Wise words from wise men

he important thing is this: To be able at any moment to sacrifice that which we are for what we could become. ~Charles DuBois


Look at everything as though you were seeing it either for the first or last time. ~Betty Smith, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn


Time you enjoy wasting, was not wasted. ~John Lennon


Be kind to your shadow. ~Rebecca Lawless


If you have to do it every day, for God's sake learn to do it well. ~Mignon McLaughlin, The Neurotic's Notebook, 1960


In this age, which believes that there is a short cut to everything, the greatest lesson to be learned is that the most difficult way is, in the long run, the easiest. ~Henry Miller, The Books in My Life


Never explain. Your friends do not need it and your enemies will not believe it anyway. ~Elbert Hubbard, A Thousand and One Epigrams, 1911


Do not condemn the judgment of another because it differs from your own. You may both be wrong. ~Dandemis


Whatever you are be a good one. ~Abraham Lincoln


It's better to fight for something than against something. ~Author Unknown


The day will happen whether or not you get up. ~John Ciardi


Nature gave men two ends - one to sit on and one to think with. Ever since then man's success or failure has been dependent on the one he used most. ~George R. Kirkpatrick


Think of your faults the first part of the night when you are awake, and the faults of others the latter part of the night when you are asleep. ~Chinese Proverb


When "Why not do it?" barely outweights "Why do it?" - don't do it. ~Mignon McLaughlin, The Neurotic's Notebook, 1960


If you hate your lot but wouldn't trade it, it's not your lot you hate. ~Mignon McLaughlin, The Second Neurotic's Notebook, 1966


Half the failures in life arise from pulling in the horse as he is leaping. ~Augustus William Hare and Julius Charles Hare, Guesses at Truth, by Two Brothers, 1827


When you invite trouble, it's usually quick to accept. ~Quoted in P.S. I Love You, compiled by H. Jackson Brown, Jr.


Giving up doesn't always mean you are weak. Sometimes it means that you are strong enough to let go. ~Author Unknown


Promise only what you can deliver. Then deliver more than you promise. ~Author Unknown


All philosophy in two words, - sustain and abstain. ~Epictetus


Always watch where you are going. Otherwise, you may step on a piece of the Forest that was left out by mistake. ~Pooh's Little Instruction Book, inspired by A.A. Milne


Don't compromise yourself. You're all you've got. ~Janis Joplin


The biggest problem in the world
Could have been solved when it was small.
~Witter Bynner, The Way of Life According to Laotzu


What you can't get out of, get into wholeheartedly. ~Mignon McLaughlin, The Neurotic's Notebook, 1960


Surely a man needs a closed place wherein he may strike root and, like the seed, become. But also he needs the great Milky Way above him and the vast sea spaces, though neither stars nor ocean serve his daily needs. ~Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, The Wisdom of the Sands, translated from French by Stuart Gilbert


Never believe in mirrors or newspapers. ~Tom Stoppard


Never confuse thoughtlessness with malice. ~Robert Charles Whitehead


Yet some things you miss and some things you lose by keeping your arm outstretched. ~Author Unknown


Now and then it is a joy to have one's table red with wine and roses. ~Oscar Wilde


It wasn't raining when Noah built the ark. ~Howard Ruff, How to Prosper in the Coming Bad Years, 1979


Just be ordinary and nothing special. Eat your food, move your bowels, pass water, and when you're tired, go and lie down. The ignorant will laugh at me, but the wise will understand. ~Bruce Lee


While seeking revenge, dig two graves - one for yourself. ~Doug Horton


To do nothing is sometimes a good remedy. ~Hippocrates


Work out your own salvation. Do not depend on others. ~Buddha


Make somebody happy today. Mind your own business. ~Ann Landers


Things sweet the taste prove in digestion sour. ~William Shakespeare, King Richard the Second, 1595


Am I not destroying my enemies when I make friends of them? ~Abraham Lincoln


"It's a dangerous business, Frodo, going out of your door," he used to say. "You step into the Road, and if you don't keep your feet, there is no knowing where you might be swept off to." ~J.R.R. Tolkien, "Three Is Company," The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, 1954


There are two kinds of light - the glow that illuminates, and the glare that obscures. ~James Thurber


The essential question is not, "How busy are you?" but "What are you busy at?" ~Oprah Winfrey


Don't get your knickers in a knot. Nothing is solved and it just makes you walk funny. ~Kathryn Carpenter


Never undertake anything for which you wouldn't have the courage to ask the blessings of heaven. ~G.C. Lichtenberg


We must have passed through life unobservantly, if we have never perceived that a man is very much himself what he thinks of others. ~Frederick W. Faber


Never saw off the branch you are on, unless you are being hanged from it. ~Stanislaw Lec


Watch the little things; a small leak will sink a great ship. ~Benjamin Franklin


Don't despise empiric truth. Lots of things work in practice for which the laboratory has never found proof. ~Martin H. Fischer


Is bread the better for kneading? so is the heart. Knead it then by spiritual exercises; or God must knead it by afflictions. ~Augustus William Hare and Julius Charles Hare, Guesses at Truth, by Two Brothers, 1827


The best way to predict your future is to create it. ~Peter Drucker


You've got to do your own growing, no matter how tall your grandfather was. ~Irish Proverb


Beware of a man of one book. ~English Proverb


Never make your home in a place. Make a home for yourself inside your own head. You'll find what you need to furnish it - memory, friends you can trust, love of learning, and other such things. That way it will go with you wherever you journey. ~Tad Williams


It is better to sleep on things beforehand than lie awake about them afterwards. ~Baltasar Gracian


Leaves are light, and useless, and idle, and wavering, and changeable; they even dance; and yet God in his wisdom has made them a part of oaks. And in so doing he has given us a lesson, not to deny the stout-heartedness within because we see the lightsomeness without. ~Augustus William Hare and Julius Charles Hare, Guesses at Truth, by Two Brothers, 1827


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


Fear less, hope more; eat less, chew more; whine less, breathe more; talk less, say more; hate less, love more; and all good things are yours. ~Swedish Proverb


The three great essentials to achieve anything worth while are, first, hard work; second, stick-to-itiveness; third, common sense. ~Thomas Edison


Aspire to a lower level of harm. ~Anonymous


I try not to kid myself. You know, I don't mind romancing someone else, but to fool yourself is pretty devastating and dangerous. ~Bill Veeck


You can't truthfully explain your smallest action without fully revealing your character. ~Mignon McLaughlin, The Second Neurotic's Notebook, 1966


It's all right letting yourself go as long as you can let yourself back. ~Mick Jagger


When you lose, don't lose the lesson. ~Author Unknown


There is often less danger in the things we fear than in the things we desire. ~John C. Collins


Your future depends on many things, but mostly on you. ~Frank Tyger


Friends and neighbors complain that taxes are indeed very heavy, and if those laid on by the government were the only ones we had to pay, we might the more easily discharge them; but we have many others, and much more grievous to some of us. We are taxed twice as much by our idleness, three times as much by our pride, and four times as much by our folly. ~Benjamin Franklin


Be nice to people on your way up because you'll need them on your way down. ~W. Migner


When you throw dirt, you lose ground. ~Texan Proverb


The great secret of success is to go through life as a man who never gets used up. ~Albert Schweitzer


Everyone should learn to do one thing supremely well because he likes it, and one thing supremely well because he detests it. ~Brigham Young


Sometimes the best way to hold onto something is to let it go. ~Author Unknown


It isn't what you know that counts, it's what you think of in time. ~Author Unknown


The future lies before you, like paths of pure white snow. Be careful how you tread it, for every step will show. ~Author Unknown


The key to happiness and youth is an unencumbered spirit - whether it comes naturally or whether you have to work hard for it. ~Emme Woodhull-B�che


Speak what you think to-day in words as hard as cannon-balls and to-tomorrow speak what to-morrow thinks in hard words again, though it contradict every thing you said to-day. ~Ralph Waldo Emerson


Remedy it, or welcome it: a wise man's only two choices. ~The Quote Garden


To know the road ahead, ask those coming back. ~Chinese Proverb


The first principle is that you must not fool yourself, and you're the easiest person to fool. ~Richard Feynman


Don't let it be all in your head, nor all in your body. ~V.L. Allineare


Be wary of the man who urges an action in which he himself incurs no risk. ~Joaquin de Setanti


God is good, but never dance in a small boat. ~Irish Saying


It is better to stir up a question without deciding it, than to decide it without stirring it up. ~Joseph Joubert


Sandwich every bit of criticism between two thick layers of praise. ~Mary Kay Ash


Too many people overvalue what they are not and undervalue what they are. ~Malcolm S. Forbes


I used to believe that anything was better than nothing. Now I know that sometimes nothing is better. ~Glenda Jackson