Eleanor Roosevelt (1884–1962) American politician, diplomat, and activist, and First Lady of the United States
Source: You Learn by Living: Eleven Keys for a More Fulfilling Life
Eleanor Roosevelt (1884–1962) American politician, diplomat, and activist, and First Lady of the United States
Source: You Learn by Living: Eleven Keys for a More Fulfilling Life
Iris Murdoch book A Fairly Honourable Defeat
A Fairly Honourable Defeat (1970); 2001, p. 170.
“Thou, O God, dost sell us all good things at the price of labour.”
Leonardo Da Vinci (1452–1519) Italian Renaissance polymath
The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci (1883), XIX Philosophical Maxims. Morals. Polemics and Speculations.
“Ennui is the echo in us of time tearing itself apart.”
Emil M. Cioran book A Short History of Decay
A Short History of Decay (1949)
“If you want to use television to teach somebody, you must first teach
them how to use television.”
Umberto Eco (1932–2016) Italian semiotician, essayist, philosopher, literary critic, and novelist
Paulo Coelho book Eleven Minutes
Source: Eleven Minutes (2003), p. 97.
Context: In love, no one can harm anyone else; we are each of us responsible for our own feelings and cannot blame someone else for what we feel. It hurt when I lost each of the various men I fell in love with. Now, though, I am convinced that no one loses anyone, because no one owns anyone. That is the true experience of freedom: having the most important thing in the world without owning it.
Albert Schweitzer (1875–1965) French-German physician, theologian, musician and philosopher
Variant : The thinking man must oppose all cruel customs no matter how deeply rooted in tradition and surrounded by a halo. When we have a choice, we must avoid bringing torment and injury into the life of another, even the lowliest creature; to do so is to renounce our manhood and shoulder a guilt which nothing justifies.
As quoted in Becoming Vegan : The Complete Guide to Adopting a Healthy Plant-based Diet (2000) by Brenda Davis and Vesanto Melina, p. 261
Source: The Spiritual Life (1947), p. 305; also in The Animal World of Albert Schweitzer (1950), p. 179
“When I use a word, it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more, nor less.”
Lewis Carroll book Through the Looking-Glass
Source: Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There
“Love people, not things; use things, not people.”
Spencer W. Kimball (1895–1985) President of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
“We loved, sir — used to meet:
How sad and bad and mad it was —
But then, how it was sweet!”
Robert Browning (1812–1889) English poet and playwright of the Victorian Era
"Confessions", line 34 (1864).
“Our lives are fashioned by our choices. First we make our choices. Then our choices make us.”
Anne Frank (1929–1945) victim of the Holocaust and author of a diary
Andrew Lang (1844–1912) Scots poet, novelist and literary critic
1910 Speech, quoted in Alan L. Mackay The Harvest of a Quiet Eye (1977), as reported in Chambers Dictionary of Quotations (2005), p. 488.
Widely attributed to Lang (e.g. in Elizabeth M. Knowles, The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations, Oxford University Press; and in Robert Andrews, The Columbia Dictionary of Quotations, Columbia University Press).
Variant: He uses statistics as a drunken man uses lamp posts—for support rather than illumination.
“Be patient and tough; someday this pain will be useful to you.”
Cecelia Ahern book Thanks for the Memories
Source: Thanks for the Memories
Ronald Reagan (1911–2004) American politician, 40th president of the United States (in office from 1981 to 1989)
Quoted as an attribution in Oxford Dictionary of Humorous Quotations (2013), p. 268
Attributed
Norton Juster book The Phantom Tollbooth
Source: The Phantom Tollbooth
“Without change something sleeps inside us, and seldom awakens. The sleeper must awaken.”
Frank Herbert book Dune
Variant: Without new experiences, something inside of us sleeps. The sleeper must awaken.
Source: Dune
“Every word, every image used for God is a distortion more than a description.”
Anthony de Mello (1931–1987) Indian writer
Comprehension
Source: One Minute Wisdom (1989)
“Oh, God of Dust and Rainbows,
Help us to see
That without the dust the rainbow
Would not be.”
Langston Hughes (1902–1967) American writer and social activist
Assata Shakur (1947) American activist who was a member of the Black Panther Party and Black Liberation Army
Source: Assata: An Autobiography
Arundhati Roy (1961) Indian novelist, essayist
From a speech entitled Come September http://ada.evergreen.edu/~arunc/texts/politics/comeSeptember.pdf, given at the Lensic Performing Arts Center, Santa Fe, NM, 29 Sep 2002. <br class="br">Speeches <br class="br">Source: War Talk
“Nature has no use for the plea that one 'did not know'.”
C.G. Jung (1875–1961) Swiss psychiatrist and psychotherapist who founded analytical psychology
Rick Warren (1954) Christian religious leader
Source: The Purpose Driven Life: What on Earth Am I Here for?
“The advantage of the emotions is that they lead us astray.”
Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Irish writer and poet
Jean Paul Sartre (1905–1980) French existentialist philosopher, playwright, novelist, screenwriter, political activist, biographer, and …
“Perhaps the same bird echoed through both of us yesterday, seperate, in the evening.”
Rainer Maria Rilke (1875–1926) Austrian poet and writer
Vladimir Nabokov (1899–1977) Russian-American novelist, lepidopterist, professor
Speak, Memory: A Memoir (1951)
Context: The cradle rocks above an abyss, and common sense tells us that our existence is but a brief crack of light between two eternities of darkness. Although the two are identical twins, man, as a rule, views the prenatal abyss with more calm than the one he is heading for (at some forty-five hundred heartbeats an hour).
“If the devil cannot make us bad, he will make us busy.”
Corrie ten Boom (1892–1983) Dutch resistance hero and writer
Jimmy Carter (1924) American politician, 39th president of the United States (in office from 1977 to 1981)
Louisa May Alcott book Little Women
Variant: ... but, dear me, let us be elegant or die.
Source: Little Women
“You, yes, you, linger inside my heart
The same you who stopped us before we could start.”
Megan McCafferty (1973) American novelist
Source: Second Helpings
“And is it not sects, bodies of definite, uncompromising principles, that lead us into revolutions?”
Vladimir Lenin (1870–1924) Russian politician, led the October Revolution
Malcolm X (1925–1965) American human rights activist
November 10, 1963
This was said before Malcolm X left the Nation of Islam and as he himself stated, before he truly understood Islam.
Malcolm X Speaks (1965)
“The journey is what brings us happiness not the destination.”
Dan Millman (1946) American self help writer
Source: Way of the Peaceful Warrior: A Book That Changes Lives
Philip Pullman book The Subtle Knife
Source: His Dark Materials, The Subtle Knife (1997), Ch. 15 : Bloodmoss
Context: "You fought for the knife?"
"Yes, but — "
"Then you're a warrior. That's what you are. Argue with anything else, but don't argue with your own nature."
Will knew that the man was speaking the truth. But it wasn't a welcome truth. It was heavy and painful. The man seemed to know that, because he let Will bow his head before he spoke again.
"There are two great powers," the man said, "and they've been fighting since time began. Every advance in human life, every scrap of knowledge and wisdom and decency we have has been torn by one side from the teeth of the other. Every little increase in human freedom has been fought over ferociously between those who want us to know more and be wiser and stronger, and those who want us to obey and be humble and submit."
"And now those two powers are lining up for battle. And each of them wants that knife of yours more than anything else. You have to choose, boy. We've been guided here, both of us — you with the knife, and me to tell you about it."
“My wallpaper and I are fighting a duel to the death. One or the other of us has to go.”
Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Irish writer and poet
Alfred Adler (1870–1937) Medical Doctor, Psychologist, Psychiatrist, Psychotherapist, Personality Theorist
Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) logician, one of the first analytic philosophers and political activist
Friedrich Nietzsche book Human, All Too Human
I.332 http://books.google.com/books?id=Nl-vaAdJD3MC&pg=PA139&dq=:%22Arrogance+on+the+part+of+the+meritorious+is+even+more+offensive+to+us%22&hl=en&ei=7HFTTKGJOcmhnQfSrsXJAw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CCUQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=%3A%22Arrogance%20on%20the%20part%20of%20the%20meritorious%20is%20even%20more%20offensive%20to%20us%22&f=false <br class="br">Human, All Too Human (1878)
“A vote is like a rifle: its usefulness depends upon the character of the user.”
Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919) American politician, 26th president of the United States
Chapter V Applied Idealism http://www.bartleby.com/55/5.html <br class="br">1910s, Theodore Roosevelt — An Autobiography (1913)
Marcel Duchamp (1887–1968) French painter and sculptor
1951 - 1968, The Creative Act', 1957
Context: I want to clarify our understanding of the word 'art' – to be sure, without an attempt to a definition. What I have in mind is that art may be bad, good or indifferent, but, whatever adjective is used, we must call it art, and bad art is still art in the same way as a bad emotion is still an emotion.
Therefore, when I refer to 'art coefficient', it will be understood that I refer not only to great art, but I am trying to describe the subjective mechanism which produces art in a raw state – 'à l'état brute' – bad, good or indifferent.
Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865) 16th President of the United States
Speech of the Sub-Treasury (1839), Collected Works 1:178 http://quod.lib.umich.edu/cgi/t/text/text-idx?c=lincoln;cc=lincoln;view=text;idno=lincoln1;rgn=div1;node=lincoln1:193<br>Variant (misspelling): The probability that we may fail in the struggle ought not to deter us from the support of a cause we believe to be just; and it shall not deter me. <br class="br">1830s <br class="br">Context: Broken by it, I, too, may be; bow to it I never will. The probability that we may fall in the struggle ought not to deter us from the support of a cause we believe to be just; it shall not deter me.
“Marconi is a good fellow. Let him continue. He is using seventeen of my patents.”
Nikola Tesla (1856–1943) Serbian American inventor
On being informed that Marconi was transmitting wireless messages across the Atlantic Ocean, as quoted in "Who Invented Radio?" at PBS.org http://www.pbs.org/tesla/ll/ll_whoradio.html, and in Tesla : The Modern Sorcerer (1999) by Daniel Blair Stewart, p. 371
Jonathan Larson (1960–1996) American composer and playwright
Source: Rent (1996)
“I think perhaps education doesn’t do us much good unless it is mixed with sweat.”
Barack Obama book Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance
Source: Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance