Quotes of Wisdom

(Sorted more or less by alphabetic order of the writer.)

A

No one is in control of your happiness but you; therefore, you have the power to change anything about yourself or your life that you want to change.
Barbara De Angelis

"Lord,
Make me an instrument of your peace;
Where there is hatred let me sow love;
Where there is injury pardon;
Where there is doubt faith;
Where there is despair hope;
Where there is darkness light;
Where there is sadness joy.

O Divine Master,
Grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console,
To be understood as to understand,
To be loved as to love,
For it is in giving that we receive,
It is in pardoning, that we are pardoned,
It is in dying that we are born to eternal life.

Where there is charity and wisdom, there is neither fear nor ignorance.
Where there is patience and humility, there is neither anger nor vexation.
Where there is poverty and joy, there is neither greed nor avarice.
Where there is peace and meditation, there is neither anxiety nor doubt."
Unknown (not written by St. Francis)

To live we must conquer incessantly, we must have the courage to be happy.
Henri Frederic Amiel

Never discourage anyone who continually makes progress, no matter how slow.
Aristotle

Flatter me, and I may not believe you.
Criticize me, and I may not like you.
Ignore me, and I may not forgive you.
Encourage me, and I may not forget you.
William Arthur

We are here on earth to do good for others.
What the others are here for, I don't know.
W. H. Auden

Learn to self-conquest, persevere thus for a time, and you will perceive very clearly the advantage which you gain from it.
St. Teresa of Avila

It is easier to fight for one's principles than to live up to them.
Alfred Adler

B

The scars you acquire by exercising courage will never make you feel inferior.
D.A. Battista

Big egos are big shields for lots of empty space
Diana Black

The greatest dangers of liberty lurk in insidious encroachment of men of zeal, well-meaning but without understanding.
Louis D. Brandeis

We say we waste time, but that is impossible. We waste ourselves.
Alice Bloch

William Blake

You never know what is enough until you know what is more than enough. It is easier to forgive an enemy than to forgive a friend.

None will improve your lot if you yourself do not.
Bertolt Brecht

Take away love, and our earth is a tomb.
Robert Browning

Bad habits are like chains that are too light to feel until they are too heavy to carry.
Warren Buffet

C

You can make more friends in two months by becoming interested in other people than you can in two years by trying to get other people interested in you.
Dale Carnegie

He that cannot reason is a fool. He that will not is a bigot. He that dare not is a slave.
Andrew Carnegie

Impartiality is a pompous name for indifference, which is an elegant name for ignorance.
G. K. Chesterton

In detachment lies the wisdom of uncertainty... in the wisdom of uncertainty lies the freedom from our past, from the known, which is the prison of past conditioning. And in our willingness to step into the unknown, the field of all possibilities, we surrender ourselves to the creative mind that orchestrates the dance of the universe.
Deepak Chopra

Sir Winston Churchill

People stumble over the truth from time to time, but most pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing happened. A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.

There are no uninteresting things, only uninterested people.
Gilbert K. Chesterton

There are two types of people: Those who come into a room and say, "Well, here I am!", and those who say, "Ah, there you are".
Frederick L. Collins

Confucius

Real knowledge is to know the extent of one's ignorance. When you see a good man, try to emulate his example, and when you see a bad man, search yourself for his faults. It is not the failure of others to appreciate your abilities that should trouble you, but rather your failure to appreciate theirs.

D

When you judge another, you do not define them, you define yourself.
Wayne Dyer

Use what talent you possess: the woods would be very silent if no birds sang except those that sang best.
Henry Van Dyke

E

To dream anything that you want to dream, that is the beauty of the human mind.
To do anything that you want to do, that is the strength of the human will.
To trust yourself, to test your limits, that is the courage to succeed.
Bernard Edmonds

From now on practice saying to everything that appears unpleasant: You are merely an appearance and NOT what you appear to be.
Epictetus

F

Self-pity gets you nowhere. One must have the adventurous daring to accept oneself as a bundle of possibilities and undertake the most interesting game in the world -- making the most of one's best.
Harry Emerson Fosdick

Education's purpose is to replace an empty mind with an open one.
Malcolm S. Forbes
(School instead creates closed minds, filled to the brim.
Rudyh)

Wink at small faults; remember thou hast great ones.
Benjamin Franklin

G

Faced with the choice between changing one's mind and proving that there is no need to do so, almost everyone gets busy on the proof.
Galbraith's Law

Eternity is not something that happens after you are dead. It's going on all the time. We're in it now.
Charlotte Perkins Gilman

It is so fatally easy to confuse an aesthetic appreciation of the spiritual life with the life itself - to dream that you have waked, washed, and dressed & then to find yourself still in bed.
From a letter by C.S. Lewis to Arthur Greeves

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

Indira Gandhi

There are two kinds of people, those who do the work and those who take the credit. Try to be in the first group; there is less competition there. You cannot shake hands with a clenched fist.

Kahlil Gibran

Trickery succeeds sometimes, but it always commits suicide. To understand the heart and mind of a person, look not at what he has already achieved, but at what he aspires to. Keep me away from the wisdom that does not cry, the philosophy which does not laugh and the greatness which does not bow before children.

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

Let everyone sweep in front of his own door and the whole world will be clean.
Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

If you take fire into your heart, your house is likely to burn.
Alyson's great grandmother

H

When in doubt, make a fool of yourself. There is a microscopically thin line between being brilliantly creative and acting like the most gigantic idiot on earth. So, what the hell, leap!
Cynthia Heimel

I wanted to change the world. But I have found that the only thing one can be sure of changing is oneself.
Aldous Huxley

My goal is simple. It is complete understanding of the universe, why it as it is and why it exists as all.
Stephen Hawking

The easy path of aging is to become a thick-skinned, unbudging curmudgeon, a battle-ax. To grow soft and sweet is the harder way.
James Hillman

Spiritual evolution occurs as the result of removing obstacles and not actually acquiring anything new. Devotion enables surrender of the mind's vanities and cherished illusions so that it progressively becomes more free and more open to the light of Truth.
Dr. David R. Hawkins

Although gold dust is precious, when it gets in your eyes, it obstructs your vision.
Hsi-Tang

Dag Hammerskjvld

The longest journey of any person is the journey inward. Do not seek death. Death will find you. But seek the road which makes death a fulfillment.

J

Life comes in the form of opportunities, which are easy to recognize, after they have been wasted...
Javan

Thomas Jefferson

We confide in our strength, without boasting of it; we respect that of others, without fearing it. He who knows nothing is closer to the truth than he whose mind is filled with falsehoods and errors.

K

If you have no love, do what you will - go after all the gods on earth, do all the social activities, try to reform the poor, the politics, write books, write poems - you are a dead human being. Without love your problems will increase, multiply endlessly.

Martin Luther King, Jr.

The nonviolent approach does not immediately change the heart of the oppressor, it first does something to the hearts and souls of those committed to it. It gives them a new self-respect; It calls up resources of strength and courage that they did not know they had. It's just as evil to kill Vietnamese as it is to kill Americans. Never could I advocate nonviolence in this country and not advocate nonviolence for the whole world. Nonviolence is the answer to the crucial political and moral questions of our time: the need for man to overcome oppression and violence. Man must evolve for all human conflict a method which rejects revenge, aggression and retaliation. The foundation for such method is love. All labor that uplifts humanity has dignity and importance and should be undertaken with painstaking excellence. As you press on for justice, be sure to move with dignity and discipline, using only the weapon of love. Let no man pull you so low as to hate him. Always avoid violence. If you succumb to the temptation of using violence in your struggle, unborn generations will be the recipients of a long and desolate night of bitterness, and your chief legacy to the future will be an endless reign of meaningless chaos

Once in awhile it really hits people that they don't have to experience the world in the way they have been told to.
Alan Keightley

Problems are only opportunities in work clothes.
Henry J. Kaiser

We would have much peace
if we would not busy ourselves with the sayings and doings of others.
Thomas À Kempis

Yesterday's the past and tomorrow's the future. Today is a gift-- which is why they call it the present.
Bill Keane

The only unchangable certainty in life is that nothing is unchangable or certain.
John F. Kennedy

Abraham Lincoln

Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt. Am I not destroying my enemies when I make friends of them?

The true measure of a man is how he treats someone who can do him absolutely no good.
Ann Landers It's not whether you get knocked down; it's whether you get back up.
Vince Lombardi

Things turn out best for those who make the best of the way things turn out.
Art Linkletter

It is surprising what a man can do when he has to, and how little most men will do when they don't have to.
Walter Linn

M

What actions are most excellent?
To gladden the heart of a human being.
To feed the hungry.
To help the afflicted.
To lighten the sorrow of the sorrowful.
To remove the wrongs of the injured.
That person is the most beloved of God
who does the most good to God's creatures.
The Prophet Muhammed

Expose yourself to your deepest fear;
After that, fear has no power,
And the fear of freedom shrinks and vanishes.
You are free.
Jim Morrison

Absolute perfection is here and now, not in some future, near or far.
The secret is in action - here and now.
It is your behavior that blinds you to yourself.
Disregard whatever you think yourself to be and act as if you were absolutely perfect
- whatever your idea of perfection may be.
All you need is courage.
Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

Those who are enlightened live in a state of constant amazement.
Those showing amazement however, can be either ignorant or wise.
Rudyh

It's not what happens to you; it's what you do about it that makes the difference.
W. Mitchell

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

The ultimate truth is so simple. It is nothing more than being in the pristine state. This is all that needs to be said.
Only mature minds can grasp the simple truth in all its nakedness.
Ramana Maharshi

Michel de Montagne

A man never speaks of himself without losing thereby. His self-accusations are always believed; his slef-praise disbelieved. Even on the most exalted throne in the world we are only sitting on our own bottom.

It is impossible to defeat an ignorant man in argument.
William G. McAdoo

I assure you, an educated fool is more foolish than an uneducated one.
Jean Baptiste Molière

Education costs money, but then so does ignorance.
Sir Claus Moser

N

With courage you will dare to take risks, have the strength to be compassionate and the wisdom to be humble. Courage is the foundation of integrity.
Keshavan Nair

I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the seashore, and diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me.
Sir Isaac Newton

A bowl belongs to whoever needs it.
Native American saying

O

The foolish man seeks happiness in the distance; the wise grows it under his feet.
James Oppenheim

Each generation imagines itself to be more intelligent that the one that went before it, and wiser than the one that comes after it.
George Orwell

P

If you always do what you've always done, you'll always get what you've always had!
Lesley P.

If you want the rainbow, you gotta put up with the rain.
Dolly Parton

When men speak ill of thee, so live that nobody believe them.
Plato

Doubt everything or believe everything: these are two equally convenient strategies.
With either we dispense with the need for reflection.
Henri Poincare

The mind is not a vessel to be filled but a fire to be kindled.
Plutarch

Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction.
Pascal

R

Stay committed to your decisions, but stay flexible in your approach.
Tony Robbins

I discovered a long time ago that if I helped people get what they wanted, I would always get what I wanted and I would never have to worry.
Anthony Robbins

Every man dies. Not every man lives.
Tim Robbins

Success is not to be pursued; it is to be attracted by the person you become.
Jim Rohn

The good life is one inspired by love and guided by knowledge
Bertrand Russell

No one can make you feel inferior without your permission
Eleanor Roosevelt.

Quarrels would not last long if the fault were only on one side.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld

S

If the heart wanders or is distracted, bring it back to the point quite gently and replace it tenderly in it's master's presence. And even if you did nothing during the whole hour but bring your heart back and place it again in our Lord's presence, though it went away every time you brought it back, your hour would be very well employed.
St Francois de Sales

Vision is the art of seeing the invisible.
Jonathan Swift

Our own true nature is Infinite Joy!
Always happy, Always peaceful, Always free.
Sri Swami Satchidananda

This above all; to thine own self be true.
Shakespeare

Love does not consist in gazing at each other but in looking outward together in the same direction.
Antoine de Saint-Exupery

Like a goldfish who never suspects a greater world beyond the ponds surface, the limited awareness of humankind floats beneath the surface of a greater reality; groping, mouth agape in total ignorance.
After studing all major religions, out of body experiences, near death experiences, hauntings, psychics and memories of previous lifetimes through regressive hypnosis techniques, I have indeed deduced that we are not people having spiritual experiences, but spirits having human experiences.
Paul Schroeder

A ship in harbor is safe -- but that is not what ships are made for.
John A. Shedd

Better to do something imperfectly than to do nothing flawlessly.
Robert Schuller

Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent.
It takes a touch of genius and a lot of courage to move in the opposite direction.
E.F.Schumacher

The people and circumstances around me do not make me what I am, they reveal who I am.
Dr. Laura Schlessinger

Don't be afraid of showing your feelings, be afraid of regretting it when you don't.
Laura Springer

We can chart our future clearly and wisely only when we know the path which has led to the present.
Adlai E. Stevenson

If only it were all so simple, if only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being, and who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?
Alexander Solzhenitsyen

T

Discipline divorced from wisdom is not true discipline,
but merely the meaningless following of custom,
which is only a disguise for stupidity.
Rabindranath Tagore

Suffering is not a prerequisite for happiness
Judy Tatelbaum

Mother Teresa

Spread love everywhere you go: first of all in your own house. Give love to your children, to your wife or husband, to a next door neighbor.... Let no one come to you without leaving better or happier. Be the living expression of God's kindness; kindness in your face, kindness in your eyes, kindness in your smile and kindness in your warm greeting. all that we need to know all the wisdom of the cosmos we will find in our own heart If you give what you do not need, it isn't giving. The fruit of silence is prayer. The fruit of prayer is faith. The fruit of faith is love. The fruit of love is service. The fruit of service is peace. Love cannot remain by itself - it has no meaning. Love has to be put into action and that action is service. Whatever form we are, able or disabled, rich or poor, it is not how much we do, but how much love we put in the doing; a lifelong sharing of love with others. Kind words can be short and easy to speak, but their echoes are truly endless. What you keep to yourself, you lose. What you give away, you keep forever We ourselves feel that what we are doing is just a drop in the ocean. But the ocean would be less because of that missing drop

Successful people are always looking for opportunities to help others.
Unsuccessful people are always asking, 'What's in it for me?'
Brian Tracy

Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun.
Mao Tse Tung

Without memory, there is no healing.
Without forgiveness, there is no future.
Archbishop Desmond Tutu

"When may I give you my heart?"
"When it is no longer yours or mine."
Tykal

Courage is the mastery of fear, not the absence of fear.
Mark Twain

Being powerful is like being a lady. If you have to tell people you are, you aren't.
Margaret Thatcher

U

V

All the powers in the universe are already ours. It is we who have put our hands before our eyes and cry that it is dark.
Swami Vivekananda

W

As long as we are persistent in our pursuit of our deepest destiny, we will continue to grow.
We cannot choose the day or time when we will fully bloom.
It happens in its own time."
Denis Waitley

We must be courageous but also reasonable. The world admires us for walking a tightrope without falling off. It asks us to keep our balance.
Lech Walesa

The mediocre teacher tells.
The good teacher explains.
The superior teacher demonstrates.
The great teacher inspires.
William A. Ward

How far you go in life depends on you being tender with the young, compassionate with the aged, sympathetic with the striving and tolerant of the weak and the strong. Because someday in life you will have been all of these.
George Washington

Failure should be our teacher, not our undertaker.
Failure is delay, not defeat.
It is a temporary detour, not a dead end.
Failure is something we can avoid only by saying nothing, doing nothing, and being nothing.
Denis Waitley

Nothing is worse than extreme affliction which destroys the 'I' from the outside,
because after that we can no longer destroy it ourselves.
Simone Weil

Oscar Wilde

We teach people how to remember, we never teach them how to grow. Men always want to be a womans first love - women like to be a mans last romance.

Y

Love is the light that dissolves all walls between souls, families and nations.
Paramahansa Yogananda

There is nothing noble in being superior to your fellow man. True nobility is being superior to your formal self.
Thom Yorke

Z

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