Just Quotes

“We are not what we know but what we are willing to learn.” – Mary Catherine Bateson

“When I started counting my blessings, my whole life turned around.” – Willie Nelson (1933-) singer, songwriter, poet

“Don’t be so humble – you are not that great.” – Golda Meir

“The major problems in the world are the result of the difference between the way nature works and the way man thinks.” – Gregory Bateson

“We are not what we know but what we are willing to learn.” – Mary Catherine Bateson (Daughter of Gregory)

“All children are born geniuses. 9,999 out of every 10,000 are swiftly, inadvertently, degeniused by grown ups.” – Buckminster Fuller

“It is difficult to get people to understand something when their salary depends upon them not understanding it.” – Upton Sinclair

“It is the supreme art of the teacher to awaken joy in creative expression and knowledge.” – Albert Einstein

“The beginning of wisdom is to call things by their right name” – Confucius

“The laws of the universe are not indifferent, but are forever on the side of the most sensitive.” – Henry David Thoreau

“Get over the idea that only children should spend their time in study. Be a student so long as you still have something to learn, and this will mean all your life.” – Henry L. Doherty

“The senses, being the explorers of the world, open the way to knowledge.” – Marie Montessori

“This wilderness community is being choked by alien plants and stressed by pollution, abandonment and major loss. We, too, are being choked by drugs and alien stories that pollute our natural self. We feel abandoned by our society, treated like garbage, and cut off from nature which fills us with grief. By protecting and nurturing this ecosystem we find the strength to open our minds, hearts, and souls for the survival of our Mother Earth and ourselves.” – NSTP recovery program student report.

“Our Similarities bring us to a common ground; Our Differences allow us to be fascinated by each other.” – Tom Robbins

“Appreciation can make a day, even change a life. Your willingness to put it into words is all that is necessary.” – Margaret Cousins

“A business absolutely devoted to service will have only one worry about profits. They will be embarrassingly large. ” – Henry Ford

And Finally…

“I don’t do drugs. If I want a rush I just stand up when I’m not expecting it.” – Dylan Moran quote

“When I was in high school, I got in trouble with my girlfriend’s Dad. He said, “I want my daughter back by 8:15.” I said, “The middle of August? Cool!” – Stephen Wright

“I can’t swim. I can’t drive, either. I was going to learn to drive but then I thought, well, what if I crash into a lake?” – Dylan Moran

“If you ask what is the single most important key to longevity, I would have to say it is avoiding worry, stress and tension. And if you didn’t ask me, I’d still have to say it.” – George Burns

“If you live to be one hundred, you’ve got it made. Very few people die past that age.” – George Burns

“My girlfriend’s weird. One day she asked me, “If you could know how and when you were going to die, would you want to know?” I said, “No.” She said, “Okay, forget it.” – Stephen Wright

“We live in the greatest nation in the history of the world. I hope you’ll join with me as we try to change it.” – Barack Obama

“Vision is the art of seeing what is invisible to others.” – Jonathan Swift

“Vision without action is merely a dream. Action without vision just passes the time. Vision with action can change the world.” – Joel A. Barker

“Who is the strongest, who is the best, who holds the aces, the East or the West. This is the crap our children are learning.” – Roger Waters

“Life is either a daring adventure or nothing.” – Helen Keller

“Although problems and catastrophes may be inevitable, solutions are not.” – Isaac Asimov.

“Life’s tough. It’s even tougher if you’re stupid.” – John Wayne

“You are entitled to your own opinion, but you are not entitled to your own facts.” – Daniel Patrick Moynihan

“What I give form to in daylight is only one per cent of what I have seen in darkness.” – M. C. Escher

“There is nothing so horrible in nature as to see a beautiful theory murdered by an ugly gang of facts.” – Benjamin Franklin

“All our dreams can come true – if we have the courage to pursue them.” – Walt Disney

“If we open a quarrel between the past and the present, we shall find we have lost the future.” – Winston Churchill

And finally a remarkable statement/manifesto of hope for the 21st Century!

“Each small candle lights a corner of the dark. When the wheel of pain stops turning and the branding iron stops burning. When the children can be children – when the desperados weaken. When the tide rolls into greet them. And the natural law of science greets the humble and the mighty. And a billion candles burning lights the dark side of every human mind.” – Roger Waters

“An expert is a person who has made all the mistakes he can in a very narrow field.” – Niels Bohr

“Our destiny is frequently met in the very paths we take to avoid it.” – Jean de La Fontaine

“When one tugs at a single thing in nature, he finds it attached to the rest of the world” – John Muir

“The thing you have to remember is that there’s what people want to hear, there’s what people want to believe, there’s everything else then there’s the Truth. But the truth means responsibility which is why everyone dreads it.” – Eric Singer (The International)

“Reading, after a certain age, diverts the mind too much from its creativity. Any man who reads too much and uses his own brain too little falls into lazy habits of thinking.” – Albert Einstein

“Learning to ignore things is the greatest path to inner peace.” – Robert J Sawyer “Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority it is time to pause and reflect.” – Mark Twain.

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

“I remind myself every morning: Nothing I say this day will teach me anything. So if I’m going to learn, I must do it by listening.” – Larry King

“Ordinarily he was insane but he had lucid moments when he was merely stupid. – Heinrich Heine

“Civilization had too many rules for me so I did my best to rewrite them.” – Bill Cosby

“I can’t give you a surefire formula for success but I can give you a recipe for failure: try to please everyone all the time.” – Herbert Swope

“Named must your fear be before banish it you can.” – Yoda

“I am an old man and have known a great many troubles, but most of them never happened.” – Mark Twain

“A schedule defends from chaos and whim.” – Annie Dillard

“There are many things of which a wise man may wish to be ignorant.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

And finally…

“There are two kinds of statistics: the kind you look up, and the kind you make up.” – Rex Stout

“There are 2 kinds of people in this world. Those who think there are 2 kinds of people, and those who don’t.” Bran Ferren

“There are 10 kinds of people in the world: Those who understand binary and those who don’t.” – Anon

“Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world.” – Albert Einstein

“There are some that only employ words for the purpose of disguising their thoughts.” – Voltaire

“Don’t bother just to be better than your contemporaries or predecessors. Try to be better than yourself.” – William Faulkner

“A belief is not merely an idea the mind possesses. It is an idea that possesses the mind.” – Robert Oxton Bolton

“When you look long into an abyss, the abyss looks into you.” – Friedrich Nietzsche

“All is a riddle, and the key to a riddle – is another riddle.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

“The farther backward you can look, the farther forward you will see.” – Winston Churchill

“We must not, in trying to think about how we can make a big difference, ignore the small daily differences we can make which, over time, add up to big differences that we often cannot foresee.” – Marian Wright Edelman

“The irrationality of a thing is not an argument of its existence, rather, a condition of it.” – Friedrich Nietzsche

“What we do for ourselves dies with us. What we do for others and the world, remains and is immortal.” – Albert Pine

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

“If you realized how powerful your thoughts are, you would never think a negative thought.” —Peace Pilgrim

And with thanks to Dan Spira

“There are two kinds of people in the world, those with loaded guns, and those who dig. You dig.” – Clint Eastwood, 1966, “The Good, The Bad and The Ugly” (Il Buono, il Brutto, il Cattivo)

“There are two kinds of people in the world – those who walk into a room and say, ‘There you are!’ – and those who say, ‘Here I am!’ ” – Abigail Van Buren

“There are basically two types of people. People who accomplish things, and people who claim to have accomplished things. The first group is less crowded.” – Mark Twain

“Those who say it cannot be done should not interrupt those who are doing it.” – Chinese Proverb

“Energy and persistence conquer all things.” – Benjamin Franklin

“We are made to persist. That’s how we find out who we are.” – Tobias Wolff

“What we learn to do, we learn by doing.” – Aristotle

“But every company of the future is going to be in the business of exquisite care – which means quick turnaround time and convenience. To deliver exquisite care, you need an organization that coordinates well and listens well.” – Fernando Flores

“Nothing in this world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful people with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. The slogan “press on” has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race.” – Calvin Coolidge

“The secret of joy in work is contained in one word – excellence. To know how to do something well is to enjoy it.” – Pearl S. Buck

“I made my own assessment of my life, and I began to live it. That was freedom.” – Fernando Flores

“Work is not a curse, it is the prerogative of intelligence, the only means to manhood, and the measure of civilization.” – Calvin Coolidge

“Those who profess to favor freedom and yet depreciate agitation, are people who want crops without ploughing the ground; they want rain without thunder and lightning; they want the ocean without the roar of its many waters. The struggle may be a moral one, or it may be a physical one, or it may be both. But it must be a struggle. Power concedes nothing without a demand; it never has and it never will.” – Frederick Douglass

“You have to be able to risk your identity for a bigger future than the present you are living.” – Fernando Flores

“There is nothing so useless as doing efficiently that which should not be done at all.” – Peter Drucker

“The future depends on what we do in the present.” – Mahatma Gandhi

“One man can make a difference, and every man should try.” – John F. Kennedy

“Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom must, like men, undergo the fatigue of supporting it.” – Thomas Paine

And finally…

“Curiosity killed the cat, but for a while I was a suspect.” – Steven Wright

“Do Lipton employees take coffee breaks?” – Steven Wright

“Do you think that when they asked George Washington for ID that he just whipped out a quarter?” – Steven Wright

“Ambition is the path to success. Persistence is the vehicle you arrive in.” – Bill Bradley

“Change before you have to.” – Jack Welch

“Change will not come if we wait for som e other person or some other time. We are the ones we’ve been waiting for. We are the change that we seek.” – President Barack Obama

“Don’t wait for extraordinary opportunities. Seize common occasions and make them great. Weak men wait for opportunities; strong men make them.” – Orison Swett Marden

“Expect the best. Prepare for the worst. Capitalize on what comes.” – Zig Ziglar

“As we look ahead into the next century, leaders will be those who empower others.” – Bill Gates

“Better keep yourself clean and bright. You are the window through which you must see the world.” – George Bernard Shaw

“My greatest strength as a consultant is to be ignorant and ask a few questions.” – Peter Drucker

“In the last analysis, what we are communicates far more eloquently than anything we say or do.” – Stephen Covey

“Never give in! Never give in! Never, never, never, never – in nothing great or small, large or petty. Never give in except to convictions of honor and good sense.” – Sir Winston Churchill

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

“Confidence, like art, never comes from having all the answers; it comes from being open to all the questions.” – Earl Gray Stevens

And finally…

“Laughter is the shortest distance between two people.” – Victor Borge

“I’ve got to keep breathing. It’ll be my worst business mistake if I don’t.” – Steve Martin

“Boy, those French: They have a different word for everything!” – Steve Martin

“Words ought to be a little wild, for they are the assaults of thought upon the unthinking.” – Maynard Keynes “

A wealth of information creates a poverty of attention” – Herbert Simon

“Every great dream begins with a dreamer. Always remember, you have within you the strength, the patience, and the passion to reach for the stars to change the world.” – Harriet Tubman

“Put your heart, mind, intellect and soul even to your smallest acts. This is the secret of success.” – Swami Sivananda

“A hero is an ordinary individual who finds the strength to persevere and endure in spite of overwhelming obstacles.” – Christopher Reeve

“When the world says, ‘Give up,’ hope whispers, ‘Try it one more time.’ ” – Author Unknown

“If you act as though it matters, and it doesn’t matter – then it doesn’t matter. If you act as if it doesn’t matter, and it does – then it matters!” – Harlan Cleveland

“Live life fully while you’re here. Experience everything. Take care of yourself and your friends. Have fun, be crazy, be weird. Go out and screw up! You’re going to anyway, so you might as well enjoy the process. Take the opportunity to learn from your mistakes: find the cause of your problem and eliminate it. Don’t try to be perfect; just be an excellent example of being human.” – Anthony Robbins

And finally…

“He can compress the most words into the smallest idea of any man I know.” – Abraham Lincoln

“I didn’t attend the funeral, but I sent a nice letter saying I approved of it.” – Mark Twain

“He has no enemies, but is intensely disliked by his friends.” – Oscar Wilde

“Respect is love in plain clothes.” – Frankie Byrnes

“Our consistent thinking patterns create our experience. By changing our thinking we also change our experience.” – Suzi Gablik

“Do not let your fire go out, spark by irreplaceable spark, in the hopeless swamps of the approximate, the not-quite, the not-yet, the not-at-all. Do not let the hero in your soul perish, in lonely frustration for the life you deserved, but have never been able to reach. Check your road and the nature of your battle. The world you desired can be won. It exists, it is real, it is possible, it is yours.” – Ayn Rand

“Your life is an occasion; rise to it.” – Dustin Hoffman in “Mr. Magorium”

“This is our destiny.” – Jamal (Slumdog Millionaire)

“Civilization advances by extending the number of important operations which we can perform without thinking about them.” – Alfred North Whitehead

“When your values are clear to you, making decisions becomes easier.” – Roy Disney

“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence therefore, is not an act but a habit.” – Aristotle

“New ideas are always suspected, and usually opposed, without any other reason but because they are not already common.” – John Locke

“It is only as we develop others that we permanently succeed.” – Harvey S. Firestone

“Dream your dream. Follow your heart. Imagine. Listen to the wind. Drink sunsets. Be free. Let the wonder never cease. Believe. Wish on EVERY star. Create adventure. Be Kind.” – Debbie Coulter

And finally…

“Be careful about reading health books. You may die of a misprint.” – Mark Twain

“Don’t worry about avoiding temptation. As you grow older, it will avoid you.” – Winston Churchill

“There is no secret ingredient. There is only you.” – Kung Fu Panda

“Practices of the unscrupulous money changers stand indicted in the court of public opinion, rejected by the hearts and minds of men.” – Franklin D. Roosevelt (First Inaugural Address, 1933)

“We are all in the process of becoming.” – Audre Lorde

“It takes a long time to grow young.” – Pablo Picasso

“As we express our gratitude, we must never forget that the highest appreciation is not to utter words, but to live by them.” – John F. Kennedy

“You have to do your own growing no matter how tall your grandfather was.” – Abraham Lincoln

“So powerful is the light of unity that it can illuminate the whole earth.” – Baha’u'llah

“The price of excellence is discipline. The cost of mediocrity is disappointment.” – William Arthur Ward

“To love means loving the unlovable. To forgive means pardoning the unpardonable. Faith means believing the unbelievable. Hope means hoping when everything seems hopeless.” – G.K. Chesterton

“Nothing splendid has ever been achieved except by those who dared believe that something inside them was superior to circumstance.” – Bruce Barton

“You can accomplish anything in life, provided that you do not mind who gets the credit.” – Truman by David McCullough

“Growing old is mandatory; growing up is optional.” – Chili Davis

And finally…

“Just remember, once you’re over the hill you begin to pick up speed.” – Charles Schulz