Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through experience of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, vision cleared, ambition inspired, and success achieved. Helen Keller
A strong sense of personal identity gives man an idea he can do no wrong; too little accomplishes the same. D. Barnes
Men are qualified for civil liberty in exact proportion to their own disposition to put moral chains on their own appetites. Edmund Burke
The meeting of two personalities is like the contact of two chemical substances: if there is any reaction, both are transformed. Carl Jung
Personal identity begins to form at the first pinch of anxiety about ourselves. Y. Yevtushenko
Temperament, like liberty, is imported despite how many crimes are committed in its name. Louis Kronenberger
I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. Martin Luther King Jr
Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man’s character, give him power. Abraham Lincoln
Behavior is conduct as determined, not by principle, but by breeding. Ambrose Bierce
Few men are of one plain, decided color, most are mixed, shaded, and blended; and vary as much, from different situations, as changeable silks do from different lights. Lord Chesterfield
Old age and sickness bring out the essential characteristics of a man. Felix Frankfurter
A man’s personal identity is the custodian of his spirit. Maxine Chandler
Behavior is a mirror in which everyone displays his own image. Goethe
We know next to nothing about virtually everything. It is not necessary to know the origin of the universe; it is necessary to want to know. Civilization depends not on any particular knowledge, but on the disposition to crave knowledge. George Will
Only two of my personal identities are schizophrenic, but one of them is paranoid and the other one is out to get him. Woody Allen
Dreams are the touchstones of our characters. Henry David Thoreau
If you act you show character, if you are still you show it, if you sleep you show it. Emerson
It is circumstance and proper measure that give an action its character, and make it either good or bad. Plutarch
Solitude is as needful to the imagination as society is wholesome for the character. Lowell
We are each a unique entity created by nature with a personal identity created by each other. Arnold Bexley
The individual man tries to escape the race. And as soon as he ceases to represent the race, he represents man. Andre Gide
It is my view that the vegetarian manner of living, by its purely physical effect on the human temperament, would most beneficially influence the lot of mankind. Albert Einstein
Listen to a man’s words and look at the pupil of his eye. How can a man conceal his character? Mencius
The conduct of our lives is the true mirror of our doctrine. Montaigne
When in the present world, men behave well, that is no doubt sometimes because they are creatures of habit as well as, sometimes, because they are reasonable. Joseph Wood Krutch
Man who sleeps on railroad track wake up with split personality. David Cozens
A woman of generous character will sacrifice her life a thousand times over for her lover, but will break with him forever over a question of pride, for the opening or the shutting of a door. Stendhal
I used to be a lawyer, but now I am a reformed character. Woodrow Wilson
Men can starve from a lack of self-realization as much as they can from a lack of bread. Richard Wright
No matter how full a reservoir of maxims one may possess, and no matter how good one’s sentiments may be, if one has not taken advantage of every concrete opportunity to act, one’s character may remain entirely unaffected for the better. With mere good intentions, hell is proverbially paved. William James
Good intentions are far more difficult to cope with than malicious behavior. Jenifer Jameson
There is an invisible garment woven around us from our earliest years; it is of the way we eat, the way we walk, the way we greet people, woven of tastes and colors and perfumes which our senses spin in childhood. Jean Giraudoux
When a person lacks character, he is badly in need of a method. Albert Camus
Every attempt to explain human behavior, especially the irrational, must as a matter of course end in simplification. Morton Irving Seiden
The mirror sees the man as beautiful, the mirror loves the man; another mirror sees the man as frightful and hates him; and it is always the same being that produces the impressions. Marquis De Sade
No man can climb out beyond the limitations of his own character. John Morley
It was a beautiful, harmonious, peaceful-looking planet, blue with white clouds, and one that gave you a deep sense of home, of being, of identity. It is what I prefer to call instant global consciousness. Edgar Mitchell, Astronaut
The more peculiarly his own a man’s character is, the better it fits him. Cicero
The city is ourselves, mirroring with precision our needs and our activities, our values and our aspirations, our confusions and our contradictions. Michael Middleton
You have to go the rounds from individual to individual in order to gather the totality of the race. Schiller
Brisk talkers are usually slow thinkers. There is, indeed, no wild beast more to be dreaded than a communicative man having nothing to communicate. If you are civil to the voluble, they will abuse your patience; if brusque, your character. Jonathan Swift
Fine conduct is always spontaneous. Seneca
In great matters, men behave as they are expected to; in little ones, as they would naturally. Chamfort
A man’s character is his guardian divinity. Heraclitus
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| Lazy Days |
Delay always breeds danger and to protract a great design is often to ruin it. Cervantes
It is by his activities and not by enjoyment that man feels he is alive. In idleness we not only feel that life is fleeting, but we also feel lifeless. Stephen Venables
It is better to be part of the idle rich class than be part of the idle poor class. Elbert Cunard
It is idle to attempt to talk a young woman out of her passion: love does not lie in the ear. Horatio Walpole
Indolence is a delightful but distressing state; we must be doing something to be happy. William Hazlitt
The idle mind knows not what it is it wants. Quintus Ennius
If a soldier or laborer complains of the hardship of his lot, set him to do nothing. Pascal
Laziness is the mother of nine inventions out of ten. Philip K. Saunders
To do nothing at all is the most difficult thing in the world, the most difficult and the most intellectual. Oscar Wilde
Ambition is a poor excuse for not having sense enough to be lazy. Charlie McCarthy
Love is born of Idleness and, once born, by idleness is fostered. Ovid
If you have a difficult task, give it to a lazy person, they will find an easier way to do it. Stephan Gleeson
You cannot teach people to be idle, for they either grasp the concept or lay down. Finley Flack
I am retired leisure. I am to be met with in trim gardens. I am already come to be known by my vacant face and careless gesture, perambulating at no fixed pace nor with any settled purpose. I walk about; no to and from. Charles Lamb
Idleness is a mother. She has a son, robbery, and a daughter, hunger. Victor Hugo
We rarely find anyone who can say he has lived a happy life, and who, content with his life, can retire from the world like a satisfied guest. Quintus Horatius Flaccus
Absence of occupation is not rest. A mind quite vacant is a mind distressed. William Cowper
Passions are less mischievous than boredom, for passions tend to diminish, boredom to increase. Jules Barbey D'Aurevilly
When I rest, I rust. Proverb
Procrastination avoids boredom; one never has the feeling that there is nothing important to do. Murphy’s Law
It is because artists do not practice, patrons do not patronize, crowds do not assemble to reverently worship the great work of doing nothing, that the world has lost its philosophy and even failed to invent a new religion. G. K. Chesterton
Procrastination means never having to say you're sorry. Angus Duncan
A faculty for idleness implies a catholic appetite and a strong sense of personal identity. Robert Louis Stevenson
The incompetent professional, bluffs and procrastinates, moving the responsibility for the completion of a task onto someone else. Brian Bronzite
It is better to have loafed and lost than never to have loafed at all. James Thurber
I fell asleep reading a dull book, and I dreamt that I was reading on, so I woke up from sheer boredom and read the final page. Dustin Ian Combs
There is a slowness in affairs which ripens them, and a slowness which rots them. Joseph Roux
One can be bored until boredom becomes the most sublime of all emotions. Logan Pearsall Smith
Life, as it is called, is for most of us on long postponement. Henry Miller
The prospect of being pleased tomorrow will never console me for the boredom of today. Mark Hammond
Few men of action have been able to make a graceful exit at the appropriate time. Malcolm Muggeridge
If we examine well the diverse effects of boredom, we shall find that it causes us to neglect more duties than does interest. LA Rochefoucauld
Expect poison from the standing water. William Blake
Too much rest itself becomes a pain. Homer
Procrastination is the thief of time. Edward Young
What use is a good head if the legs won't carry it. Ian Irving
We are always getting ready to live, but never living. Emerson
Boredom; the desire for desires. Leo Tolstoy
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| Kindness |
I have learned silence from the talkative, toleration from the intolerant, and kindness from the unkind. Kahlil Gibran
The best portion of a good man’s life are his little, nameless, unremembered acts of kindness and love. William Wordsworth
A man of humanity is one who, in seeking to establish himself, finds a foothold for others and who, desiring attainment for himself, helps others to attain. Confucius
Kindness is a language which the deaf can hear and the blind can read. Mark Twain
The fact that people are poor or discriminated against doesn’t necessarily endow them with any special qualities of justice, nobility, charity or compassion. Saul Alinsky
No act of kindness, no matter how small, is ever wasted. Aesop
The poor do not need our sympathy and pity. They need our love and compassion. Mother Teresa
To make one good action succeed another is the perfection of goodness. Talib
There was a time a while back when charity was a virtue and not an organization. Brendon Stark
Public sympathy is everything; with it nothing can fail, without it nothing can succeed. Abraham Lincoln
No one knows like a woman how to say things that are at once gentle and deep. Victor Hugo
The Holy-supper is kept indeed, in what we share with another’s need. Not what we give, but what we share. For the gift without the giver is bare. James Russell Lowell
Man discovers his own wealth when god comes to ask gifts of him. Tagore
A benevolent man extends his love from those that he loves to those he does not love. Mencius
Surely great loving kindness yet may go with a little gift; all’s dear that comes from friends. Theocritus
Men are cruel, but man is kind. Tagore
Goodness is uneventful. It does not flash, it glows. David Grayson
The better the state is established, the fainter is humanity. To make the individual uncomfortable, that is my task. Nietzsche
There is, nevertheless, a certain respect and a general duty of humanity that ties us, not only to beasts that have life and sense, but even to trees and plants. Montaigne
In necessary things, unity; in doubtful things, liberty; in all things, charity. Richard Baxter
What is tolerance? It is the consequence of humanity. We are all formed of frailty and error; let us pardon reciprocally each other’s folly; that is the first law of nature. Voltaire
Goodness is achieved not in a vacuum, but in the company of other men, attended by love. Saul Bellow
Do not ask me to be kind; just ask me to act as though I were. Jules Renard
Men that talk of their own benefits are not believed to talk of them because they have done them, but to have done them because they might talk of them. Ben Jonson
Charity and personal force are the only investments worth anything. Walt Whitman
Live not as though there were a thousand years ahead of you. Fate is at your elbow; make yourself good while life and power are still yours. Marcus Aurelius
The only gift is a portion of thyself. Emerson
We are better pleased to see those on whom we confer benefits than those from whom we receive them. LA Rochefoucauld
Good men are the stars, the planets of the ages wherein they live, and illustrate the times. Ben Jonson
If charity cost no money and benevolence caused no heartache, the world would be full of philanthropists. Proverb
Women treat us just as humanity treats its gods. They worship us and are always bothering us to do something for them. Oscar Wilde
An elderly lady, standing in a queue at a supermarket, let me in before her so I could join a pal who was already at the checkout. I said, “Thank you so much.” She replied, “Don’t think about it; it’s my good deed for the day.” “You’ll go to heaven.” I said. There was a slight pause, and then she said firmly, “I don’t want to go to heaven. I want to go to hell and dance a bit.” “Me too, let’s all go to hell and dance a lot.” Source: The Happy Hoofer by Celia Imrie
A man makes no noise over a good deed, but passes onto another as a vine to bear grapes again in season. Marcus Aurelius
The unfortunate need people who will be kind to them; the prosperous need people to be kind to. Aristotle
The humanitarian wishes to be a prime mover in the lives of others. He cannot admit either the divine or the natural order, by which men have the power to help themselves. Isabel Paterson
The silver ore of pure charity is an expensive article in the catalogue of a man’s good qualities. Richard Sheridan
I know what I have given you. I do not know what you have received. Antonio Porchia
Philanthropy is almost the only virtue which is sufficiently appreciated by mankind. Thoreau
Goodness is easier to recognize than to define. W. H. Auden
There is sublime thieving in all giving. Someone gives us all he has and we are his. Eric Hoffer
My true religion is kindness. Dalai Lama
The worshipper of energy is too physically energetic to see that he cannot explore certain higher fields until he is still. Clarence Day
Every action is measured by the depth of the sentiment from which it proceeds. Emerson
To say yes, you have to sweat and roll up your sleeves and plunge both hands into life up to the elbows. It is easy to say no, even if saying no means death. Jean Anouilh
Determine never to be idle. No person will have occasion to complain of the want of time who never loses any. It is wonderful how much may be done if we are always doing. Thomas Jefferson
There is no action so slight, nor so mean, but it may be done to great purpose, and enabled. John Ruskin
Urgent necessity prompts many to do things, at the very thoughts of which they perhaps would start at other times. Cervantes
It is circumstance and proper measure that give an action its character, and make it either good or bad. Plutarch
How could there be any question of acquiring or possessing, when the one thing needful for a man, is to become, to be at last, and to die in the fullness of his being. Saint Exupery
In a hierarchy every employee tends to rise to his level of incompetence…. In time every post tends to be occupied by an employee who is incompetent to carry out his duties… Work is accomplished by those employees who have not yet reached their level of incompetence. Laurence J Peter
The wise find pleasure in water; the virtuous find pleasure in hills. The wise are active; the virtuous are tranquil. The wise are joyful; the virtuous are long lived. Confucius
For every action, there is an equal and opposite criticism. Don Foley
What I must do is all that concerns me, and not what people think. Emerson
Everyone has time if he likes. Business runs after nobody; people cling to it of their own free will and think that to be busy is a proof of happiness. Seneca
A thought that does not result in an action is nothing much, and an action that does not proceed from a thought is nothing at all. Georges Bernanos
To understand the heart and mind of a person, look not at what he has already achieved, but at what he aspires to do. Khalil Gibran
Involvement with people is always a very delicate thing; it requires real maturity to become involved and not get all messed up. Bernard Cooke
There is nothing more frightening than ignorance in action. Goethe
Scholarship is to be created not by compulsion, but by awakening a pure interest in knowledge. The wise instructor accomplishes this by opening to his pupils precisely the attractions the study has for himself. Emerson
It is by losing himself in the objective, in inquiry, creation, and craft, that a man becomes something. Paul Goodman
Though men pride themselves on their great actions, often they are not the result of any great design but of chance. LA Rochefoucauld
We immoralists have the suspicion that the decisive value of an action lies precisely in what is unintentional in it. Nietzsche
Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm. Emerson
Men of action: those men who are too busy with the day’s work to see beyond it. They are essential men, we cannot do without them, and yet we must not allow all our vision to be bound by their limitations. Pearl S. Buck
Saying is one thing and doing is another; we are to consider the sermon and the preacher distinctly and apart. Montaigne
Given the choice between accomplishing something and just lying around, I’d rather lie around. No contest. Eric Clapton
Furious activity is no substitute for understanding. H Williams
Is it really so difficult to judge a good action from a bad one? I think one usually knows right away or a moment afterward, in a horrid flash of regret. Mary McCarthy
For blessings ever wait on virtuous deeds, and though a late, a sure reward succeeds. William Congreve
Good words without deeds are rushes and reeds. Proverb
There are people who want to be everywhere at once and they seem to get nowhere. Carl Sandburg
What old people say you cannot do, you try and find that you can. Old deeds for old people and new deeds for new. Thoreau
Any theory can be made to fit any facts by means of approximate, additional assumptions. Patrick Cully
The materials of action are variable, but the use we make of them should be constant. Epictetus
Progress does not consist in replacing a theory that is wrong with one that is right. It consists in replacing a theory that is wrong with one that is more subtly wrong. S. Hawkins
You cannot achieve the impossible without attempting the absurd. Oscar Wilde
Live all you can; it’s a mistake not to. It doesn't so much matter what you do in particular, so long as you have your life. If you haven’t had that, what have you had? Henry James
Men need some kind of external activity, because they are inactive within. Schopenhauer
Everything that has been achieved, for good or for bad, is due to the way humans are. The future will be no different. Whether we reach for the stars or plumb the depths, humans will be responsible. Tom Johnston
The truth is, men are very hard to know, and yet, not to be deceived, we must judge them not by their present actions, but for the present only. Napoleon
Life is made up of constant calls to action, and we seldom have time for more than hastily contrived answers. Learned Hand
In theory, there is nothing to hinder our following what we are taught, but in life there are many things to draw us aside. Epictetus
Since it is not granted us to live long, let us transmit to posterity some memorial that we have at least lived. Pliny the Younger
For every action there is an equal and opposite government program. Don Troy
The probability of someone watching you is directly proportional to the stupidity of your actions. Murphy’s Law
A cosmic philosophy is not constructed to fit a man; it is constructed to fit a cosmos. A man can no more possess a private religion than he can possess a private sun and moon. G. K. Chesterton
A religion that has lost its basic conviction about the interconnection of men with men in their common struggles for the human, will never command belief in the realm of the superhuman. Max Lerner
The belief that becomes truth for me is that which allows me the best use of my strength, the best means of putting my virtues into action. Andre Gide
Religion should be disentangled as much as possible from history and authority and metaphysics, and made to rest honestly on one’s fine feelings, on one’s indomitable optimism and trust in life. Santayana
The fact of the religious vision, and its history of persistent expansion, is our one ground for optimism. Apart from it, human life is a flash of occasional enjoyments lighting up a mass of pain and misery, a bagatelle of transient experience. Alfred North Whitehead
A key to the understanding of all religions is that a God’s idea of a good time is a game of Snakes and Ladders with greased rungs. Terry Pratchett
We are so constituted that we believe the most incredible things; and, once they are engraved upon the memory, woe to him who would endeavor to erase them. Goethe
In religion above all things the only thing of use is an objective truth. The only god that is of use is a being who is personal, supreme and good, and whose existence is as certain as that two and two make four. Somerset Maugham
Acceptance without proof is the fundamental characteristic of Western religion. Rejection without proof is the fundamental characteristic of Western science. Gary Zukav
One of my less pleasant chores when I was young was to read the Bible from one end to the other. Reading the Bible straight through is at least 70 percent discipline, like learning Latin. But the good parts are, of course, simply amazing. God is an extremely uneven writer, but when He’s good, nobody can touch Him. John Gardner
If religion does not make us better people, it will make us very much worse. And of all the bad men who have lived, the religious “bad man” is the worst of all. C S Lewis
It is natural for the mind to believe, and for the will to love; so that, for want of true objects, they must attach themselves to the false. Pascal
The fact that an opinion has been widely held is no evidence that it is not utterly absurd; indeed, in view of the silliness of the majority of mankind, a widespread belief is more often likely to be foolish than sensible. Bertrand Russell
Belief indeed enlightens, terrifies, subdues; it give faith, it inflicts remorse, it inspires resolutions, it draws tears, it inflames devotion, but only for the occasion. John Henry Newman
My religion consists of a humble admiration of the illimitable superior spirit who reveals himself in the slight details we are able to perceive with our frail and feeble mind. Albert Einstein
Hope looks for unqualified success; but faith counts certainly on failure, and takes honorable defeat to be a form of victory. Robert Louis Stevenson
It is desire that engenders belief and if we fail as a rule to take this into account, it is because most of the desires that create beliefs end only with our own death. Marcel Proust
Can one be a saint without God? This is the problem I know of today. Albert Camus
Grace is indeed needed to turn a man into a saint; and he who doubts it does not know what a saint or a man is. Pascal
It is well that the stately synagogue should lift its walls by the side of the aspiring cathedral, a perpetual reminder that there are many mansions in Father’s earthly house as well as in the heavenly ones. Oliver Wendell Holmes
Religion pervades intensely the whole frame of society, and is according to the temper of the mind which it inhabits, a passion, a persuasion, an excuse, a refuge; never a check. Shelley
The belief that enhanced understanding will necessarily stir a nation to action is one of mankind’s oldest illusions. Andrew Hacker
We are self-uncertain creatures, and we may, yes, even when we know not, mix our spites, and private hates with our defense of heaven. Alfred Lord Tennyson
Religion is something infinitely simple, ingenious. It is not Knowledge, not content of feeling, it is not duty and not renunciation, it is not restriction, but in the infinite extent of the universe it is a direction of the heart. Rainer Maria Rilke
Faith consists in believing not what seems true, but what seems false to our understanding. Voltaire
Politics, like religion, hold up the torches of martyrdom to the reformers of error. Thomas Jefferson
Religion is always a patron of the arts, but its taste is by no means impeccable. Aldous Huxley
Faith in our savior is so great a thing that it is right that those who will not take the trouble to seek it, if it be obscure, should be deprived of it. Pascal
The saints indulge in subtleties in order to think themselves criminals, and impeach their better actions. Pascal
It is easier to make a saint out of a libertine than out of a prig. Santayana
Religion is indeed a convention which a man must be bred in to endure with any patience; and yet for all its poetic motley, comes closer than work-a-day opinion to the heart of things. Santayana
Without their fictions the truths of faiths would for the multitude be neither intelligible nor even apprehensible; and the prophets would prophesy and the teachers teach in vain. George Bernard Shaw
Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich. Napoleon
The founders of the great religions, Gautama Buddha, Jesus, Lao-Tzu, Muhammad, all seem to have striven for a worldwide brotherhood of man; but none of them could develop institutions which would include the enemy, the unbeliever. Geoffrey Gore
Will thy not take the doubts of our children whom the time commands to try all things in the place of the unquestioning faith of earlier generations. Oliver Wendell Holmes
A believer, a mind whose faith is consciousness, is never disturbed because other persons do not yet see the fact which he sees. Emerson
Science is a differential equation. Religion is a boundary condition. Alan Turing
One man finds in religion his literature and science, another finds in it his joy and his duty. Joseph Joubert
We must respect the other fellow’s religion, but only in the sense and to the extent that we respect his theory that his wife is beautiful and his children smart. H. L. Mencken
True religion is slow in growth, and, when once planted, is difficult of dislodgement; but its intellectual counterfeit has no root in itself; it springs up suddenly, it suddenly withers. John Henry Newman
The price of seeking to force our beliefs on others is that someday they might force their beliefs on us. Mario Cuomo
To the poet, to the philosopher, to the saint, all things are friendly and sacred, all events profitable, all days holy, all men divine. Emerson
The worship of god is not a rule of safety; it is an adventure of the spirit, a flight after the unattainable. Alfred North Whitehead
There is only one true faith, though there are a hundred versions of it. George Bernard Shaw.
All religions are ancient monuments to superstition, ignorance, ferocity; and modern religions are only ancient follies rejuvenated. Baron D’Holbach
Man is a credulous animal, and must believe something; in the absence of good grounds for belief, he will be satisfied with bad ones. Bertrand Russell
The scripture in time of disputes is like an open town in time of war, which serves indifferently the occasions of both parties. Alexander Pope
The heathen is a benighted creature who has the folly to worship something that he can see and feel. Ambrose Bierce
I always felt that the great high privilege, relief and comfort of friendship was that one had to explain nothing. Katherine Mansfield
I argue very well. Ask any of my remaining friends. I can win an argument on any topic, against any opponent. People know this, and steer clear of me at parties. Often, as a sign of their great respect, they don’t even invite me. David Barry
A woman may very well form a friendship with a man, but for this to endure; it must be assisted by a little physical antipathy. Nietzsche
Distrust all those who love you extremely upon a very slight acquaintance and without any visible reason. Lord Chesterfield
Bernard Shaw is an excellent man; he has not an enemy in the world, and none of his friends like him either. Oscar Wilde
Friendships last when each friend thinks he has a slight superiority over the other. Balzac
I always choose my friends for their good looks and my enemies for their good intellects. Man cannot be too careful in his choice of enemies. Oscar Wilde
Like driftwood spars, which meet and pass upon the boundless ocean-plain, so on the sea of life, alas. Man meets man; meets and quits again. Matthew Arnold
All my friends and I are crazy. That’s the only thing that keeps us sane. Dolly Patton
How casually and unobserved we make all our most valued acquaintances. Emerson
I do not believe that friends are necessarily the people you like best; they are merely the people who got there first. Peter Ustinov
Instead of loving your enemies, treat your friends a little better. Edgar Howe
My friends, no matter how rough the road may be, we can and we will, never, never surrender to what is right. Dan Quayle
What men call social virtues, good fellowship, is commonly but the virtue of pigs in a litter, which lie close together to keep each other warm. Thoreau
Even the best of friends cannot attend each other’s funeral. Keith Allan
The best that we can do is to be kindly and helpful toward our friends and fellow passengers who are clinging to the same speck of dirt while we are drifting side by side to our common doom. Clarence Darrow
Good friends, good books and a sleepy conscience: this is the ideal life. Mark Twain
Good company and good discourse are the very sinews of virtue. Izaak Walton
Never speak ill of yourself, your friends will always say enough on that subject. Charles Maurice
Friends may come and go, but enemies accumulate. Thomas Jones
We are not loved by our friends for what we are; rather, we are loved in spite of what we are. Victor Hugo
Psychiatrists say that one out of four people are mentally ill. Check three friends. If they're OK, you're it. Kay Dayton
I get my exercise acting as pallbearer to my friends who exercise. Charlie pride
The most disagreeable thing that your worst enemy says to your face does not approach what your best friends say behind your back. Allen Sparks
Tart words make no friends; a spoonful of honey will catch more flies than a gallon of vinegar. Benjamin Franklin
Your friends will know you better in the first minute you meet than your acquaintances will know you in a thousand years. Richard Bach
Love demands infinitely less than friendship. George J. Nathan
We secure our friends not by accepting favors but by doing them. Tim Ticker
If a man does not make new acquaintance as he advances through life, he will soon find himself left alone. A man, sir, should keep his friendship in constant repair. Samuel Johnson
To have the universe bear one company would be a great consolation in death. Thoreau
The test of interesting people is that subject matter doesn't matter. Louis Kronenberger
The bonds that unite another person to ourselves exist only in our mind. Marcel Proust
Friendship is love without his wings. Byron
I have great faith in fools; self-confidence my friends call it. Edgar Allan Poe
Infinitely often it is clear that we appreciate, even respect, not a multitude, but ten people gathered in a room, each of whom, taken by himself, we consider of no account. C. Leopard
You shall judge of a man by his foes as well as by his friends. Joseph Conrad
An ancient father says that a dog we know is better company than a man whose language we do not understand. Montaigne
Misery acquaints a man with strange bedfellows. Shakespeare
Money may buy friendship but money cannot buy love. Kenny Lewis
Togetherness is a substitute sense of community, a counterfeit communion. Gabriel Vania
At the heart of our friendly or purely social relations, there lurks a hostility momentarily cured but recurring by fits and starts. Marcel Proust
A man knows his companion in a long journey is a little inn. Thomas Fuller
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| Avarice |
Though avarice will prevent a man from being necessitous and poor, it generally makes him to timorous to be wealthy. Thomas Paine
What’s the matter with the world? Why, there ain't but one thing wrong with every one of us, and that’s "selfishness". Will Rogers
The avarice of the miser may be termed the grand sepulcher of all his other passions, as they successively decay. Charles Caleb Colton
Excess on occasion is exhilarating. It prevents moderation from acquiring the deadening effect of a habit. Somerset Maugham
I wish to become rich, so that I can instruct the people and glorify honest poverty a little, like those kind hearted, fat, benevolent people do. Mark Twain
Avarice often produces opposite results: there are an infinite number of persons who sacrifice their property to doubtful and distant expectations; others mistake great future advantages for small present interests. Rochefoucauld
A bachelor is a selfish, undeserving guy who has cheated some woman out of a divorce. Don Quinn
Avarice is a fine absorbing passion, and many a fellow is as happy with his arm around his bank account as he was sleigh riding with his first girl. Finley Peter Dunne
Human history is the sad result of each one looking out for himself. Julio Courtenay
A person who is religiously enlightened appears to me to be one who has, to the best of his abilities, liberated himself from the fetters of his selfish desires and is preoccupied with thoughts, feelings and aspirations to which he clings because of their supra-personal value. Albert Einstein
There are some sordid minds, formed of slime and filth, to whom interest and gain are what glory and virtue are to superior souls; they feel no other pleasure but to acquire money. Jean DE La Bruyere
A moderate addiction to money may not always be hurtful, but when taken in excess it is nearly always bad for the health. Clarence Day
I could not possibly count the gold digging ruses of women; not if I had ten mouths, not if had ten tongues. Ovid
A picture of human life such as a great artist can give, surprises even the trivial and the selfish into that attention to what is apart from themselves, which may be called the raw material of moral sentiment. George Eliot
Corrupt, stupid grasping functionaries will make at least as big a muddle of socialism as stupid, selfish and acquisitive employers can make of capitalism. Walter Lippmann
Moderation is a fatal thing. Nothing succeeds like excess. Oscar Wilde
There is held to be no surer test of civilization than the increase per head of the consumption of alcohol and tobacco. Yet alcohol and tobacco are recognizably poisons, so that their consumption has only to be carried far enough to destroy civilization altogether. Havelock Ellis
Avarice misapprehends itself almost always. There is no passion which more often will miss its aim, nor upon which the present has so much influence to the prejudice of the future. Rochefoucauld
I would rather be rich affluent and greedy and go to hell when I die, than live in poverty on this earth. Al Capone
He who lives only for himself is truly dead to others. Syrus
Avarice is a cursed vice. Offer a man enough gold, and he will part with his own small hoard of food, however great his hunger. Lucan
The moral peril to humanity of thoughtlessly accepting these conveniences of materialism with their inherent disadvantages as constituting a philosophy of life is now becoming apparent. For the implications of this disruptive materialism are that human beings are nothing but bodies, animals, machines. Aldous Huxley
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| Potala Palace Tibet |
The crimes of extreme civilization are probably worse than those of extreme barbarism, because of their refinement, the corruption they presuppose, and their superior degree of intellectuality. Jules Barbey D'Aurevilly
America may be unique in being a country which has leaped from barbarism to decadence without touching civilization. John O’Hara
Human life in common is only made possible when a majority come together which is stronger than any separate individual and which remains united against all separate individuals. Sigmund Freud
A nation advances in civilization by increasing in wealth and population, and by multiplying the accessories and paraphernalia of life. William Ralph Inge
One cannot raise the bottom of a society without benefiting everyone above. Michael Harrington
A cheerful, intelligent face is the end of culture. Emerson
Every social system is more or less against nature, and at every moment nature is at work to reclaim her rights. Paul Valery
As long as art is the beauty parlor of civilization, neither art nor civilization is secure. John Dewey
Every society to which you remain bound robs you of a part of your essence, and replaces it with a speck of the gigantic personality which is its own. Jose Rodo
Wherein does barbarism consist, unless in not appreciating what is excellent. Goethe
The more we realize our minuteness and our impotence in the face of cosmic forces, the more astonishing becomes what human beings have achieved. Bertrand Russell
Civilization is a limitless multiplication of unnecessary necessaries. Mark Twain
The test of every religious, political, or educational system is the man which it forms. If a system injures the intelligence it is bad. If it injures the character it is vicious, if it injures the conscience it is criminal. Henri Frederick Amiel
Culture is simply how one lives and is connected to history by habit. Le Roi Jones
In civilized society we all depend upon each other and our happiness is very much owing to the good opinion of mankind. Samuel Johnson
The major advances in civilization are processes that all but wreck the societies in which they occur. Alfred North Whitehead
Increased means and increased leisure are the two civilizes of man. Benjamin Disraeli
A great society is a society in which its men of business think greatly of their functions. Alfred North Whitehead
In the dust where we have buried the silent races and their abominations we have buried so much of the delicate magic of life. D. H. Lawrence
The true test of civilization is, not the census, nor the size of the cities, nor the crops, no, but the kind of man the country turns out. Emerson
Learning is nothing without cultivated manners, but when the two are combined in a woman, you have one of the most exquisite products of civilization. Andre Maurois
The more rational an institution is the less it suffers by making concessions to others. Santayana
Civilization is an active deposit which is formed by the combustion of the present with the past. Neither in countries without a present nor in those without a past is it to be discovered. Cyril Connolly
Culture has never the translucidities’ of custom; it abhors all simplification. In its essence it is opposed to custom, for custom is always the deterioration of culture. Frantz Fanon
Civilization does everything for the mind and favors it entirely at the expense of the body. Napoleon
What man loses by the social contract is his natural liberty and an unlimited right to everything he tries to get and succeeds in getting; what he gains is civil liberty and the proprietorship of all he possesses. Rousseau
Culture, the acquainting ourselves with the best that has been known and said in the world, and thus with the history of the human spirit. Matthew Arnold
Men have been barbarians much longer than they have been civilized. They are only precariously civilized, and within us there is the propensity, persistent as the force of gravity, to revert under stress and strain, under neglect or temptation, to our first natures. Walter Lippmann
Culture is the one thing we cannot deliberately aim at. It is product of a variety of more or less harmonious activities, each pursued for its own sake. T. S. Eliot
Why should there not be a patient confidence in the ultimate justice of the people? Is there any better of equal hope in the world? Abraham Lincoln
A civilization is built on what is required of men, not on that which is provided for them. Saint-Exupery
Every institution not only carries within it the seeds of its own dissolution, but prepares the way for its most hated rival. William Ralph Inge
The principles of the good society call for a concern with an order of being, which cannot be proved existentially to the sense organs where it matters supremely that the human person is inviolable, that reason shall regulate the will, that truth shall prevail over error. Walter Lippmann
A good civilization spreads over us freely like a tree, varying and yielding because it is alive. A bad civilization stands up and sticks out above us like an umbrella; artificial, mathematical in shape; not merely universal, but uniform. G. K. Chesterton
The chaos of our society is the product of the dishevelment of our ideas. Philip Wylie
Necessity reconciles and brings men together, and this accidental connection afterward forms itself into laws. Montaigne
In a state of nature the weakest go to the wall; in a state of over-refinement, both the weak and strong go to the gutter. Elbert Hubbard
We do not make a world of our own, but fall into institutions already made, and have to accommodate ourselves to them to be useful at all. Emerson
Human history, if you read it right, is the record of the efforts to tame father. Next to striking of fire and the discovery of the wheel, the greatest triumph of what we call civilization was the domestication of the human male. Max Lerner
Society is a kind of parent to its members. If it, and they, are to thrive, its values must be clear, coherent and generally acceptable. Milton R Sapirstein
Our culture impedes the clear definition of any faithful self-image; indeed, of any clear image whatever. We do not break images; there are few iconoclasts among us. Instead, we blur and soften them. Edgar Z. Friedenberg
Get Revenge; live long enough to be a problem for your children. Unknown
Quite often good things have harmful consequences. There are instances of men who have been ruined by their money or killed by their courage. Aristotle
He that makes his law a curse; by his own law shall surely die. William Blake
There’s no need to hang about waiting for the last judgment; it takes place every day. Albert Camus
God gives each his due at the time allotted. Euripides
The response man has the greatest difficulty in tolerating is pity, especially when he warrants it. Hatred is a tonic, it makes one live, it inspires vengeance, but pity kills, it makes our weakness weaker. Balzac
Half of the results of a good intention are evil; half the results of an evil intention are good. Mark twain
Since women do most delight in revenge, it may seem but feminine manhood to be vindictive. Sir Thomas Browne
In imperialism nothing fails like success. If the conqueror oppresses his subjects, they will become fanatical patriots, and sooner or later have their revenge; if he treats them well, and governs them for their good, they will multiply faster than their rulers, till they claim their independence. William Ralph Inge
The laws of changeless justice bind oppressor and oppressed; and, close as sin and suffering joined we march to fate abreast. John Whittier
Revenge is a much more punctual paymaster than gratitude. Charles Caleb Colton
Speaking generally, punishment hardens and numbs, it produces concentration, it sharpens the consciousness of alienation, and it strengthens the power of resistance. Nietzsche
The consequences of our actions take hold of us quite indifferent to our claim that meanwhile we have improved. Nietzsche
There’s no limit to how complicated things can get, on account of one thing always leading to another. E. B. White
Punishment without justice is bearable. Besides, it has a name which guarantees our innocents; misfortune. Albert Camus
Recompense injury with justice, and recompense kindness with kindness. Confucius
There exists among the intolerable degraded, the perverse and powerful desire to force into the arena of the actual those fantastic crimes of which they have been accused, achieving their vengeance and their own destruction through making the nightmare real. James Baldwin
Heat not a furnace for your foe so hot that it does singe yourself. Shakespeare
According to one memoirist growing up with the Indonesian fayu tribe:
If I were a fayu warrior, and a member of a different clan killed my brother, I, along with my entire family and clan, would have the obligation to avenge his death, the same as if we believed them to have cursed him with some disease. The retribution would not be limited to the offending party, but could justifiably include any member of his clan. For the purposes of the blood feud, people within a clan were viewed as interchangeable, and any death would satisfy the demand for revenge. In turn, this clan would be obligated to avenge the death of the person I killed, and thus continue the cycle of violence. Source: Child of the Jungle: The True Story of a Girl Caught between two Worlds by Sabine Kuegler.
Deep childhood hurts are always recalled, no matter the fame or eminence achieved by the later adult. In her memoir, actress Maureen O'Hara recounts, in terms of her favorite doll:
My brother Charlie and his friend Sam Lombard kidnapped my plastic doll and then burned her at the stake in a game of Cowboys and Indians. I was so traumatized by it that I swore revenge, that I'd make Sam Lombard Pay for what he had done. … We were all at the beach. I watched Sam playing in the sand without a care in the world. I sneaked up behind him when his back was turned, locked my arms around him tightly and then carried him out to the sea. I walked him right into the water and held him down under it, letting him up for air only when I saw the panic in his eyes. “That’s for my doll,” I said with a smile. Then I casually walked back to the shore and continued with my sand castle.
Source: Tis Herself: An Autobiography by Maureen O'Hara and John Nicoletti
.jpg "Life") |
| That's Life |
A chance to rediscover the profound wisdom of those who have made the difficult journey through this life before us; those who, like our Lord Jesus Christ, taught us that this life is but one passing phase of our existence and that reality lies within each one of us. Prince Charles
A picture of human life such as a great artist can give, surprises even the trivial and the selfish into that attention to what is apart from themselves, which may be called the raw material of moral sentiment. George Eliot
Men are living now just the way they were before, as if we didn't have a new all over-shadowing danger to deal with and it’s clear, they have learned nothing from the horrors they've experienced. The little intrigues, with which they complicated their lives before, take up again the greatest part of their thoughts. What a strange species we are. Albert Einstein
Experience is not what happens to you; it is what you do with what happens to you. Aldous Huxley
There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved. Darwin
The point about zero is that we do not need to use it in the operations of daily life. No one goes out to buy zero fish. It is in a way the most civilized of all the cardinals, and its use is only forced on us by the needs of cultivated modes of thought. Alfred North Whitehead
I speak to the black experience, but I am always talking about the human condition; about what we can endure, dream, fail at, and still survive. Maya Angelou
What is the meaning of life? That was all; a simple question; one that tended to close in on one with the years. The great revelation had never come. The great revelation perhaps never did come. Instead there were little daily miracles, illuminations, matches struck unexpectedly in the dark. Virginia Woolf
A woman has got to love a bad man once or twice in her life to be thankful for a good one. Marjorie Rawlings
The laws of science, as we know them at present, contain many fundamental numbers, like the size of the electric charge of the proton and electron. The remarkable thing is that the values of these numbers seem to have been finely adjusted to make possible the development of life. Stephen Hawking
It is a far worthier thing to read by the light of experience than to adorn oneself with the labors of others. Leonardo Da Vinci
Make the best of your circumstances: no one has everything and everyone has something of sorrow intermingled with the gladness of life. The trick is to make the laughter outweigh the tears. Robert Louis Stevenson
Life is the only real counsellor; wisdom unfiltered through personal experience does not become a part of the moral tissue. Edith Wharton
To leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch or a redeemed social condition; to know that even one life has breathed easier because you lived; that is to have succeeded. Emerson
There is, nevertheless, a certain respect and a general duty of humanity that ties us, not only to beasts that have life and sense, but even to trees and plants. Montaigne
The city is the image of the soul, the surrounding walls being the frontier between the outward and inward life. The gates are the faculties or senses connecting the life of the soul with the outward world. Living springs of water rise within it. And in the center, where beats the heart, stands the holy sanctuary. St. Catherine of Sienna
All you need in this life is ignorance and confidence, and then success is sure. Mark Twain
Any coward can sit in his home and criticize a pilot for flying into a mountain in a fog. But I would rather, by far, die on a mountainside than in bed. What kind of man would live where there is no daring? And is life so dear that we should blame men for dying in adventure? Is there a better way to die? Charles Lindbergh
Our chief want in life is somebody who shall make us do what we can. Having found them, we shall then hate them for it. Emerson
Art is the nearest thing to life; it is a mode of amplifying experience and extending our contact with our fellow men beyond the bounds of our personal lot. George Eliot
Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. This is not a way of life at all in any true sense. Under the clouds of war, it is humanity hanging on a cross of iron. Dwight Eisenhower
So many people seem unhappy because they’re not doing something important. But what does it matter what a man does, provided he gives, contributes? You must make yourself love what you do, and do it as best you can. What other reason for life can we ever really know for sure? Ed Louette
I treasure this strange combination found in very few persons: a fierce desire for life as well as a lucid perception of the ultimate futility of the quest. Madeleine Gobeil
If I had influence with the good fairy who is supposed to preside over the christening of all children, I should ask that her gift to each child in the world be a sense of wonder so indestructible that it would last throughout life. Rachel Carson
The only faith that wears well and holds its color in all weathers, is that which is woven of conviction and set with the sharp mordant of experience. Lowell
It is the property of things seen for the first time, or for the first time after long, like the flowers in spring, to reawaken in us the sharp edge of sense and that impression of mystic strangeness which otherwise passes out of life with the coming of years; but the sight of a loved face is what renews a man’s character from the fountain upwards. Robert Louis Stevenson
The trouble with this country is that there are too many politicians who believe, with a conviction based on experience, that you can fool all of the people all of the time. Franklin Adams
We must use time wisely, and forever realize that the time is always ripe to do right. Nelson Mandela
Live for the moment, you cannot find peace when avoiding life.
Virginia Wood
Peace is the result of retraining your mind to process life as it is, rather than as you think it should be. Wayne W Dyer
Where parents do too much for their children, the children will not do much for themselves. Elbert Hubbard
Children sweeten labors, but they make misfortunes more bitter; they increase the cares of life, but they mitigate the remembrance of death. Francis Bacon
Romance fails us and so do friendships, but the relationship of parent and child, less noisy than all others, remains indelible and indestructible, the strongest relationship on earth. Theodor Reik
What the mother sings in the cradle goes all the way down to the coffin. Henry Ward Beecher
A rich child often sits in a poor mothers lap. Unknown
Lucky that man, whose children make his happiness in life and not his grief the anguished disappointment of his hopes. Euripides
When a woman is twenty, a child deforms her; when she is thirty, he preserves her; and when forty, he makes her young again. Leon Blum
Our women’s bodies are shaped to bear children, and our lives are working-out of the process of creation. All our ambitions and intelligence are beside that great elemental point. Phyllis Ginley
Some are kissing mothers and some are scolding mothers, but it is love just the same, and most mothers kiss and scold together. Pearl S. Buck
You don’t have to deserve your mother’s love. You have to deserve your father’s. He’s more particular. Robert Frost
In the mind of a woman, to give birth to a child is the short cut to omniscience. Gelett Burgess
A father is very miserable who has no other hold on his children’s affection than the need they have of his assistance, if that can be called affection. Montaigne
One of the most visible effects of a child’s presence in the household is to turn the worthy parents into complete idiots when, without him, they would perhaps have remained mere imbeciles. Georges Courteline
There is not so much comfort in the having of children as there is sorrow in parting with them. Thomas Fuller
The fundamental defect of fathers is that they want their children to be a credit to them. Bertrand Russell
Schoolmasters and parents exist to be grown out of. John Wolfendon
Memoirist Livia Bitton-Jackson recounts her ache for the maternal praise and affection enjoyed by her friends. Having voiced her sense of rejection, her mother replied with a smile, “I don’t believe in cuddling. Life is tough, and cuddling makes you soft. How will you face life’s difficulties if I keep cuddling you? You’re too sensitive as it is; if I would take you on my lap, you would never want to get off. You’d become as soft as butter, unable to stand up to life’s challenges.” Sadly, the author was not convinced by this explanation. She believed the lack of hugs and compliments was due to her mother’s finding her unappealing and plain. Source: I have lived a thousand years: growing up in the holocaust by Livia Bitton-Jackson
One of the most delightful anecdotes in Brian Jay Jones book: Jim Henson, The Biography, he recounts the way Henson dealt with his son, Brian. At five years old, Brian worked for a week on his father’s program, featuring the Muppet's. At the end of that week, Jim Henson presented his son with a check for $50, explaining that Brian had earned it. He then suggested they go to the bank, where he would set up an account, and begin earning interest. As a grown man, Brian reflects on this incident with pride in that his father had shown him the roots of both working and saving.
