English quotes
English quotes with translation | page 40

Explore well-known and useful English quotes, phrases and sayings. Quotes in English with translations.

“Never promise more than you can perform.”

Publilio Siro Latin writer

Maxim 528
Sentences, The Moral Sayings of Publius Syrus, a Roman Slave

Robert T. Kiyosaki quote: “A job is only a short-term solution to a long-term problem.”
Robert T. Kiyosaki photo

“A job is only a short-term solution to a long-term problem.”

Robert T. Kiyosaki (1947) American finance author , investor

Rich Dad Poor Dad: What the Rich Teach Their Kids About Money-That the Poor and the Middle Class Do Not!

George Santayana photo

“Friendship is almost always the union of a part of one mind with the part of another; people are friends in spots.”

George Santayana (1863–1952) 20th-century Spanish-American philosopher associated with Pragmatism

"Friendships"
Soliloquies in England and Later Soliloquies (1922)

Albert Einstein photo

“The attempt to combine wisdom and power has only rarely been successful, and then only for a short while.”

Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born physicist and founder of the theory of relativity

The New Quotable Einstein
1950s, Essay to Leo Baeck (1953)

Samuel Beckett photo

“What I assert, deny, question, in the present, I still can.”

Molloy (1951)
Context: What I assert, deny, question, in the present, I still can. But mostly I shall use the various tenses of the past. For mostly I do not know, it is perhaps no longer so, it is too soon to know, I simply do not know, perhaps shall never know.

Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. photo

“The young man knows the rules, but the old man knows the exceptions.”

Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. (1841–1935) United States Supreme Court justice

Attributed in the Sioux City Journal http://www.siouxcityjournal.com/ (6 Jul 2008), p. A8
In fact, from a " Valedictory Address https://books.google.com/books?id=7joCAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA426&dq=The+young+man+knows+the+rules,+but+the+old+man+knows+the+exceptions&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0CCcQ6AEwAmoVChMI1-e4oOewyAIVWFmICh0eVQsI#v=onepage&q=%22The%20young%20man%20knows%20the%20rules%2C%20but%20the%20old%20man%20knows%20the%20exceptions%22&f=false, delivered to the Graduating Class of the Bellevue Hospital College" in 1871 by Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr, reprinted in the New York Medical Journal 13 (April 1871): 426.
Misattributed

Nelson Mandela photo

“Education is the most powerful weapon we can use to change the world”

Nelson Mandela (1918–2013) President of South Africa, anti-apartheid activist

" Lighting your way to a better future : Speech delivered by Mr N R Mandela at launch of Mindset Network http://db.nelsonmandela.org/speeches/pub_view.asp?pg=item&ItemID=NMS909&txtstr=education%20is%20the%20most%20powerful," July 16, 2003 at db.nelsonmandela.org. ; Cited in: Nelson Mandela, ‎S. K. Hatang, ‎Sahm Venter (2012) Notes to the Future: Words of Wisdom. p. 101.
2000s
Context: Education is the most powerful weapon we can use to change the world and is a powerful part of that world changing arsenal.

William Golding photo

“Words may, through the devotion, the skill, the passion, and the luck of writers prove to be the most powerful thing in the world. They may move men to speak to each other because some of those words somewhere express not just what the writer is thinking but what a huge segment of the world is thinking.”

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

Nobel prize lecture (1983)
Context: Words may, through the devotion, the skill, the passion, and the luck of writers prove to be the most powerful thing in the world. They may move men to speak to each other because some of those words somewhere express not just what the writer is thinking but what a huge segment of the world is thinking. They may allow man to speak to man, the man in the street to speak to his fellow until a ripple becomes a tide running through every nation — of commonsense, of simple healthy caution, a tide that rulers and negotiators cannot ignore so that nation does truly speak unto nation. Then there is hope that we may learn to be temperate, provident, taking no more from nature's treasury than is our due. It may be by books, stories, poetry, lectures we who have the ear of mankind can move man a little nearer the perilous safety of a warless and provident world. It cannot be done by the mechanical constructs of overt propaganda. I cannot do it myself, cannot now create stories which would help to make man aware of what he is doing; but there are others who can, many others. There always have been. We need more humanity, more care, more love. There are those who expect a political system to produce that; and others who expect the love to produce the system. My own faith is that the truth of the future lies between the two and we shall behave humanly and a bit humanely, stumbling along, haphazardly generous and gallant, foolishly and meanly wise until the rape of our planet is seen to be the preposterous folly that it is.
For we are a marvel of creation. I think in particular of one of the most extraordinary women, dead now these five hundred years, Juliana of Norwich. She was caught up in the spirit and shown a thing that might lie in the palm of her hand and in the bigness of a nut. She was told it was the world. She was told of the strange and wonderful and awful things that would happen there. At the last, a voice told her that all things should be well and all manner of things should be well and all things should be very well.
Now we, if not in the spirit, have been caught up to see our earth, our mother, Gaia Mater, set like a jewel in space. We have no excuse now for supposing her riches inexhaustible nor the area we have to live on limitless because unbounded. We are the children of that great blue white jewel. Through our mother we are part of the solar system and part through that of the whole universe. In the blazing poetry of the fact we are children of the stars.

Theophrastus photo

“Time is the most valuable thing a man can spend.”

Theophrastus (-371–-287 BC) ancient greek philosopher

Diogenes Laërtius, Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers, Book 5.

Alfred, Lord Tennyson photo

“The happiness of a man in this life does not consist in the absence but in the mastery of his passions.”

Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809–1892) British poet laureate

Quoted in A Dictionary of Quotations, in Most Frequent Use by D.E. Macdonnel (1809) translated from French: Le bonheur de l'homme en cette vi ne consiste pas á être sans passions: il consiste à en être le maître.
Misattributed

Samuel Beckett photo

“Saying is inventing. Wrong, very rightly wrong.”

Molloy (1951)
Context: And truly it little matters what I say, this or that or any other thing. Saying is inventing. Wrong, very rightly wrong. You invent nothing, you think you are inventing, you think you are escaping, and all you do is stammer out your lesson, the remnants of a pensum one day got by heart and long forgotten, life without tears, as it is wept.

Sören Kierkegaard photo

“Who is to blame but her and the third factor, from whence no one knows, which moved me with its stimulus and transformed me?”

Sören Kierkegaard (1813–1855) Danish philosopher and theologian, founder of Existentialism

Repetition 202-203
1840s, Repetition (1843)
Context: Who is to blame but her and the third factor, from whence no one knows, which moved me with its stimulus and transformed me? After all, what I have done is praised in others.-Or is becoming a poet my compensation? I reject all compensation, I demand my rights-that is, my honor. I did not ask to become one, I will not buy it at this price. – Or if I am guilty, then I certainly should be able to repent of my guilt and make it good again. Tell me how. On top of that, must I perhaps repent that the world plays with me as a child plays with a beetle?-Or is it perhaps best to forget the whole thing? Forget-indeed, I shall have ceased to be if I forget it. Or what kind of life would it be if along with my beloved I have lost honor and pride and lost them in such a way that no one knows how it happened, for which reason I can never retrieve them again? Shall I allow myself to be shoved out in this manner? Why, then, was I shoved in?

Umberto Eco photo

“A philosophy has a practical power: it contributes to the changing of the world.”

[O] : Introduction, 0.7
Semiotics and the Philosophy of Language (1984)
Context: A philosophy has a practical power: it contributes to the changing of the world. This practical power has nothing to do with the engineering power that in the discussion above I attributed to sciences, including specific semiotics. A science can study either an animal species or the logic of road signals, without necessarily determining their transformation. There is a certain 'distance' between the descriptive stage and the decision, let us say, to improve a species through genetic engineering or to improve a signaling system by reducing or increasing the number of its pertinent elements.
On the contrary, it was the philosophical position of the modern notion of thinking subject that led Western culture to think and to behave in terms of subjectivity. It was the position of notions such as class struggle and revolution that led people to behave in terms of class, and not only to make revolutions but also to decide, on the grounds of this philosophical concept, which social turmoils or riots of the past were or were not a revolution. Since a philosophy has this practical power, it cannot have a predictive power. It cannot predict what would happen if the world were as it described it. Its power is not the direct result of an act of engineering performed on the basis of a more or less neutral description of independent data.

Satchel Paige photo

“Don't look back — something might be gaining on you.”

Satchel Paige (1906–1982) American baseball player and coach; Negro Leagues

"How to Stay Young" Collier's Magazine (13 June 1953)
Context: Avoid fried meats which angry up the blood.
If your stomach disputes you, lie down and pacify it with cool thoughts.
Keep the juices flowing by jangling around gently as you move.
Go very light on the vices, such as carrying on in society— the social ramble ain't restful.
Avoid running at all times.
And don't look back— something might be gaining on you.

Mahatma Gandhi photo

“Freedom is not worth having if it does not connote freedom to err.”

Mahatma Gandhi (1869–1948) pre-eminent leader of Indian nationalism during British-ruled India

Young India (12 March 1931), p. 31 http://books.google.com/books?id=1HZDAAAAYAAJ&q=%22Freedom+is+not+worth+having+if+it+does+not+connote+freedom+to+err%22&pg=PA31#v=onepage
1930s
Context: Freedom is not worth having if it does not connote freedom to err. It passes my comprehension how human beings, be they ever so experienced and able, can delight in depriving other human beings of that precious right.

Samuel Beckett photo

“Nothing is more real than nothing.”

Malone Dies (1951), p. 16

Robert Louis Stevenson photo

“Most of our pocket wisdom is conceived for the use of mediocre people, to discourage them from ambitious attempts, and generally console them in their mediocrity.”

Robert Louis Stevenson (1850–1894) Scottish novelist, poet, essayist, and travel writer

Crabbed Age and Youth.
Virginibus Puerisque and Other Papers (1881)
Context: There is a strong feeling in favour of cowardly and prudential proverbs. The sentiments of a man while he is full of ardour and hope are to be received, it is supposed, with some qualification. But when the same person has ignominiously failed and begins to eat up his words, he should be listened to like an oracle. Most of our pocket wisdom is conceived for the use of mediocre people, to discourage them from ambitious attempts, and generally console them in their mediocrity. And since mediocre people constitute the bulk of humanity, this is no doubt very properly so. But it does not follow that the one sort of proposition is any less true than the other, or that Icarus is not to be more praised, and perhaps more envied, than Mr. Samuel Budgett the Successful Merchant. The one is dead, to be sure, while the other is still in his counting-house counting out his money; and doubtless this is a consideration. But we have, on the other hand, some bold and magnanimous sayings common to high races and natures, which set forth the advantage of the losing side, and proclaim it better to be a dead lion than a living dog. It is difficult to fancy how the mediocrities reconcile such sayings with their proverbs. According to the latter, every lad who goes to sea is an egregious ass; never to forget your umbrella through a long life would seem a higher and wiser flight of achievement than to go smiling to the stake; and so long as you are a bit of a coward and inflexible in money matters, you fulfil the whole duty of man.

Warren Buffett photo

“Buy into a company because you want to own it, not because you want the stock to go up.”

Warren Buffett (1930) American business magnate, investor, and philanthropist

Interview in Forbes magazine (1 November 1974)
Context: Draw a circle around the businesses you understand and then eliminate those that fail to qualify on the basis of value, good management and limited exposure to hard times. … Buy into a company because you want to own it, not because you want the stock to go up. … People have been successful investors because they've stuck with successful companies. Sooner or later the market mirrors the business.

Euripidés photo

“Leave no stone unturned.”

Euripidés (-480–-406 BC) ancient Athenian playwright

Heraclidæ (c 428 BC)

Marianne Williamson photo

“As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”

Marianne Williamson (1952) American writer

Source: A Return to Love: Reflections on the Principles of "A Course in Miracles" (1992), Ch. 7 : Work, §3 : Personal Power, p. 190 (p. 165 in some editions). This famous passage from her book is often erroneously attributed to Nelson Mandela. About the mis-attribution Williamson said, "Several years ago, this paragraph from A Return to Love began popping up everywhere, attributed to Nelson Mandela's 1994 inaugural address. As honored as I would be had President Mandela quoted my words, indeed he did not. I have no idea where that story came from, but I am gratified that the paragraph has come to mean so much to so many people."
Variant which appears in the film Coach Carter (2005): "Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine as children do. It's not just in some of us; it is in everyone. And as we let our own lights shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others."
Variant which appears in the film Akeelah and the Bee (2006), displayed in a picture frame on the wall, attributing it to Mandela: "Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same."
Context: Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, and fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people will not feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It is not just in some of us; it is in everyone and as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give others permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.

Henri-Frédéric Amiel photo

“To adore, to understand, to receive, to feel, to give, to act: there is my law my duty, my happiness, my heaven. Let come what come will — even death.”

Henri-Frédéric Amiel (1821–1881) Swiss philosopher and poet

16 July 1848
Journal Intime (1882), Journal entries
Context: To adore, to understand, to receive, to feel, to give, to act: there is my law my duty, my happiness, my heaven. Let come what come will — even death. Only be at peace with self, live in the presence of God, in communion with Him, and leave the guidance of existence to those universal powers against whom thou canst do nothing! If death gives me time, so much the better. If its summons is near, so much the better still; if a half-death overtake me, still so much the better, for so the path of success is closed to me only that I may find opening before me the path of heroism, of moral greatness and resignation. Every life has its potentiality of greatness, and as it is impossible to be outside God, the best is consciously to dwell in Him.

Aesop photo

“Appearances often are deceiving.”

Aesop (-620–-564 BC) ancient Greek storyteller

The Wolf in Sheep's Clothing.

Sophia Loren photo

“I've never tried to block out the memories of the past, even though some are painful.”

Sophia Loren (1934) Italian actress

As quoted in Valentines & Vitriol (1977) by Rex Reed
Context: I've never tried to block out the memories of the past, even though some are painful. I don't understand people who hide from their past. Everything you live through helps to make you the person you are now.

Mahatma Gandhi photo

“Good government is no substitute for self-government.”

Mahatma Gandhi (1869–1948) pre-eminent leader of Indian nationalism during British-ruled India

Young India (2 September 1920) p. 1
1920s
Context: For me the only training in Swaraj we need is the ability to defend ourselves against the whole world and to live our natural life in perfect freedom, even though it may be full of defects. Good government is no substitute for self-government.

Ralph Waldo Emerson photo

“Our strength grows out of our weakness.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) American philosopher, essayist, and poet

1840s, Essays: First Series (1841), Compensation
Context: Our strength grows out of our weakness. The indignation which arms itself with secret forces does not awaken until we are pricked and stung and sorely assailed. A great man is always willing to be little. Whilst he sits on the cushion of advantages, he goes to sleep. When he is pushed, tormented, defeated, he has a chance to learn something; he has been put on his wits, on his manhood; he has gained facts; learns his ignorance; is cured of the insanity of conceit; has got moderation and real skill. The wise man throws himself on the side of his assailants. It is more his interest than it is theirs to find his weak point. The wound cicatrizes and falls off from him like a dead skin, and when they would triumph, lo! he has passed on invulnerable. Blame is safer than praise. I hate to be defended in a newspaper. As long as all that is said is said against me, I feel a certain assurance of success. But as soon as honeyed words of praise are spoken for me, I feel as one that lies unprotected before his enemies. In general, every evil to which we do not succumb is a benefactor.

Confucius photo

“Sincerity is the way of Heaven. The attainment of sincerity is the way of men.”

Confucius (-551–-479 BC) Chinese teacher, editor, politician, and philosopher

The Analects, The Doctrine of the Mean
Context: Sincerity is the way of Heaven. The attainment of sincerity is the way of men. He who possesses sincerity is he who, without an effort, hits what is right, and apprehends, without the exercise of thought — he is the sage who naturally and easily embodies the right way. He who attains to sincerity is he who chooses what is good, and firmly holds it fast. To this attainment there are requisite the extensive study of what is good, accurate inquiry about it, careful reflection on it, the clear discrimination of it, and the earnest practice of it.

Henri-Frédéric Amiel photo

“Uncertainty is the refuge of hope.”

Henri-Frédéric Amiel (1821–1881) Swiss philosopher and poet

Amiel's journal; the Journal intime of Henri-Frédéric Amiel 1890 (p.368)
Journal Intime (1882), Journal entries
Source: https://archive.org/details/amielsjournaljou00amieiala

Aristotle photo

“Change in all things is sweet.”

Book VII, 14
Remark: While this quote is known as Aristotle's, he did not propose it as his own saying, but as a citation from another author. The full text is: "But 'change in all things is sweet', as the poet says, because of some vice."
Nicomachean Ethics

Sophocles photo

“A short saying often contains much wisdom.”

Sophocles (-496–-406 BC) ancient Greek tragedian

Aletes, fragment 99.

Epictetus photo

“Practice yourself, for heaven's sake, in little things; and thence proceed to greater.”

Epictetus (50–138) philosopher from Ancient Greece

Book I, ch. 18.
Discourses

G. K. Chesterton photo

“There is truth in every ancient fable, and there is here even something of it in the fancy that finds the symbol of the Republic in the bird that bore the bolts of Jove.”

"The Future of Democracy"
What I Saw in America (1922)
Context: There is truth in every ancient fable, and there is here even something of it in the fancy that finds the symbol of the Republic in the bird that bore the bolts of Jove. Owls and bats may wander where they will in darkness, and for them as for the sceptics the universe may have no centre; kites and vultures may linger as they like over carrion, and for them as for the plutocrats existence may have no origin and no end; but it was far back in the land of legends, where instincts find their true images, that the cry went forth that freedom is an eagle, whose glory is gazing at the sun.

Seneca the Younger photo

“When a man does not know what harbour he is making for, no wind is the right wind.”
errant consilia nostra, quia non habent quo derigantur; ignoranti quem portum petat nullus suus ventus est.

Seneca the Younger (-4–65 BC) Roman Stoic philosopher, statesman, and dramatist

Letter LXXI: On the supreme good, line 3
Alternate translation: If one does not know to which port one is sailing, no wind is favorable. (translator unknown).
Epistulae Morales ad Lucilium (Moral Letters to Lucilius)
Context: Our plans miscarry because they have no aim. When a man does not know what harbour he is making for, no wind is the right wind.

Jack Kerouac photo

“I think of Dean Moriarty, I even think of Old Dean Moriarty the father we never found, I think of Dean Moriarty.”

Part Five
On the Road (1957)
Context: So in America when the sun goes down and I sit on the old broken-down river pier watching the long, long skies over New Jersey and sense all that raw land that rolls in one unbelievable huge bulge over to the West Coast, and all that road going, all the people dreaming in the immensity of it, and in Iowa I know by now the children must be crying in the land where they let the children cry, and tonight the stars'll be out, and don't you know that God is Pooh Bear? the evening star must be drooping and shedding her sparkler dims on the prairie, which is just before the coming of complete night that blesses the earth, darkens all rivers, cups the peaks and folds the final shore in, and nobody, nobody knows what's going to happen to anybody besides the forlorn rags of growing old, I think of Dean Moriarty, I even think of Old Dean Moriarty the father we never found, I think of Dean Moriarty.

Timothy Leary photo

“Each religion has got their own way of making you feel like a victim.”

Timothy Leary (1920–1996) American psychologist

Timothy Leary's Last Trip (1997)
Context: Each religion has got their own way of making you feel like a victim. The Christians say "you are a sinner", and you better just zip up your trousers and give the money to the pope and we'll give you a room up in the hotel in the sky.

Robert Louis Stevenson photo
Benjamin Franklin photo

“There are three faithful friends, an old wife, an old dog, and ready money.”

Benjamin Franklin (1706–1790) American author, printer, political theorist, politician, postmaster, scientist, inventor, civic activist, …
Benjamin Franklin photo

“Experience keeps a dear school, but fools learn in no other.”

Benjamin Franklin (1706–1790) American author, printer, political theorist, politician, postmaster, scientist, inventor, civic activist, …
Benjamin Franklin photo

“Be slow in choosing a friend, slower in changing. ”

Benjamin Franklin (1706–1790) American author, printer, political theorist, politician, postmaster, scientist, inventor, civic activist, …
Epictetus photo
Jimmy Dean photo
Vince Lombardi photo
John C. Maxwell photo

“Good people are good because they’ve come to wisdom though failure. We get very little wisdom from success.”

John C. Maxwell (1947) American author, speaker and pastor

Book Sometimes you win Sometimes you Learn

Marlene Dietrich photo
Sophia Loren photo
Sophia Loren photo
Gautama Buddha photo

“Thousands of candles can be lit from a single candle, And the life of the candle will not be shortened. Happiness never decreases by being shared.”

Gautama Buddha (-563–-483 BC) philosopher, reformer and the founder of Buddhism

From The Teaching of Buddha http://www.bdk.or.jp/english/about/popularization/buddhist-scriptures.html, by Bukkyo Dendo Kyokai (Society for the Promotion of Buddhism), Pg 132. It is a paraphrased version of Section 10 of the Sutra of Forty-two Sections
Unclassified

Benjamin Franklin photo

“Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I may remember. Involve me and I learn.”

Benjamin Franklin (1706–1790) American author, printer, political theorist, politician, postmaster, scientist, inventor, civic activist, …

There is no evidence that Franklin said this. Scholars believe the saying comes from the Xunzi.
Additional information may be read at the following websites:
http://dakinburdick.wordpress.com/2012/03/14/tell-me-and-i-forget/
http://www.quora.com/History/Where-and-when-did-Benjamin-Franklin-say-Tell-me-and-I-forget-teach-me-and-I-may-remember-involve-me-and-I-learn
http://gazettextra.com/weblogs/word-badger/2013/mar/24/whose-quote-really/
Misattributed

Gordon B. Hinckley photo

“Our lives are the only meaningful expression of what we believe and in Whom we believe. And the only real wealth, for any of us, lies in our faith.”

Why do I say this? Faith in a Divine Being, in the Almighty, is the great moving power that can change our lives. With it comes the only lasting comfort and peace of mind. God is our Eternal Father, and He lives. I don't understand the wonder of His majesty; I can't comprehend His glory. But I know that He is intensely interested in our welfare and involved in our lives, that I can speak with Him in prayer, and that He will hear and listen.
Standing for Something: Ten Neglected Virtues That Will Heal Our Hearts and Homes.

Woodrow Wilson photo

“You are not here merely to prepare to make a living. You are here to enable the world to live more amply, with greater vision, and with a finer spirit of hope and achievement. You are here to enrich the world, and you impoverish yourself if you forget this errand.”

Woodrow Wilson (1856–1924) American politician, 28th president of the United States (in office from 1913 to 1921)

“Ideals of College” http://books.google.com/books?id=_VYEIml1cAkC&pg=PA15&dq=%22You+are+not+here+merely%22, Swarthmore (25 October 1913)
1910s

Anton Chekhov photo

“Knowledge is of no value unless you put it into practice.”

Anton Chekhov (1860–1904) Russian dramatist, author and physician
Warren Buffett photo

“Never bet against the United States of America”

Warren Buffett (1930) American business magnate, investor, and philanthropist

“Those who need leaders are not qualified to choose them.”

Michael Malice (1976) American writer

Tweeted on March 2, 2020 https://twitter.com/michaelmalice/status/1234604154741497857, repeated subsequently.

Henry Van Dyke photo

“Use what talent you possess: the woods would be very silent if no birds sang except those that sang best.”

Henry Van Dyke (1852–1933) American diplomat

The following information is from the following site: http://pt.wikiquote.org/wiki/Talento , the fourth entry, which gives the citation as (( Henry van Dyke quoted in "Handicapped Individuals Services and Training Act: hearing before the Subcommittee on Select Education of the Committee on Education and Labor, House of Representatives, Ninety-seventh Congress, second session, on HR 6820 … hearing held in St. Paul, Minn., and Loretto, Minn. on September 2, 1982. "-. 223 Page, United States. Congress. House. Committee on Education and Labor. Subcommittee on Select Education - USGPO, 1982 - 257 pages ))
Quoted by Tor Dahl in the document cited https://hdl.handle.net/2027/pur1.32754076335276?urlappend=%3Bseq=229.
A very similar quote appears in an essay entitled "Do What You Can" by "Little Home Body" in the The Phrenological Journal and Life Illustrated, Volumes 62-63 (August 1876): "The woods would be very silent if no birds sang there but those that sang best" but states "I know not who said those beautiful words"
However, the quote may have been misattributed to Henry Van Dyke. In "The Two Vocations or the sisters of mercy at home" by Elizabeth Charles (1858) p.34 the following appears: "'Dear Jean', she said,'the woods would be very silent if no bird sang but those that sing best' "
Attributed

Thomas Edison photo
Anthony Robbins photo

“Whatever happens, take responsibility.”

Anthony Robbins (1960) Author, actor, professional speaker
Archimedes photo

“Give me a lever long enough and a fulcrum on which to place it, and I shall move the world.”

Archimedes (-287–-212 BC) Greek mathematician, physicist, engineer, inventor, and astronomer
Henri-Frédéric Amiel photo
Calvin Coolidge photo
Anthony Robbins photo

“You always succeed in producing a result.”

Anthony Robbins (1960) Author, actor, professional speaker
Chanakya photo
Murray Gell-Mann photo
Hannah More photo
Calvin Coolidge photo

“I have never been hurt by anything I didn't say.”

Calvin Coolidge (1872–1933) American politician, 30th president of the United States (in office from 1923 to 1929)
Ellen Glasgow photo
Thomas Hobbes photo

“It is not wisdom but Authority that makes a law.”

Thomas Hobbes (1588–1679) English philosopher, born 1588
Walt Disney photo
Plutarch photo

“What we achieve inwardly will change outer reality.”

Plutarch (46–127) ancient Greek historian and philosopher
Martin Luther King, Jr. photo
Euripidés photo

“Cleverness is not wisdom.”

Euripidés (-480–-406 BC) ancient Athenian playwright
Mahatma Gandhi photo

“Be the change that you want to see in the world.”

Mahatma Gandhi (1869–1948) pre-eminent leader of Indian nationalism during British-ruled India
James Freeman Clarke photo
Benjamin Spock photo

“Trust yourself. You know more than you think you do.”

Benjamin Spock (1903–1998) American pediatrician and author of Baby and Child Care
Aeschylus photo

“It is good even for old men to learn wisdom.”

Aeschylus (-525–-456 BC) ancient Athenian playwright
Marian Wright Edelman photo
Seneca the Younger photo

“The mind unlearns with difficulty what it has long learned.”

Seneca the Younger (-4–65 BC) Roman Stoic philosopher, statesman, and dramatist
Richard Bach photo
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe photo
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe photo
Francis de Sales photo

“A quarrel between friends, when made up, adds a new tie to friendship.”

Francis de Sales (1567–1622) French bishop, saint, writer and Doctor of the Church j
Frank W. Abagnale photo

“We all grow up. Hopefully, we get wiser. Age brings wisdom, and fatherhood changes one's life completely.”

Frank W. Abagnale (1948) American security consultant, former confidence trickster, check forger, impostor, and escape artist
Gautama Buddha photo
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe photo
Václav Havel photo

“Work for something because it is good, not just because it stands a chance to succeed.”

Václav Havel (1936–2011) playwright, essayist, poet, dissident and 1st President of the Czech Republic
Michael Jordan photo

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