Martin Svoboda favourite quotes (page 24)

“Nothing happens, and nothing happens, and then everything happens.”

Fay Weldon (1931) English author, essayist and playwright

Life Force (1992) Source: [Kakutani, Michiko, 1992-02-07, Books of The Times; Fallout From a Multitude of Liaisons, https://www.nytimes.com/1992/02/07/books/books-of-the-times-fallout-from-a-multitude-of-liaisons.html, New York Times, 2020-02-12]

“Worry less about what other people think about you, and more about what you think about them.”

Fay Weldon (1931) English author, essayist and playwright

“Most people do not listen with the intent to understand; they listen with the intent to reply.”

Stephen R. Covey book The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People

Source: The Seven Habits Of Highly Effective People (1989), p. 239
Source: The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change

“Our only limitations are those we set up in our own minds”

Napoleon Hill (1883–1970) American author

Variant: The only limitation is that which one sets up in one's own mind.
Source: Think and Grow Rich: The Landmark Bestseller - Now Revised and Updated for the 21st Century

“A Race without the knowledge of its history is like a tree without roots.”

Marcus Garvey (1887–1940) Jamaica-born British political activist, Pan-Africanist, orator, and entrepreneur

Though often attributed to Garvey, this statement first appears in Charles Siefert's 1938 pamphlet, The Negro's or Ethiopian's Contribution to Art.
Misattributed

“In me is the sky, in me lies the earth.”

Kuvempu (1904–1994) Kannada novelist, poet, playwright, critic, and thinker

A couplet he wrote in Kannada, before writing his first full poem in the language.
Poet, nature lover and humanist (2004)

“What is most personal is most universal.”

Carl R. Rogers (1902–1987) American psychologist

Source: On Becoming a Person: A Therapist's View of Psychotherapy

“I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free.”

Michelangelo Buonarroti (1475–1564) Italian sculptor, painter, architect and poet

“Life isn't about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself.”

George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950) Irish playwright

Variant: Life isn't about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself.

“The greatest ideas are the simplest.”

William Golding book Lord of the Flies

Source: Lord of the Flies

“We did everything adults would do. What went wrong?”

William Golding book Lord of the Flies

Source: Lord of the Flies

“My yesterdays walk with me. They keep step, they are gray faces that peer over my shoulder.”

William Golding (1911–1993) British novelist, poet, playwright and Nobel Prize for Literature laureate

“If I really want to improve my situation, I can work on the one thing over which I have control - myself.”

Stephen R. Covey book The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People

Source: The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People

“Two wrongs don't make a right.”

Roald Dahl The BFG

Variant: Two rights don't equal a left.
Source: The BFG (1982)

“To forgive is wisdom, to forget is genius.”

Joyce Cary (1888–1957) Irish writer

“There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old's life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs.”

John Rogers writer, comedian and producer from the United States

In an "Ephemera" blog post http://kfmonkey.blogspot.com/2009/03/ephemera-2009-7.html
This also appears in Ch. 10 of The Value of Nothing (2010) by Raj Patel, who later acknowledged it was a borrowed joke in "Citation Alert!" http://rajpatel.org/2010/01/21/citation-alert/ (21 January 2010) at rajpatel.org.

“I believe what really happens in history is this: the old man is always wrong; and the young people are always wrong about what is wrong with him. The practical form it takes is this: that, while the old man may stand by some stupid custom, the young man always attacks it with some theory that turns out to be equally stupid.”

G. K. Chesterton (1874–1936) English mystery novelist and Christian apologist

Illustrated London News (3 June 1922)

“It's like ten thousand spoons when all you need is a knife.”

Alanis Morissette (1974) Canadian-American singer-songwriter

"Ironic"
Jagged Little Pill (1995)

“The essence of strategy is choosing what not to do.”

Michael E. Porter (1947) American engineer and economist

Source: What is strategy?, 1996, p. 70

“A life spent making mistakes is not only more honorable, but more useful than a life spent doing nothing.”

George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950) Irish playwright

Preface
1910s, The Doctor's Dilemma (1911)
Variant: A life spent making mistakes is not only more honorable but more useful than a life spent doing nothing.
Context: Attention and activity lead to mistakes as well as to successes; but a life spent in making mistakes is not only more honorable but more useful than a life spent doing nothing.