Quotes For You

All a man can betray is his conscience. - Joseph Conrad, from Under Western Eyes

If all the world hated you, and believed you wicked, while your own conscience approved you, and absolved you from guilt, you would not be without friends. - Charlotte Bronte, from Jane Eyre

A slave is he who cannot speak his thoughts. - Euripides

Insist on yourself; never imitate. Your own gift you can present every moment with the cumulative force of a whole life's cultivation; but of the adopted talent of another you have only an extemporaneous half possession... Do that which is assigned to you, and you cannot hope too much or dare too much. - Ralph Waldo Emerson, American poet and philosopher

Some help others in order to receive blessings and admiration. This is simply meaningless. Some cultivate themselves in part to serve others, in part to serve their own pride. They will understand, at best, half of the truth. But those who improve themselves for the sake of the world -- to these, the whole truth of the universe will be revealed. - Lao Tzu (c.604-531 B.C.)

The dead cannot cry out for justice; it is a duty of the living to do so for them. - Lois McMaster Bujold, Diplomatic Immunity, 2002

I find the great thing in this world is not so much where we stand, as in what direction we are moving: To reach the port of heaven, we must sail sometimes with the wind and sometimes against it, but we must sail, and not drift, nor lie at anchor. - Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., US Supreme Court Justice

A new course is needed that would help promote justice and progress worldwide by flourishing the potentials and talents of all nations thus bringing well-being for all and for future generations; - Mahmoud Ahmadinejad

Regrettably, in the current international relations, selfishness and insatiable greed have taken the place of such humanitarian concepts as love, sacrifice, dignity, and justice. - Mahmoud Ahmadinejad

All problems existing in our world today emanate from the fact that rulers have distanced themselves from human values, morality and the teachings of divine messengers

Rulers whose hearts do not beat for the love of humankind and who sacrificed the spirit of justice in their minds never offer the promise of peace and friendship to humanity. - Mahmoud Ahmadinejad

We have all seen that how the inequitable economic structures controlled by certain political interests have been used to plunder national wealth of countries for the benefit of a group of corrupt business giants. - Mahmoud Ahmadinejad

Liberalism and capitalism that have alienated human beings from heavenly and moral values will never bring happiness for humanity because they are the main source of all misfortune wars, poverty and deprivation. - Mahmoud Ahmadinejad

The time has come to an end for those who define democracy and freedom and set standards whilst they themselves are the first who violate its fundamental principles. - Mahmoud Ahmadinejad

It is no longer possible to inject thousands of billions of dollars of unreal wealth to the world economy simply by printing worthless paper assets, or transfer inflation as well as social and economic problems to others through creating sever budget deficits. - Mahmoud Ahmadinejad

Those in possession of absolute power can not only prophesy and make their prophecies come true, but they can also lie and make their lies come true. - Eric Hoffer

Individuals have international duties which transcend the national obligations of obedience... Therefore [individual citizens] have the duty to violate domestic laws to prevent crimes against peace and humanity from occurring. - The Nuremberg Tribunal 1945-1946

When you purify your hearts just as you purify your raiment,union with God will follow. You cannot become a Sufi by merely wearing coarse woolen shirts and following strict ritual, pretending to be pious while inside your hearts you bear malice and avarice. -Sheikh Abdul Qadir Jillani

...most men have bound their eyes with one or another handkerchief, and attached themselves to some one of these in a few particulars, authors of a few lies, but false in all particulars. Their every truth is not quite true. Their two is not the real two, their four not the real four; so that every word they say chagrins us, and we know not where to begin to set them right. - Ralph Waldo Emerson - Self Reliance – 1841

Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons … but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their consciences. - CS Lewis

The invisible Money Power is working to control and enslave mankind. It financed Communism, Fascism, Marxism, Zionism, Socialism. All of these are directed to making the United States a member of a World Government... - AMERICAN MERCURY MAGAZINE, December 1957 , pg. 92.

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

One of the strongest characteristics of genius is the power of lighting its own fire. - John W Foster

A real Sufi has attained a state of perfection on the inside. If you sincerely seek union with God, then seek Him inside your hearts and leave the world alone. - Sheikh Abdul Qadir Jillani

There can be no transforming of darkness into light and of apathy into movement without emotion. - Carl Jung

The future belongs to those who give the next generation reason for hope. - Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

Courage, it would seem, is nothing less than the power to overcome danger, misfortune, fear, injustice, while continuing to affirm inwardly that life with all its sorrows is good; that everything is meaningful even if in a sense beyond our understanding; and that there is always tomorrow. - Dorothy Thompson

If there must be trouble, let it be in my day, that my child may have peace. - Thomas Paine

To argue with a person who has renounced the use of reason is like administering medicine to the dead. - Thomas Paine

…skeptics, liberals, individuals with a taste for private life and their own inner standards of behavior, are objects of fear and derision and targets of persecution for either side... in the great ideological wars of our time. - Isiah Berlin

If you say to people that they, as a matter of fact, can't protect their conversations, in particular their political conversations, I think you take a long step toward making a transition from a free society to a totalitarian society. - Whitfield Diffie, US Cryptographer

Big Brother in the form of an increasingly powerful government and in an increasingly powerful private sector will pile the records high with reasons why privacy should give way to national security, to law and order, to efficiency of operation, to scientific advancement and the like. - Justice William O. Douglas

Patience serves as a protection against wrongs as clothes do against cold. For if you put on more clothes as the cold increases, it will have no power to hurt you. So in like manner you must grow in patience when you meet with great wrongs, and they will then be powerless to vex your mind. - Leonardo da Vinci

There art two cardinal sins from which all others spring: Impatience and Laziness. - Franz Kafka (1883 - 1924)

Learn the art of patience. Apply discipline to your thoughts when they become anxious over the outcome of a goal. Impatience breeds anxiety, fear, discouragement and failure. Patience creates confidence, decisiveness, and a rational outlook, which eventually leads to success. - Brian Adams

A handful of patience is worth more than a bushel of brains. - Dutch Proverb

There will be a time when loud-mouthed, incompetent people seem to be getting the best of you. When that happens, you only have to be patient and wait for them to self destruct. It never fails. - Richard Rybolt

Look at those cows and remember that the greatest scientists in the world have never discovered how to make grass into milk. - Michael Pupin

People travel to wonder at the height of the mountains, at the huge waves of the seas, at the long course of the rivers, at the vast compass of the ocean, at the circular motion of the stars, and yet they pass by themselves without wondering. - Augustine

Let's not forget that the little emotions are the great captains of our lives and we obey them without realizing it. - Vincent Van Gogh

The clock of life is wound but once And no man has the power To tell just where the hands will stop, At late or early hour. To lose one's wealth is sad indeed, To lose one's health is more. To lose one's soul is such a loss As no man can restore. The present only is our own. Live, love, toil with a will. Place no faith in 'tomorrow' For the clock may then be still. - Robert H. Smith

Most of the greatest evils that man has inflicted upon man have come through people feeling quite certain about something which, in fact, was false. - Bertrand Russell

The key to any success, no matter how you define it, is having the audacity to believe you deserve it. - Allison Werth

We promise according to our hopes and perform according to our fears. - Francois De La Rochefoucauld

Creativity is essentially a lonely art. An even lonelier struggle. To some a blessing. To others a curse. It is in reality the ability to reach inside yourself and drag forth from your very soul an idea. - Lou Dorfsman

Liberty will not descend to a people; a people must raise themselves to liberty; it is a blessing that must be earned before it can be enjoyed. - Charles Colton

The nationalist not only does not disapprove of atrocities committed by his own side, but he has a remarkable capacity for not even hearing about them. - George Orwell

A man is literally what he thinks, his character being the complete sum of all his thoughts. - James Allen, As A Man Thinketh

Cherish your visions. Cherish your ideals. Cherish the music that stirs in your heart, the beauty that forms in your mind, the loveliness that drapes your purest thoughts, for out of them will grow all delightful conditions, all heavenly environment, of these, if you but remain true to them your world will at last be built. - James Allen, As A Man Thinketh

In these times live in the now and knowing that your heart will sing as your passion brings your soul into view. - Laura Hansen, Artist

Suburbia is where the developer bulldozes out the trees, then names the streets after them. - Bill Vaughan

The ballot is stronger than the bullet. - Abraham Lincoln

I have always found that mercy bears richer fruits than strict justice. - Abraham Lincoln

The harvest of old age is the recollection and abundance of blessings previously secured. - Cicero

When stupidity is considered patriotism, it is unsafe to be intelligent. - Isaac Asimov

To give pain is the tyranny; to make happy, the true empire of beauty. - Richard Steele

Military men are dumb, stupid animals to be used as pawns for foreign policy. - Henry Kissinger, quoted by Bob Woodward in The Final Days

What folly is this, toasting an independent press? There is no such thing, at this date of the World's history, in America, as an independent press. You know it and I know it. There is not one of you who dares to write your honest opinions, and if you did, you know beforehand that it would never appear in print. I am paid weekly for keeping my honest opinion out of the paper I am connected with. Others of you are paid similar salaries for similar things and any of you who would be so foolish as to write honest opinions would be out on the streets looking for another job. If I allowed my honest opinions to appear in one issue of my paper, before twenty-four hours my occupation would be gone. The business of the journalists is to destroy the truth, to lie outright, to pervert, to vilify, to fawn at the feet of Mammon, and to sell his country and his race for his daily bread. You know it and I know it, and what folly is this toasting an independent press? We are the tools and vassals ...

If you must tell me your opinions, tell me what you believe in. I have plenty of doubts of my own. - Goethe

You can fool some of the people all of the time, and those are the ones you want to concentrate on. - George W. Bush

A spring of love gushed from my heart, And I blessed them unaware. - Samuel Taylor Coleridge

In describing today's accelerating changes, the media fire blips of unrelated information at us. Experts bury us under mountains of narrowly specialized monographs. Popular forecasters present lists of unrelated trends, without any model to show us their interconnections or the forces likely to reverse them. As a result, change itself comes to be seen as anarchic, even lunatic. - Alvin Toffler

The price good men pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men. - Plato

I confess I prefer true but imperfect knowledge, even if it leaves much undetermined and unpredictable, to a pretence of exact knowledge that is likely to be false. - Friederich Hayek

Beauty is not caused. It is. - Emily Dickinson

Evil (ignorance) is like a shadow--it has no real substance of its own, it is simply a lack of light. You cannot cause a shadow to disappear by trying to fight it, stamp on it, by railing against it, or any other form of emotional or physical resistance. In order to cause a shadow to disappear, you must shine light on it. - Shakti Gawain

We are apt to shut our eyes against a painful truth...For my part, I am willing to know the whole truth; to know the worst; and to provide for it. - Patrick Henry

Man perfected by society is the best of all animals; he is the most terrible of all when he lives without law, and without justice. - Aristotle

We live in a wonderful world that is full of beauty, charm and adventure. There is no end to the adventures that we can have if only we seek then with our eyes open. - Jawaharial Nehru

No person is your friend who demands your silence, or denies your right to grow. - Alice Walker

You must work, we must all work, to make the world worthy of its children. - Pablo Casals (1876-1973)

Were the Soviet Union to sink tomorrow under the waters of the ocean, the American military-industrial establishment would have to go on, substantially unchanged, until some other adversary could be invented. Anything else would be an unacceptable shock to the American economy. - George F. Kennan, 1987

He who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead; his eyes are closed. - Albert Einstein

I was a high class muscleman for Big Business, for Wall Street and for the Bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism. I helped make Mexico safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefit of Wall Street. The record of racketeering is long. - General Smedley Butler, the only two-time Medal of Honor winner in US history

Today's scientists have substituted mathematics for experiments, and they wander off through equation after equation, and eventually build a structure which has no relation to reality. - Nikola Tesla

Why did the achievers overcome problems while thousands are overwhelmed by theirs? They refused to hold on to the common excuses for failure. They turned their stumbling blocks into stepping stones. They realized that they couldn't determine every circumstance in life but they could determine their choice of attitude towards every circumstance. - John Maxwell

You have not lived a perfect day, even though you have earned your money, unless you have done something for someone who cannot repay you. - Ruth Smeltzer

For my part I know nothing with any certainty, but the sight of the stars makes me dream. - Vincent van Gogh

Maturity of mind is the capacity to endure uncertainty. - John Finley, English historian & Mathematician

To be uncertain is to be uncomfortable, but to be certain is to be ridiculous. - Chinese Proverb

We are drowning in information but starved for knowledge. - John Naisbitt

Uncertainty and mystery are energies of life. Don't let them scare you unduly, for they keep boredom at bay and spark creativity. - R. I. Fitzhenry

Uncertainty is the only certainty there is, and knowing how to live with insecurity is the only security. - John Allen Paulos

It is never right to do wrong or to requite wrong with wrong, or when we suffer evil to defend ourselves by doing evil in return. - Socrates 469 - 399 BC

I have no special talents. I am only passionately curious. - Albert Einstein

Vision is where tomorrow begins, for it expresses what you and others who share the vision will be working hard to create. Since most people don't take the time to think systematically about the future, those who do, and who base their strategies and actions on their visions, have inordinate power to shape the future. - Burt Nanus

The voice of protest, of warning, of appeal is never more needed than when the clamor of fife and drum, echoed by the press and too often by the pulpit, is bidding all men fall in and keep step and obey in silence the tyrannous word of command. Then, more than ever, it is the duty of the good citizen not to be silent. - Charles Eliot Norton

When one door closes another door opens; but we so often look so long and so regretfully upon the closed door, that we do not see the ones which open for us. - Alexander Graham Bell

Come to the edge He said. They said: We are afraid. Come to the edge He said. They came. He pushed them, and they flew... -Guillaume Apollinaire

A bank is a place where they lend you an umbrella in fair weather and ask for it back when it begins to rain. - Robert Frost

By 'uncertain' knowledge, let me explain, I do not mean merely to distinguish what is known for certain from what is only probable. The game of roulette is not subject, in this sense, to uncertainty...The sense in which I am using the term is that in which the prospect of a European war is uncertain, or the price of copper and the rate of interest twenty years hence...About these matters there is no scientific basis on which to form any calculable probability whatever. We simply do not know. - John Maynard Keynes (1937)

In the next century, nations as we know it will be obsolete; all states will recognize a single, global authority. National sovereignty wasn't such a great idea after all. - Strobe Talbot, President Clinton's Deputy Sec. of State, as quoted in Time, July 20th, l992.

But the fact that some geniuses were laughed at does not imply that all who are laughed at are geniuses. They laughed at Columbus, they laughed at Fulton, they laughed at the Wright brothers. But they also laughed at Bozo the Clown. - Carl Sagan (1934 - 1996)

If the world seems cold to you, kindle fires to warm it. - Lucy Larcom, American poet (1826-1893)

Power always thinks it has a great soul and vast views beyond the comprehension of the weak; and that it is doing God's service when it is violating all his laws. - John Adams

Have regular hours for work and play; make each day both useful and pleasant, and prove that you understand the worth of time by employing it well. Then youth will be delightful, old age will bring few regrets, and life will become a beautiful success. - Louisa May Alcott, Novelist

Hope is the last thing that dies in man; and though it be exceedingly deceitful, yet it is of this good use to us, that while we are traveling through life it conducts us in an easier and more pleasant way to our journey's end. - François de la Rochefoucauld

How desperately difficult it is to be honest with oneself. It is much easier to be honest with other people. - Edward Benson

Our lives improve only when we take chances - and the first and most difficult risk we can take is to be honest with ourselves. - Walter Anderson

The secret of genius is to carry the spirit of childhood into maturity - Thomas Henry Huxley

I hope I shall always possess firmness and virtue enough to maintain what I consider the most enviable of all titles, the character of an honest man. - George Washington

Without work, all life goes rotten. But when work is soulless, life stifles and dies. - Albert Camus

If passion drives you, let reason hold the reins. - Benjamin Franklin

A cynic is a man who, when he smells flowers, looks around for a coffin. - H.L. Mencken (1880 - 1956)

Personality can open doors, but only character can keep them open. - Elmer G. Letterman

Technological change is like an axe in the hands of a pathological criminal. - Albert Einstein

No man who ever held the office of president would congratulate a friend on obtaining it. - John Adams

When a true genius appears in this world you may know him by this sign, that the dunces are all in confederacy against him. - Jonathan Swift

It is a far, far better thing that I do, than anything I have ever done; it is a far, far, better rest that I go to, than I have ever known. - Charles Dickens

You cannot dream yourself into a character; you must hammer and forge yourself one. - James A. Froude (1818 - 1894)

One falsehood spoils a thousand truths. - African Proverb

I think it's easy to mistake understanding for empathy - we want empathy so badly... It's hard and ugly to know somebody can understand you without even liking you. - Thomas A. Harris, Hannibal

I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain. - Frank Herbert, Dune, Page 19

The future belongs to those who see possibilities before they become obvious. - Samuel Johnson

If you can keep your head when all about you Are losing theirs and blaming it on you, If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you But make allowance for their doubting too, If you can wait and not be tired by waiting, Or being lied about, don't deal in lies, Or being hated, don't give way to hating, And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise: If you can dream--and not make dreams your master, If you can think--and not make thoughts your aim; If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster And treat those two impostors just the same; If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools, Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken, And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools: If you can make one heap of all your winnings And risk it all on one turn of pitch-and-toss, And lose, and start again at your beginnings And never breath a word about your loss; If you can forc...

Happiness consists more in small conveniences or pleasures that occur every day, than in great pieces of good fortune that happen but seldom to a man in the course of his life. - Benjamin Franklin

Without passion man is a mere latent force and possibility, like the flint which awaits the shock of the iron before it can give forth its spark. - Henri Frederic Amiel

True liberty can exist only when justice is equally administered to all. - Lord Mansfield

The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear. - H.P. Lovecraft

To thine own self be true, And it must follow, as the night the day, Thou can’t not then be false to any man. - William Shakespeare.

A creative genius cannot be trained. There are no schools for creativeness. A genius is precisely a man who defies all schools and rules, who deviates from the traditional roads of routine and opens up new paths through land inaccessible before. A genius is always a teacher, never a pupil; he is always self-made. - Ludwig von Mises

In this unbelievable universe in which we live, there are no absolutes. Even parallel lines, reaching into infinity, meet somewhere yonder. - Pearl S. Buck

The colossal misunderstanding of our time is the assumption that insight will work with people who are unmotivated to change. Communication does not depend on syntax, or eloquence, or rhetoric, or articulation but on the emotional context in which the message is being heard. People can only hear you when they are moving toward you, and they are not likely to when your words are pursuing them. Even the choicest words lose their power when they are used to overpower. Attitudes are the real figures of speech. - Edwin H. Friedman

I hope to leave my children a sense of empathy and pity and a will to right social wrongs. - Anita Roddick

Justice is conscience, not a personal conscience but the conscience of the whole of humanity. Those who clearly recognize the voice of their own conscience usually recognize also the voice of justice. - Alexander Solzhenitsyn

Here's to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The trouble-makers. The round heads in the square holes. The ones who see things differently. They're not fond of rules, and they have no respect for the status-quo. You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify, or vilify them. But the only thing you can't do is ignore them. Because they change things. They push the human race forward. And while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius. Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do. - "Think Different", Apple Computers Advertisement

Chance favors the prepared mind. - Louis Pasteur

Anyone can dabble, but once you've made that commitment, your blood has that particular thing in it, and it's very hard for people to stop you. - Bill Cosby