ftmichael, posts by tag: quotes - LiveJournal

'Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.' --Albert Einstein



Albert Einstein was once asked by a student, 'Dr Einstein, how many feet are there in a mile?' To the utter astonishment of the student, Einstein replied, 'I don’t know.'

The student was sure the great professor was joking. Surely Einstein would know a simple fact that every schoolchild is required to memorise. But Einstein wasn’t joking. When the student pressed for an explanation of this gap in Einstein’s knowledge, he declared, 'I make it a rule not to clutter my mind with simple information that I can find in a book in five minutes.'

'Nothing is a waste of time if you use the experience wisely.' --Rodin

'Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm.' --Ralph Waldo Emerson

'Ask not what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive ... then go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.' --Howard Thurman

'I appreciate people who are civil, whether they mean it or not. I think: Be civil. Do not cherish your opinion over my feelings. There's a vanity to candour that isn't really worth it. Be kind.' --Richard Greenberg

'A joyful life is an individual creation that cannot be copied from a recipe.' --Mihály Csíkszentmihályi

'Man is born to live, not to prepare for life.' --Boris Pasternak

'What's money? A man is a success if he gets up in the morning and goes to bed at night and in between does what he wants to do.' --Bob Dylan

'It's okay if you mess up. You should give yourself a break.' --Billy Joel

'Risk! Risk anything! Care no more for the opinions of others, for those voices. Do the hardest thing on earth for you. Act for yourself. Face the truth.' --Katherine Mansfield

'The question should be, is it worth trying to do, not can it be done.' --Allard Lowenstein

'For the things we have to learn before we can do them, we learn by doing them.' --Aristotle

'The inner fire is the most important thing mankind possesses.' --Edith Sodergran

'My father taught me how to be a man - and not by instilling in me a sense of machismo or an agenda of dominance. He taught me that a real man doesn't take, he gives; he doesn't use force, he uses logic; doesn't play the role of trouble-maker, but rather, trouble-shooter; and most importantly, a real man is defined by what's in his heart, not his pants.' --Kevin Smith (director of Clerks, Mallrats, Chasing Amy, Dogma, Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back, and others)

'When I'm not doing something that comes deeply from me, I get bored. When I get bored I get distracted and when I get distracted, I become depressed. It's a natural resistance, and it insures your integrity."' --Maria Irene Fornes

'Love is the ability and willingness to allow those that you care for to be what they choose for themselves without any insistence that they satisfy you.' --Wayne Dyer

'Never again clutter your days or nights with so many menial and unimportant things that you have no time to accept a real challenge when it comes along. This applies to play as well as work. A day merely survived is no cause for celebration. You are not here to fritter away your precious hours when you have the ability to accomplish so much by making a slight change in your routine. No more busy work. No more hiding from success. Leave time, leave space, to grow. Now. Now! Not tomorrow!' --Og Mandino

'Every path may lead you to God, even the weird ones. Most of us are on a journey. We're looking for something, though we're not always sure what that is. The way is foggy much of the time. I suggest you slow down and follow some of the side roads that appear suddenly in the mist.' --Real Live Preacher

'A person who has not been completely alienated, who has remained sensitive and able to feel, who has not lost the sense of dignity, who is not yet "for sale", who can still suffer over the suffering of others, who has not acquired fully the having mode of existence - briefly, a person who has remained a person and not become a thing - cannot help feeling lonely, powerless, isolated in present-day society. He cannot help doubting himself and his own convictions, if not his sanity. He cannot help suffering, even though he can experience moments of joy and clarity that are absent in the life of his "normal" contemporaries. Not rarely will he suffer from neurosis that results from the situation of a sane man living in an insane society, rather than that of the more conventional neurosis of a sick man trying to adapt himself to a sick society. In the process of going further in his analysis, i.e. of growing to greater independence and productivity, his neurotic symptoms will cure themselves. ' --Erich Fromm

'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 will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. The slogan "Press On" has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race.' --Calvin Coolidge

'Level with your child by being honest. Nobody spots a phony quicker than a child.' --Mary MacCracken

From qotdrss:
'It may be true that the law cannot make a man love me, but it can stop him from lynching me, and I think that's pretty important.' --Martin Luther King, Jr.

From motivationquote:
'How beautiful maleness is, if it finds its right expression.' --D.H. Lawrence

'I need no warrant for being, and no word of sanction upon my being. I am the warrant and the sanction.' --Ayn Rand

"Sweets carried the same element of rush, thrill, disappointment and self-disgust as sex and as every subsequent addictive substance. Even as they’re in your hand, even as they move into your mouth you are dissatisfied because it means you will soon not have them. They will be gone. You will be sweetless and in despair." --Stephen Fry

It's so true.

Frankly, I have never yet engaged in a direct action movement that was 'well-timed' according to the timetable of those who have not suffered unduly from the disease of segregation.

For years now I have heard the words "Wait!" It rings in the ear of every Negro with a piercing familiarity. This "Wait" has almost always meant "Never".

Rev Dr Martin Luther King, Jr
'Letter From Birmingham City Jail', April 16, 1963

'Once a government is committed to the principle of silencing the voice of opposition, it has only one way to go, and that is down the path of increasingly repressive measures, until it becomes a source of terror to all its citizens and creates a country where everyone lives in fear.' --Harry S Truman

'It's never too late to be who you might have been.' --George Eliot

From motivationquote:
'Learn to value yourself, which means: to fight for your happiness.' --Ayn Rand


From qotdrss:
'I have learned to use the word "impossible" with the greatest caution.' --Wernher von Braun

'You probably wouldn't worry about what people think of you if you could know how seldom they do.' --Olin Miller

'It is not giving children more that spoils them; it is giving them more to avoid confrontation.' --John Gray