Category Archives: Notable Quotables

“Work saves us from three great evils: boredom, vice and need.” — Voltaire (pen name for Francoise-Marie Arouet  (1694 – 1778) French philosopher & writer

    “What soap is for the body, tears are for the soul.” — Jewish proverb

“When I play with my cat, who knows whether I do not make her more sport than she makes me?” — Michel de Montaigne (1533 – 1592) French philosopher & essayist

  “When two elephants fight, it is the grass that gets trampled.” — African proverb

  “To know and not to act is not to know.” Wang Yangming (1472 – 1529) Minister of War of Imperial China (also attributed to Chinese philosopher Lao Tse and repeated by many other people in more recent years)

  “You can’t make me what you call me!”  — Alfred Fleishman (1905 – 2002) American businessman, Army veteran, & special consultant to US Secretary of Defense during the Holocaust

  “Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen.”  — Albert Einstein (1879 – 1955) German-born theoretical physicist & Nobel laureate

  “The question is not what a man can scorn, or disparage, or find fault with, but what he can love, and value, and appreciate.” — John Ruskin (1819 – 1900) English polymath & writer

    “Half the world is composed of people who have something to say and can’t, and the other half who have nothing to say and keep on saying it.” — Robert Frost (1874 – 1963) American poet

“Let us know the happiness time brings, not count the years.” — Ausonius (c310 – 395 AD) Gallo-Roman poet, rhetorician & imperial tutor

“When the first baby laughed for the first time, the laugh broke into a thousand pieces and they all went skipping about, and that was the beginning of fairies. And now when every new baby is born its first laugh … Continue reading →

  “Minds are like parachutes — they only function when they are open.” — Lord Thomas Dewar (1864 – 1930) Scottish distiller & humorist

  “Become a possibilitarian.  No matter how dark things seem to be or actually are, raise your sights and see possibilities — always see them, for they’re always there.” — Norman Vincent Peale (1898 – 1993) American Protestant clergyman and … Continue reading →

    “What the caterpillar calls the end, the rest of the world calls a butterfly.” — Lao-tzu (aka Laozi) (circa 571BC to around 5th century BC) 6th-century Chinese philosopher, founder of Taoism    

“Fame or integrity: which is more important?  Money or happiness: which is more valuable?  Success or failure: which is more destructive?  If you look to others for fulfillment, you will never truly be fulfilled.  If your happiness depends on money, … Continue reading →

“A loving person lives in a loving world.  A hostile person lives in a hostile world.  Everyone you meet is your mirror.” — Ken S. Keys, Jr. (1921 – 1995) American author (Yup… I’m a bit of a monkey, but … Continue reading →

“What you are thunders so that I cannot hear what you say to the contrary.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803 – 1882) American essayist & philosopher

“Without darkness, there are no dreams.” — Karla Kuban (1954 – ) American novelist Never lose faith, nor stop hoping.

“Liberty is the breath of life to nations.” — George Bernard Shaw (1856 – 1950) Irish playwright, critic, & political activist

  “All the world’s a stage and most of us are desperately unrehearsed.“ — Sean O’Casey (1880 – 1964) Irish playwright & memoirist

  “A mind all logic is like a knife all blade. It makes the hand bleed that uses it.” — Rabindranath Tagore (1861 – 1941) Bengali polymath (poet, writer, philosopher, playwright, songwriter, painter, composer & social reformer) 1st Asian to … Continue reading →

  “The essence of genius is knowing what to overlook.” — William James (1842 – 1910) American psychologist and philosopher 1st educator to offer a course in psychology in the U.S.A.

  “Sanity is a madness put to good use.” — George Santayana (1863 – 1952) Spanish philosopher, poet & novelist

“A committee is a cul-de-sac down which ideas are lured and then quietly strangled.” — Sir Thomas George Barnett Cocks (1907 – 1989) British clerk in the Parliament of the UK

“I believe that the greatest gift you can give your family and the world is a healthy you.” — Joyce Meyer (1943 – ) American Christian author and speaker

“Freedom is not America’s gift to the world; it is Almighty God’s gift to every man and woman in this world.” — George W. Bush (1946 – ) American politician, businessman, & former US Air Force officer 43rd President of … Continue reading →

  “Freedom is not worth having if it does not connote freedom to err.” — Mahatma Gandhi (1869-1948) Indian lawyer, spiritual & political leader, and nonviolent resistance advocate

“I predict that one of these two teams will win the Super Bowl.” — Gilbert Gottfried (1955 – 2022) American stand-up comedian & actor May the best (Patriots) team (Patriots) win (Patriots)! Go Pats!

  “You must first be a believer if you would be an achiever.” — Unknown

“If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world.” J. R. R. (John Ronald Reuel) Tolkien (1892 – 1973) English writer, poet & scholar

  “It takes as much courage to have tried and failed as it does to have tried and succeeded.” — Anne Morrow Lindbergh (1906 – 2001) American writer & aviator  

  “Be courteous to all, but intimate with few; and let those few be well tried before you give them your confidence.” — George Washington (1732-1799) US statesman; 1st US President (1789-97) General of the Revolutionary Army; surveyor, farmer

“We have flown the air like birds and swum the sea like fishes, but we have yet to learn the simple act of walking the earth like brothers.” — Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929 – 1968) American Baptist minister & … Continue reading →

  “Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge.” — Charles Darwin (1809 – 1882) English naturalist, geologist, and biologist