Quotes about opportunity
page 5

“Successful people are always looking for opportunities to help others.”

Brian Tracy (1944) American motivational speaker and writer

As quoted in The Lost Art of General Management (2004) by Rob Waite, p. 96
Context: Successful people are always looking for opportunities to help others.
Unsuccessful people are always asking, "What's in it for me?”

People, Success, Help

“The opportunity to love a dog and to treat it with kindness is an opportunity for a lost and selfish heart to be redeemed. They are powerless and innocent, and it is how we treat the humblest among us that surely determines the fate of our souls”

Dean Koontz book The Darkest Evening of the Year

Source: The Darkest Evening of the Year

Love, Fate, Dogs, Soul

“If opportunity doesn't knock, build a door”

Milton Berle (1908–2002) American comedian and actor

Variant: If opportunity doesn’t knock, build a door.

Inspirational, Graduation

“Sometimes the course of our lives depends on what we do or don't do in a few seconds, a heartbeat, when we either seize the opportunity, or just miss it. Miss the moment and you never get a chance again.”

Aidan Chambers (1934) British children's writer

Source: Dying to Know You

Chance, Dependency

“I don't like it, but my hands are tied. I just want you to know this: if I ever get the chance to betray you, I will. If the opportunity arises to pay you back, I'll take it. You'll never be able to trust me.”

Darren Shan book Cirque du Freak

Source: A Living Nightmare

Chance

“But you've changed,' I whisper. 'Haven't you?'
It is the scorpian's nature to sting. Just because he has no opportunity doesn't mean that he cannot.”

Libba Bray book The Sweet Far Thing

Source: The Sweet Far Thing

Nature, Change

“A hard life is not a punishment, but rather an opportunity.”

Brian L. Weiss

Source: Messages from the Masters : Tapping into the Power of Love

Life

“My grandfather always says that's what books are for," Ashoke said, using the opportunity to open the volume in his hands. “To travel without moving an inch.”

Jhumpa Lahiri book The Namesake

Source: The Namesake, (2003) p. 16.

Books, Travel

“If there was anything I'd learned, it's that the man never chooses the woman. All he can do is give her an opportunity to choose him.”

Neil Strauss book The Game: Penetrating the Secret Society of Pickup Artists

Source: The Game: Penetrating the Secret Society of Pickup Artists

Learning

“She had an unequalled gift, especially pen in hand, of squeezing big mistakes into small opportunities.”

Henry James book Greville Fane

"Greville Fane" http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext01/gfane10.txt, from The Real Thing: and Other Tales (1893).

“As I look back on my own life, I recognize this simple truth: The greatest opportunities were the scariest lions. Part of me has wanted to play it safe, but I’ve learned that taking no risks is the greatest risk of all.”

Mark Batterson (1969) American pastor and writer

Source: In a Pit with a Lion on a Snowy Day: How to Survive and Thrive When Opportunity Roars

Life, Truth, Learning, Parting

“All of us might wish at times that we lived in a more tranquil world, but we don't. And if our times are difficult and perplexing, so are they challenging and filled with opportunity.”

Robert F. Kennedy (1925–1968) American politician and brother of John F. Kennedy

World, Time

“Travel is rich with learning opportunities, and the ultimate sourvenir is a broader perspective.”

Rick Steves (1955) US travel writer

Travel, Learning

“There's no scarcity of opportunity to make a living at what you love. There is only a scarcity of resolve to make it happen.”

Wayne W. Dyer (1940–2015) American writer

Love

“Because the rhythm of conversation makes no allowance for dead periods, because the presence of others calls for continuous responses, we are left to regret the inanity of what we say, and the missed opportunity of what we do not.”

Alain de Botton (1969) Swiss writer

Source: How Proust Can Change Your Life

Dead

“Opportunity dances with those who are already on the dance floor.”

H. Jackson Brown, Jr. (1940) American writer

Dance, Good Night, Graduation

“Difficulties mastered are opportunities won.”

Winston S. Churchill (1874–1965) Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

“When one man, for whatever reason, has the opportunity to lead an extraordinary life, he has no right to keep it to himself”

Jacques-Yves Cousteau (1910–1997) French naval officer, explorer, conservationist, filmmaker, innovator, scientist, photographer, author and …

Life

“If you keep your destiny in mind, every moment in life becomes an opportunity for moving closer to it.”

Arthur Golden book Memoirs of a Geisha

Source: Memoirs of a Geisha

Life

“A pessimist is one who makes difficulties of his opportunities and an optimist is one who makes opportunities of his difficulties.”

Harry Truman (1884–1972) American politician, 33rd president of the United States (in office from 1945 to 1953)

Attitude

“Opportunities and choices. When a person makes a heart wish, that wish resonates through the currents and things will happen to give the person an opportunity to make the wish come true. Like a hand offered and accepted.”

Anne Bishop book Sebastian

Source: Sebastian

Heart, Personality

“True happiness comes not when we get rid of all of our problems, but when we change our relationship to them, when we see our problems as a potential source of awakening, opportunities to practice, and to learn.”

Richard Carlson (1961–2006) Author, psychotherapist and motivational speaker

Source: Don't Sweat the Small Stuff ... and it's all small stuff: Simple Ways to Keep the Little Things from Taking Over Your Life

Happiness, Problem, Learning, Change

“Embrace each challenge in your life as an opportunity for self-transformation.”

Bernie S. Siegel (1932) American writer

Life

“I know there are people who believe you should forgive and forget. For the record, I'd like to say I'm a big fan of forgiveness as long as I'm given the opportunity to get even first.”

Sue Grafton (1940–2017) American writer

Source: V is for Vengeance

People, Forgiveness, Forgetting

“We are told that talent creates its own opportunities. But it sometimes seems that intense desire creates not only its own opportunities but its own talents.”

Eric Hoffer (1898–1983) American philosopher

“I suspect there will never be a requiem for a dream, simply because it will destroy us before we have the opportunity to mourn it's passing.”

Hubert Selby Jr. Requiem for a Dream

Source: Requiem for a Dream

Dreams

“Put yourself in a state of mind where you say to yourself, 'Here is an opportunity for me to celebrate like never before, my own power, my own ability to get myself to do whatever is necessary.”

Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–1968) American clergyman, activist, and leader in the American Civil Rights Movement

Attitude

“Wherever there is danger, there lurks opportunity; wherever there is opportunity, there lurks danger. The two are inseparable.”

Earl Nightingale (1921–1989) American motivational speaker

“This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism. Now is the time to make real the promises of democracy. Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice. Now is the time to open the doors of opportunity to all of God's children. Now is the time to lift our nation from the quicksands of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood. Now is the time to make justice a reality for all of God's children.”

Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–1968) American clergyman, activist, and leader in the American Civil Rights Movement

1960s, (1963)

God, Children, Justice, Democracy

“Life is short. Art long. Opportunity is fleeting. Expierience treacherous. Judgement difficult.”

Geoffrey Chaucer (1343–1400) English poet

Life, Art

“Give me an opportunity to fail," Saiman said. "I promise my corpse won't interrupt your 'I told you so' speech.”

Ilona Andrews American husband-and-wife novelist duo

Source: Magic Strikes

“For age is opportunity no less
Than youth itself, though in another dress,
And as the evening twilight fades away
The sky is filled with stars, invisible by day.”

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807–1882) American poet

St. 25. Morituri Salutamus http://www.americanpoems.com/poets/longfellow/19229 (1875) Source: The Complete Poems of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Youth, Age, Star

“All the opportunities you let slip by! The idea, the inspiration just doesn´t come fast enough. Instead of being open, you´re closed up tight. That´s the worst sin of all - the sin of omission.”

Simone de Beauvoir book The Mandarins

Source: The Mandarins

Idea

“Out of clutter, find simplicity. From discord, find harmony. In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity.”

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

Variant: Three Rules of Work:
Out of clutter find simplicity.
From discord find harmony.
In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity.
Source: The Quotable Einstein

“Don't wait for extraordinary opportunities. Seize common occasions and make them great. Weak men wait for opportunities; strong men make them.”

Orison Swett Marden (1850–1924) American writer

Men, Strong, Waiting

“You've never been in love," she said. "You don't understand."

"If being in love means giving up your freedom, not to mention your opportunities," Caitlin said, "Then I haven't missed anything.”

Judy Blume Summer Sisters

Source: Summer Sisters

Love, Understanding, Freedom

“Success is not a random act. It arises out of a predictable and powerful set of circumstances and opportunities.”

Malcolm Gladwell (1963) journalist and science writer

Source: Outliers: The Story of Success

Success

“Prostitution gives her an opportunity to meet people. It provides fresh air and wholesome exercise, and it keeps her out of trouble.”

Joseph Heller book Catch-22

Source: Catch-22

People, Exercises

“Mastery of language affords one remarkable opportunities.”

Alexandre Dumas (1802–1870) French writer and dramatist, father of the homonym writer and dramatist

“Everybody has their moment of great opportunity in life. If you happen to miss the one you care about, then everything else becomes eerily easy.”

Douglas Adams (1952–2001) English writer and humorist

Source: The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide: Five Complete Novels and One Story

Life

“I think it's good for a person to spend time alone. It gives them an opportunity to discover who they are and to figure out why they are always alone.”

Amy Sedaris (1961) American comedian

Source: I Like You: Hospitality Under the Influence

Thinking, Time, Personality

“[Professor] Frank recalled my idle remark some years ago: 'Never pass up the opportunity to have sex or appear on television.' Advice I would never give today in the age of AIDS and its television equivalent Fox News.”

Gore Vidal (1925–2012) American writer

Source: Point to Point Navigation

Age, Sex, Appearance

“Aging is not 'lost youth' but a new stage of opportunity and strength.”

Betty Friedan (1921–2006) American activist

Youth, Age, Powerful

“Journalism allows its readers to witness history; fiction gives its readers an opportunity to live it.”

John Hersey (1914–1993) American journalist, novelist, professor

History

“One of the greatest opportunities to live our values-or betray them-lies in the food we put on our plates.”

Jonathan Safran Foer book Eating Animals

Source: Eating Animals

Food

“But for the most part, love is a recognition, an opportunity to say, 'There is something about you I cherish.”

Raymond E. Feist book Magician: Master

Source: Magician: Master

Love, Parting

“I believe most plain girls are virtuous because of the scarcity of opportunity to be otherwise.”

Maya Angelou book I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings

Source: I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (1969), Ch. 35

Girl

“This country would not be a land of opportunity, America could not be America, if the people were shackled with government monopolies.”

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

People, Country

“Those who rule the world get so little opportunity to run about and laugh and play in it.”

Stephen Fry (1957) English comedian, actor, writer, presenter, and activist

Source: The Fry Chronicles

World

“When love exists, nothing else matters, not life’s predicaments, not the fury of the years, not a physical winding down or scarcity of opportunity.”

Isabel Allende (1942) Chilean writer

Love, Life

“And there comes a time in your life when you realize that if you don't take the opportunity to be happy, you may never get another chance again.”

Richard Russo Empire Falls

Source: Empire Falls

Life, Happiness, Chance, Time

“Seek opportunity, not security. A boat in the harbor is safe, but in time its bottom will rot out.”

H. Jackson Brown, Jr. (1940) American writer

Source: The Complete Life's Little Instruction Book

Time

“Sometimes, we are so attached to our way of life that we turn down wonderful opportunities simply because we don't know what to do with it.”

Paulo Coelho book Like the Flowing River

Source: Like the Flowing River

Life, Way

“Missed opportunities were never superficial wounds; they cut straight to the bone.”

Jodi Picoult Salem Falls

Source: Salem Falls

“Never give up because, if an opportunity arises, you have to be ready to take it.”

John Flanagan (1873–1938) Irish-American hammer thrower

“Those who are fired with an enthusiastic idea and who allow it to take hold and dominate their thoughts find that new worlds open for them. As long as enthusiasm holds out, so will new opportunities.”

Norman Vincent Peale (1898–1993) American writer

World, Idea

“Luck is a matter of preparation meeting opportunity.”

Oprah Winfrey (1954) American businesswoman, talk show host, actress, producer, and philanthropist

Motivational, Back To Work

“you create your opportunities by asking for them”

Shakti Gawain (1948–2018) Author

“He says presents aren't important, but I think they are - not because of how much they cost, but for the opportunity they provide to say I understand you.”

David Levithan (1972) American author and editor

Source: My True Love Gave to Me: Twelve Holiday Stories

Understanding, Thinking

“In the mist of Difficulty lies Opportunity.”

Oprah Winfrey (1954) American businesswoman, talk show host, actress, producer, and philanthropist

“‎"Make an obstacle an opportunity, make a negative a positive.”

Lance Armstrong (1971) professional cyclist from the USA

“When given an opportunity, deliver excellence and never quit.”

Robert Rodriguez (1968) American film director and producer

Source: Rebel Without a Crew, or How a 23-Year-Old Filmmaker With $7,000 Became a Hollywood Player

Back To Work

“Real luxury is time and opportunity to read for pleasure.”

Jane E. Brody (1941) American writer

Pleasure, Time, Reading

“There are girls who do not like real life… Some of these girls are innocent enough to think that these unreal friendships [with homosexuals] will lead to true love — a kind of sexual intercourse that will happen to them without their having to take too horribly much notice. Even those who are sufficiently sophisticated to know that this will not be so persist in these relationships. They provide an opportunity to lavish emotion on a pseudo-man without paying the price that in heterosexual circumstances would be inevitable.”

Quentin Crisp book The Naked Civil Servant

Source: The Naked Civil Servant (1968), Ch. 19

Love, Life, Friendship, Girl

“I feel that the greatest reward for doing is the opportunity to do more.”

Jonas Salk (1914–1995) Inventor of polio vaccine

On receiving Congressional Medal for Distinguished Civilian Achievement (23 April 1956); several variations of this personal motto are often quoted, including:
The reward for work well done is the opportunity to do more.
As quoted in 50 American Heroes Every Kid Should Meet! (2001) by Dennis Denenberg and Lorraine Roscoe, p. 99
I feel that the greatest reward for success is the opportunity to do more.

Feeling

“If one does not wish to be dissatisfied with one’s lot at home, one ought to go where the flies and the stinks are, which means the Middle East. This is also a good way of reconciling oneself to one’s laws and police force and the probity of one’s magistrates. The really great British travellers, like Charles M. Doughty for instance, to say nothing of ‘Eothen’ Kinglake, always went East, but not too far East. When you get to Southeast Asia you find no dirt or flies but the suspicion that you are in a tropical paradise, and then you go to pieces. It is essential, when travelling, to feel that you belong to a superior civilization, and the lands of the Arabs lavishly grant opportunities to nourish this conviction….”

Anthony Burgess (1917–1993) English writer

Non-Fiction, Homage to QWERT YUIOP: Selected Journalism 1978-1985 (1986)

Law, Way, Travel, Feeling

“The history of the Republican Party is marked by vacillation between its founding principle of opportunity and its domination by the wealthy elite. The party came together in the 1850s in opposition to the wealthy slaveholders who controlled the federal government. Democrats acting on their behalf insisted that America’s primary principle was the Constitution's protection of property, and they pushed legislation to let planters monopolize the country’s resources at the expense of the working. … Abraham Lincoln and others recoiled from the idea of government as a prop for the rich. In organizing the Republican Party, they highlighted the equality of opportunity promised in the Declaration of Independence and warned that a healthy economy depended on widespread prosperity. Northerners and hardscrabble Westerners flocked to that vision, and elected Lincoln to the White House in 1860.”

Heather Cox Richardson American historian

"Bring Back the Party of Lincoln" http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/04/opinion/bring-back-the-party-of-lincoln.html?_r=0 (3 September 2014), The New York Times, New York

History, Idea, Housing, Dependency

“Whether you know what you're doing or not, efficiency & style are your only improvement opportunities.”

David Allen (1945) American productivity consultant and author

16 September 2010 https://twitter.com/gtdguy/status/24608868849 Official Twitter profile (@gtdguy) https://twitter.com/gtdguy

“I wish to suggest that ample opportunity does exist for dissent, for protest, and for nonconformity. But I must also say that the right to be heard does not automatically include the right to be taken seriously.”

Hubert H. Humphrey (1911–1978) Vice-President of the USA under Lyndon B. Johnson

Address to the National Student Council (1965)

“The biggest priviledge is that you, as a princess, can create attention about important issues. That I have the opportunity to make a difference.”

Princess Marie of Denmark (1976) Danish princess

HRH Princess Marie of Denmark interview, Royal Monaco Journal (December 30, 2011)

Princess

“The Valkyries are symbols not only of courage but of intelligence; they represent the human spirit snatching its opportunity while the going is good, and one of them even finds time to love. Bruennhilde's last song hymns the recurrence of love, and since it is the privilege of art to exaggerate she goes even further, and proclaims the love which is eternally triumphant, and feeds upon freedom and lives.”

E.M. Forster (1879–1970) English novelist

What I Believe (1938)

Love, Art, Intelligence, Courage

“I had written a beautiful piece for today. It was a rant about how much I despise Halloween. It was witty, well-written and a shining example of a writer at the top of his form. Then I tried to save it, and my computer crashed. So I guess you won't get to read it. Out of all the people in the world, I am the only one who had the opportunity to read my brilliant Halloween article, and now the text is already fading from my cruel, cruel short-term memory, the paragraphs lost in a whirling sea of data, never to be seen again.”

Ben Croshaw (1983) English video game journalist

31 October 2002
Fully Ramblomatic

People, World, Beauty, Memory

“If there’s one piece of wisdom that this simple pilgrim would like to impart upon you: have the courage to start with the customer. My biggest regrets are the moments that I let a lack of data override my intuition on what’s best for our customers. This leadership change gives you some breathing room to break bad habits and deliver sustainable customer happiness — don’t waste the opportunity!”

Andrew Mason (1981) businessman

Groupon CEO: “I Was Fired Today.” http://allthingsd.com/20130228/groupon-dumps-andrew-mason-as-ceo (February 28, 2013)

Wisdom, Happiness, Courage, Change

“O Death, our masked friend and maker of opportunities, when thou wouldst open the gate, hesitate not to tell us beforehand; for we are not of those who are shaken by its iron jarring.”

Sri Aurobindo (1872–1950) Indian nationalist, freedom fighter, philosopher, yogi, guru and poet

Thoughts and Aphorisms (1913), Karma

Death

“Franklin is a good type of our American manhood. Although not the wealthiest or the most powerful, he is undoubtedly, in the versatility of his genius and achievements, the greatest of our self-made men. The simple yet graphic story in the Autobiography of his steady rise from humble boyhood in a tallow-chandler shop, by industry, economy, and perseverance in self-improvement, to eminence, is the most remarkable of all the remarkable histories of our self-made men. It is in itself a wonderful illustration of the results possible to be attained in a land of unequaled opportunity by following Franklin's maxims.”

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

Written by Frank Woodworth Pine in his introduction to the 1916 publication of The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin https://www.gutenberg.org/files/20203/20203-h/20203-h.htm. Pine, F.W. (editor). Henry Holt and Company via Gutenberg Press. (1916). Introduction. The Autobiography (1818), The Autobiography (1916)

Men, History, Perseverance

“I'm not happy exporting jobs but we must move ahead in technology and patents. I don't like losing any jobs but we'll see new opportunities created selling products there. We'll have a net net increase in economic activity, just as we did with free trade. It's tempting to want to protect our markets and stay closed. But at some point it all comes crashing down and you're hopelessly left behind. Then you are Russia.”

Mitt Romney (1947) American businessman and politician

"Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney's Message: Globalize or Die", CRN.com, 2005-12-16 http://www.crn.com/showArticle.jhtml;jsessionid=HV04UPK5RVOU2QSNDBNCKHSCJUMEKJVN?articleID=174300587 2003–2007 Governor of Massachusetts

Happiness

“America was targeted for attack because we're the brightest beacon for freedom and opportunity in the world. And no one will keep that light from shining.”

George W. Bush (1946) 43rd President of the United States

2000s, 2001, A Great People Has Been Moved to Defend a Great Nation (September 2001)

World, Freedom, Light

“If any common program is impossible, if there is no such thing as an education that everybody ought to have, then we must admit that any community is impossible. All men are different; but they are also the same. As we must all become specialists, so we must all become men. … The West needs an education that draws out our common humanity rather than our individuality. Individual differences can be taken into account in the methods that are employed and in the opportunities for specialization that may come later.”

Robert Maynard Hutchins (1899–1977) philosopher and university president

Great Books: The Foundation of a Liberal Education (1954)

Men, Education, Communication, Drawing

“Neither federal nor state government acts compatibly with equal protection when a law or official policy denies to women, simply because they are women, full citizenship stature - equal opportunity to aspire, achieve, participate in and contribute to society based on their individual talents and capacities.”

Ruth Bader Ginsburg (1933) Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States

Writing for the court, United States v. Virginia, 518 U.S. 515 (1996)

Women, Law

“There is something for which Lincoln should be applauded, I believe. And it is that he was shrewd enough to know that the only hope of winning the Civil War resided in creating the opportunity to fight for their own freedom, and that was the significance of the Emancipation Proclamation.”

Angela Davis (1944) American political activist, scholar, and author

Freedom is a Constant Struggle: Closures and Continuities (2013)

War, Hope, Freedom, Fight

“The more interconnected a technology is, the more opportunities it spawns for both use and misuse.”

Kevin Kelly (1952) American author and editor

Out of Control: The New Biology of Machines, Social Systems and the Economic World (1995), New Rules for the New Economy: 10 Radical Strategies for a Connected World (1999)

“As a noun, design is the named (although sometimes unnamable) structure or behavior of a system whose presence resolves or contributes to the resolution of a force or forces on that system. A design thus represents one point in a potential decision space. A design may be singular (representing a leaf decision) or it may be collective (representing a set of other decisions).
As a verb, design is the activity of making such decisions. Given a large set of forces, a relatively malleable set of materials, and a large landscape upon which to play, the resulting decision space may be large and complex. As such, there is a science associated with design (empirical analysis can point us to optimal regions or exact points in this design space) as well as an art (within the degrees of freedom that range beyond an empirical decision; there are opportunities for elegance, beauty, simplicity, novelty, and cleverness).
All architecture is design but not all design is architecture. Architecture represents the significant design decisions that shape a system, where significant is measured by cost of change.”

Grady Booch (1955) American software engineer

Grady Booch (2006) " On design https://www.ibm.com/developerworks/community/blogs/gradybooch/entry/on_design?lang=en" cited in: Frank Buschmann, ‎Kevlin Henney, ‎Douglas C. Schmidt (2007) Pattern-Oriented Software Architecture, On Patterns and Pattern Languages. p. 214

Beauty, Art, Behavior, Optimism

“The New Age music: "gave the opportunity for untalented people to make very boring music."”

Vangelis (1943) Greek composer of electronic, progressive, ambient, jazz, pop rock, and orchestral music

2005

People, Age, Music

“If Women Have An Equal EMPLOYMENT Opportunity Commission, Why Don’t Men Have An Equal FAMILY Opportunity Commission?”

Warren Farrell (1943) author, spokesperson, expert witness, political candidate

Source: Father and Child Reunion (2001), p. 197.

Women, Men, Family

“For too long our culture has said, "If it feels good, do it." Now America is embracing a new ethic and a new creed: "Let's roll". In the sacrifice of soldiers, the fierce brotherhood of firefighters, and the bravery and generosity of ordinary citizens, we have glimpsed what a new culture of responsibility could look like. We want to be a nation that serves goals larger than self. We've been offered a unique opportunity, and we must not let this moment pass.”

George W. Bush (1946) 43rd President of the United States

Invoking the words of Todd Beamer (passenger on ill-fated Flight 93 on September 11, 2001) to suggest Americans are becoming more altruistic and willing to sacrifice. State of the Union Address (January 29, 2002)
2000s, 2002, State of the Union address (January 2002)

Feeling

“The old world is engaged in a struggle to find a way by which each race living on its own soil, separated by definite national boundaries, can be assured freedom and peace in the full development of its national life and in the realization of international opportunities. The task of America is different. It is for her to find the way by which these races, living on one soil, under one form of government, with no territorial lines, can be assimilated and become a part of her integral national life.”

Frances Kellor (1873–1952) American sociologist

What is Americanization? (1919)

Life, World, Peace, Way

“Sitting Bull, most renowned Sioux of modern history, is dead.
He was not a Chief, but without Kingly lineage he arose from a lowly position to the greatest Medicine Man of his time, by virtue of his shrewdness and daring.
He was an Indian with a white man's spirit of hatred and revenge for those who had wronged him and his. In his day he saw his son and his tribe gradually driven from their possessions: forced to give up their old hunting grounds and espouse the hard working and uncongenial avocations of the whites. And these, his conquerors, were marked in their dealings with his people by selfishness, falsehood and treachery. What wonder that his wild nature, untamed by years of subjection, should still revolt? What wonder that a fiery rage still burned within his breast and that he should seek every opportunity of obtaining vengeance upon his natural enemies.”

L. Frank Baum (1856–1919) Children's writer, editor, journalist, screenwriter

Saturday Pioneer (20 December 1890)
The Aberdeen Saturday Pioneer (1890 and 1891)

People, History, Revenge, Nature

“I want, however, to conclude by calling attention to a less visible form of social action: norms of social behavior, including ethical and moral codes. I suggest as one possible interpretation that they are reactions of society to compensate for market failures. It is useful for individuals to have some trust in each other's word. In the absence of trust it would become very costly to arrange for alternative sanctions and guarantees, and many opportunities for mutually beneficial cooperation would have to be, foregone.”

Kenneth Arrow (1921–2017) American economist

Kenneth Arrow, “The Organization of Economic Activity: Issues Pertinent to the Choice of Market versus Non-market Allocation” (1969)
1950s-1960s

Behavior, Failure

“Here's a rule for whether or not you should take an opportunity: Will taking that opportunity teach you something that you can use to get other opportunities?”

Jordan Peterson (1962) Canadian clinical psychologist, cultural critic, and professor of psychology

Personality Lectures

“The search for justice and security, the struggle for equality of opportunity, the quest for tolerance and harmony, the pursuit of human dignity – these are moral imperatives which we must work towards and think about on a daily basis.”

Aga Khan IV (1936) 49th and current Imam of Nizari Ismailism

Remarks by His Highness the Aga Khan at Évora University, Évora, Portugal (12 February 2006)]

Justice, Search, Thinking

“The labouring poor, to use a vulgar expression, seem always to live from hand to mouth. Their present wants employ their whole whole attention, and they seldom think of the future. Even when they have an opportunity of saving they seldom exercise it, but all that is beyond their present neccessities goes, generally speaking, to the ale house.”

Thomas Robert Malthus (1766–1834) British political economist

Source: An Essay on The Principle of Population (First Edition 1798, unrevised), Chapter V, paragraph 13, lines 8-13

Exercises, Thinking, Future, Housing

“I never wanted to belong to a crowd. I never had a herd mentality… I always knew what I wanted and I made sure I got it. And I always knew that I wanted to be an actress. I exist because I can act. I will not sit here and say, 'Arrey, by chance, offer aa gaya' (I got the offer by chance). No, I made acting happen to me. The first opportunity I got to act, I grabbed it. Nobody had even heard of me till a couple of years ago. But it's by sheer hard work and focus that I am here. Also, I think I chose the right scripts. Like Robert De Niro says, 'Talent is in the choice you make!”

Mallika Sherawat (1976) Indian actress

Cine Bliitz magazine,(July 2005)

Thinking, Chance

“If we have respect for our fathers and we have respect for our children, we will have a better life. I watched on TV when America sent men to the moon, and there were a lot of people whose names weren't given who helped make it possible. You don't have the names of those who run the computers and other things. But they worked together and this is what you have to have … Chinese, American, Jewish, black and white, people working side by side.

This is what you have to do to make this a better life. When you can give opportunity to everybody, we won't have to wait to die to get to heaven. We are going to have heaven on earth.”

Roberto Clemente (1934–1972) Puerto Rican baseball player

Conclusion of Tris Speaker Award acceptance speech, as quoted in "800 Turn Out for Baseball Dinner" by Joe Heiling, in The Houston Post (January 30, 1971, p. 1-B)
Other, <big><big>1970s</big></big>

Life, Men, Children, People

“We need to be thinking about: How do we allow people to ascend the ladder of opportunity, rather than how do we give them everything and keep them dependent.”

Ben Carson (1951) 17th and current United States Secretary of Housing and Urban Development; American neurosurgeon

Fourth Republican debate https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2015/11/10/well-be-annotating-the-gop-debate-here/ (10 November 2015).

People, Thinking, Dependency

“Problems are only opportunities in work clothes.”

Henry J. Kaiser (1882–1967) American industrialist

Quoted in The Congressional Record, August 24, 1967 http://books.google.com/books?id=jTs4AQAAMAAJ&q=%22Problems+are+only+opportunities+in+work+clothes%22&pg=PA88#v=onepage Variant: Trouble is only opportunity in work clothes.

Problem, Clothes, Leadership