Quotes to Browse

An unhurried sense of time is in itself a form of wealth. — Bonnie Friedman

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

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

It’s nice to get stabbed in the front for a change. — Terry Venables

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 best-laid schemes o’ mice an’ men
Gang aft a-gley.
— Robert Burns, from his poem “To a Mouse”

The louder he talked of his honor, the faster we counted the spoons. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

You must accept the truth from whatever source it comes. — Maimonides

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

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

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

He does not believe that does not live according to his belief. — Sigmund Freud

In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity. — Albert Einstein

The beginning of wisdom is to call things by their right names. — Chinese Proverb

The rule is perfect: in all matters of opinion our adversaries are insane. — Mark Twain

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.

I dream my painting and I paint my dream. — Vincent Van Gogh

human wandering through the zoo
what do your cousins think of you?
— Don Marquis, in his book Archy and Mehitabel.

I do not believe that friends are necessarily the people you like best, they are merely the people that got there first. — Peter Ustinov

Trust the instinct to the end, though you can render no reason. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

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

It is better to suffer wrong than to do it, and happier to be sometimes cheated than not to trust. — Samuel Johnson

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

One may be humble out of pride. — Michel de Montaigne

When an inner situation is not made conscious, it appears outside as fate. — Carl Jung

The power of human thought grows exponentially with the number of minds that share that thought. — Dan Brown

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

Don’t throw a stone into a well from which you have drunk. — Yiddish Proverb

All the world’s a stage, And all the men and women merely players. — William Shakespeare

I could have married a lot of people, but I was busy. — Mae West

Some things have to be believed to be seen. — Madeleine L’Engle

The right to be heard does not automatically include the right to be taken seriously. — Hubert Humphrey

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

He that seeks trouble always finds it. — English Proverb

The more people one knows, the easier it becomes to replace them. — E.M. Forster

Ninety degrees at four in the morning is not fair. — Rudyard Kipling

One may smile, and smile, and be a villain. — William Shakespeare

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

Re-examine all you have been told. Dismiss what insults your soul. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

Best relationship advice: Make sure you’re the crazy one.

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

If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world. — J.R.R. Tolkien

The absent are always wrong. — English Proverb

I don’t believe in astrology; I’m a Sagittarius and we’re skeptical. — Arthur C. Clarke

Well begun is half done. — Horace

Alas! How deeply painful is all payment! — Lord Byron

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

Every time I paint a portrait I lose a friend. — John Singer Sargent

The world is full of cactus, but we don’t have to sit on it. — Will Foley

Two great talkers will not travel far together. — Spanish Proverb

Curiosity is, in great and generous minds, the first passion and the last. — Samuel Johnson

You might as well fall flat on your face as lean over too far backward. — James Thurber

I was gratified to be able to answer promptly. I said I don’t know. — Mark Twain

We are what we pretend to be. — Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.

Adversity is the first path to truth. — Lord Byron

Never give advice in a crowd. — Arab Proverb

There is nothing so easy but that it becomes difficult when you do it with reluctance. — Terence

The offender never pardons. — George Herbert

To affect the quality of the day, that is the highest of arts. — Henry David Thoreau (image)

Ful wys is he that kan hymselven knowe! — Geoffrey Chaucer, in The Canterbury Tales

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

Those who despise money will eventually sponge on their friends. — Chinese Proverb

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

When a man is wrong and won’t admit it, he always gets angry. — Thomas Haliburton

If you find it hard to laugh at yourself, I would be happy to do it for you. — Groucho Marx

A drop of ink may make a million think. — Lord Byron

We judge ourselves by our motives and others by their actions. — Dwight Morrow

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

I have already settled it for myself so flattery and criticism go down the same drain and I am quite free. — Georgia O’Keeffe

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.

Seldom any splendid story is wholly true. — Samuel Johnson

I always wanted to be somebody, but now I realize I should have been more specific. — Lily Tomlin

Any port in a storm.

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

Always remember that you are absolutely unique. Just like everyone else. — Margaret Mead

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

Necessity makes even the timid brave. — Sallust

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

The early bird gets the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese. — Steven Wright

The most dangerous of all falsehoods is a slightly distorted truth. — G.C. Lichtenberg

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

Times change and we change with them. — Latin Proverb

When in doubt, tell the truth. — Mark Twain

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

It is not every question that deserves an answer. — Publilius Syrus

The uncreative mind can spot wrong answers, but it takes a creative mind to spot wrong questions. — A. Jay

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.

The rich would have to eat money, but luckily the poor provide food. — Russian Proverb

Practice makes perfect. — Latin Proverb

If you could kick the person in the pants responsible for most of your trouble, you wouldn’t sit for a month. — Theodore Roosevelt

I have always imagined that Paradise will be a kind of library. — Jorge Luis Borges

Tell the truth and run. — Yugoslavian Proverb

It takes considerable knowledge just to realize the extent of your own ignorance. — Thomas Sowell

A man is rich in proportion to the number of things he can afford to let alone. — Henry David Thoreau

Inferiors revolt in order that they may be equal, and equals that they may be superior. — Aristotle

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

If this is coffee, please bring me some tea; but if this is tea, please bring me some coffee. — Abraham Lincoln

Be not a baker, if your head be of butter. — George Herbert

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.

Even moderation ought not to be practiced to excess.

When elephants fight it is the grass that suffers. — African Saying

Never argue with stupid people, they will drag you down to their level and then beat you with experience. — Mark Twain

Wink at small faults; for thou hast great ones. — Thomas Fuller

He who says there is no such thing as an honest man, you may be sure is himself a knave. — Bishop Berkeley

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

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

Neurosis is always a substitute for legitimate suffering. — Carl Jung

I had a cool job. I sold “No Soliciting” signs door to door. — Buzz Nutley

Life is a game and you are the player. As you master the game, so you also create it. — Jay Woodman

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

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.

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

What is a weed? A plant whose virtues have not yet been discovered. — Ralph Waldo Emerson<

He does not seem to me to be a free man who does not sometimes do nothing. — Cicero

A single event can awaken within us a stranger totally unknown to us. To live is to be slowly born. — Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

Five exclamation marks, the sure sign of an insane mind. — Terry Pratchett, in his book Reaper Man.

Enter into negotiations with the intention of creating an agreement that will allow both parties to achieve their essential goals. — Tom Hopkins

I’m sorry. If you were right, I’d agree with you. — Robin Williams

I’m not offended by “dumb blonde” jokes because I know I’m not dumb. And I know I’m not blonde. — Dolly Parton

‘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

How often I found where I should be going only by setting out for somewhere else. — R. Buckminster Fuller

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

That man is richest whose pleasures are the cheapest. — Henry David Thoreau

What we learn with pleasure we never forget. — Louis Mercier

The eagle never lost so much time as when he submitted to learn from the crow. — William Blake

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

People could with advantage be compelled to remain absolutely alone for several hours a day. — P. Wyndham Lewis

The imagination is the golden pathway to everywhere. — Terence McKenna

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

Life does not cease to be funny when people die any more than it ceases to be serious when people laugh. — George Bernard Shaw

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

Some people walk in the rain. Others just get wet. — Roger Miller

Something has got to hold it together. I’m saying my prayers to Elmer, the Greek god of glue. — Tom Robbins

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

It is sad to grow old but nice to ripen. — Brigitte Bardot

Arrange whatever pieces come your way. — Virginia Woolf

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)

Anyone going slower than you is an idiot, and anyone going faster than you is a moron. — George Carlin

The worst-tempered people I’ve ever met were people who knew they were wrong. — Wilson Mizner

Don’t pay any attention to the critics. Don’t even ignore them. — Samuel Goldwyn

It’s a helluva start, being able to recognize what makes you happy. — Lucille Ball (image)

If there be no remedy, why worry? — Spanish Proverb

Imagination is more important than knowledge. — Albert Einstein

Don’t swap horses when you are crossing a stream. — Abraham Lincoln

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

Happen to things, don’t let things happen to you. — Stephen Covey

Any excuse will serve a tyrant. — Aesop

Don’t fight forces; use them. — R. Buckminster Fuller

Men are not only bad from good motives, but also often good from bad motives. — G.K. Chesterton

It’s like magic. When you live by yourself, all your annoying habits are gone. — Merrill Markoe

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

My belief is that in life people will take you very much at your own reckoning. — Anthony Trollope

Living well is the best revenge. — George Herbert

Somebody’s boring me. I think it’s me. — Dylan Thomas

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

The man who goes alone can start today; but he who travels with another must wait till that other is ready. — Henry David Thoreau

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

Never contend with a man who has nothing to lose. — Baltasar Gracian

When a thing is funny, search it for a hidden truth. — George Bernard Shaw

All goes onward and outward, nothing collapses,
And to die is different from what any one supposed, and luckier.
— Walt Whitman (image)

For fools rush in where angels fear to tread. — Alexander Pope

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

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.

may i be i is the only prayer — not may i be great or good or beautiful or wise or strong. — e.e. cummings

We often forgive those who bore us, but can’t forgive those whom we bore. — La Rochefoucauld

Beware the fury of a patient man. — John Dryden

The trouble with the rat race is that even if you win you are still a rat. — Lily Tomlin

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

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

What I aspired to be and was not, comforts me. — Robert Browning

Be not forgetful to entertain strangers: for thereby some have entertained angels unawares. — Hebrews 13:2

Many would be cowards if they had courage enough. — Thomas Fuller

Sleep … knits up the ravell’d sleeve of care. — William Shakespeare

Sorrow makes men sincere. — Henry Ward Beecher

Learn to say “no”; it will be of more use to you than to be able to read Latin. — Charles Haddon Spurgeon

You can’t wait for inspiration. You have to go after it with a club. — Jack London

Patience is something you admire in the driver behind you, but not in one ahead. — Bill McGlashen

All the happiness depends on a leisurely breakfast. — John Gunther

A good indignation brings out all one’s powers. — Ralph Waldo Emerson (image)

Do the difficult things while they are easy and do the great things while they are small. — Lao Tzu

Be not too hasty to outbid another.

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

Resolve to be thyself. — Matthew Arnold

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

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

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.

Sooner or later everyone sits down to a banquet of consequences. — Robert Louis Stevenson

Having two bathrooms ruined the capacity to co-operate. — Margaret Mead

A prophet is not without honour, save in his own country, and in his own house. — Matthew 13:57

Strength does not come from physical capacity. It comes from an indomitable will. — Mahatma Gandhi

It is difficult not to write satire. — Juvenal

The shoe that fits one person pinches another; there is no recipe for living that suits all cases. — Carl Jung

Too clever is dumb. — German Proverb

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

Only dumb people try to impress smart people. Smart people just do what they do. — Chris Rock

Abuse a man unjustly, and you will make friends for him. — E.W. Howe

A wise man should have money in his head, but not in his heart. — Jonathan Swift

The simple act of paying attention can take you a long way. — Keanu Reeves

Misers are no fun to live with, but they make great ancestors. — Tom Snyder

Hide not your light under a bushel.

You cannot do a kindness too soon, for you never know how soon it will be too late. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

Some painters transform the sun into a yellow spot, others transform a yellow spot into the sun. — Pablo Picasso

It is part of the cure to wish to be cured. — Latin Proverb

My wife’s a water sign. I’m an earth sign. Together we make mud. — Rodney Dangerfield