"Weaseling out of things is important to learn. It's what separates us from the animals... except the weasel." - Homer Simpson

Education is our passport to the future, for tomorrow belongs to the people who prepare for it today. -Malcolm X

In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men the great difficulty lies in this: You must first enable the government to control the governed, and in the next place, oblige it to control itself. - Alexander Hamilton

I am alerting every government that their military and destructive weapons are absolutely useless to save their nations. Only peaceful measures to prevent the birth of an enemy will work. - His Holiness Maharishi Mahesh Yogi

Everybody is a star with the potentiality to shine in the infinite sky of eternity. - Shanti

Be wiser than other people if you can; but do not tell them so. - Chesterfield

It's a matter of taking the side of the weak against the strong, something the best people have always done. - Harriet Beecher Stowe

Politics is supposed to be the second oldest profession. I have come to realize that it bears a very close resemblance to the first. - Ronald Reagan

Without commonly shared and widely entrenched moral values and obligations, neither the law, nor democratic government, nor even the market economy, will function properly. - Vaclev Havel, Czech Politician

Just as a solid rock is not shaken by the storm, even so the wise are not affected by praise or blame.

A little foolishness, enough to enjoy life and a little wisdom to avoid the errors, that will do. - Osho

Truth is not determined by majority vote. - Doug Gwyn

If you stand up and be counted, from time to time you may get yourself knocked down. But remember this: A man flattened by an opponent can get up again. A man flattened by conformity stays down for good. - Thomas J. Watson

In the end it is worse to suppress dissent than to run the risk of heresy. - Learned Hand, American Judge

The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral, begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy. Instead of diminishing evil, it multiplies it. Through violence you may murder the hater, but you do not murder hate. In fact, violence merely increases hate. Returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out hate; only love can do that. - Martin Luther King, Jr.

If you love what you do, you'll never work another day in your life.

While I thought I was learning how to live, I have been learning how to die. - Leonardo Da Vinci

And Jesus said: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you ... - Luke 6:27-38

If you want to know how rich you are, just count up all the things you have that money can't buy. - Daniel Webster

To know what is right and not to do it is the worst cowardice. - Confucius

If there is any principle of the Constitution that more imperatively calls for attachment than any other, it is the principle of free thought - not free thought only for those who agree with us, but freedom for the thought we hate. - Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., Supreme Court Justice

If you understand, things are as they are. If you do not understand, things are as they are.

An oppressive government is more to be feared than a tiger. - Confucius

Our defense is in the preservation of the spirit which prizes liberty as a heritage of all men, in all lands, everywhere. Destroy this spirit and you have planted the seeds of despotism around your own doors. - Abraham Licoln

Have no destination, and you will not get lost. - Thyoar

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

By means of shrewd lies, unremittingly repeated, it is possible to make people believe that heaven is hell - and hell heaven. The greater the lie, the more readily it will be believed. - Adolph Hitler, from Mein Kampf

But doubt is as crucial to faith as darkness is to light. Without one, the other has no context and is meaningless. Faith is, by definition, uncertainty. It is full of doubt, steeped in risk. It is about matters not of the known, but of the unknown. - Carter Heywood, Reverend and author

A liar will not be believed, even when he speaks the truth. -Aesop Never build your emotional life on the weaknesses of others. - George Santayana

Men of sense often learn from their enemies. It is from their foes, not their friends, that cities learn the lesson of building high walls and ships of war; and this lesson saves their children, their homes, and their properties. -Aristophanes

Wisdom comes by disillusionment. -George Santayana

There is not a truth existing which I fear... or would wish unknown to the whole world. -Thomas Jefferson

Science may have found a cure for most evils; but it has found no remedy for the worst of them all --the apathy of human beings. - Helen Keller

Freedom is rarely lost in a single stroke. The danger lies in losing it bit by bit. - Dennis Patrick, former FCC Chairman

What progress we are making. In the Middle Ages they would have burned me. Now they are content with burning my books. -Sigmund Freud

Guard with jealous attention the public liberty. Suspect everyone who approaches that jewel. - Patrick Henry

An eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind.

For true and false will in no better way be revealed and uncovered than in resistance to a contradiction. - St. Thomas Aquinas

A man is carrying a heavy load of wood on his shoulders and bewailing his misfortune. Finally he drops the load of wood and wails, "Oh Death, just take me now!" Suddenly, the Angel of Death appears and says, "You called?" Frightened, the man replies, "Could you help me put this wood back on my shoulders?" - Jewish Folktale

The willow knows what the storm does not: that the power to endure harm outlives the power to inflict it.

The highest reward for a person's toil is not what they get for it, but what they become by it. - John Ruskin

We are not entitled to deprive heretics of the life which God has given them simply because we believe them to be in the clutches of Satan. ... Those who are our enemies on earth may, by the grace of God, be our superiors in Heaven. -Bishop Waso of Leige (1045)

As long as I have any choice in the matter, I will live only in a country where civil liberty, tolerance and equality of ALL citizens before the law are the rule. - Einstein

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The world presents itself according to the viewpoint of each person. Whatever kind of person one is, one will see that kind of world; whatever kind of mindset one has, one will derive that kind of conclusion.

Where common sense fails, Regulation prevails.

As long as there is one upright man, as long as there is one compassionate woman, the contagion may spread and the scene is not desolate. Hope is the thing left to us in a bad time. - E.B.White

If we listened to our intellect, we'd never have a love affair. We'd never have a friendship. We'd never go into business, because we'd be cynical. Well, that's nonsense. You've got to jump off cliffs all the time and build your wings on the way down. - Ray Bradbury

Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself. - Leo Tolstoy

Walking is the process of controlled stumbling.

Strangeness is relative.

Yesterday is a dream, tomorrow but a vision. But today well lived makes every yesterday a dream of happiness, and every tomorrow a vision of hope. Look well, therefore to this day.

In the long run we shape our lives and we shape ourselves. The process never ends until we die. And the choices we make are ultimately our own responsibility.

'There are three rules for writing the novel. Unfortunately, no one knows what they are.' (W. Somerset Maugham)

Those who bring sunshine into the lives of others cannot keep it from themselves. -Sir James M. Barrie 'If no one ever took risks, Michelangelo would have painted on the Sistine floor.' (Neil Simon)

What makes humility so desirable is the marvelous thing it does to us; it creates in us a capacity for the closest possible intimacy with God. -Monica Baldwin

Small opportunities are often the beginning of great enterprises. -Demosthenes

The flower of humility blossoms only in the ashes of pride. - St Augustine

In everyone's life, at some time, our inner fire goes out. It is then burst into flame by an encounter with another human being. We should all be thankful for those people who rekindle the inner spirit. -Albert Schweitzer

'It's good to shut up sometimes.' - famed mime MARCEL MARCEAU

All men's lives are fairy tales written by the fingers of God. -Hans Christian Anderson

If you want to do evil, science provides the most powerful weapons to do evil; but equally, if you want to do good, science puts into your hands the most powerful tools to do so. -Richard Dawkins

....when two opposite points of view are expressed with equal intensity, the truth does not necessarily lie exactly halfway between them. It is possible for one side to be simply wrong. - Richard Dawkins

You don't get to choose how you're going to die. Or when. You can only decide how you're going to live. Now. Joan Baez (b. 1941) American singer What we truly and earnestly aspire to be, that in some sense we are. The mere aspiration, by changing the frame of mind, for the moment realizes itself. -Anna Jameson, Author

Everybody is a moon, and he has a dark side which he never shows to anybody. - Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens)

The eye sees only what the mind is prepared to comprehend. Henri-Louis Bergson (1859-1941) French philosopher Believe nothing because it is written in books. Believe nothing because wise men say it is so. Believe nothing because it is religious doctrine. Believe it only because you yourself know it to be true. - Buddha

The one function that TV news performs very well is that, when there is no news, we give it to you with the same emphasis as if there were. David Brinkley (b. 1920) American TV journalist

Experience should teach us to be most on our guard to protect liberty when the government's purposes are beneficial. Justice Louis Brandeis

Wheresoever you go, go with all your heart. - Confucius

The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen, nor touched...but are felt in the heart. - Helen Keller

Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge? Where is the knowledge we have lost in information? - T.S. Elliot

Don't be vain because you happen to have talent. You are not responsible for that; it was not of your doing. What you do with your talent is what matters. -Pablo Casals

One of the most tragic things I know about human nature is that all of us tend to put off living. We are all dreaming of some magical rose garden over the horizon - instead of enjoying the roses that are blooming outside our windows today. -Dale Carnegie (1888-1955)

Conventionality is not morality. Self-righteousness is not religion. To attack the first is not to assail the last. -Charlotte Bronte (from Jane Eyre)

The first and last thing which is required of genius is the love of truth. - Goethe

No one can arrive from being talented alone. God gives talent; work transforms talent into genius. - Anna Pavlova

'We can never have enough of Nature.' - Henry David Thoreau

The age of chivalry is never past, so long as there is a wrong left unredressed on earth, or a man or woman left to say, I will redress that wrong, or spend my life in the attempt. - Kingsley

There is no end to the adventures we can have if we seek them with our eyes wide open. - Nehru

Believe those who are seeking the truth. Doubt those who find it. -Andre Gide

Live your beliefs and you can turn the world around. - Henry David Thoreau

I have become Death, the destroyer of worlds. - Dr. Robert Oppenheimer

He who gives up freedom for security deserves neither. -Ben Franklin.

Of all the words of mice and men, the saddest are `It might have been.' - Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.

There is just enough room in the world for all the people in it, but there is no room for the fences which separate them. - Father Taylor

The sole meaning of life is to serve humanity.

The State insists that, by thus quarantining the general reading public against books not too rugged for grown men and women in order to shield juvenile innocence, it is exercising its power to promote the general welfare. Surely this is to burn the house to roast the pig...The incidence of this enactment is to reduce the adult population...to only reading what is fit for children. - Justice Felix Frankfurter (1957)

If you're going through hell, keep going. - Sir Winston Churchill

This is my simple religion. There is no need for temples; no need for complicated philosophy. Our own brain, our own heart is our temple; the philosophy is kindness. - The Dalai Lama

The conquest of the earth, which mostly means the taking it away from those who have a different complexion or slightly flatter noses than ourselves, is not a pretty thing when you look into it too much.

Morality by consensus is frequently morality by convenience. - Surge

Reality is not affected by our apprehension of it. - DiM

The best solution against abortions is education, not snipers. - M.M.

Whoever has the best commercials wins. - Pony

Believing in God does not require believing in religion. - Morgaine

I am a hobo in the house of the lord. - Cain

Suits and religions rupture if you force them on. - Surge

People are just smart enough to not be happily ignorant. - Surge

People are exponentially funnier when they're in rant mode. - Top5.com

'God had some serious quality-control problems.' - Judge Leslie Light

Self-imposed ignorance should disgust everyone. - Magic

Churches are hospitals for sinners, rather than hotels for saints. - Hobbit

'The lesser of two evils is still evil.' - Kevin Barkes

It's never right to say always, and always wrong to say never. - Len

Hell is inside our own body and mind. Due to our desires that cannot be fulfilled and due to longings and greed that cannot be satisfied, we generate the fires of greedy desire and resentful anger which burn our own body and mind. - Buddha

The world is a beautiful book for those who can read it.

Any certainty is a delusion.

'May you live all the days of your life.' - Swift

Some nonsense now and then is relished by the wisest men.

Assassination is the extreme form of censorship.

Even a philosopher gets upset with a toothache.

To be a human without passion is to be dead.

Rebellion to tyrants is obedience to God.

We are as God made us, and often a great deal worse.

'Love -- a grave mental disease.' Plato

Man is the missing link between apes and human beings.

Ethics is not necessarily the handmaiden of theology.

Art is vision, not expression.

Often the test of courage is not to die, but to live.

Never underestimate the power of human stupidity.

All sentences that seem true should be questioned.

A person never tells you anything until contradicted.

Only the hand that erases can write the true thing.

It is dangerous to confuse children with angels.

In this grand B movie we call life, there is always a girl.

You get what anyone gets. You get a lifetime.

If you save the world too often, it begins to expect it.

That which does not kill us makes us stranger.

Buildings burn. People die. But real love is forever.

No cause is so right that one cannot find a fool following it.

Love can damage more than you can heal with drinking.

Peculiar travel suggestions are dancing lessons from God.

It is never a mistake to say good-bye.

Against boredom even the gods contend in vain.

If you would be unloved and forgotten, be reasonable.

A little nothing goes a long, long way.

Ain't no disgrace to be poor - but might as well be.

A brute kills for pleasure. A fool kills from hate.

We are healthy only to the extent that our ideas are humane.

There was no immunity to cuckoo ideas on Earth.

Ideas on Earth are badges of friendship or enmity.

Make sure you still have something worth wishing for.

Don't matter if you care, if you don't own what you care about.

Unusual ideas can make enemies.

Just because there's a pattern doesn't mean there's a purpose.

It's not all lies - not all of it. That's the age-old dilemma.

Dreams are made to be destroyed. Nightmares are forever.

With love comes strange currencies.

The way to love anything is to realize it might be lost.

A coward mistakes oppression for peace.

The function of the artist is to provide what life does not.

There are no weird people - some just require more understanding.

Please remember that the labels are your own.

It's safer to play with a man's wife than with his cliches.

The fear of death is the beginning of slavery.

There's nothing to gain and nothing to lose.

Only when we have nothing to say do we say anything at all.

Everything is true to someone.

Lies are only a problem when you believe them.

Anyone can learn from pain.

Newness is relative.

Underestimation is a two-way street.

The professor makes the syllabus, not you.

The important thing isn't doing, but knowing how you do it.

Some things cannot be taught, only discovered.

You cannot learn without already knowing.

A solved puzzle is just a picture.

Describing is not knowing.

A stopped car does not imply a dead driver.

An unimportant door is never locked.

There are as many translators as there are humans.

Inertia is not limited to matter.

'Of course' is cyanide of the mind.

We are never truly sure of our beliefs.

Perceptions do not limit reality.

Without hope, the rest is nothing.

Both dreams and people crash down.

Insanity is forgetting to believe a few lies.

Seekers of truth invariably turn to lies.

Truth is a kind and gentle lie.

I have been a stranger in a strange land. - Exodus 2:22

God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks to us in our conscience, but shouts in our pains: It is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world. -C. S. Lewis

We are not afraid to entrust the American people with unpleasant facts, foreign ideas, alien philosophies, and competitive values. For a nation that is afraid to let its people judge the truth and falsehood in an open market is a nation that is afraid of its people. -John F. Kennedy

We often mistake 'mysterious' and 'miraculous', forgetting that something as literally everyday as a sunset can be supremely miraculous... and supremely commonplace.

Sometimes we forget that we don't have to change the world in order to change the world.

It's a puzzling thing. The truth knocks on the door and you say, 'Go away, I'm looking for the truth,' and so it goes away.

In the End, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends. - Martin Luther King

It is a mystery to me how a person can feel honored by the humiliation of his fellow human beings." - Mahatma Gandhi

Fall seven times, stand up eight. - Japanese proverb

Never let the future disturb you. You will meet it, if you have to, with the same weapons of reason which today arm you against the present. - Marcus Aurelius

The only Zen you find on the tops of mountains is the Zen you bring up there. - Robert M. Pirsig

There is only one corner of the universe you can be certain of improving and that is your own self. - Aldous Huxley

In raising my children, I have lost my mind but found my soul. - Lisa T. Shepherd

No matter how far you have gone on the wrong road, turn back. - Turkish proverb

I was wise enough to never grow up while fooling most people into believing I had. - Margaret Mead

A man is not honest simply because he never had a chance to steal. - Yiddish proverb

Even if you're on the right track, you'll get run over if you just sit there. - Will Rogers

You can outdistance that which is running after you, but not what is running inside you. - Rwandan proverb

And Jesus said: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you ... (Luke 6:27-38)

What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us. - Oliver Wendell Holmes

It all comes down to one very simple choice... Get busy livin' or get busy dyin'. - Andy Dufrain (Tim Robbins) in "The Shawshank Redemption" The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and all science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead; his eyes are closed. - Albert Einstein

The game of life is not so much in holding a good hand as playing a poor hand well. - H. T. Leslie

There is no top for me. As soon as I get to a certain point, I want to see what is at the next plateau. - Ted "the Greek"

You cannot teach a man anything; You can only help him to find it within himself - Galileo

My son has taken up meditation - at least it's better than sitting doing nothing. - Max Kauffmann

What can we gain by sailing to the moon if we are not able to cross the abyss that separates us from ourselves? This is the most important of all voyages of discovery, and with- out it, all the rest are not only useless, but disastrous. - Thomas Merton

The only way in which one human being can properly attempt to influence another is by encouraging him to think for himself, instead of endeavoring to instill ready made opinions into his head. - Sir Leslie Stephen

There have been tyrants and murderers and for a time they seem invincible but in the end, they always fall - think of it, ALWAYS. - Mahatma Gandhi

The tree which moves some to tears of joy is in the eyes of others only a green thing that stands in the way. Some see nature all ridicule and deformity...and some scarce see nature at all. But to the eyes of the man of imagination, nature is imagination itself. - William Blake

Ours is a world of nuclear giants and ethical infants. If we continue to develop our technology without wisdom or prudence, our servant may prove to be our executioner. - General Omar Bradley

Never be bullied into silence. Never allow yourself to be made a victim. Accept no one's definition of your life; define yourself. - Harvey Fierstein

Life is not lost by dying; life is lost minute by minute, day by dragging day, in all the thousand small uncaring ways. - Stephen Vincent Benet

You yourself, as much as anybody in the entire Universe, deserve your love and affection. - Buddha

He that will not reason is a bigot, He that cannot reason is a fool, He that dares not reason is a slave. - William Drummond

A collective tyrant, spread over the length and breadth of the land, is no more acceptable than a single tyrant ensconced on his throne. - Georges Clemenceau, French Diplomat

One of the greatest joys known to man is to take a flight into ignorance in search of knowledge. - Robert Lynd

People will do anything, no matter how absurd, in order to avoid facing their own soul. - Carl G. Jung

You are not thinking. You are merely being logical. - Neils Bohr

Science may have found a cure for most evils; but it has found no remedy for the worst of them all- the apathy of human beings. - Helen Keller

When a man says he approves of something in principle, it means he hasn't the slightest intention of carrying it out in practice. - Otto von Bismarck

Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citi- zens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has. - Margaret Mead

Sooner or later we must realize there is no station, no one place to arrive at once and for all. The true joy of life is the trip. - Robert J. Hastings, "The Station"

When people go to work, they shouldn't have to leave their hearts at home. - Betty Bender

Some people like my advice so much that they frame it upon the wall instead of using it. - Gordon R. Dickson

To talk much and arrive nowhere is the same as climbing a tree to catch a fish. - Ancient Chinese Proverb

Eternity is not something that begins after you are dead. It is going on all the time. We are in it now. - C. P. Gilman

The system encourages and rewards mediocrity. It makes the gifted, the smart, the "brainiacs" into people who rebel or succumb. It kills the soul. - Ivy Pickens

Always vote for principle, though you may vote alone, and you may cherish the sweetest reflection that your vote is never lost. - John Quincy Adams (1767-1848)

Dignity does not consist in possessing honors, but in deserving them.

Better to abolish serfdom from above than wait till it begins to abolish itself from below. - Czar Alexander II

I don't want to get to the end of my life and find that I lived just the length of it. I want to have lived the width of it as well. - Diane Ackerman

Part of the inhumanity of the computer is that, once it is competently programmed and working smoothly, it is completely honest. -Isaac Asimov

Get the facts first. You can distort them later.

Creativity is allowing oneself to make mistakes. Art is knowing which ones to keep. -Scott Adams

Words are like a finger which points to the truth, but people in general only see the finger. They do not see beyond the finger to find out the truth. - Hui Neng

A Native American grandfather was talking to his grandson about how he felt. He said, I feel as if I have two wolves fighting in my heart. One wolf is the vengeful, angry, violent one. The other wolf is the loving, compassionate one. The grandson asked him, 'which wolf will win the fight in your heart?' The grandfather answered, 'The one I feed.'

Whatever we put our attention on will grow stronger in our life. -Maharishi Mahesh Yogi

Count your blessings, not your troubles, and you'll make it through what comes along. Within you are so many answers.

Many that live deserve death. And some that die deserve life. Can you give it to them? Then do not be too eager to deal out death in judgment. For even the very wise cannot see all ends. - Gandalf the Grey

Perhaps the hardest lesson to learn is not to be attached to the results of your actions. -J. Borysenko

Let us not look back in anger, nor forward in fear, but around in awareness. -James Thurber, author (1894-1961)

Begin doing what you want to do now. We are not living in eternity. We have only this moment, sparkling like a star in our hand and melting like a snowflake. -Marie Beyon Ray

One person with a belief is equal to a force of ninety-nine who have only interests." - John Stuart Mill

Peace is not an absence of war, it is a virtue, a state of mind, a disposition for benevolence, confidence, justice. -Baruch Spinoza, Philosopher

It is good to fall a few times, get hurt, stand up again - to go astray a few times. There is no harm. The moment you find you have gone astray, come back. Life has to be learned through trial and error.

Life is something that happens when you can't get to sleep. - Frank Lebowitz

Conform and be dull. - James Frank Dobie

The shepherd drives the wolf from the sheep's throat, for which the sheep thanks the shepherd as his liberator, while the wolf denounces him for the same act as the destroyer of liberty. - Abraham Lincoln

Let no man imagine that he has no influence. Whoever he may be, and wherever he may be placed, the man who thinks becomes a light and a power. - Henry George

As far as we can discern, the sole purpose of human existence is to kindle a light in the darkness of mere being. - Carl Jung

What makes life worth living? To be born with the gift of laughter and sense that the world is mad. - S. Searamouche

The world is round, and the place which may seem like the end may also be only the beginning. - Ivy Baker Priest

Civilization is the process of setting man free from men. - Ayn Rand

Emancipate yourself from mental slavery, None but ourselves can free our minds. - Bob Marley

Become still by flowing with the stream. - Lao-tze

Next to knowing when to seize an opportunity, the most important thing in life is to know when to forego an advantage. -Benjamin Disraeli

Tis just the little touches after the average man would quit that make the master's fame. - Orison Swett Marden

Never argue with a fool. Someone watching may not be able to tell the difference.

The gem cannot be polished without friction, not a man perfected without trials. - Chinese Proverb

Why comes temptation, but for man to meet and master and crouch beneath his foot, and so be pedestaled in triumph? - Robert Browning

Self-respect is the cornerstone of all virtue. - John Herschel

Conscience and cowardice are really the same thing. Conscience is the trade-name of the firm. - Oscar Wilde

Experience is a hard teacher because she gives the test first, the lesson afterwards. - Vernon Sanders Law

Men have become the tools of their tools. - Henry David Thoreau

He who has a thousand friends has not a friend to spare, And he who has one enemy will meet him everywhere. - Ali ibn-Abi-Talib

When the character of a man is not clear to you, look at his friends.

They always say that time changes things, but you actually have to change them yourself. - Andy Warhol

Without an enemy's action, there is no possibility for patience or tolerance to arise. - the Dalai Lama

If you want to be free, get to know your real self. - Rinzai

I want to know the truth, however perverted that may sound. - Stephen Wolfram

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

Never believe anything until it has been officially denied. - Claud Cockburn

When I examine myself and my methods of thought, I come to the conclusion that the gift of fantasy has meant more to me than any talent for abstract, positive thinking. - Albert Einstein

Nothing can bring you peace but yourself. - Ralph Waldo Emerson

I need no warrant for being, and no word of sanction upon my being. I am the warrant and the sanction. - Ayn Rand

Time is an illusion, lunchtime doubly so. - Douglas Adams

The future will be better tomorrow. - Dan Quayle

Beware lest you lose the substance by grasping at the shadow. - Aesop

Belief is the death of intelligence. - Robert Anton Wilson

Give what you have. To someone, it may be better than you dare to think. - Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

But who is to guard the guards themselves? - Juvenal

A minute's success pays the failure of years. - Robert Browning

A small rock holds back a great wave. - Homer

You can discover more about a person in an hour of play than in a year of conversation. - Plato

Power corrupts. Absolute power is kind of neat. - John Lehman, Secretary of the Navy, 1981-1987

Watch out for the fellow who talks about putting thing in order! Putting things in order always means getting other people under your control. - Denis Diderot

If you don't like your own character there may be a new one ready-made and waiting for you. The snake sheds its skin with impunity, relying on the same nature which you rely on.

It's not that some people have willpower and some don't. It's that some people are ready to change and others are not.

We don't receive wisdom; we must discover it for ourselves after a journey that no one can take for us or spare us. - Marcel Proust

I like it when a flower or a little tuft of grass grows through a crack in the concrete. It's so heroic. - George Carlin

It is wise to direct your anger towards problems - not people; to focus your energies on answers - not excuses. - William Arthur Ward

The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong. - Mahatma Gandhi

Use your enemy's hand to catch a snake. - Persian Proverb

When we were children, we used to think that when we were grown-up we would no longer be vulnerable. But to grow up is to accept vulnerability. To be alive is to be vulnerable. - Madeleine L'Engle

Before the beginning of great brilliance, there must be chaos. Before a brilliant person begins something great, they must look foolish in the crowd. - the I Ching

Nobody, as long as he moves about among the chaotic currents of life, is without trouble. - Carl Jung

Power always has to be kept in check; power exercised in secret, especially under the cloak of national security, is doubly dangerous. - William Proxmire

When you're not looking at it, this sentence is in Spanish. - Douglas R. Hofstadter

Logic merely enables one to be wrong with authority. - Doctor Who

Most of us, swimming against the tides of trouble the world knows nothing about, need only a bit of praise or encouragement - and we will make the goal. - Jerome P. Fleishman

To knock a thing down, especially if it is cocked at an arrogant angle, is a deep delight of the blood. - George Santayana

Those who are too smart to engage in politics are punished by being governed by those who are dumber.

Failure is not the worst thing in the world. The worst is not to try.

You can only lose what you cling to. - Buddha

Courage is simply the willingness to be afraid and act anyway. -Robert Anthony, American psychologist

I know you've come to kill me. Shoot, coward, you're only going to kill a man. -Che Guevera (October 9, 1967, just before being murdered)

Nature, to be commanded, must be obeyed. In everything man has accomplished, we have only manipulated nature into doing what it is. -Francis Bacon

If a man will begin with certainties, he shall end in doubts; but if he will be content to begin in doubts, he shall end in certainties. -Francis Bacon

Government, in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state, an intolerable one; for when we suffer, or are exposed to the same miseries by a government, which we might expect in a country without a government, our calamity is heightened by reflecting that we furnish the means by which we suffer. -Thomas Paine

It is better to be hated for what you are than loved for what you are not. - Andre Gide

At the risk of seeming ridiculous, let me say that the true revolutionary is guided by a great feeling of love. It is impossible to think of a genuine revolutionary lacking this quality. - Che Guevera

The real problem is in the hearts and minds of men. It is not a problem of physics but of ethics. It is easier to denature plutonium than to denature the evil from the spirit of man. - Albert Einstein

Success without honor is an unseasoned dish; it will satisfy your hunger, but it won't taste good. - Joe Paterno

We cannot do evil to others without doing it to ourselves. - Joseph Francois Eduard Desmahis

It is curious that physical courage should be so common in the world and moral courage so rare. -Mark Twain

To sin by silence when they should protest makes cowards out of men. -Abraham Lincoln

A day without laughter is a day wasted. - Charlie Chaplin

Rare is the person who can weigh the faults of others with- out putting his thumb on the scales. -Bryon J. Langenfeld

Don't be afraid to ask dumb questions. They're more easily handled than dumb mistakes. -William Wister Hanes, in "High Tension"

Human beings live as if they will never die, and die as if they had never lived.

How many cares one loses when one decides not to be something but to be someone. -Coco Chanel, Dress designer

Many people will walk in and out of your life, but only true friends will leave footprints in your heart. -Eleanor Roosevelt

Live as though it were your last day on earth. Some day you will be right. -Robert Anthony, American psychologist

The opposite of bravery is not cowardice, but conformity. -Robert Anthony, American psychologist

Stop leaving and you will arrive Stop searching and you will see Stop running away and you will be found. - Lao Tzu

Have no destination, and you will not get lost. -Thyoar

Everybody is a nice guy, underneath it all. What we become when the world is through messing us over is something else. - Hagbard Celine

One day your life is going to flash before your eyes. Make sure it's worth watching.

Freedom is the will to be responsible to ourselves. - Nietzsche

Don't judge each day by the harvest you reap, but by the seeds you plant. -Robert Louis Stevenson

Tomorrow or the next life - which comes first, we never know. - Sogyal Rinpoche

I shall allow no man to belittle my soul by making me hate him. -Booker T. Washington

The means of defense against foreign danger historically have become the instruments of tyranny at home. -James Madison

Mankind must put an end to war, or war will put an end to mankind. -John F. Kennedy

Only the dead have seen the last of war.

Darkness cannot drive out hate; only love can do that. -Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Don't compromise yourself. You're all you've got. - Janis Joplin

Sometimes doing nothing is better than trying to fill the space. -Jay Sigal

Should we all confess our sins to one another we would all laugh at one another for our lack of originality. Should we all reveal our virtues we would also laugh for the same cause. -Khalil Gibran

Hope is a waking dream. -Aristotle

There is a continuing, mandatory need for heresy in its most profound sense; for freedom to choose and follow truth wherever it leads. -William Edelen

The first and greatest commandment is, Don't let them scare you. -Elmer Davis

The great courage is to stare as squarely at the light as at death. -Albert Camus

Your adversaries will call you unpatriotic for speaking the truth when conformity reigns. Ideologues will smear you for challenging the official view of reality. Mainstream media will ignore you, and those gasbags on cable TV and the radio talk shows will ridicule and vilify you. But I urge you to hold to these words: 'In the course of fighting the present fire, we must not abandon our efforts to create fire-resistant structures of the future.' -Randy Kehler, The Democracy Brigade

A tree is known by its fruit; a man by his deeds. A good deed is never lost; he who sows courtesy reaps friendship, and he who plants kindness gathers love. - Basil

But sometimes, when a man has spent a life being distrusted and distrustful, being a loner (or a Loser) both by choice and by reason of society's opinion of him, he can find a friend or a lover and simply live for that person, the way a dog lives for its master. - Stephen King

Whenever we begin to love, battles are fought within our soul. Little wars of hope and fear, skirmishes between logic and emotion. These internal conflicts are tiny, and utterly banal to anyone but ourselves - yet they are the most important battles of all.

Evidently every hour of the year - including this one - was a good one for staring at a luminous screen. - J. Franzen

Lack of will power has caused more failure than lack of intelligence or ability. -Flower A. Newhouse If you begin to live life looking for the God that is all around you, every moment becomes a prayer. -Frank Bianco

Making the simple complicated is commonplace; making the complicated simple, awesomely simple, that's creativity. -Charles Mingus

A life without adventure is likely to be unsatisfying, but a life in which adventure is allowed to take whatever form it will is sure to be short. - Bertrand Russell

If we choose, we can live in a world of comforting illusion. -Noam Chomsky

Hatred is the coward's revenge for being intimidated. -George Bernard Shaw

If you hate a person, you hate something in him that is part of yourself. What isn't part of ourselves doesn't disturb us. - Hermann Hesse The ability to accept responsibility is the measure of the man. -Roy L. Smith

When we lose the right to be different, we lose the privilege to be free. -Charles Evans Hughes

Hatred does not cease by hatred, but only by love; this is the eternal rule. -Buddha

A man who lives, not by what he loves but what he hates, is a sick man. -Archibald Macleish

When our hatred is violent, it sinks us even beneath those we hate. -Francois De La Rochefoucauld

I learned that it is the weak who are cruel, and that gentleness is to be expected only from the strong. - Leo Rosten

Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character give him power. -Abraham Lincoln

I have seen all souls as my soul, and realized my soul as the soul of all. -Hazrat Inayat Khan

The test of courage comes when we are in the minority; the test of tolerance comes when we are in the majority. - Ralph W. Stockton

Every man creates a certain psychological security, unaware of the fact that his security is his prison... Your prison cell becomes smaller; you start living so much protected that life itself becomes impossible. Life is possible only in insecurity.

Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable. -John F. Kennedy

The only difference between a wise man and a fool is that the wise man knows he's playing. - Fritz Perls

The temple of my physical makeup is a culmination of genetics. It reveals nothing about the person who resides within. I take no credit and point no blame for the way I look. My temple is perfect, as is.

He who allows oppression shares the crime. - Erasmus Darwin

Patriotism is a kind of religion; it is the egg from which wars are hatched. - Guy de Maupassant

The art of being wise is the art of knowing what to overlook. - William James

You have enemies? Good! It means you've stood up for something at least once in your life.

Knowing others is intelligence; knowing yourself is true wisdom. Mastering others is strength; mastering yourself is true power. If you realize that you have enough, you are truly rich. - Tao Te Ching

Never mistake knowledge for wisdom. One helps you make a living; the other helps you make a life. - Sandra Carey

Is there anything more satisfying, more healing, more enjoyable, more important in your life than your next breath? Don't let it go by unnoticed. Take your time and savor it. - Beth Johnson

Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death! - Patrick Henry

If we are all one, does not that mean that everything outside of you is also you? - Alana

Love is beauty and beauty is truth, and that is why in the beauty of a flower we can see the truth of the universe. - Buddha

"My Country, right or wrong" is a thing no patriot would think of saying except in a desperate case. It is like saying, "My mother, drunk or sober." - Gilbert Keith Chesterton

Mistakes are a fact of life. It is the response to error that counts. - Nikki Giovanni

You may be deceived if you trust too much, but you will live in torment if you don't trust enough. -Frank Crane, Biblical scholar

The understanding that underlies the right decision grows out of the clash and conflict of opinions and out of the serious consideration of competing alternatives. - Peter Drucker

The stupid sees difficulty in every opportunity; the intelligent sees opportunity in every difficulty. - Nahsti

That which can be taken away by death is worthless to accumulate. Accumulate something that death cannot destroy. - Osho

The fundamental factor of self-deception is this constant desire to be something in this world. - J. Krishamurti

Success is not defined by obtaining everything you want, but by appreciating everything you have.

You can only protect your liberties in this world by protecting the other man's freedom. - Clarence Darrow

Do not spoil what you have by desiring what you have not; but remember that what you now have was once among the things you only hoped for. -Epicurus, Greek Philosopher

If you know your own worth what need you care about the acceptance or rejection of others?

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