It’s a helluva start, being able to recognize what makes you happy. — Lucille Ball (image)
The very least you can do in your life is figure out what you hope for. And the most you can do is live inside that hope. Not admire it from a distance but live right in it, under its roof. — Barbara Kingsolver, in her book Animal Dreams.
All the happiness depends on a leisurely breakfast. — John Gunther
We judge ourselves by our motives and others by their actions. — Dwight Morrow
When a man is wrong and won’t admit it, he always gets angry. — Thomas Haliburton
He that seeks trouble always finds it. — English Proverb
As the old coots down in Appalachia used to say, “You can burn me for a fool but you won’t get no ashes.” — Tom Robbins, in his autobiography Tibetan Peach Pie.
Driving a crappy car changes your entire mindset. If someone cuts me off on the freeway, I can’t flip them off because I may need that guy to jump-start me in a few minutes. — Dobie Maxwell
You will become way less concerned with what other people think of you when you realize how seldom they do. — David Foster Wallace, in his book Infinite Jest.
When elephants fight it is the grass that suffers. — African Saying
Ninety degrees at four in the morning is not fair. — Rudyard Kipling
A single event can awaken within us a stranger totally unknown to us. To live is to be slowly born. — Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
Curiosity is, in great and generous minds, the first passion and the last. — Samuel Johnson
Rousseau fixed the summit of his earthly bliss at living in an orchard with an amiable woman and a cow, and he never attained even that. He did get as far as the orchard, but the woman was not amiable, and she brought her mother with her, and there was no cow. — J.K. Jerome
To be matter-of-fact about the world is to blunder into fantasy — and dull fantasy at that, as the real world is strange and wonderful. — Robert A. Heinlein
The simple act of paying attention can take you a long way. — Keanu Reeves
Two great talkers will not travel far together. — Spanish Proverb
Imagination is more important than knowledge. — Albert Einstein
The truth that many people never understand, until it is too late, is that the more you try to avoid suffering the more you suffer because smaller and more insignificant things begin to torture you in proportion to your fear of being hurt. — Thomas Merton
It takes considerable knowledge just to realize the extent of your own ignorance. — Thomas Sowell
One of the reasons for the spiritual practice of non-attachment — trying not to be personally attached about your thing, or pain or whatever happens to you — is so that you school yourself so that nothing can happen to you from the outside that can make you lose your energy, because as long as you have your energy on, you can do it. — Stephen Gaskin
Life is like playing a violin in public and learning the instrument as one goes on. — Samuel Butler
A man is rich in proportion to the number of things he can afford to let alone. — Henry David Thoreau
You can’t wait for inspiration. You have to go after it with a club. — Jack London
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 de Montaigne
I’m not offended by “dumb blonde” jokes because I know I’m not dumb. And I know I’m not blonde. — Dolly Parton
Trust the instinct to the end, though you can render no reason. — Ralph Waldo Emerson
Five exclamation marks, the sure sign of an insane mind. — Terry Pratchett, in his book Reaper Man.
Don’t fight forces; use them. — R. Buckminster Fuller
Do the difficult things while they are easy and do the great things while they are small. — Lao Tzu
Necessity makes even the timid brave. — Sallust
Life is a game and you are the player. As you master the game, so you also create it. — Jay Woodman
Unfaithfulness in the keeping of an appointment is an act of clear dishonesty. You may as well borrow a person’s money as his time. — Horace Mann
Ful wys is he that kan hymselven knowe! — Geoffrey Chaucer, in The Canterbury Tales
Times change and we change with them. — Latin Proverb
Living well is the best revenge. — George Herbert
I’m sorry. If you were right, I’d agree with you. — Robin Williams
Don’t pay any attention to the critics. Don’t even ignore them. — Samuel Goldwyn
If there are no stupid questions, then what kind of questions do stupid people ask? Do they get smart just in time to ask questions? — Scott Adams
A good indignation brings out all one’s powers. — Ralph Waldo Emerson (image)
Best relationship advice: Make sure you’re the crazy one.
Somebody’s boring me. I think it’s me. — Dylan Thomas
Patience is something you admire in the driver behind you, but not in one ahead. — Bill McGlashen
He who says there is no such thing as an honest man, you may be sure is himself a knave. — Bishop Berkeley
Every time I paint a portrait I lose a friend. — John Singer Sargent
He does not believe that does not live according to his belief. — Sigmund Freud
Never contend with a man who has nothing to lose. — Baltasar Gracian
human wandering through the zoo
what do your cousins think of you?
— Don Marquis, in his book Archy and Mehitabel.
What I aspired to be and was not, comforts me. — Robert Browning
Strength does not come from physical capacity. It comes from an indomitable will. — Mahatma Gandhi
It is a sobering thought that each of us gives his hearers and his readers a chance to look into the inner working of his mind when he speaks or writes. — M. Barker
I always wanted to be somebody, but now I realize I should have been more specific. — Lily Tomlin
Hide not your light under a bushel.
The offender never pardons. — George Herbert
Some painters transform the sun into a yellow spot, others transform a yellow spot into the sun. — Pablo Picasso
Sorrow makes men sincere. — Henry Ward Beecher
To be hopeful in bad times is based on the fact that human history is not only of cruelty, but also of compassion, sacrifice, courage, kindness. If we see only the worst, it destroys our capacity to do something. If we remember those times and places where people have behaved magnificently, this gives us the energy to act. And if we do act, in however small a way, we don’t have to wait for some grand Utopian future. The future is an infinite succession of presents, and to live now as we think human beings should live, in defiance of all that is bad around us, is itself a marvelous victory. — Howard Zinn
Resolve to be thyself. — Matthew Arnold
Nature, to be commanded, must be obeyed. — Francis Bacon
The beginning of wisdom is to call things by their right names. — Chinese Proverb
My belief is that in life people will take you very much at your own reckoning. — Anthony Trollope
People could with advantage be compelled to remain absolutely alone for several hours a day. — P. Wyndham Lewis
In order to really enjoy a dog, one doesn’t merely try to train him to be semi-human. The point of it is to open oneself to the possibility of becoming partly a dog. — Edward Hoagland
Beware the fury of a patient man. — John Dryden
The shoe that fits one person pinches another; there is no recipe for living that suits all cases. — Carl Jung
Well begun is half done. — Horace
Misers are no fun to live with, but they make great ancestors. — Tom Snyder
They hang the man and flog the woman
Who steals the goose from off the common
Yet let the greater villain loose
That steals the common from the goose
The law demands that we atone
When we take things we do not own
But leaves the lords and ladies fine
Who take things that are yours and mine
— Protest Song, Circa 1764
You might as well fall flat on your face as lean over too far backward. — James Thurber
The eagle never lost so much time as when he submitted to learn from the crow. — William Blake
Make your own Bible. Select and collect all the words and sentences that in all your readings have been to you like the blast of a trumpet. — Ralph Waldo Emerson
If you could kick the person in the pants responsible for most of your trouble, you wouldn’t sit for a month. — Theodore Roosevelt
People often say to me, “Vets must know just as much as doctors,” but when it comes to the crunch they are never very keen to let me treat them. — James Herriot
Seldom any splendid story is wholly true. — Samuel Johnson
I have always imagined that Paradise will be a kind of library. — Jorge Luis Borges
It’s like magic. When you live by yourself, all your annoying habits are gone. — Merrill Markoe
Happen to things, don’t let things happen to you. — Stephen Covey
I wish I could stand on a busy street corner, hat in hand, and beg people to throw me all their wasted hours. — Bernard Berenson
Re-examine all you have been told. Dismiss what insults your soul. — Ralph Waldo Emerson
There is nothing so easy but that it becomes difficult when you do it with reluctance. — Terence
Blessed are they who heal us of self-despisings. Of all services which can be done to man, I know of none more precious. — William Hale White
In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity. — Albert Einstein
The best-laid schemes o’ mice an’ men
Gang aft a-gley.
— Robert Burns, from his poem “To a Mouse”
Learn to say “no”; it will be of more use to you than to be able to read Latin. — Charles Haddon Spurgeon
If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world. — J.R.R. Tolkien
To affect the quality of the day, that is the highest of arts. — Henry David Thoreau (image)
A prophet is not without honour, save in his own country, and in his own house. — Matthew 13:57
How often I found where I should be going only by setting out for somewhere else. — R. Buckminster Fuller
Footfalls echo in the memory
Down the passage which we did not take
Towards the door we never opened
Into the rose garden.
— T.S. Eliot
Too clever is dumb. — German Proverb
Enter into negotiations with the intention of creating an agreement that will allow both parties to achieve their essential goals. — Tom Hopkins
It is difficult not to write satire. — Juvenal
When a thing is funny, search it for a hidden truth. — George Bernard Shaw
Sleep … knits up the ravell’d sleeve of care. — William Shakespeare
It is better to suffer wrong than to do it, and happier to be sometimes cheated than not to trust. — Samuel Johnson
We may live without poetry, music, and art;
We may live without conscience, and live without heart;
We may live without friends; we may live without books;
But civilized man cannot live without Cooks.
— Lord Lytton
The idea of morphic resonance is that there is a kind of memory in nature. Each kind of thing has a collective memory. So, take a squirrel living in New York now. That squirrel is being influenced by all past squirrels. — Rupert Sheldrake
The louder he talked of his honor, the faster we counted the spoons. — Ralph Waldo Emerson
Adversity is the first path to truth. — Lord Byron
The more people one knows, the easier it becomes to replace them. — E.M. Forster
Do not hold to what you have. It is like a ferry boat for people who want to get across waters. Once you have got across, never bear it on your back. You should head forward. — Bruce Lee
That man is richest whose pleasures are the cheapest. — Henry David Thoreau
I don’t believe in astrology; I’m a Sagittarius and we’re skeptical. — Arthur C. Clarke
All goes onward and outward, nothing collapses,
And to die is different from what any one supposed, and luckier.
— Walt Whitman (image)
Those who despise money will eventually sponge on their friends. — Chinese Proverb
Never give advice in a crowd. — Arab Proverb
Inferiors revolt in order that they may be equal, and equals that they may be superior. — Aristotle
I do not believe that friends are necessarily the people you like best, they are merely the people that got there first. — Peter Ustinov
Many would be cowards if they had courage enough. — Thomas Fuller
Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen pounds six, result happiness.
Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pounds ought and six, result misery.
— Charles Dickens, as Mr. Micawber in David Copperfield
My wife’s a water sign. I’m an earth sign. Together we make mud. — Rodney Dangerfield
He does not seem to me to be a free man who does not sometimes do nothing. — Cicero
Abuse a man unjustly, and you will make friends for him. — E.W. Howe
Petting, scratching, and cuddling a dog could be as soothing to the mind and heart as deep meditation and almost as good for the soul as prayer. — Dean Koontz, in his book False Memory.
In extreme youth, in our most humiliating sorrow, we think we are alone. When we are older we find that others have suffered too. — Suzanne Moarny
I dream my painting and I paint my dream. — Vincent Van Gogh
Neurosis is always a substitute for legitimate suffering. — Carl Jung
We often forgive those who bore us, but can’t forgive those whom we bore. — La Rochefoucauld
Always remember that you are absolutely unique. Just like everyone else. — Margaret Mead
It is part of the cure to wish to be cured. — Latin Proverb
The uncreative mind can spot wrong answers, but it takes a creative mind to spot wrong questions. — A. Jay
If there be no remedy, why worry? — Spanish Proverb
When I’m getting ready to reason with a man I spend one-third of my time thinking about myself and what I am going to say — and two-thirds thinking about him and what he is going to say. — Abraham Lincoln
Sooner or later everyone sits down to a banquet of consequences. — Robert Louis Stevenson
Any port in a storm.
Don’t throw a stone into a well from which you have drunk. — Yiddish Proverb
The most spectacular experience I had at this time was having to use a car for twenty-four hours that could only go down hill in reverse. — Mary Brancker
I had a cool job. I sold “No Soliciting” signs door to door. — Buzz Nutley
Some things have to be believed to be seen. — Madeleine L’Engle
Life does not cease to be funny when people die any more than it ceases to be serious when people laugh. — George Bernard Shaw
Alas! How deeply painful is all payment! — Lord Byron
Accept the things to which fate binds you, and love the people with whom fate brings you together, but do so with all your heart. — Marcus Aurelius
The imagination is the golden pathway to everywhere. — Terence McKenna
Even moderation ought not to be practiced to excess.
A drop of ink may make a million think. — Lord Byron
Loneliness does not come from having no people about one, but from being unable to communicate the things that seem important to oneself, or from holding certain views which others find inadmissible. — Carl Jung
One may smile, and smile, and be a villain. — William Shakespeare
Something has got to hold it together. I’m saying my prayers to Elmer, the Greek god of glue. — Tom Robbins
One may be humble out of pride. — Michel de Montaigne
I live in my dreams — that’s what you sense. Other people live in dreams, but not in their own. That’s the difference. — Hermann Hesse, in his book Demian.
What is a weed? A plant whose virtues have not yet been discovered. — Ralph Waldo Emerson<
Practice makes perfect. — Latin Proverb
You cannot do a kindness too soon, for you never know how soon it will be too late. — Ralph Waldo Emerson
All the world’s a stage, And all the men and women merely players. — William Shakespeare
I dared to ask my History master, Tuppy Headlam, for his views on a future life. He replied, “Doubtless I shall inherit eternal bliss, but I prefer not to discuss so depressing a topic.” — Christopher Hollis
Wink at small faults; for thou hast great ones. — Thomas Fuller
An unhurried sense of time is in itself a form of wealth. — Bonnie Friedman
I’m doing pretty good. Been on the road now doing comedy for ten years so bear with me while I plaster on a fake smile and plough through this shit one more time. — Bill Hicks
We are what we pretend to be. — Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
Some people are born with a sense of how to clothe themselves, others acquire it, others look as if their clothes had been thrust upon them. — Saki
A man over ninety is a great comfort to his elderly neighbors. Young folks of sixty or seventy feel that the enemy must get by him before getting near their camp. — Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
I have already settled it for myself so flattery and criticism go down the same drain and I am quite free. — Georgia O’Keeffe
We never eat anybody’s health, always drink it. Why should we not stand up now and then and eat a tart to somebody’s success? — J.K. Jerome
The power of human thought grows exponentially with the number of minds that share that thought. — Dan Brown
Be not a baker, if your head be of butter. — George Herbert
The trouble with the rat race is that even if you win you are still a rat. — Lily Tomlin
Nobody realizes that some people expend tremendous energy merely to be normal. — Albert Camus
It’s nice to get stabbed in the front for a change. — Terry Venables
Only dumb people try to impress smart people. Smart people just do what they do. — Chris Rock
If you find it hard to laugh at yourself, I would be happy to do it for you. — Groucho Marx
Be not forgetful to entertain strangers: for thereby some have entertained angels unawares. — Hebrews 13:2
For fools rush in where angels fear to tread. — Alexander Pope
The early bird gets the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese. — Steven Wright
Having two bathrooms ruined the capacity to co-operate. — Margaret Mead
Be not too hasty to outbid another.
There is almost a sensual longing for communion with others who have a large vision. The immense fulfillment of the friendship between those engaged in furthering the evolution of consciousness has a quality impossible to describe. — Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
The choreographer convinced me that I looked like Fred Astaire, and I never doubted it. But when I saw the film… I thought I looked like a hippopotamus shaking its hooves. — Bill Hoskins
Crying is one of the highest devotional songs. One who knows crying, knows spiritual practice. If you can cry with a pure heart, nothing else compares to such a prayer. Crying includes all the principles of Yoga. — Kripalvanandji
I wish I loved the human race;
I wish I loved its silly face;
I wish I loved the way it walks;
I wish I liked the way it talks;
And when I’m introduced to one
I wish I thought What jolly fun!
— Sir Walter Raleigh, “Wishes of an Elderly Man,” from his book Laughter from a Cloud
A certain awkwardness marks the use of borrowed thoughts; but as soon as we have learned what to do with them, they become our own. — Ralph Waldo Emerson
Anyone going slower than you is an idiot, and anyone going faster than you is a moron. — George Carlin
The world is full of cactus, but we don’t have to sit on it. — Will Foley
Arrange whatever pieces come your way. — Virginia Woolf
It is sad to grow old but nice to ripen. — Brigitte Bardot
The man who goes alone can start today; but he who travels with another must wait till that other is ready. — Henry David Thoreau
If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away. — Henry David Thoreau
If this is coffee, please bring me some tea; but if this is tea, please bring me some coffee. — Abraham Lincoln
The absent are always wrong. — English Proverb
‘Tis no extravagant arithmetic to say, that for every ten jokes thou hast got an hundred enemies. — Laurence Sterne in his book The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman
A wise man should have money in his head, but not in his heart. — Jonathan Swift
Tell the truth and run. — Yugoslavian Proverb
may i be i is the only prayer — not may i be great or good or beautiful or wise or strong. — e.e. cummings
The worst-tempered people I’ve ever met were people who knew they were wrong. — Wilson Mizner
There are two classes of people who tell what is going to happen in the future: those who don’t know and those who don’t know they don’t know. — John Kenneth Galbraith
The rule is perfect: in all matters of opinion our adversaries are insane. — Mark Twain
The only way to deal with an unfree world is to become so absolutely free that your very existence is an act of rebellion. — Albert Camus
When an inner situation is not made conscious, it appears outside as fate. — Carl Jung
Never argue with stupid people, they will drag you down to their level and then beat you with experience. — Mark Twain
It is not every question that deserves an answer. — Publilius Syrus
It is easy to fly into a passion — anybody can do that — but to be angry with the right person to the right extent and at the right time and with the right object and in the right way — that is not easy, and it is not everyone who can do it. — Aristotle
You must accept the truth from whatever source it comes. — Maimonides
In a hierarchy, every employee tends to rise to his level of incompetence. — Laurence J. Peter, in his and Raymond Hull’s book The Peter Principle: Why Things Always Go Wrong.
I was gratified to be able to answer promptly. I said I don’t know. — Mark Twain
When in doubt, tell the truth. — Mark Twain
I could have married a lot of people, but I was busy. — Mae West
If you could just stay focused on the right things, your life would stop feeling like a reaction to stuff that happens to you and become something that you create: not a series of accidents, but a work of art. — Winifred Gallagher, Rapt: Attention and the Focused Life
The most dangerous of all falsehoods is a slightly distorted truth. — G.C. Lichtenberg
Some people walk in the rain. Others just get wet. — Roger Miller
What we learn with pleasure we never forget. — Louis Mercier
Don’t swap horses when you are crossing a stream. — Abraham Lincoln
Any excuse will serve a tyrant. — Aesop
The rich would have to eat money, but luckily the poor provide food. — Russian Proverb
Men are not only bad from good motives, but also often good from bad motives. — G.K. Chesterton
The right to be heard does not automatically include the right to be taken seriously. — Hubert Humphrey
This possibility to change reality, which exists in everyone, represents the real freedom of every human individual. He has an enormous possibility to change his world view. — Albert Hofmann (image)
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