other, but it is “not done” to say it… Anyone who challenges the prevailing orthodoxy finds himself silenced with surprising effectiveness. A genuinely unfashionable opinion is almost never given a fair hearing, either in the popular press or in the high-brow periodicals. – George Orwell

If you are in the future, then ego seems to be very substantial. If you are in the present, the ego is a mirage; it starts disappearing. – Osho

A woman is a creature that’s always shopping. – Ovid

The problem in trying to understand the universe is that we have nothing to compare it with. – Heinz R. Pagels

People are generally better persuaded by the reasons that they have themselves discovered than by those that have come into the mind of others. – Blaise Pascal

No one speaks of us in our presence as he does of us in our absence. Human society is founded on mutual deceit; few friendships would endure if each knew what his friend said of him in his absence, although he then spoke in sincerity and without passion. – Blaise Pascal

I set it down as a fact that if all men knew what each said of the other, there would not be four friends in the world. This is apparent from the quarrels that arise from the indiscreet tales told from time to time. – Blaise Pascal

We do not content ourselves with the life we have in ourselves and in our own being; we desire to live an imaginary life in the mind of others, and for this purpose we endeavor to shine. – Blaise Pascal

We are so presumptuous that we would wish to be known by all the world, even by people who shall come after, when we shall be no more; and we are so vain that the esteem of five or six neighbors delights and contents us. – Blaise Pascal

Vanity is so anchored in the heart of man that a soldier, a soldier’s servant, a cook, a porter brags and wishes to have his admirers. Even philosophers wish for them. Those who write against it want to have the glory of having written well; and those who read it desire the glory of having read it. I who write this have perhaps this desire, and perhaps those who will read it… – Blaise Pascal

Are you less a slave by being loved and favored by your master? You are indeed well off, slave. Your master favors you; he will soon beat you. – Blaise Pascal

The last act is tragic, however happy all the rest of the play is; at the last a little earth is thrown upon our head, and that is the end forever. – Blaise Pascal

The heart has its reasons, which reason does not know. We feel it in a thousand things. – Blaise Pascal

It is the heart that experiences God, and not the reason. – Blaise Pascal

It is not good to have too much liberty. It is not good to have all one wants. – Blaise Pascal

Contradiction is a bad sign of truth; several things that are certain are contradicted; several things that are false pass without contradiction. – Blaise Pascal

Contradiction is not a sign of falsity, nor the want of contradiction a sign of truth. – Blaise Pascal

The greatness of man is great in that he knows himself to be miserable. A tree does not know itself to be miserable. … – Blaise Pascal

After having shown the vileness and the greatness of man. – Blaise Pascal

Let man now know his value. Let him love himself, for there is in him a nature capable of good; but let him not for this reason love the vileness that is in him. Let him despise himself, for this capacity is barren; but let him not therefore despise this natural capacity. Let him hate himself, let him love himself; he has within him the capacity of knowing the truth and of being happy, but he possesses no truth, either constant or satisfactory. – Blaise Pascal

‘Tis a perverted judgment that makes every one place himself above the rest of the world, and prefer his own good, and the continuance of his own good fortune and life, to that of the rest of the world! – Blaise Pascal

We are all something, but none of us are everything. – Blaise Pascal

Kind words do not cost much; yet they accomplish much. – Blaise Pascal

I have made this letter longer because I did not have the time to make it shorter. – Blaise Pascal

We are troubled on every side, yet not distressed; we are perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; cast down, but not destroyed; (II Corinthians 4:8-9) – St. Paul

And be renewed in the spirit of your mind; and that you put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness. (Ephesians 4:23-24) – St. Paul

I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith: Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness… (II Timothy 4:7-8) – St. Paul

…Avoid foolish questions, genealogies, contentions, and legal strivings—for they are unprofitable and vain. Warn a conflicting person once, and then once again [if necessary], but no more than that. (Titus 3:9-10) – St. Paul

We do not remember days; we remember moments. – Cesare Pavese

Many times we will get more ideas and better ideas in two hours of creative loafing than in eight hours at a desk. – Wilfred Peterson

The tinsel, glitter, and the specious mien
Delude the most; few pry behind the scene. – Phaedrus

The mind ought sometimes to be diverted, that it may return the better to thinking. – Phaedrus

The humble are in danger when those in power disagree. – Phaedrus

The only problem with seeing too much is that it makes you insane. – Phaedrus

I have nothing to prove to anyone. I only play for myself. – Mark Philippoussis

I am using this time, instead of letting this time use me. – Pimp C

Courage is knowing what not to fear. – Plato

They deem him the worst enemy who tells them the truth. – Plato

Life must be lived as play. – Plato

Man: a being in search of meaning. – Plato

The mere athlete becomes too much of a savage. – Plato

The penalty good men pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men. – Plato

Honesty is for the most part less profitable than dishonesty. – Plato

It is no disgrace not to be able to do everything; but to undertake, or pretend to do, what you are not made for, is not only shameful, but extremely troublesome and vexatious. – Plutarch

While we live we must make the best of life. – Alexander Pope

Some praise at morning what they blame at night, but always think the last opinion right. – Alexander Pope

Vice is a monster of so frightful mien,
As to be hated needs but to be seen;
Yet seen too oft, familiar with her face, we first endure, then pity, then embrace. – Alexander Pope

You cannot get well by exercise alone, or by positive thoughts alone. You absolutely must give up the food and drink that disagree with you. – C.W. Post

I have no respect for the manufacturer who does not consider the interest and betterment of his employees. – C.W. Post

Live to explain thy doctrine by thy life. – Matthew Prior

Be to her virtues very kind;
Be to her faults a little blind. – Matthew Prior

Some say, “We believe in God and the Last Day,” but they do not really believe—[thinking] they deceive God and the believers, they only deceive their own souls. Their hearts are diseased… (2:8-10), The Qur’an

…Wherever you turn, there is God’s presence/appearance/face… (2:115), The Qur’an

Remember Me, and I will remember you… (2:152), The Qur’an

When they stand for prayer, they lazily stand only to be seen by people, and have nothing but a tiny remembrance of God. (4:142), The Qur’an

…Whoever follows the right way does so for his own soul, and whoever goes astray does so to his own detriment… (10:108), The Qur’an

…God does not change the condition of a people until they change it within themselves… (13:11), The Qur’an

…Nothing on earth or in heaven is hidden from God. (14:38), The Qur’an

And they have no knowledge thereof. They follow but a guess, and lo!—a guess can never take the place of the truth. (53:28), The Qur’an

Look for the ridiculous in everything, and you will find it. – Jules Renard

The only man who is really free is the one who can turn down an invitation to dinner without giving an excuse. – Jules Renard

Every journey into the past is complicated by delusions, false memories, false naming of real events… – Adrienne Rich

When nothing seems to help, I go look at a stonecutter hammering away at his rock perhaps a hundred times without as much as a crack showing in it. Yet at the hundred and first blow it will split in two, and I know it was not that blow that did it, but all that had gone before. – Jacob Riis

The ability to deal with people is as purchasable a commodity as sugar or coffee…and I will pay more for that ability than for any other under the sun. – John D. Rockefeller

We once had the type of man who really never knew all the facts about his own affairs. Many of the brightest kept their books in such a way that they did not actually know when they were making money on a certain operation and when they were losing. This unintelligent competition was a hard matter to contend with. Good old-fashioned common sense has always been a mighty rare commodity. When a man’s affairs are not going well, he hates to study the books and face the truth. From the first the man who managed the Standard Oil Company kept their books intelligently as well as correctly. We knew how much we made and where we gained or lost. At least, we tried not to deceive ourselves. – John D. Rockefeller

The curious paradox is that when I accept myself as I am, then I can change. – Carl Rogers

Things ain’t what they used to be, and never were. – Will Rogers

Everyone is ignorant—but on different issues. – Will Rogers

I guess the only way to stop divorce is to stop marriage. – Will Rogers

One-third of the people in the United States promote, while the other two-thirds provide. – Will Rogers

We do not know what we want, but we are ready to bite somebody to get it. – Will Rogers

When you put down the good things you ought to have done, and leave out the bad ones you did do—well, that’s Memoirs. – Will Rogers

People will sit up and take notice of you if you will sit up and take notice of what makes them sit up and take notice. – Frank Romer

The thing you have to be prepared for is that other people don’t always dream your dream. – Linda Ronstadt

What matters to most of those collectors is winning. When art becomes a competitive sport, all it takes to win is the guts and the money to go further than anyone else, and then, voila, you win. And winning feels really good. … We’re living in a world of funny money. And money is not really a measure of anything anymore because… it’s thrown around in such unpredictable ways. – David Ross

Thus in every situation, powerful rogues know how to save themselves at the expense of the feeble. – Jean Jacques Rousseau

True happiness is indescribable, it is only to be felt. – Jean Jacques Rousseau

Men of learning more tenaciously retain their predjudices. – Jean Jacques Rousseau

It is not the criminal things that are hardest to confess, but the ridiculous and the shameful. – Jean Jacques Rousseau

Extremists think “communication” means agreeing with them. – Leo Rosten

The satiated man and the hungry man do not see the same thing when they look at a loaf of bread. – Rumi

Your mission isn’t to look for love, but simply to search and locate the barriers within you that have formed against it. – Rumi

When love and skill work together, expect a masterpiece. – John Ruskin

Tell me what you like and I’ll tell you what you are. – John Ruskin

I would never die for my beliefs, because I might be wrong. – Bertrand Russell

Man is a credulous animal, and must believe something; in the absence of good grounds for belief, he will be satisfied with bad ones. – Bertrand Russell

What do I think about when I strike out? I think about hitting home runs. – Babe Ruth

Death is more universal than life; everyone dies but not everyone lives. – J. Sachs

The right to do something does not mean that doing it is right. – William Safire

The universe is not required to be in perfect harmony with human ambition. – Carl Sagan

Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known. – Carl Sagan

But the Lord said to Samuel, “Look not on his countenance, or on the height of his stature; because I have refused him—for the Lord does not see as man sees. For man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart. – I Samuel, (I Samuel 16:7)

The greatest barrier in the way of the healing process, especially if the malady be one that is accompanied by severe pain, is the mental depression that is associated with it and often becomes a factor of the disease. It stands in the way of recovery sometimes more than do the physical causes, and obliterates from the consciousness of the individual the wonderful healing power of nature, so essential to recovery. – A.J. Sanderson

In the maintenance of health and the cure of disease cheerfulness is a most important factor. Its power to do good like a medicine is not an artificial stimulation of the tissues, to be followed by reaction and greater waste, as is the case with many drugs; but the effect of cheerfulness is an actual life-giving influence through a normal channel, the results of which reach every part of the system. – A.J. Sanderson

The difference between wit that gets belly laughs and wit that gets bored silence is not only a matter of the style the material is both written and delivered in, but also a matter of the degree to which the audience cares about the subject. – Jay Sankey

In solitude it is possible to love mankind; in the world, for one who knows the world, there can be nothing but secret or open war. (Persons and Places) – George Santayana

The world is not respectable; it is mortal, tormented, confused, deluded forever; but it is shot through with beauty, with love, with glints of courage and laughter; and in these, the spirit blooms… – George Santayana

Almost every wise saying has an opposite one, no less wise, to balance it. – George Santayana

Fanaticism consists in redoubling your effort when you have forgotten your aim. – George Santayana

If you must kick, kick towards the goal! – Satinettes

I have sinned: for I have transgressed the commandment of the Lord, and your words, because I feared the people, and obeyed their voice. – Saul, (I Samuel 15:24)

It is a clear gain to sacrifice pleasure in order to avoid pain. – Arthur Schopenhauer

We seldom think of what we have, but always of what we lack. – Arthur Schopenhauer

Profit sharing works well almost anywhere. I use it in my own home. Not long ago the expenses of running my New York house got exorbitant. I called in the steward and said to him: “George, I want to strike a bargain with you. I will give you ten percent of the first thousand dollars you save in house expenses, twenty-five per cent of the second thousand, and one-half of the third thousand.” – Charles M. Schwab

The expense of operating the house was cut in two. – Charles M. Schwab

That’s the way character is formed—doing callisthenic feats with obstacles and adversities. I tell you the hard knocks are the nest eggs of our fortunes. The men that are not made of the right stuff go under with them and are never heard of again. – Charles M. Schwab

And there are the others who are soured and embittered by them, and they’re heard from eternally. They haven’t a good word to say for the world’s plan, because when it got a trifle complicated it baffled them. – Charles M. Schwab

Those are the men who do more harm to the youth of civilization than its vices. Then there are those who start out, sometimes with bare feet and holes in their trousers, bravely resolving never to let circumstances crush them, never to harbor bitterness over defeat, but to save their energies for the next encounter. – Charles M. Schwab

These are the men hard knocks don’t hurt. They toughen them; they help them get ready for the next encounter. To these men, it’s only a question of sufficient hardship, and sacrifice, and battle, to make them proof against any onslaught. These are the soldiers, the victors. – Charles M. Schwab

Did you ever find a successful soldier who hadn’t seen a fight? – Charles M. Schwab

The best place to succeed is where you are with what you have. – Charles M. Schwab

The first essential in a boy’s career is to find out what he’s fitted for, what he’s most capable of doing and doing with a relish. – Charles M. Schwab

Anyone who proposes to do good must not expect people to roll stones out of his way, but must accept his lot calmly, even if they roll a few more upon it. – Albert Schweitzer

[After someone made a remark as to the value of literary talents and accomplishments, as if they were above all things to be esteemed and honoured:] God help us! what a poor world this would be if that were the true doctrine! I have read books enough, and observed and conversed with enough of eminent and splendidly-cultured minds, too, in my time; but I assure you, I have heard higher sentiments from the lips of poor UNEDUCATED men and women, when exerting the spirit of severe yet gentle heroism under difficulties and afflictions, or speaking their simple thoughts as to circumstances in the lot of friends and neighbours, than I ever yet met with out of the Bible. We shall never learn to feel and respect our real calling and destiny, unless we have taught ourselves to consider everything as moonshine, compared with the education of the heart. – Walter Scott

Life without learning bears the stamp of death. – Scribleomania

Fate leads the willing, but drags along the unwilling. – Seneca

I will govern my life, and my thoughts, as if the whole world were to see the one, and to read the other; for what does it signify to make anything a secret to my neighbor, when to God (who is the searcher of our hearts) all our privacies are open? – Seneca

It was the wisdom of ancient times to consider what is most useful as most illustrious. – Seneca

Be wary of the man who urges an action in which he himself incurs no risk. – Joaquin Setanti

Neither do nor even think of that which you are not willing God should know. – Sextus

God dwells in the intellect of the wise man. – Sextus

By honoring a wise man, you will honor yourself. – Sextus

To live, indeed, is not in our power, but to live rightly is. – Sextus

The wise man follows God, and God follows the soul of the wise man. – Sextus

For my own part… I have really so much need of some considerable Presence or Company to raise my Thoughts on any occasion, that when alone, I must endeavour by Strength of Fancy to supply this want; and in default of a Muse, must inquire out some Great Man of a more than ordinary Genius, whose imagin’d Presence may inspire me with more than what I feel at ordinary hours. – Lord Shaftesbury

Thank heaven I can do good and find heaven in it. I know nothing else that is heavenly. And if this disposition fits me not for heaven, I desire never to be fitted for it, nor come into the place. I ask no reward from heaven for that which is reward itself. Let my being be continued or discontinued, as in the main is best. The author of it best knows, and I trust Him with it. – Lord Shaftesbury

What friend art thou like to prove to others, if not so to thyself. – Lord Shaftesbury

I can easier teach twenty what were good to be done, than be one of the twenty to follow mine own teaching. – William Shakespeare

Heaven is above all yet; there sits a judge that no king can corrupt. – William Shakespeare

This above all: to thine own self be true… – William Shakespeare

The hawk soars to the heavens above, and fishes dive to the depths below. – Shih Ching

If we keep un-perverted the human heart—which is like unto heaven and received from the earth—that is God. – Shinto Teachings, (Revelation to Mikado Seiwa)

Do not be sluggish in your work. – Shinto Teachings

Leave the things of this world, and come to me daily with pure bodies and pure hearts. – Shinto Teachings

Sincerity is the single virtue that binds the divine and man in one. – Shinto Teachings (Jingishoju)

If you pray to a deity with sincerity, you will surely feel the divine presence. – Shinto Teachings

A single sincere prayer moves Heaven. You will surely realize the divine presenc through sincere prayer. – Shinto Teachings

Even in one single leaf on a tree, or in one blade of grass, the awesome Deity presents itself. – Shinto Teachings

Our eyes might see un-cleanliness, but let not our minds see un-cleanliness. Our ears might hear un-cleanliness, but let not our minds hear un-cleanliness. – Shinto Teachings

All birds, even those of the same species, are not alike, and it is the same with animals and humans. The reason Wakan Tanka does not make two birds, or animals, or human beings exactly the same is because each is placed here by Wakan Tanka to be an independent individual and to rely upon itself. – Shooter

It was the lesson of our great ancestor: The people should be cherished, and not looked down upon. The people are the root of a country: The root firm, the country is tranquil. – Shu Ching

[King Wu or Khan said,] “Where you go, employ all your heart [Or: Wherever you go, go with all your heart.] Do not seek repose, nor be fond of ease and pleasure.” – Shu Ching

[The King / Duke of Kau said,] “The wise, through not thinking, become foolish, and the foolish, by thinking, become wise.” – Shu Ching

The Duke of Khin said, “Reproving others is easy, but to receive reproof and allow it free course is difficult.” – Shu Ching

the Love of heaven makes one heavenly, the love of vertue vertuous, so dothe the love of the Worlde make one become worldly. – Sir Philip Sidney

The longer I contemplate the subject of God, the more enigmatic/obscure it becomes. – Simonides

Phfft! Facts. You can use them to prove anything. – Homer Simpson

And what if we picked the wrong religion? Every week, we’re just making God madder and madder! – Homer Simpson

It’s difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary is dependent upon him not understanding it. – Upton Sinclair

Life is a series of awakenings. – (Swami) Sivananda

In fine, human character is molded by a thousand subtle influences; by example and precept; by life and literature; by friends and neighbors; by the world we live in as well as by the spirits of our forefathers, whose legacy of good words and deeds we inherit. But great, unquestionably, though these influences are acknowledged to be, it is nevertheless equally clear that men must necessarily be the active agents of their own well-being and well-doing; and that, however much the wise and the good may owe to others, they themselves must in the very nature of things be their own best helpers. – Samuel Smiles

Newton’s was unquestionably a mind of the very highest order, and yet, when asked by what means he had worked out his extraordinary discoveries, he modestly answered, “By always thinking unto them.” At another time he thus expressed his method of study: “I keep the subject continually before me, and wait till the first dawnings open slowly by little and little into a full and clear light.” – Samuel Smiles

It was in Newton’s case, as in every other, only by diligent application and perseverance that his great reputation was achieved. Even his recreation consisted in change of study, laying down one subject to take up another. To Dr. Bentley he said: “If I have done the public any service, it is due to nothing but industry and patient thought.” – Samuel Smiles

When Dr. Abbot, afterwards Archbishop of Canterbury, drew the character of his deceased friend Thomas Sackville, he did not dwell upon his merits as a statesman, or his genius as a poet, but upon his virtues as a man in relation to the ordinary duties of life. “How many rare things were in him!” said he. “Who more loving unto his wife? Who more kind unto his children?—Who more fast unto his friend?—Who more moderate unto his enemy?—Who more true to his word?” Indeed, we can always better understand and appreciate a man’s real character by the manner in which he conducts himself towards those who are the most nearly related to him, and by his transaction of the seemingly commonplace details of daily duty, than by his public exhibition of himself as an author, an orator, or a statesman. – Samuel Smiles

Most men, but especially women, are the moral slaves of the class or caste to which they belong. There is a sort of unconscious conspiracy existing amongst them against each other’s individuality. Each circle and section, each rank and class, has its respective customs and observances, to which conformity is required at the risk of being tabooed. Some are immured within a bastile of fashion, others of custom, others of opinion; and few there are who have the courage to think outside their sect, to act outside their party, and to step out into the free air of individual thought and action. We dress, and eat, and follow fashion, though it may be at the risk of debt, ruin, and misery; living not so much according to our means, as according to the superstitious observances of our class. – Samuel Smiles

Though we may speak contemptuously of the Indians who flatten their heads, and of the Chinese who cramp their toes, we have only to look at the deformities of fashion amongst ourselves, to see that the reign of “Mrs. Grundy” is universal. – Samuel Smiles

A strong temper is not necessarily a bad temper. But the stronger the temper, the greater is the need of self-discipline and self- control. – Samuel Smiles

Winning is something that builds physically and mentally every day that you train and every night that you dream. – Emmitt Smith

Beware the barrenness of a busy life. – Socrates

If thou continuest to take delight in idle argumentation, thou mayest be qualified to combat with the sophists, but will never know how to live with men. – Socrates

The unexamined life is not worth living. – Socrates

We’re all in denial about something. – Gabrielle Soli

Do not reprove a scorner, lest he hate you: rebuke a wise person, and he will love you. Solomon, (Proverbs 9:8)

Do not boast of tomorrow—for you do not know what a day may bring forth. Solomon, (Proverbs 27:1)

It is better to hear the rebuke of the wise, than for a man to hear the song of fools. For as the crackling of thorns under a pot, so is the laughter of the fool—this also is vanity. Solomon, (Ecclesiastes 7:5-6)

I returned, and saw under the sun, that the race is not [always] to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favor to men of skill—but time and chance happens to them all. Solomon, (Ecclesiastes 9:11)

With children we must mix gentleness with firmness. They must not always have their own way, but they must not always be thwarted. – Charles Spurgeon

He who gazes at the stars unavoidably starts thinking. – Gerhard Staguhn

If you’re gonna be a failure, at least be one at something you enjoy. – Sylvester Stallone

It becomes no wise man to expose himself to danger on account of the faults or follies of others. – Statilius

It is a secret known but to few, yet of no small use in the conduct of life, that when you fall into a man’s conversation, the first thing you should consider is, whether he has a greater inclination to hear you, or that you should hear him. – Steele

The shepherd always tries to persuade the sheep that their interests and his own are the same. – Stendhal

There is no duty we so much underrate as the duty of being happy. – Robert Louis Stevenson

Attack him where he is unprepared; appear where you are not expected. – Sun Tzu

How victory may be produced for them out of the enemy’s own tactics—that is what the multitude cannot comprehend. All men can see the tactics by which I conquer, but what none can see is the strategy out of which victory is evolved. – Sun Tzu

Do not repeat the [exact same] tactics just because they have gained you one victory—instead, let your methods be regulated by the infinite variety of circumstances. Military tactics are like unto water; for water in its natural course runs away from high places and hastens downwards. So in war, the [effective] way is to avoid what is strong and to strike at what is weak. Water shapes its course according to the nature of the ground over which it flows; the soldier works out his victory in relation to the foe that he is facing. – Sun Tzu

Therefore, just as water retains no constant shape, so in warfare there are no constant conditions. He who can modify his tactics in relation to his opponent and thereby succeed in winning, may be called a harmoniously powerful captain. – Sun Tzu

The five elements [water, fire, wood, metal, earth] are not always equally predominant; the four seasons make way for each other in turn. There are short days and long; the moon has its periods of waning and waxing. – Sun Tzu

The art of war teaches us to rely not on the likelihood of the enemy’s not coming, but on our own readiness to receive him; not on the chance of his not attacking, but rather on the fact that we have made our position unassailable. – Sun Tzu

If soldiers are punished before they have grown attached to you, they will not prove submissive; and, unless submissive, then will be practically useless. If, when the soldiers have become attached to you, punishments are not enforced, they will still be useless. – Sun Tzu

Therefore, soldiers must be treated in the first instance with humanity, but kept under control by means of iron discipline. This is a certain road to victory. – Sun Tzu

When the general is weak and without authority; when his orders are not clear and distinct; when there are no fixed duties assigned to officers and men, and the ranks are formed in a slovenly haphazard manner, the result is utter disorganization. – Sun Tzu

Regard your soldiers as your children, and they will follow you into the deepest valleys. Look upon them as your own beloved sons, and they will stand by you even unto death. – Sun Tzu

If, however, you are lenient, but unable to make your authority felt; kind-hearted, but unable to enforce your commands; and incapable, moreover, of quelling disorder; then your soldiers must be likened to spoilt children—they are useless for any practical purpose. – Sun Tzu

Carefully study the well-being of your men, and do not overtax them. Concentrate your energy and hoard your strength… – Sun Tzu

People are certainly not sheep. Many of us display a great deal of independence. But most human beings, including many apparent rebels, are strongly influenced by the views and actions of others. – Cass R. Sunstein

[T]here’s a little Homer Simpson in all of us. Sometimes we have self-control problems, sometimes we’re impulsive… Once we know that people are human and have some Homer Simpson in them, then there’s a lot that can be done to manipulate them. – Cass R. Sunstein

Extremists and hate-filled [web]sites tend to attract likeminded people who, if isolated, could come to their senses. – Cass R. Sunstein

The existence of both domestic and foreign conspiracy theories, we suggest, is no trivial matter, posing real risks to the government’s antiterrorism policies, whatever the latter may be. …The best response consists in cognitive infiltration of extremist groups… Government agents (and their allies) might enter chat rooms, online social networks, or even real-space groups and attempt to undermine percolating conspiracy theories by raising doubts about their factual premises, causal logic or implications for political action. – Cass R. Sunstein

By purity of heart, one reaches Nirvana. – Sutrakritanga Sutra

Putting aside all undertakings, he [a monk] should wander about for the welfare of his soul. – Sutrakritanga Sutra

Just as a tortoise draws its limbs into its own shell, a wise man should withdraw his senses from evil by spiritual exertion. – Sutrakritanga Sutra

Acquire perfect knowledge of the Law. Why do you not study it? It is difficult to attain instruction in it after this life. The days [that are gone by] will never return, nor is it easy a second time to obtain human birth. – Sutrakritanga Sutra

He should know that the present time is the best opportunity to mend, and that awakening is difficult to obtain. A wise man should be aware of this. – Sutrakritanga Sutra

But those who exert themselves at the proper time, feel no remorse afterwards. – Sutrakritanga Sutra

It is cruelty to the innocent not to punish the guilty. – Publilius Syrus

He who wishes to injure another will soon find a pretext. – Publilius Syrus

It is as well now and then not to remember all we know. – Publilius Syrus

Even speed when we are anxious seems like delay. – Publilius Syrus

Without danger, danger cannot be surmounted. – Publilius Syrus

The happy man is not he who seems so to others, but he who seems so to himself. – Publilius Syrus

There are some remedies worse than the disease. – Publilius Syrus

No pleasure endures unseasoned by variety. – Publilius Syrus

A plan is bad if it is not capable of being changed. – Publilius Syrus

We are interested in others when they are interested in us. – Publilius Syrus

Many receive advice; few profit by it. – Publilius Syrus

Every one excels in something in which another fails. – Publilius Syrus

Everything is worth what its purchaser will pay for it. – Publilius Syrus

Men are rewarded or punished not for what they do but for how their acts are defined. That is why men are more interested in better justifying themselves than in better behaving themselves. – Thomas Stephen Szasz

Some people say they haven’t yet found themselves. But the self is not something one finds; it is something one creates. – Thomas Stephen Szasz

The proverb warns; “Don’t bite the hand that feeds you.” But maybe you should, if it prevents you from feeding yourself. – Thomas Stephen Szasz

If your business does not prosper in one town, try another. – Talmud

It is better to lend than to give. To give employment is better than either. – Talmud

Live well. It is the greatest revenge. – Talmud

The sun will set without your assistance. – Talmud

Cold water, morning and evening, is better than all the cosmetics. – Talmud

There is a great difference between him who is ashamed before his own self, and him who is only ashamed before others. – Talmud

I don’t agree with the idea that you have to live in a bubble and sacrifice all your time to something if you want to succeed. I need to be interested in things outside my sport, and I need to meet new people. For me, judo is an expression of the harmony I achieve in my life. – Ryoko Tamura

And God said to Moses, “I Am What I Am”… – Tanakh, (Exodus 3:14)

Great men are not always wise, and neither do the aged [always] understand judgment. – Tanakh, (Job 32:9)

… He did it with all his heart, and prospered. – Tanakh, (II Chronicles 31:21)

Men may rise on stepping-stones of their dead selves to higher things. – Alfred Lord Tennyson

‘Tis better to have loved and lost
Than never to have loved at all. – Alfred Lord Tennyson

The folly of all follies is to be love sick for a shadow. – Alfred Lord Tennyson

Blind and naked ignorance delivers brawling judgments, unashamed, on all things all day long. – Alfred Lord Tennyson

It is possible for someone to be changed so much by love that he will hardly be recognized as being the same person. – Terence

Obsequiousness begets friends; truth, hatred. – Terence

Shoot not beyond the mark. – Terence

Remember that you have only one soul; that you have only one death to die; that you have only one life. … If you do this, there will be many things about which you care nothing. – St. Teresa of Avila

From moment to moment one can bear much. – St. Teresa of Avila

The biggest disease today is not leprosy or tuberculosis, but rather the feeling of being unwanted. – Mother Teresa

To the sick the doctors wisely recommend a change of air and scenery. – Henry David Thoreau

Knowledge does not come to us in details, but in flashes of light from heaven. – Henry David Thoreau

Most illnesses do not, as is generally thought, come like a bolt out of the blue. The ground is prepared for years through faulty diet, intemperance, overwork, and moral conflicts, slowly eroding the subject’s vitality. – Paul Tournier

The best way to cheer yourself up is to try to cheer somebody else up. – Mark Twain

Make it a point to 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. – Mark Twain

We can secure other people’s approval if we do right and try hard; but our own is worth a hundred of it, and no way has been found out of securing that. – Mark Twain

When we remember we are all mad, the mysteries disappear and life stands explained. – Mark Twain

Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; Truth isn’t. – Mark Twain

Nothing so needs reforming as other people’s habits. – Mark Twain

He had discovered a great law of human action, without knowing it—namely, that in order to make a man or a boy covet a thing, it is only necessary to make the thing difficult to attain. – Mark Twain

The man with a new idea is a Crank until the idea succeeds. – Mark Twain

Customs do not concern themselves with right or wrong or reason. But they have to be obeyed; one reasons all around them until he is tired, but he must not transgress them, it is sternly forbidden. – Mark Twain

It must be that the increase [in lynching] comes of the inborn human instinct to imitate—that and man’s commonest weakness, his aversion to being unpleasantly conspicuous, pointed at, shunned, as being on the unpopular side. Its other name is Moral Cowardice, and is the commanding feature of the make-up of 9,999 men in the 10,000. I am not offering this as a discovery; privately the dullest of us knows it to be true. History will not allow us to forget or ignore this supreme trait of our character. It persistently and sardonically reminds us that from the beginning of the world no revolt against a public infamy or oppression has ever been begun but by the one daring man in the 10,000, the rest timidly waiting, and slowly and reluctantly joining, under the influence of that man and his fellows from the other ten thousands.- Mark Twain

Never tell the truth to people who are not worthy of it. – Mark Twain

Morals: rather teach them than practice them any day. – Mark Twain

The right word may be effective, but no word was ever as effective as a rightly timed pause. – Mark Twain

That impressive silence, that eloquent silence, that geometrically progressive silence which often achieves a desired effect where no combination of words howsoever felicitous could accomplish it. – Mark Twain

I’m Mike Tyson, and there is no one like me. – Mike Tyson

Everyone has a game plan until you get hit in the mouth. – Mike Tyson

Am I an animal? If necessary—it depends on what situation am I in… – Mike Tyson

One should acquire valuable knowledge, and avoid what is worthless. – Uttaradhyayana Sutra

Like an untrained steed who needs a lash, seek not guidance again and again. Like the trained who sees the whip [and avoids danger/pitfall], avoid sin. – Uttaradhyayana Sutra

Subdue your Self, for the Self is difficult to subdue. If your Self is subdued, you will be happy in this world and the next. – Uttaradhyayana Sutra

One must conquer one’s own self. It is difficult to conquer it. One who does so is fortunate/blissed in this world and will be so in the next. – Uttaradhyayana Sutra

Better is that I should subdue my Self by self-control and penance, than be subdued by others with fetters and corporal punishment. – Uttaradhyayana Sutra

There are four things of paramount value that are difficult to obtain here by a living being: human birth, instruction in the Law, belief/faith in it, and energy-in/the-endeavor-to-practice self-control. – Uttaradhyayana Sutra

Having been born as a man, having heard the Law, believing in it, and fulfilling it strenuously, an ascetic should restrain himself and shake of sinfulness. – Uttaradhyayana Sutra

Having been born as a human being, believing in religion and following it meticulously, an ascetic should practice self-restraint and annihilate the karmas completely. – Uttaradhyayana Sutra

The pious obtain purity, and the pure stand firmly in righteousness, reaching the highest nirvana/liberation like fire fed with ghee. Uttaradhyayana Sutra

Though others sleep [i.e. are unvigilant], be awake [i.e. vigilant]! Like a wise man, trust nobody, but always be on the alert; for time is dangerous, and the body is weak. Be ever watchful, like the [two-headed] Bharunda bird. – Uttaradhyayana Sutra

“If he does not get it [victory] early, he will get it afterwards”—such reasoning assumes that the eternity of human life. But such a person will despair when his life draws to its close, and the dissolution of his body approaches. – Uttaradhyayana Sutra

A wise man, having weighed and chosen the better one—the Law of compassion—will become calm through patience, with an undisturbed mind. – Uttaradhyayana Sutra

Mother, father, daughter in law, brother, wife, and sons will not be able to help me when I suffer for my own deeds. – Uttaradhyayana Sutra

Everything that happens to somebody affects him personally; therefore, knowing the creatures’ love of their own self, do not deprive them of their life, but cease from endangering and combating them. – Uttaradhyayana Sutra

Here some are of opinion that they will be delivered from all misery merely by attending the teacher without abstaining from sins/*learning what right conduct is without living up to it. Acknowledging the truth about bondage and liberation, but only talking and not acting, they seek comfort for themselves in mighty words. Clever talking will not work salvation; how should philosophical instruction do it? Fools, though sinking lower and lower through their sins, believe themselves to be wise men. They are [going] a long way in the endless samsara; therefore looking out carefully, one should wander about carefully [conducting oneself to commit no sin]. – Uttaradhyayana Sutra

Choosing what is beyond and above [this world; i.e. liberation], one should never desire [worldly objects], but sustain one’s body only to be able to annihilate one’s karman. – Uttaradhyayana Sutra

Even so are human pleasures compared with the pleasures of the gods; divine life and pleasures surpass [the former] a thousand times and more. – Uttaradhyayana Sutra

What water is at the kusa grass tip, compared to an ocean deep, so are the pleasures of human life, compared to the life divine. – Uttaradhyayana Sutra

Even if the whole world of wealth is given to a man, he will not be contented, for it is very difficult to satisfy the desires of a greedy man. – Uttaradhyayana Sutra

Victory over one’s self is greater than conquering thousands and thousands of enemies on the battlefield. A true conqueror is he who conquers his own self. – Uttaradhyayana Sutra

Fight the fight within—why fight external foes? He who conquers himself through himself obtains supreme joy. – Uttaradhyayana Sutra

It is difficult to conquer oneself—but when that is conquered, everything is conquered. – Uttaradhyayana Sutra

It indeed is very difficult to acquire human birth. One acquires it after a very long span of time for the karmas that bind the soul are very powerful. Therefore Oh Gautama, be not careless even for a while! – Uttaradhyayana Sutra

Place your self on the right path … be careful all the while. – Uttaradhyayana Sutra

The days and nights that pass will never return. They bear no fruit for him who does not abide by dharma. The days and nights that pass will never return. They bear fruit only for him who abides by dharma. – Uttaradhyayana Sutra

He who can call death his friend, who can escape from its clutches, and who is sure to never die—he only can decide to postpone his duties to tomorrow. – Uttaradhyayana Sutra

I have cut off all my fetters, these are destroyed by right means. Now I am wholly free from these, being light, I move and happily live. – Uttaradhyayana Sutra

The mind is that fierce/bad, unruly and dreadful horse that runs hither and thither in all directions. I control it by the discipline of righteousness, so that it becomes a well-trained kanthaka-steed [horse of the Buddha]. – Uttaradhyayana Sutra

Just as a threaded [sasutra] needle is secure from being lost, in the same way a person given to self-study [sasutra] cannot be lost. – Uttaradhyayana Sutra

A great monk eats to sustain life, and not for the pleasure of it. – Uttaradhyayana Sutra

If there is anything the nonconformist hates worse than a conformist it’s another nonconformist who doesn’t conform to the prevailing standards of nonconformity. – Bill Vaughan

People often feel offended by praise because it designates a limit to their excellence. Few people are modest enough not to be offended by someone appreciating them. – Marquis De Vauvenargues

Every man is guilty of all the good he didn’t do. – Voltaire

I know of no great men except those who have rendered great service to the human race. – Voltaire

Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. – Voltaire

It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong. – Voltaire

All men have their price. – Sir Robert Walpole

Respecting the self and not respecting tao is not respecting the self. Respecting tao and not respecting the self is not respecting tao. Respecting both tao and the self is the highest good. – Wang Ken

A deluded person recites; a wise person puts his [pure] mind into practice. – Wang Yang Ming

And there are also deluded individuals who empty their minds, sit in tranquility, and think of nothing [i.e. those who perform certain Buddhist practices]. They call themselves great. Due to their deviant views, one cannot even speak with this kind of people. – Wang Yang Ming

This effort [of self-cultivation and obliterating selfishness] must be carried out continuously. Like eradicating robbers and thieves, one must resolve to wipe them out completely. In idle moments, one must search out and discover each and every selfish thought for sex, wealth, fame, and the rest. One must resolve to pluck out and cast away the root of sickness, so that it can never arise again. Only then may one begin to feel at ease. One must at all times be like a cat catching mice, with eyes intently watching and wars intently listening. As soon as a single [selfish] thought begins to stir, one must conquer it and cast it out. Act as if you were cutting a nail in two, or slicing through iron. Do not indulge or accommodate it in any way. Do not harbor it, and do not allow it to escape. – Wang Yang Ming

The pessimist complains about the wind; the optimist expects it to change; the realist adjusts the sails. – William Arthur Ward

Any man’s life will be filled with constant and unexpected encouragement if he makes up his mind to do his level best each day. – Booker T. Washington

We must not allow the clock and the calendar to blind us to the fact that each moment of life is a miracle and mystery. – H.G. Wells

For those who believe, no explanation is necessary. For those who do not believe, no explanation is possible. – Franz Werfel

Familiar things happen, and mankind does not bother about them. It requires a very unusual mind to undertake the analysis of the obvious. – Alfred North Whitehead

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

Doing the best at this moment puts you in the best place for the next moment. – Oprah Winfrey

If you live in the past and allow the past to define who you are, then you never grow. – Oprah Winfrey

What I have learned in my life and work is that the more I am able to be myself, the more it enables other people to be themselves. – Oprah Winfrey

Assumptions are the termites of relationships. – Henry Winkler

The past is utterly indifferent to its worshipers. – William Winter

[When asked whether he believed Heaven to be a location or a state of consciousness:] Who but God knows about these things? The thing we know is that we are living now. We know there are things to be done and that we are here to build a better world. This is a big enough assignment. Life is given by God so that we may create a better life for all. – Rev. Koreaki Yano

Whenever a man says he is great, he is thinking of the past, and this is not good. A man should continue to express himself. The true Self exists moment by moment, and the challenge of PL is ever leading us forward to a more artistic life. – Toshio Yasaka

Perfect Liberty is a movement based on a system of individual self-expressions through an artistic life. Its beginning is the discovery of Self. Its assignment is the effacement of ego. Its challenge is to live the Precepts and Principles. Its ultimate aim is the Great Peace, a time when man will have learned to live harmoniously with himself, his fellowman, and God. – Toshio Yasaka

…The universe is One-whole-integrity. The nature of this integrity is God [kami]. The function of this integrated whole is God-in-action [kamuwaza]. – Toshio Yasaka

You cannot at this instance write on a blackboard that exists in time twenty minutes from now. You cannot sit at a desk that existed yesterday and then lost its existence. In the same way, Self can only relate to other existences conterminous with the present. – Toshio Yasaka

Self is the subjective function, and is not able to place itself in the position of object. Self is the most exalted existence in the universe. Even the work of Kami is under its recognition. Because Self recognizes Kami, Kami exists. Self is Kami manifested. The only identity of Self exists in the process of expression. One should, therefore, identify oneself in all expressions. Expressions are possible only with the function of the related existences. So, once again, Self independent of the surrounding existences has no meaning. The idea of exclusiveness merely disturbs the effect of Self-expression in such a way as to cause a person to be obsessed with “I” and place his identity in an exaggerated position. – Toshio Yasaka

in order to persuade someone it is necessary to merit his sympathy; now, one never gains the sympathy of those whose opinions he does not share. – Yoritomo Tashi

Hence, in order to persuade successfully, one must banish suspicion and know how to listen. – Yoritomo Tashi

One must not forget the profound egotism that characterizes all imaginary invalids; they are so full of themselves that their ills seem to them to acquire high importance. They can not admit then that the whole world is not interested in their aches and pains, and the importance they themselves attach to them is a subject of development for their malady. – Yoritomo Tashi

For it is incontestable that all moral emotion has an immediate repercussion on the physical state. – Yoritomo Tashi

To be able to persuade a patient that he is cured is, in most eases, to free him from his malady; it is always infinitely attenuated, since it is to spare him moral uneasiness, too fruitful mother of bodily ills. – Yoritomo Tashi

Intensity of determination, when it reaches a certain point, possesses a dazzling influence which few ordinary mortals can resist, for it envelops them before they are aware of it and thus before they have dreamt of endeavoring to withdraw themselves front it. – Yoritomo Tashi

Moreover, the man who retains the power of influencing rarely needs to exert himself, in order to exercise it effectually, for the need of protection from it is non-existent in most persons. – Yoritomo Tashi

They are rare who are morally sufficient for themselves and who pass through life without feeling the need of resting their weakness on a supporting and directing force. – Yoritomo Tashi

Still less numerous are those who accept with courage the consequences of their acts and do not seek to place the responsibility for these acts on an outside influence, which, however, they are ready to repudiate if they are successful. – Yoritomo Tashi

Influence over others is acquired especial by perseverance of the will and concentration of thought, the undulations of which, project around us, come to reach the minds that we wish to impress. – Yoritomo Tashi

With perseverance, you succeed in causing effectively to penetrate the minds of your hearers the thoughts the emission of which will attract similar thoughts, and their undulations returning to affect you will increase your conviction, giving you thus the more power to spread it around you. – Yoritomo Tashi

Who does the best his circumstance allows. – Edward Young

Does well, acts nobly; angels could no more. – Edward Young

The man that blushes is not quite a brute. – Edward Young

The chun tzu deals with the root. Once the root is established, tao unfolds. – Yu Tzu

If you can spend a perfectly useless afternoon in a perfectly useless manner, you have learned how to live. – Lin Yutang

This I conceive to be the chemical function of humor: to change the character of our thought.Lin Yutang

If you wish to strengthen a lie, mix a little truth in with it. – Zohar Quotes

[W]hat is the use of studying philosophy if all that it does for you is to enable you to talk with some plausibility about some abstruse questions of logic, etc., & if it does not improve your thinking about the important questions of everyday life…? – Ludwig Wittgenstein

When you improve a little each day, eventually big things occur. When you improve conditioning a little each day, eventually you have a big improvement in conditioning. Not tomorrow, not the next day, but eventually a big gain is made. Don’t look for the big, quick improvement. Seek the small improvement. Seek the small improvement one day at a time. That’s the only way it happens—and when it happens, it lasts. – John Wooden

…These two things, contradictory though they may seem, must go together—manly dependence and manly independence, manly reliance and manly self-reliance. – Wordsworth

If we all worked on the assumption that what is accepted as true is really true, there would be little hope of advance. – Orville Wright

The wrong sort of people are always in power because they would not be in power if they were not the wrong sort of people. – Jon Wynne-Tyson

One hundred years is at the heights of a long life. Less than one in a thousand people attain it. – Yang Chu

Let’s take an example [typical] of someone who does. Much of it is taken up by infancy and old age. Much of the rest is taken up by sleep ans wasted time. And much of what’s left is filled up with pain and sickness, sorrow and grief, ruin and loss, and anxieties and fears. – Yang Chu

This perhaps leaves several years—and of this, I reckon that the time he is truly content and liberated barely amounts to much at all. – Yang Chu

So what is human existence for, and where is its joy? – Yang Chu

Only comfort
beauty
wealth and luxury?

Only music
color and beauty
sound
senses
women?

Ah, but we cannot always be satisfied by comfort
beauty and luxury, nor incessantly enjoy beauty
color and music
sound. – Yang Chu

Besides, there is the stimulus of rewards and the warning of punishments, the urging of fame and the repelling of laws. People are constantly rendered busy competing for one vain moment of praise, and scheming for the glory that be remembered after their deaths. Even in solitude, they consider and comply with what they think others want them to see, hear, think, feel, and do, and they discredit what their own selves feel and think. They vainly miss the realest enjoyments of life’s time, and cannot really give way for a moment. How different is this from being a chained in prison? – Yang Chu

The ancients knew that all creatures enter life in a moment, and must depart in death at one moment. Therefore they followed their hearts and did not deny themselves these natural inclinations. During life, they were not seeking fame, but were only following their own nature. They went smoothly on their path unvaried from their inclinations. They did not seek for posthumous fame. They were out of the reach of external disapproval, and were not concerned with glory, fame, rank, or position during their lifespan. – Yang Chu

For fame’s sake they endure all kinds of bodily hardship and mental pain. … The ignorant, while seeking to maintain fame, sacrifice reality. By doing so they will have to regret that nothing can rescue them from danger and death, and not only learn to know the difference between ease and pleasure and sorrow and grief. – Yang Chu

Usually when people are sad, they don’t do anything. They just cry over their condition. But when they get angry, they bring about a change. Malcolm X

There is no such thing as an ‘inhuman act’, for there is no act so vile that one cannot find a human willing, or even eager, to commit it. – A. G. Lyman

Don’t take life too seriously: it isn’t permanent. – Walt Kelly

… few people blame themselves, while it is in the power of self-love to twist the charge against others. – John Moore

Insanity is inherited. You get it from your kids. – Erma Bombeck

It’s better to be a lion for a day than a sheep all your life. – Sister Elizabeth Kenny

Laziness travels so slowly that poverty soonly overtakes him. – Benjamin Franklin

Nine women cannot deliver a baby in one month. – Frederick P. Brooks

Nothing helps a bad mood like spreading it around. – Calvin “Calvin and Hobbes”

Optimists are badly informed pessimists. – Theo Maassen

So long as a man remains free, he strives for nothing so incessantly and so painfully as to find someone to worship. – Fyodor Dostoevsky

The turtle only advances by sticking its neck out. – Les Reimers

You can agree to disagree on politics or even religion sometimes but you either kill people or you don’t. Homicide is not something you can be neutral on. – Anita Blake

Don’t eat that yellow snow. – Frank Zappa

Your mind is like a parachute, it works better when its open. – Frank Zappa

Youth is wasted on the young. – George Bernard Shaw

Rule #1 : The customer is always right. Rule # 2 : If the customer is wrong, refer to rule #1. – Anne Brashares

When you’re different, sometimes you don’t see the millions of people who accept you for what you are. All you notice is the person who doesn’t. – Jodi Picoult

As soon as you trust yourself, you will know how to live. – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

You cannot be lonely if you like the person you’re alone with. – Wayne Dyer

Don’t waste your energy trying to change opinions … do your thing, and don’t care if they like it. – Tina Fey

Pride is holding your head up when everyone around you has theirs bowed. Courage is what makes you do it. – Bryce Courtenay

The way to develop self-confidence is to do the thing you fear and get a record of successful experiences behind you. – William Jennings Bryan

If you hear a voice within you say ‘you cannot paint,’ then by all means paint, and that voice will be silenced. – Vincent van Gogh

Always be yourself and have faith in yourself. Do not go out and look for a successful personality and try to duplicate it. – Bruce Lee

Don’t wait until everything is just right. It will never be perfect. There will always be challenges, obstacles, and less than perfect conditions. So what? Get started now. With each step you take, you will grow stronger and stronger, more and more skilled, more and more self-confident, and more and more successful. – Mark Victor Hansen

You wouldn’t worry so much about what others think of you if you realized how seldom they do. – Eleanor Roosevelt

Low self-confidence isn’t a life sentence. Self-confidence can be learned, practiced, and mastered–just like any other skill. Once you master it, everything in your life will change for the better. – Barrie Davenport

Once we believe in ourselves, we can risk curiosity, wonder, spontaneous delight, or any experience that reveals the human spirit. – E.E. Cummings

Trust yourself. Create the kind of self that you will be happy to live with all your life. Make the most of yourself by fanning the tiny, inner sparks of possibility into flames of achievement. – Golda Meir

One important key to success is self-confidence. An important key to self-confidence is preparation. – Arthur Ashe

It is confidence in our bodies, minds, and spirits that allows us to keep looking for new adventures. – Oprah Winfrey

To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment. – Ralph Waldo Emerson

But failure has to be an option in art and in exploration–because it’s a leap of faith. And no important endeavor that required innovation was done without risk. You have to be willing to take those risks. – James Cameron

People are like stained-glass windows. They sparkle and shine when the sun is out, but when the darkness sets in their true beauty is revealed only if there is light from within. – Elisabeth Kübler-Ross

Confidence comes not from always being right but from not fearing to be wrong. – Peter T. McIntyre

Argue for your limitations and, sure enough, they’re yours. – Richard Bach

The courage to be is the courage to accept oneself, in spite of being unacceptable. – Paul Tillich

If we all did the things we are capable of doing, we would literally astound ourselves. – Thomas Alva Edison

Shyness has a strange element of narcissism, a belief that how we look, how we perform, is truly important to other people. – Andre Dubus

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, ‘Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?’ Actually, who are you not to be? – Marianne Williamson

Talk to yourself like you would to someone you love. – Brené Brown

Trust yourself. You know more than you think you do. – Dr. Benjamin Spock

Successful people have fear, successful people have doubts, and successful people have worries. They just don’t let these feelings stop them. – T. Harv Eker

You can have anything you want if you are willing to give up the belief that you can’t have it. – Dr. Robert Anthony

It is not the mountain we conquer, but ourselves. – Sir Edmund Hillary

To love oneself is the beginning of a lifelong romance. – Oscar Wilde

I had to grow to love my body. I did not have a good self-image at first. Finally it occurred to me, I’m either going to love me or hate me. And I chose to love myself. Then everything kind of sprung from there. Things that I thought weren’t attractive became sexy. Confidence makes you sexy. – Queen Latifah

You yourself, as much as anyone in the entire universe, deserve your love and affection. – Buddha

Inaction breeds doubt and fear. Action breeds confidence and courage. If you want to conquer fear, do not sit home and think about it. Go out and get busy. – Dale Carnegie

Optimism is the faith that leads to achievement. Nothing can be done without hope and confidence. – Helen Keller

Nothing can stop the man with the right mental attitude from achieving his goal; nothing on earth can help the man with the wrong mental attitude. – Thomas Jefferson

Confidence is a habit that can be developed by acting as if you already had the confidence you desire to have. – Brian Tracy

When I started counting my blessings, my whole life turned around. – Willie Nelson

If you are insecure, guess what? The rest of the world is too. Do not overestimate the competition and underestimate yourself. You are better than you think. – T. Harv Eker

Wouldn’t it be powerful if you fell in love with yourself so deeply that you would do just about anything if you knew it would make you happy? This is precisely how much life loves you and wants you to nurture yourself. The deeper you love yourself, the more the universe will affirm your worth. Then you can enjoy a lifelong love affair that brings you the richest fulfillment from inside out. – Alan Cohen

To anyone that ever told you you’re no good … They’re no better. – Hayley Williams

Always remember you are braver than you believe, stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think. – Christopher Robin

You have no control over other people’s taste, so focus on staying true to your own. – Tim Gunn

No one can make you feel inferior without your consent. – Eleanor Roosevelt

The moment you doubt whether you can fly, you cease forever to be able to do it. – J.M. Barrie

It’s a dead-end street if you sit around waiting for someone else to tell you you’re OK. – Michael Pitt

I think that the power is the principle. The principle of moving forward, as though you have the confidence to move forward, eventually gives you confidence when you look back and see what you’ve done. – Robert Downey Jr.

If you’re presenting yourself with confidence, you can pull off pretty much anything. – Katy Perry

Twenty years from now, you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sail. Explore. Dream. Discover. – Mark Twain

I’ve finally stopped running away from myself. Who else is there better to be? – Goldie Hawn

Don’t be satisfied with stories, how things have gone with others. Unfold your own myth. – Rumi

We avoid the things that we’re afraid of because we think there will be dire consequences if we confront them. But the truly dire consequences in our lives come from avoiding things that we need to learn about or discover. – Shakti Gawain

Where no counsel is, the people fall; but in the multitude of counselors there is safety. – Bible – Proverbs 11:14.

Where there is no vision, the people perish. – Bible – Proverbs 29:18

Withhold not correction from the child: for if thou beatest him with the rod, he shall not die. Thou shalt beat him with the rod, and shalt deliver his soul from hell. – Bible – Proverbs 23:13-14.

Like a lame man’s legs that hang limp is a proverb in the mouth of a fool. – Bible – Proverbs 26:7

Pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall. – Bible – Proverbs 16:18

Stolen waters are sweet, and bread eaten in secret is pleasant. – Bible – Proverbs 9:17.

A soft answer turneth away wrath: but grievous words stir up anger. – Bible – Proverbs 15:1.

A worthy woman is far more precious than jewels, strength and dignity are her clothing. – Bible – Proverbs 31

As a dog returneth to his vomit, so a fool returneth to his folly. – Bible – Proverbs 26:11

As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he. – Bible – Proverbs 23:7

As cold waters to a thirsty soul, so is good news from a far country. – Bible – Proverbs 25:25.

Even a fool, when he holdeth his peace, is counted wise: and he that shutteth his lips is esteemed a man of understanding. – Bible – Proverbs 17:28

He that maketh haste to be rich shall not be innocent. – Bible – Proverbs 28:20.

He that spareth his rod hateth his son. – Bible – Proverbs 24

Truth stands the test of time; lies are soon exposed. – Bible – Proverbs 12:19

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