“It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it.”
Context: It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it. If you think about that, you'll do things differently.
Explore well-known and useful English quotes, phrases and sayings. Quotes in English with translations.
“It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it.”
Context: It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it. If you think about that, you'll do things differently.
Source: Anam Cara: A Book of Celtic Wisdom
Variant: There is nothing so useless as doing efficiently that which should not be done at all.
“Is man merely a mistake of God's? Or God merely a mistake of man?”
“Anything that you resent and strongly react to in another is also in you.”
Source: A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life's Purpose
“Inability, human incapacity, is the only boundary to an art.”
Source: Le Naturalisme Au Theatre
“Life shrinks or expands according to one's courage.”
As quoted in French Writers of the Past (2000) by Carol A. Dingle, p. 126
Variant: Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one's courage.
Attributed to Einstein by his colleague Léopold Infeld in his book Quest: An Autobiography (1949), p. 291 http://books.google.com/books?id=fsvXYpOSowkC&q=%22garbage+man%22#v=snippet&q=%22garbage%20man%22&f=false
Attributed in posthumous publications
“Whatever you believe with feeling becomes your reality.”
“Kind words do not cost much. Yet they accomplish much”
Variant: Kind words don't cost much. Yet they accomplish much.
“To learn to succeed, you must first learn to fail.”
“There is always some madness in love. But there is also always some reason in madness.”
“My ambition is handicapped by my laziness.”
Source: Factotum (1975), Ch. 45, Manny
“If we knew what it was we were doing, it would not be called research, would it?”
“If you aim at nothing, you will hit it every time.”
“It is always easier to fight for one's principles than to live up to them.”
Quoted in: Phyllis Bottome, Alfred Adler: Apostle of Freedom (1939), ch. 5
Problems of Neurosis: A Book of Case Histories (1929)
“A little sincerity is a dangerous thing, and a great deal of it is absolutely fatal.”
Source: The Critic as Artist (1891), Part II
“Our only limitations are those we set up in our own minds”
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
“I stopped looking for a Dream Girl, I just wanted one that wasn't a nightmare.”
Source: The Captain is Out to Lunch and the Sailors Have Taken Over the Ship
“The price of greatness is responsibility.”
In the House of Commons, February 28, 1906 speech South African native races http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1906/feb/28/south-african-native-races#S4V0152P0_19060228_HOC_307
The Second World War (1939–1945)
Variant: Where there is great power there is great responsibility
Context: I submit respectfully to the House as a general principle that our responsibility in this matter is directly proportionate to our power. Where there is great power there is great responsibility, where there is less power there is less responsibility, and where there is no power there can, I think, be no responsibility.
“To love oneself is the beginning of a lifelong romance.”
Lord Goring, Act III
Source: An Ideal Husband (1895)
“It has long been an axiom of mine that the little things are infinitely the most important.”
Source: The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes
“The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves.”
Cassius, Act I, scene ii.
Variant: The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves, that we are underlings.
Source: Julius Caesar
“Only put off until tomorrow what you are willing to die having left undone.”
“Don't interrupt me while I'm interrupting.”
“Wisdom comes from experience. Experience is often a result of lack of wisdom.”
“Promise me you'll never forget me because if I thought you would, I'd never leave.”
“Those who look for the bad in people will surely find it.”
Source: Blackbird Singing: Poems and Lyrics, 1965-1999
Quoted often without citation http://www.tagorefoundationinternational.com http://rupkatha.com/V2/n4/11Tagorephilosohy.pdf
Compare this verse verse written by Ellen Sturgis Hooper:
::"I slept, and dreamed that life was Beauty;
I woke, and found that life was Duty."
Disputed
“There is love of course. And then there's life, its enemy.”
Fahre fort, übe nicht allein die Kunst, sondern dringe auch in ihr Inneres; sie verdient es, denn nur die Kunst und die Wissenschaft erhöhen den Menschen bis zur Gottheit.
Letter to Emilie, July 17, 1812.
Quoted in Musical news, Vol. 3 (1892), p. 627
“The place in which I'll fit will not exist until I make it.”
Variant: Constant kindness can accomplish much. As the sun makes ice melt, kindness causes misunderstanding, mistrust, and hostility to evaporate.
Speech at Founding Rally of the Organization of Afro-American Unity (28 June 1964) http://www.blackpast.org/?q=1964-malcolm-x-s-speech-founding-rally-organization-afro-american-unity
Variant: We declare our right on this earth to be a human being, to be respected as a human being, to be given the rights of a human being in this society, on this earth, in this day, which we intend to bring into existence by any means necessary.
As quoted in By Any Means Necessary (1970)
By any means necessary: speeches, interviews, and a letter (1970)
Context: We have formed an organization known as the Organization of Afro-American Unity which has the same aim and objective to fight whoever gets in our way, to bring about the complete independence of people of African descent here in the Western Hemisphere, and first here in the United States, and bring about the freedom of these people by any means necessary.
That's our motto. We want freedom by any means necessary. We want justice by any means necessary. We want equality by any means necessary.
“You'll never do a whole lot unless you're brave enough to try.”
Review of A Coat of Many Colours: Occasional Essays by Herbert Read, Poetry Quarterly (Winter 1945)
Context: Each generation imagines itself to be more intelligent than the one that went before it, and wiser than the one that comes after it. This is an illusion, and one should recognise it as such, but one ought also to stick to one's own world-view, even at the price of seeming old-fashioned: for that world-view springs out of experiences that the younger generation has not had, and to abandon it is to kill one's intellectual roots.
Hour of Gold, Hour of Lead: Diaries and Letters of Anne Morrow Lindbergh, 1929-1932 (1973), p. 3
Source: Gift from the Sea
Context: I do not believe that sheer suffering teaches. If suffering alone taught, all the world would be wise, since everyone suffers. To suffering must be added mourning, understanding, patience, love, openness and the willingness to remain vulnerable. All these and other factors combined, if the circumstances are right, can teach and can lead to rebirth.
1950s
Source: Sergei Eisenstein (1957), Film form [and]: The film sense, p. 127.
“The greatest lesson in life is to know that even fools are right sometimes.”
“Be happy, but never satisfied.”
“Pleasure in the job puts perfection in the work.”
“Write hard and clear about what hurts.”
“It takes two people to make a lie work: the person who tells it, and the one who believes it.”
Source: Vanishing Acts
“With freedom, books, flowers, and the moon, who could not be happy?”
“The question isn't who is going to let me; it's who is going to stop me.”
“I've learned that making a 'living' is not the same thing as 'making a life'.”
As quoted in Elbert Hubbard's Scrap Book (1923) by Elbert Hubbard, p. 62
“If the path before you is clear, you're probably on someone else's.”
“My name is Sherlock Holmes. It is my business to know what other people do not know.”
Source: The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle
“A bore is someone who deprives you of solitude without providing you with company.”
Interview on Charlie Rose https://archive.org/details/WHUT_20100614_130000_Charlie_Rose (2000)
“Although the world is full of suffering, it is full also of the overcoming of it.”
“Reading is to the mind, what exercise is to the body.”
No. 147.
The Tatler (1711–1714)
Variant: A good conscience is to the soul what health is to the body
Context: Reading is to the mind, what exercise is to the body. As by the one, health is preserved, strengthened, and invigorated: by the other, virtue (which is the health of the mind) is kept alive, cherished, and confirmed.
“The two most important days in your life are the day you were born and the day you find out why.”
This appears on the opening placard of the film The Equalizer, attributing it to Twain, but there is no evidence that Twain wrote it. A precursor is found in Taylor Hartman's self-help book The Character Code (first published 1991), where it is not attributed to Twain: "The three most significant days in your life are: 1. The day you were born. 2. The day you find out why you were born. 3. The day you discover how to contribute the gift you were born to give" ( Google Books link https://books.google.com/books?id=gIKCxWxNmeMC&pg=PA147&dq=%22day+you+find+out+why%22&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwijrJzc84vLAhUJzGMKHajvADEQ6AEIIjAB#v=onepage&q=%22day%20you%20find%20out%20why%22&f=false)
Disputed
“A true artist is not one who is inspired, but one who inspires others.”
“I can resist everything except temptation.”
Lord Darlington, Act I
Variant: I can resist everything except temptation
Source: Lady Windermere's Fan (1892)
“The only real elegance is in the mind; if you've got that, the rest really comes from it.”
“Time is the brush of God, as he paints his masterpiece on the heart of humanity.”
“We love the things we love for what they are.”
"Hyla Brook" (1920)
1920s
“Argue for your limitations, and sure enough, they're yours.”
Illusions : The Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah (1977)
Variant: if you argue for your limitations they are yours
Source: Illusions: The Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah
“Art is the lie that enables us to realize the truth.”
“We learn from history that we don't learn from history!”
Often attributed to Desmond Tutu, actual source is G. W. F Hegel: What experience and history teach is this — that nations and governments have never learned anything from history, or acted upon any lessons they might have drawn from it. Lectures on the Philosophy of History (1832)
Misattributed
“I stand for freedom of expression, doing what you believe in, and going after your dreams.”
http://www.studyworld.com/newsite/Quotes/QuoteByTopic.asp?i=Dream
“I do not want people to be very agreeable, as it saves me the trouble of liking them a great deal.”
Letter to Cassandra (1798-12-24) [Letters of Jane Austen -- Brabourne Edition]
Letters
Source: Jane Austen's Letters
“It’s called the American Dream, 'cause you have to be asleep to believe it.”
Life Is Worth Losing (2005)
Context: They don’t want people who are smart enough to sit around a kitchen table and think about how badly they’re getting fucked by a system that threw them overboard 30 fuckin’ years ago. They don’t want that. You know what they want? They want obedient workers. Obedient workers, people who are just smart enough to run the machines and do the paperwork. And just dumb enough to passively accept all these increasingly shittier jobs with the lower pay, the longer hours, the reduced benefits, the end of overtime and vanishing pension that disappears the minute you go to collect it. And now they’re coming for your Social Security money. They want your fuckin' retirement money. They want it back so they can give it to their criminal friends on Wall Street. And you know something? They’ll get it. They’ll get it all from you sooner or later 'cause they own this fuckin' place. It’s a big club and you ain't in it. You and I are not in the big club.... The table is tilted, folks. The game is rigged and nobody seems to notice.... And nobody seems to notice. Nobody seems to care. That’s what the owners count on. The fact that Americans will probably remain willfully ignorant of the big red, white and blue dick that’s being jammed up their assholes every day, because the owners of this country know the truth. It’s called the American Dream, 'cause you have to be asleep to believe it.
“Never think that war, no matter how necessary, nor how justified, is not a crime.”
Introduction to Treasury of the Free World (1946)
Source: Ernest Hemingway: A Literary Reference
Context: An aggressive war is the great crime against everything good in the world. A defensive war, which must necessarily turn to aggressive at the earliest moment, is the necessary great counter-crime. But never think that war, no matter how necessary, nor how justified, is not a crime. Ask the infantry and ask the dead.
“Wisely and slow; they stumble that run fast.”
Variant: Go wisely and slowly. Those who rush stumble and fall.
Source: Romeo and Juliet
“Thoughts are the shadows of our feelings — always darker, emptier, simpler.”
Sec. 179
The Gay Science (1882)
“For after all, the best thing one can do when it is raining is let it rain.”
Variant: The best thing one can do when it's raining is to let it rain.
“Wishing to be friends is quick work, but friendship is a slow ripening fruit.”
“Setting an example is not the main means of influencing others, it is the only means.”
The original: "Example is not the main thing. It is the only thing. That is, if the one giving the example is not saying to himself, 'Behold I am giving an example." That spoils it. Anyone thinking of the example he will give to others has lost his simplicity. Only as a man has simplicity can his example influence others" is a quote by Albert Schweitzer, from a 1952 interview in United Nations World magazine https://books.google.com/books?id=qTAoAAAAMAAJ&q=%22example+is+not+the+main+thing%22&dq=%22example+is+not+the+main+thing%22&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjz7f_2v6vMAhUJxmMKHeEAB-QQ6AEIHDAA. Not attributed to Einstein until the 1990s https://books.google.com/books?id=JdRZAAAAYAAJ&q=%22example+is+not+the+main+thing%22+einstein&dq=%22example+is+not+the+main+thing%22+einstein&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwif56qcwqvMAhXGMGMKHST5DRIQ6AEIHTAA.
Misattributed