Quotations

Someday words of wisdom will be gleaned from my writings, perhaps even from this very site, but chances are I’ll never say things as well as they’ve already been said by others. I have found the following bits of strung together words to ring of truth and wisdom, and I hope that I might learn from them and live my life accordingly.

If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants
Sir Isaac Newton in a letter to his colleague Robert Hooke on 5th February 1676

Any fool can try to defend his or her mistakes–and most fools do
Dale Carnegie from How to Win Friends and Influence People

If there is any kindness I can show, or any good thing I can do to any fellow being, let me do it, and not deter or neglect it, as I shall not pass this way again.
William Penn

Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you feel that you, too, can become great.
Mark Twain

Take the first step in faith. You don’t have to see the whole staircase, just take the first step.
Martin Luther King Jr.

Perseverance is a great element of success. If you only knock long enough and loud enough at the gate, you are sure to wake up somebody.
Henry W. Longfellow

For of all the sad words of tongues or pen the saddest are these: It might have been.
John Greenleaf Whittier

A man cannot be comfortable without his own approval.
Mark Twain

All the extraordinary men I have known were extraordinary in their own estimation.
Woodrow T. Wilson

“The secret of getting ahead is getting started. The secret of getting started is breaking your complex overwhelming tasks into small manageable tasks, and then starting on the first one.”
Mark Twain

If you do not ask yourself what it is you know, you will go on listening to others and change will not come because you will not hear your own truth.
Saint Bartholomew
It is the heart that makes a man rich. He is rich according to what he is, not according to what he has.
Henry Ward Beecher

The trouble is that rich people, well-to-do people, very often don’t really know who the poor are; and that is why we can forgive them, for knowledge can only lead to love, and love to service. And so, if they are not touched by them, it’s because they do not know them.
Mother Teresa

How do you know so much about everything? was asked of a very wise and intelligent man; and the answer was ‘By never being afraid or ashamed to ask questions as to anything of which I was ignorant.’
Lord Billingsley

It’s not the burdens of everyday that drive men mad. It is the regret of yesterday and the fear of tomorrow. Regret and fear are twin thieves that rob us of today.
- Unknown

The superstition that all our hours of work are a minus quantity in the happiness of life, and all the hours of idleness are plus ones, is a most ludicrous and pernicious doctrine, and its greatest support comes from our not taking sufficient trouble, not making a real effort to make work as near pleasure as it can be.
Lord Balfour

Desire is the key to motivation, but it’s the determination and commitment to an unrelenting pursuit of your goal — a commitment to excellence — that will enable you to attain the success you seek.
Mario Andretti 1940-, Italian-born American Auto Racer

To finish the moment, to find the journey’s end in every step of the road, to live the greatest number of good hours, is wisdom.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

The wind and the waves are always on the side of the ablest navigators. –Edward Gibbon, 1737-1794, British Historian

To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.
Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1803-1882, American Poet, Essayist

All meaningful and lasting change starts first in your imagination and then works its way out. Imagination is more important than knowledge.
Einstein

“The secret of life lies not in the discovery of new lands, but in seeing the world with new eyes.”
Marcel Proust

-There are risks and costs to action. But they are far less than the long range risks of comfortable inaction. -John F. Kennedy, 1917-1963, Thirty-fifth President of the USA

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

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.
- St. Augustine

I offer you peace. I offer you love. I offer you friendship. I see your beauty. I hear your need. I feel your feelings. My wisdom flows from the Highest Source. I salute that Source in you. Let us work together for unity and love. Gandhi

Greek philosopher Epictetus said, “Circumstances do not make the man; they merely reveal him to himself.”

Ability may get you to the top, but it takes character to keep you there. John Wooden 1910-, American Basketball Coach

If you don’t know where you’re going, you’ll end up somewhere else.”
-Yogi Berra

“If money is your hope for independence, you will never have it. The only real security that a man can have in this world is a reserve of knowledge, experience and ability.” — Henry Ford, 1863-1947, American Industrialist, Founder of Ford Motor Company