Quotations by Author
Quotations by Author (7)
Children categories
Henry David Thoreau (1)
Henry David Thoreau
1817-1862
American Essayist, Poet, Naturalist
James Allen (1)
James Allen
1864-1912, British-born American Essayist
Author of ''As a Man Thinketh''
Confucius
BC 551-479
Chinese Ethical Teacher and Philosopher
Do not be desirous of having things done quickly. Do not look at small advantages. Desire to have things done quickly prevents their being done thoroughly. Looking at small advantages prevents great affairs from being accomplished.
The superior man acts before he speaks, and afterwards speaks according to his action.
To put the world in order, we must first put the nation in order; to put the nation in order, we must put the family in order; to put the family in order, we must cultivate our personal life; and to cultivate our personal life, we must first set our hearts right.
Only the wisest and the stupidest of men never change.
Don't complain about the snow on your neighbor's roof when your own doorstep is unclean.
It is better to light one small candle than to curse the darkness.
A man who has committed a mistake and doesn't correct it is committing another mistake.
Our greatest glory is not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall.
Faithfulness and sincerity are the highest things.
I am not concerned that I am not known, I seek to be worthy to be known.
The wheel of fortune turns round incessantly, and who can say to himself, "I shall today be uppermost."
Have no friends not equal to yourself.
Man who stand on hill with mouth open will wait long time for roast duck to drop in.
With coarse rice to eat, with water to drink, and my bent arm for a pillow -- I have still joy in the midst of all these things.
When you know a thing, to hold that you know it; and when you do not know a thing, to allow that you do not know it--this is knowledge.
The essence of knowledge is, having it, to apply it; not having it, to confess your ignorance.
To be wronged is nothing unless you continue to remember it.
Of neighborhoods, benevolence is the most beautiful. How can the man be considered wise who when he had the choice does not settle in benevolence.
A man who does not think and plan long ahead will find trouble right at his door.
Virtue is not left to stand alone. He who practices it will have neighbors.
Before you embark on a journey of revenge, dig two graves.
He who wishes to secure the good of others has already secured his own.
He who conquers himself is the mightiest warrior.
The more man meditates upon good thoughts, the better will be his world and the world at large.
What the superior person seeks is in themselves. What the mean person seeks is in others.
If you think in terms of a year, plant a seed; if in terms of ten years, plant trees; if in terms of 100 years, teach the people.
To be able under all circumstances to practice five things constitutes perfect virtue; these five things are gravity, generosity of soul, sincerity, earnestness and kindness.
By three methods we may learn wisdom: First, by reflection, which is noblest; Second, by imitation, which is easiest; and third by experience, which is the bitterest.
Choose a job you love, and you will never have to work a day in your life.
Do not worry about holding high position; worry rather about playing your proper role.
James Allen
1864-1912, British-born American Essayist
Author of ''As a Man Thinketh''
Cherish your visions; cherish your ideals; cherish the music that stirs in your heart, the beauty that forms in your mind, the loveliness that drapes your purest thoughts, for out of them will grow delightful conditions, all heavenly environment; of these if you but remain true to them, your world will at last be built.
Let there be nothing within thee that is not very beautiful and very gentle, and there will be nothing without thee that is not beautiful and softened by the spell of thy presence.
The will to do springs from the knowledge that we can do.
Man is made or unmade by himself. By the right choice he ascends. As a being of power, intelligence, and love, and the lord of his own thoughts, he holds the key to every situation.
Circumstances do not make the man, they reveal him.
Whether you be man or woman you will never do anything in this world without courage. It is the greatest quality of the mind next to honor.
To desire is to obtain; to aspire is to achieve.
In all human affairs there are efforts, and there are results, and the strength of effort is the measure of the results.
Dream lofty dreams, and as you dream, so shall you become. Your vision is the promise of what you shall one day be; your ideal is the prophecy of what you shall at last unveil.
A man is not rightly conditioned until he is a happy, healthy, and prosperous being; and happiness, health, and prosperity are the result of a harmonious adjustment of the inner with the outer of the man with his surroundings.
To begin to think with purpose, is to enter the ranks of those strong ones who only recognize failure as one of the pathways to attainment.
You will become as small as your controlling desire; as great as your dominant aspiration.
Good thoughts bear good fruit, bad thoughts bear bad fruit.
A man sooner or later discovers that he is the master-gardener of his soul, the director of his life.
Mind is the Master--power that molds and makes, and Man is Mind, and ever more he takes the Tool of Thought, and shaping what he wills, brings forth a thousand joys, a thousand ills--He thinks in secret and it comes to pass; Environment is but his looking-glass.
Above all be of single aim; have a legitimate and useful purpose, and devote yourself unreservedly to it.
A man should conceive of a legitimate purpose in his heart, and set out to accomplish it. He should make this purpose the centralizing point of his thoughts. It may take the form of a spiritual ideal, or it may be a worldly object, according to his nature at the time being; but whichever it is, he should steadily focus his thought forces upon the object which he has set before him. He should make this purpose his supreme duty, and should devote himself to its attainment, not allowing his thoughts to wander away into ephemeral fancies, longings, and imaginings. This is the royal road to self-control and true concentration of thought. Even if he fails again and again to accomplish his purpose (as he necessarily must until weakness is overcome), the strength of character gained will be the measure of his true success, and this will form a new starting point for future power and triumph.
Men are anxious to improve their circumstances, but are unwilling to improve themselves; they therefore remain bound.
For true success ask yourself these four questions: Why? Why not? Why not me? Why not now?
A man is literally what he thinks
All that you accomplish or fail to accomplish with your life is the direct result of your thoughts.
Our life is what our thoughts make it. A man will find that as he alters his thoughts toward things and other people, things and other people will alter towards him.
You are today where your thoughts have brought you; you will be tomorrow where your thoughts take you.
The more tranquil a man becomes, the greater is his success, his influence, his power for good. Calmness of mind is one of the beautiful jewels of wisdom.
Work joyfully and peacefully, knowing that right thoughts and right efforts will inevitably bring about right results.
Mark Twain
1835-1910
American Humorist and Writer
Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.
The older we grow the greater becomes our wonder at how much ignorance one can contain without bursting one's clothes.
When your friends begin to flatter you on how young you look, it's a sure sign you're getting old.
A man cannot be made comfortable without his own approval.
Water, taken in moderation, cannot hurt anybody.
Keep away from small people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you feel that you, too, can become great.
Good breeding consists in concealing how much we think of ourselves and how little we think of the other person.
It is nobler to be good, and it is nobler to teach others to be good -- and less trouble!
A banker is a fellow who lends his umbrella when the sun is shining and wants it back the minute it begins to rain.
There was never yet an uninteresting life. Such a thing is an impossibility. Inside of the dullest exterior there is a drama, a comedy, and a tragedy.
Man is the only animal that blushes -- or needs to.
Of all God's creatures there is only one that cannot be made the slave of the lash. That one is the cat. If man could be crossed with a cat it would improve man, but it would deteriorate the cat.
Put all your eggs in one basket and then watch that basket.
Education is the path from cocky ignorance to miserable uncertainty.
I don't like to commit myself about heaven and hell -- you see, I have friends in both places.
Reader, suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself.
Loyalty to petrified opinions never yet broke a chain or freed a human soul in this world -- and never will.
Sacred cows make the best hamburger.
Let us endeavor so to live that when we come to die even the undertaker will be sorry.
Denial ain't just a river in Egypt.
Adam was the luckiest man; he had no mother-in-law.
It is better to keep your mouth closed and let people think you are a fool than to open it and remove all doubt.
Forgiveness is the fragrance the violet sheds on the heel that has crushed it.
If you pick up a starving dog and make him prosperous, he will not bite you; that is the principal difference between a dog and a man
When I was fourteen, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have him around. When I got to be twenty-one, I was astonished at how much he had learned in seven years.
We have a criminal jury system which is superior to any in the world; and its efficiency is only marred by the difficulty of finding twelve men every day who don't know anything and can't read.
If you are speaking the truth you don't have to remember anything.
His money is twice tainted: taint yours and taint mine.
There is no sadder sight than a young pessimist, except an old optimist.
The miracle, or the power, that elevates the few is to be found in their industry, application, and perseverance under the prompting of a brave, determined spirit.
Never put off until tomorrow what you can do the day after tomorrow.
Nothing so needs reforming as other people's habits.
Always do right. This will gratify some people and astonish the rest.
There are lies, damned lies, and statistics.
Let us be thankful for the fools. But for them the rest of us could not succeed.
A powerful agent is the right word. Whenever we come upon one of those intensely right words... the resulting effect is physical as well as spiritual, and electrically prompt.
The difference between the right word and the almost right word is the difference between lightning and the lightning bug.
Mahatma Gandhi
1869-1948
Indian Political and Spiritual Leader
A man is the sum of his actions, of what he has done, of what he can do, Nothing else.
Anger and intolerance are the twin enemies of correct understanding.
Truth never damages a cause that is just.
Be the change you want to see in the world.
You can chain me, you can torture me, you can even destroy this body, but you will never imprison my mind.
When I despair, I remember that all through history the way of truth and love has always won. There have been tyrants and murderers and for a time they seem invincible but in the end, they always fall -- think of it, ALWAYS.
Faith must be enforced by reason. When faith becomes blind it dies.
The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong.
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.
The moment the slave resolves that he will no longer be a slave. His fetters fall... freedom and slavery are mental states.
It is easy enough to be friendly to one's friends. But to befriend the one who regards himself as your enemy is the quintessence of true religion. The other is mere business.
Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony.
As human beings, our greatness lies not so much in being able to remake the world -- that is the myth of the atomic age -- as in being able to remake ourselves.
You must not lose faith in humanity. Humanity is an ocean; if a few drops of the ocean are dirty, the ocean does not become dirty.
An unjust law is itself a species of violence. Arrest for its breach is more so.
I first learned the concepts of non-violence in my marriage.
Non-violence is not a garment to be put on and off at will. Its seat is in the heart, and it must be inseparable part of our very being.
I have learned through bitter experience the one supreme lesson to conserve my anger, and as heat conserved is transmitted into energy, even so our anger controlled can be transmitted into a power that can move the world.
An eye for eye only ends up making the whole world blind.
Satisfaction lies in the effort, not in the attainment, full effort is full victory.
They cannot take away our self-respect if we do not give it to them.
In a gentle way, you can shake the world.
The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others.
Intolerance betrays want of faith in one's cause.
Elbert Hubbard
1859-1915
American Author and Publisher
Genius is only the power of making continuous efforts.
The line between failure and success is so fine
that we scarcely know when we pass it:
so fine that we are often on the line and do not know it.
How many a man has thrown up his hands at a time
when a little more effort, a little more patience,
would have achieved success.
As the tide goes out, so it comes clear in.
In business, sometimes, prospects may seem darkest
when really they are on the turn.
A little more persistence, a little more effort,
and what seemed hopeless failure
may turn to glorious success.
There is no failure except in no longer trying.
There is no defeat except from within,
no really insurmountable barrier
save our own inherent weakness of purpose.
God will not look you over for medal, degrees or diplomas, but for scars.
If pleasures are greatest in anticipation, just remember that this is also true of trouble.
Do your work with your whole heart, and you will succeed -- there's so little competition.
To avoid criticism, do nothing, say nothing, be nothing.
An executive is a man who can make quick decisions and is sometimes right.
If you have no enemies you are apt to be in the same predicament in regard to friends.
Your friend is that man who knows all about you, and still likes you.
Do not take life too seriously; you will never get out of it alive.
The man who has no more problems to solve, is out of the game.
The world is moving so fast now-a-days that the man who says it can't be done is generally interrupted by someone doing it.
Genius may have its limitations, but stupidity is not thus handicapped.
Victory; a matter of staying power.
Forbid a man to think for himself or to act for himself and you may add the joy of piracy and the zest of smuggling to his life.
Henry David Thoreau
1817-1862
American Essayist, Poet, Naturalist
Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you have imagined.
If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away.
I know of no more encouraging fact than the unquestionable ability of man to elevate his life by conscious endeavor.
The greatest compliment that was ever paid me was when one asked what I thought, and attended to my answer.
If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them.
If one advances confidently in the directions of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours.
A man cannot be said to succeed in this life who does not satisfy one friend.
In the long run you hit only what you aim at. Therefore, though you should fail immediately, you had better aim at something high.
Thought is the sculptor who can create the person you want to be.
Wealth is the ability to fully experience life.
Even the death of friends will inspire us as much as their lives. . . . Their memories will be encrusted over with sublime and pleasing thoughts, as monuments of other men are overgrown with moss; for our friends have no place in the graveyard.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
1803-1882
American Poet, Essayist
I have no expectation that any man will read history aright who thinks that what was done in a remote age, by men whose names have resounded far, has any deeper sense than what he is doing today.
Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could; some blunders and absurdities have crept in; forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day; you shall begin it serenely and with too high a spirit to be encumbered with your old nonsense.
If the single man plant himself indomitably on his instincts, and there abide, the huge world will come round to him.
Nothing can bring you peace but yourself.
All mankind love a lover.
The reward of a thing well done is to have done it.
Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm.
Self-trust is the first secret of success.
Great men are they who see that spiritual is stronger than any material force; that thoughts rule the world.
Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.
What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us.
Make the most of yourself, for that is all there is of you.
Many might go to Heaven with half the labor they go to hell.
Let me never fall into the vulgar mistake of dreaming that I am persecuted whenever I am contradicted.
Nothing external to you has any power over you.
Sow a thought and you reap an action; sow an act and you reap a habit; sow a habit and you reap a character; sow a character and you reap a destiny.
Nature magically suits a man to his fortunes, by making them the fruit of his character.
No matter how often you are defeated, you are born to victory.
Passion, though a bad regulator, is a powerful spring.
People do not seem to realize that their opinion of the world is also a confession of character.
The essence of greatness is the perception that virtue is enough.
See only that thou work and thou canst not escape the reward.
The excellent is new forever.
Shallow men believe in luck, believe in circumstances: it was somebody's name, or he happened to be there at right time, or it was so then, and another day it would have been otherwise. Strong men believe in cause and effect.
A man is what he thinks about all day long.
Every great and commanding movement in the annals of the world is the triumph of enthusiasm. Nothing great was ever achieved without it.
A man is a method, a progressive arrangement, a selecting principle, gathering his like unto him wherever he goes. What you are comes to you.
A man makes inferiors his superiors by heat; self-control is the rule.
Big jobs usually go to the men who prove their ability to outgrow small ones.
For every minute you remain angry, you give up sixty seconds of peace of mind.
Commerce is of trivial import; love, faith, truth of character, the aspiration of man, these are sacred.
Earth laughs in flowers.
Great hearts steadily send forth the secret forces that incessantly draw great events.
He presents me with what is always an acceptable gift who brings me news of a great thought before unknown. He enriches me without impoverishing himself.
He who has a thousand friends has not a friend to spare,
And he who has one enemy shall meet him everywhere.
Here is the world, sound as a nut, perfect, not the smallest piece of chaos left, never a stitch nor an end, not a mark of haste, or botching, or second thought; but the theory of the world is a thing of shreds and patches.
It is easy in the world to live after the world's opinion; it is easy in solitude to live after your own; but the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps the perfect sweetness and independence of solitude.
If the single man plant himself indomitably on his instincts, and there abide, the huge world will come round to him.
The crowning fortune of a man is to be born to some pursuit which finds him employment and happiness, whether it be to make baskets, or broadswords, or canals, or statues, or songs.
The glory of friendship is not in the outstretched hand, nor the kindly smile, nor the joy of companionship; it is in the spiritual inspiration that comes to one when he discovers that someone else believes in him and is willing to trust him.
There is no prosperity, trade, art, city, or great material wealth of any kind, but if you trace it home, you will find it rooted in a thought of some individual man.
There is no thought in any mind, but it quickly tends to convert itself into power.
The world we live in is but thickened light.
The years teach much which the days never know.
We are always getting ready to live but never living.
This time, like all times, is a very good one if we but know what to do with it.
There never was a child so lovely but his mother was glad to get him asleep.
Though we travel the world over to find the beautiful, we must carry it with us or we find it not.
To believe your own thought, to believe that what is true for you in your private heart is true for all men, - that is genius.
To different minds, the same world is a hell, and a heaven.
Welcome evermore to gods and men is the self-helping man. For him all doors are flung wide: him all tongues greet, all honors crown, all eyes follow with desire. Our love goes out to him and embraces him, because he did not need it.
When a resolute young fellow steps up to the great bully, the world, and takes him boldly by the beard, he is often surprised to find it comes off in his hand, and that it was only tied on to scare away the timid adventurers.
What school, college, or lecture bring men depends on what men bring to carry it home in.
Wisdom is to finish the moment, to find the journey's end in every step of the road, to live the greatest number of good hours.
Without ambition one starts nothing. Without work one finishes nothing. The prize will not be sent to you. You have to win it. The man who knows how will always have a job. The man who also knows why will always be his boss.
You shall have joy, or you shall have power, said God: you shall not have both.
A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines. With consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do.
To laugh often and much; to win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children; to earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends; to appreciate beauty; to find the best in others; to leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch or a redeemed social condition; to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded.
Thought for the Day
Ralph Waldo Emerson
1803-1882
American Poet, Essayist