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Elizabeth's Favorite Quotes

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There are quotes I've been gathering in a notebook that I started as a pre-teen in the mid-1980's.  Assuredly it is a tattered notebook today.  I've selected some of the ones from this notebook that still strike me as important for me to remember.
Each represents moments in my life when I found them useful, and also moments I anticipate for the the future in which I expect to need them for the first time or again.


Quotes that have no author
are quotes for which I don't know the author.

 

 

The reasonable man adapts himself to the world;
the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself.
Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.
--George Bernard Shaw

 

 

 

 

 

 



The only man who never makes a mistake
is the man who never does anything.
--Theodore Roosevelt
 

The mediocre teacher tells
The good teacher explains
The superior teacher demonstrates
The great teacher inspires
-- W.A Ward
Never let what you can't do interfere with what you can do.
I like a continual state of coming, with not a goal behind me, but with a goal always in front of me.
There is no safe position in life. You can't get out of life alive.
If you think you can, you probably can.
If you think you can't,
you're right.
Someone's opinion of you does not have to become a reality.
I don't know what the secret of success is,
but I know what the secret of failure is:
trying to please everyone.
--Bill Cosby

Practice only makes improvement.
There is no such thing as "perfect."

The best revenge in life is massive success.
-- Frank Sinatra
Why do people prefer known hells as opposed to unknown heavens?
If you are going to be able to look back on something and laugh about it
you might as well laugh about it now.
--Marie Osmond
A ship in the harbour is safe, but that is not what ships are built for.
--William Shed
To get the right answer, it helps to ask the right question.
Necessity is the mother of taking chances.
--Mark Twain
No one individual can tell the truth.
--Faulkner
If there is no enemy within,
any enemy without can do us no harm.
--African Proverb
If you want to keep on gettin' what you're gettin', then keep on doin' what you're doin'.
Life is what happens to you when you're busy making other plans.
--John Lennon
Running from your fears is more painful than facing them.
--Chuck Norris

Kind praises we heap on our dead
Are better prematurely said,
Why wait till they have gone to say
What could have cheered them if said
Today
--Edith Warner

Tomorrow is always fresh with no mistakes.
--Anne of Green Gables
Imagination is more important than information.
--Albert Einstein
No windows give a better view than those a man brings with him in his head,
not asking for tickets of admission, since at all functions, festivals, or feasts
he looks out with the same nice self-composure.
--Life is a Dream II - a play by de la Barca
In life you will be faced with many God-ordained opportunities that will be disguised as obstacles.
Let me tell you something young man;
One person can have a profound effect on another.
And two people...
well, two people can work miracles.
--Northern Exposure - a TV Show
The secret of life is one thing.
You just have to find that one thing for you.
--City Slickers (Kirk Douglas character) - a Movie
Live your life now! Be happy now!
Because life is not a dress rehearsal.
Money is not important to me, but it is right up there with oxygen.
Look at a man where he is and he will only become worse.
Look at a man how he could be and he becomes what he should be.
For if they fall, the one will lift up his fellow:
but woe to him that is alone when he falleth;
for he hath not another to help him up.
--Ecclesiastes 4:10 - quoted in The Living - a Play by Anthony Clarvoe
What, then is time? If no one asks me, I know.
If I want to explain it to a questioner, I do not know.
--Augustine
It is better to be prepared for an opportunity and not have one,
than to have an opportunity and not be prepared.
There is more to be learned in one day of discomfort, poverty, and anxiety than in a lifetime of
apparent happiness, security, riches and power.
If at first you don't succeed, you're running about average.
One man's sunset is another man's dawn.
--Fival Goes West - a Movie (Jimmy Stewart character)
At every crossway in the road that leads to the future,
each progressive spirit is opposed by a thousand men
appointed to guard the past.
--Celestine Prophesy - A Book
The difference between loneliness and solitude is your perception of who you are alone with
and who made the choice.
The best way to eliminate any enemy is to make him a friend.
There is no such thing as a weird human being.
It's just that some people require more understanding than others.
--Tim Robbins
Zorba came upon an old man planting an apricot seedling and asked why he, an old man, was planting a new tree.
"I live life as though I would never die," was his reply.
"And me, I live as though I might die tomorrow," said Zorba, "which one of us is right?"
--Zorba the Greek - a play by Nikos Kazantzakis
The difference between perseverance and obstinacy is that one comes from a strong will
and the other comes from a strong won't.
--Henry Ward Beecher
I'm glad I did it. Partly because it was well worth it, but chiefly because I shall never have to do it again.
--Mark Twain
When you get into a tight place and everything goes against you,
till it seems as though you could not hang on a minute longer,
never give up then, for that is just the place and time that the tide will turn.
--Harriet Beacher Stowe
We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.
--T.S. Elliot
Good communication is as stimulating as black coffee,
and just as hard to sleep after.
--Anne Morrow Lindberg
If the dogs are barking at your heels,
you know you're leading the pack.
If you're business isn't moving fast enough, consider the turtle... It can't move at all if it doesn't stick it's neck out.
Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it.
Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it.
--Goethe couplet
The rung of a ladder was never meant to rest upon,
but only to hold a man's foot long enough
to enable him to put the other somewhat higher.
--Aldous Huxley

In the kingdom of the blind, the one-eyed man is king.
--The Manddrake by Machiavelli

Losing is not starting, but being content to tell about what might be or what might have been if...
--Joe Henderson
A mind that is stretched by a new experience can never go back to its old dimensions.
--Oliver Wendell Holmes
The journey of a thousand miles begins with one step.
--Lao-Tzu
All men dream, but not equally.
Those who dream by night in the dusty
recesses of their minds
Awake to find that it was vanity;
But the dreamers of the day are dangerous men,
That they may act their dreams with open
eyes to make it possible.
T.E. Lawrence
Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear - not absence of fear.
--Mark Twain
A stranger's just a friend you haven't met.
--Marge Simpson - The Simpsons
Science is principally engaged with discovering and recording natural phenomena,
the arts are concerned with the value of human interactions as they pertain to the sense,
and religions addressed the source, purpose, and meaning of it all.
-- Celestine Prophesy - A Book
Man who say it cannot be done should not interrupt a man doing it.
--Old Chinese Proverb
Listen to the mustn'ts, child,
listen to the don't
listen to the shouldn'ts
the impossibles, the won'ts
listen to the never haves
then listen close to me -
anything can happen, child,
ANYTHING can be.
--Shel Silverstein
Even in the attempt to please others and make money
a true artist must first please himself-
by saying the things he needs to say.
Never compromise your own voice for the pleasure of others.
--me
Write to evoke emotion, not to describe it.
--Hemmingway
People who wait for all conditions to be perfect before acting, never act.
The only history that matters is the history we know.
--Ezra Pound

Who can swear
that his own apprehension of reality is valid?
There are certain insects -
I forgot which ones - that have no apparatus for
determining
that other insects of their own same kind exist.
Such is
our lot. Have faith! Love even those who bring
sorrow to you!
--Queen Louisa - a Book by John Gardner

Death is not too great a price for a life fully lived.
--Willi Unsoeld
There is only one thing more painful than learning from experience,
and that is not learning from experience.
--Archibald McLeish
I hate questions. Tell me what you know.
R.W. Emerson
The most successful leader of all is the one who sees another picture not yet actualized. He sees the things which are not yet there... Above all, he should make his co-workers see that it is not his purpose which is to be achieved, but a comon purpose, born of the desires and the activities of the group.
--Mary Parker Follet
Money is not the only thing, but it's so far ahead of what's in second place that anything else hardly matters.

Doubt is the enemy of creativeness.
-- Creating a Role - a book by Stanislovski

We've got two lives: one we're given, and the other one we make.
--Mary Chapen Carpenter
A best friend is someone who knows that song in your heart and sings it back to you when you forget how it goes.

Success is the residue of planning.
--Benjamin Franklin

A poor workman quarrels with his tools.
--American Indian Proverb
He who cannot dance says the drummer is bad.
--West African Proverb
Everyone has insecurities. It's how you deal with them that counts.
--me
Ambition is the path to success, Persistence is the vehicle you arrive in.
--Bill Eardley
If you're not a radical when you're twenty,
you have no heart.
If you're still a radical when you're forty,
you have no brains.
--Politically Incorrect (7-22-95) - A TV Show
Only boring people get bored.
--Al Sauciu - an artist I once knew
People who will lie for you, will lie to you.

Woman 1: "The problem with being a woman is you have to talk to other women."
Woman 2: "I thought the problem with being a woman is you can't have a relationship with a man."
--How to Make and American Quilt - a Movie

One good thing about being young is that you are not experienced enough to know
you cannot possibly do what you are doing.
--Gene Brown
The wisest of men will concede their own ignorance.
--me
"Come to the edge," he said.
They said, "We are afraid."
"Come to the edge," he said.
They came, and he pushed them
And they flew.
--African Proverb
You lie down with dogs, you gonna get up with fleas.
Many a false step is made by standing still.
--Mystic Lemonade Cap
You can find something wrong with everyone if you look.
Everyone has flaws, all you have to do is decide if they're flaws you can live with.
--me
Two things motivate people, either moving towards pleasure or moving away from pain.
The tiger my hide in the woods for a while,
but he never loses his stripes.
--probably my Mother's favorite quote
ATTITUDE
The longer I live, the more I realize the impact of attitude on life. Attitude, to me, is more important than facts. It is more important than the past, than education, than money, than circumstances, than failures, than success, than what other people think or say or do. It is more important than appearance, giftedness, or skill. It will make or break a company...a church...a home. The remarkable think is we have a choice every day regarding the attitude we will embrace for that day. We cannot change our past...we cannot change the fact that people will act a certain way. We cannot change the inevitable. The only thing we can do is play on the one string we have, and that is our attitude...I am convinced that life is 10% what happens to me and 90% how I react to it. And so it is with you...we are in charge of our Attitudes.
--Charles Swindler
Being powerful is like being a lady. If you have to tell people who you are, you aren't.
--Margaret Thatcher
You miss 100% of the shots you never take.
--Wayne Gretzky
We admire other people's strengths, but we identify with their weaknesses.
The race is not always won by the fastest runner,
but sometimes by those who just keep running.
When anyone hurts us, my wife and I sit in our Japanese sand garden and drink iced tea. There are five stone in the garden - for sky, wind, fire, water, and earth. We sit and think of five of the nicest things we can about the person who hurt us. If he hurts us a second time, we do the same thing. The third time, we light a candle, and he is, for us, dead.
--Red Skelton (1977)
Try not to work for the person who has more problems than you do.
Beware of the most dangerous person in business - the articulate incompetent.
People in meetings tend to agree on decisions that as individuals they know are dumb.
It's not whether you get knocked down. It's whether you get up again.
--Vince Lombardi
Men are like wine. They start out like grapes,
and it's our job to stomp on them and keep them in the dark
until they mature into something you want to have dinner with.
--my Aunt Sherry
Be real, and remember you live in a world that won't reward you for the truth.
--Lois Griffth

The choice of every lost soul can be expressed in the words "Better to reign in hell than serve in heaven."
There is always something they insist on keeping, even at the price of misery.
--The Great Divorce - a book by CS Lewis

Skate to where the puck is going to be, not to where it was.
--Wayne Gretzky
If there's nobody in your way, you're not going anywhere.
--Madeline Albright
Abused patience turns into fury.
--Thomas Fuller
Bitterness does more harm to the container that holds it than to the person it's poured on.
--Pastor Don Satterwhite
We must be willing to get rid of the life we've planned so as to have the life that is waiting for us.
--Joseph Campbell
Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence.
Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent.
Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb.
Education alone will not; the world is full of educated derelicts.
Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent.
The truth is that many people set rules to keep from making decisions.
--Mike Krzyzewski
Perhaps there is only one cardinal sin: impatience. Because of impatience we were driven out of Paradise,
because of impatience, we cannot return.
--W.H. Auden
Give me a stock clerk with a goal, and I will give you a man who will make history. Give me a man without a goal, and I will give you a stock clerk.
--J.C. Penny (Yes, the actual man.)

Six ways to bury a good idea
1. It will never work.
2. We can't afford it.
3. We've never done it that way before.
4. We're not ready for it.
5. It's not our responsibility.
6. We're doing fine without it.

Take a man for what he thinks he is and then leave him alone.
--Faulkner
For the first four years, no new enterprise produces profits. Even Mozart didn't start writing music until he was four.
--Peter F. Drucker
In order to succeed, you must know what you are doing, like what you are doing, and believe in what you are doing.
--Will Rogers
Whining is a feeling that you have given up on taking responsibility for your life.
Humble people don't think less of themselves - they just think about themselves less.
Once you have accepted yourself, it's so much easier to accept other people and their points of view.
You can either complain that rosebushes have thorns - or rejoice that thorn bushes have roses.
The surest way to make life hard for children is to make it too easy for them.
I am extremely patient, provided I get my way in the end.
--Margaret Thatcher
Invictus
Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced or cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbow'd.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds and shall find me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with the punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.

--William Ernest Henly (1849-1903)