Some quotes can be seen as distinctive in that they focus on the pillars of relative thinking and can be seen as hurdles to absolute thinkers. Such quotes can be inspiring every day, all day long.
We have five focus points: (1) Individual primacy, (2) change, (3) interaction, (4) perspective, and (5) jurisdiction.
“Genius is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration.”
Thomas Edison, American inventor (1847–1931).
Focus: Individual Primacy
“The tools of the mind become burdens when the environment which made them necessary no longer exists.”
Henri-Louis Bergson, French philosopher and Nobel Prize laureate (c. 1930).
Focus: Change
“Reading without reflecting is like eating without digesting.”
Edmund Burke, Anglo-Irish statesman and philosopher (1780).
Focus: Interaction
“Make it your business to know yourself, which is the most difficult lesson in the world.”
Miguel de Cervantes, Spanish writer and author of Don Quixote (1600).
Focus: Individual Primacy
“Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance you must keep moving.”
Albert Einstein, theoretical physicist known for the theory of relativity (c. 1945).
Focus: Change
“Not all those who wander are lost.”
Viktor Frankl, Austrian neurologist, psychologist, and Holocaust survivor (c. 1960).
Focus: Perspective
“There is no foreign land; it is the traveler only that is foreign.”
Robert Louis Stevenson, Scottish novelist, essayist, and poet (c. 1885).
Focus: Perspective
“Hayek told us that, if old truths are to retain their hold on men’s minds, they must be restated in the language and concepts of successive generations.”
Friedrich August von Hayek, Austrian-British economist and Nobel laureate (c. 1960).
Focus: Change
“Say nothing of my religion. It is known to my God and myself alone. Its evidence before the world is to be sought in my life; If that has been honest and dutiful to society, the religion which has regulated it cannot be a bad one.”
Jefferson Bible Introduction, 1803 Thomas Jefferson, primary author of the Declaration of Independence, lawyer (c. 1776).
Focus: Jurisdiction
“Time is a created thing. To say ‘I don’t have time,’ is like saying, ‘I don’t want to.’”
Lao Tzu, founder of Taoism (500 BCE).
Focus: Individual Primacy
“If the people have no faith in their rulers, there is no standing for the state.”
Confucius, China’s most famous teacher, philosopher, and political theorist (c. 500 BCE).
Focus: Interaction
“Painting is easy when you don’t know how, but very difficult when you do.”
Edgar Degas, French artist and one of the founders of Impressionism, especially known for his depictions of dance (c. 1880).
Focus: Interaction
“There can be no true merit in speaking, unless what is said is thoroughly understood by him who says it.”
Cicero, Roman statesman, lawyer, scholar, and writer (106–43 BCE).
Focus: Interaction
“He that will not sail until all dangers are over, will never put to sea.”
Thomas Fuller, English churchman, historian, and prolific author (c. 1650).
Focus: Change
“Above all, don’t lie to yourself.”
Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Russian novelist and philosopher (c. 1849).
Focus: Individual Primacy
“Our greatest glory is not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall.”
Confucius, China’s most famous teacher, philosopher, and political theorist (c. 500 BCE).
Focus: Perspective
“In the woods, we return to reason and faith.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson, American essayist and poet (c. 1940).
Focus: Individual Primacy
“Readers are plentiful; thinkers are rare.”
Harriet Martineau, English social theorist and writer (c. 1860).
Focus: Individual Primacy
“Books hold most of the secrets of the world, most of the thoughts that men and women have had. And when you are reading a book, you and the author are alone together—just the two of you.”
E.B. White, American author and recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom (c. 1970).
Focus: Individual Primacy
“It’s not about what someone can do for you, it’s who and what the two of you become in each other’s presence.”
Ronald Sharp, author on high-profile social issues (c. 2014).
Focus: Interaction
“Morals today are corrupted by our worship of riches.”
Cicero, Roman statesman, lawyer, scholar, and writer (106–43 BCE).
Focus: Perspective
“Nothing astonishes men so much as common sense and plain dealing.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson, American essayist, lecturer, philosopher, and abolitionist (c. 1840).
Focus: Individual Primacy
“Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow. The important thing is not to stop questioning.”
Albert Einstein, theoretical physicist and reshaper of scientific understanding (c. 1945).
Focus: Change
“Nothing is permanent in this wicked world–not even our troubles.”
Charlie Chaplin, comic actor and filmmaker (c. 1920).
Focus: Change
“You will never reach your destination if you stop and throw stones at every dog that barks.”
Winston Churchill, British Prime Minister during World War II (c. 1940).
Focus: Perspective
“There are some things you learn best in calm, and some in storm.”
Willa Cather, American writer and Pulitzer Prize winner (c. 1923).
Focus: Individual Primacy
“Do not say a little in many words, but a great deal in few.”
Pythagoras, Greek philosopher and mathematician (c. 510 BCE).
Focus: Perspective
“Before we set our hearts too much upon anything, let us examine how happy those are who already possess it.”
Francois de la Rochefoucauld, French author and member of the nobility (c. 1650).
Focus: Change
“Nothing fixes a thing so intensely in the memory as the wish to forget it.”
Michael de Montaigne, French Renaissance philosopher (c. 1580).
Focus: Change
“A leader is best when people barely know he exists, when his work is done, his aim fulfilled, they will say: we did it ourselves.”
Lao Tzu, founder of Taoism (c. 500 BCE).
Focus: Perspective
“Do not spoil what you have by desiring what you have not; remember that what you now have was once among the things you only hoped for.”
Epicurus, ancient Greek philosopher and founder of Epicureanism (c. 280 BCE).
Focus: Change
“We can’t solve today’s problems with the mentality that created them.”
Albert Einstein, theoretical physicist and reshaper of scientific understanding (c. 1945).
Focus: Perspective
“Keep close to Nature’s heart… and break clear away, once in awhile, and climb a mountain or spend a week in the woods. Wash your spirit clean.”
John Muir, Scottish-American naturalist and “Father of the National Parks” (c. 1900).
Focus: Individual Primacy
“I have done wrong things enough in my life, and do them now; I miss the mark, draw bow, and try again.”
Theodore Parker, Unitarian minister and abolitionist (c. 1850), as cited in William James’ The Varieties of Religious Experience (1961).
Focus: Individual Primacy
“It is a painful thing to look at your own trouble and know that you yourself and no one else has made it.”
Sophocles, celebrated Athenian playwright (480 BCE).
Focus: Individual Primacy
“When I was younger, I could remember anything, whether it had happened or not.”
Mark Twain, described as the greatest humorist the United States has produced (c. 1880).
Focus: Individual Primacy
“Beware the barrenness of a busy life.”
Eleanor Roosevelt, diplomat, and activist, First Lady (c. 1940).
Focus: Individual Primacy
“Weak people revenge. Strong people forgive. Intelligent people ignore.”
Albert Einstein, German-born theoretical physicist, known for E = mc² (c. 1940).
Focus: Individual Primacy
“Nothing can be done except little by little.”
Charles Baudelaire, French poet, essayist (c. 1860).
Focus: Change
“It is our choices that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities.”
J.K. Rowling, British author, Harry Potter, philanthropist (c. 2000).
Focus: Individual Primacy
“If you want to know who controls you, look at who you are not allowed to criticize.”
Voltaire (c. 1740), French Enlightenment, advocate of freedom of speech and religion
Focus: Jurisdiction
“I usually make up my mind about a man in ten seconds, and I very rarely change it.”
Margaret Thatcher (c. 1980), Prime Minister of England, Conservative Party, “Iron Lady”
Focus: Change
“I know that I am intelligent, because I know that I know nothing.” (Apology)
Socrates (c. 430 BCE), Greek philosopher from Athens, put to death for “irreverence towards state gods,” credited as the founder of Western Philosophy, teacher to Plato, Plato teacher to Aristotle.
Focus: Perspective
“Truth is beautiful, without doubt; but so are lies.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson (c. 1940), Nietzsche described him as “the most gifted of the Americans,” Walt Whitman called him his “master.”
Focus: Perspective
“The journey of a thousand miles begins with one step.”
Lao Tzu (c. 500 BCE), Chinese philosopher, wrote foundational text for Taoism.
Focus: Perspective
“Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive…. Those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.”
C. S. Lewis (c. 1950), Oxford professor, Anglican lay theologian, literary scholar, The Screwtape Letters.
Focus: Jurisdiction
“The difference between stupidity and genius is that genius has its limits.”
Albert Einstein (c. 1950), 1921 Nobel Prize in Physics, philosophy of science.
Focus: Perspective
“Walking is man’s best medicine.”
Hippocrates (c. 420 BCE), physician, philosopher, “Father of Medicine.”
Focus: Individual Primacy
“In all things that are purely social we can be as separate as the fingers, yet one as the hand in all things essential to mutual progress.”
Booker T. Washington, “Atlanta Address” 1895, Cotton States International Exposition.
Focus: Interaction
“Happiness resides not in possessions and not in gold, happiness dwells in the soul.”
Democritus (c. 420 BCE), Greek, pre-Socratic philosopher
Focus: Individual Primacy
“All religions united with government are more or less inimical to liberty. All religions, separated from government, are compatible with liberty.”
Henry Clay (1777-1852), U.S. Senate, House speaker, helped found National Republican Party
Focus: Individual Primacy
“The era of the individual will be replaced by the Community of the People.”
Goebbels (c. 1940), chief propagandist German Nazi Party, doctorate in philosophy University of Heidelberg
Focus: Jurisdiction
“The reason why worry kills more people than work is that more people worry than work.”
Robert Frost (c. 1950), American poet, Pulitzer Prize winner, Congressional Gold Medal recipient
Focus: Perspective
“What is a soul? It’s like electricity – we don’t really know what it is, but it’s a force that can light a room.”
Ray Charles, American singer-songwriter, blinded during childhood, known for Georgia on My Mind.
Focus: Individual Primacy
“I am not afraid of an army of lions led by sheep; I am afraid of an army of sheep led by a lion.”
Alexander the Great, king of Greek Macedon, creator of one of the largest empires in history.
Focus: Individual Primacy
“Perhaps the most tragic thing about mankind is that we are all dreaming about some magical garden over the horizon, instead of enjoying the roses that are right outside today.”
Dale Carnegie, American writer and lecturer, author of How to Win Friends and Influence People (c. 1936).
Focus: Individual Primacy
“People everywhere confuse what they read in newspapers with news.”
A. J. Liebling, American journalist and contributor to The New Yorker (c. 1940).
Focus: Perspective
“Good character is not formed in a week or a month. It is created little by little, day by day. Protracted and patient effort is needed to develop good character.”
Heraclitus, Greek philosopher known for the “unity of opposites” and contributions to scientific methodology (c. 500 BCE).
Focus: Change
“Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I’m not sure about the universe.”
Albert Einstein, theoretical physicist, Nobel Prize winner (1921), and philosopher of science (c. 1950).
Focus: Perspective
“If you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change.”
Wayne Dyer, self-help author and university guidance counselor (c. 2000).
Focus: Change
“The boisterous sea of liberty is never without a wave.”
Thomas Jefferson, primary author of the Declaration of Independence and lawyer (c. 1776).
Focus: Individual Primacy
“The right question is usually more important than the right answer.”
Plato, student of Socrates, teacher of Aristotle, foundational thinker in Western philosophy (c. 380 BCE).
Focus: Interaction
“There are three rules for writing the novel. Unfortunately, no one knows what they are.”
W. Somerset Maugham, British playwright, novelist, and short story writer.
Focus: Perspective
“Failure will never stand in the way of success if you learn from it.”
Hank Aaron, American professional baseball player, Hall of Famer.
Focus: Change
“Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts.”
Daniel Patrick Moynihan (2010), U.S. Senator New York, Democrat, Harvard University Professor, United States ambassador to the United Nations.
Focus: Jurisdiction
“It’s not what happens to you, but how you react to it that matters.”
Epictetus (c. 100 CE), Greek philosopher, born into slavery.
Focus: Individual Primacy
“If you cannot find peace within yourself, you will never find it anywhere else.”
Marvin Gaye (c. 1970), Prince of Motown, Prince of Soul, Heard It Through the Grapevine, on 45th birthday shot and killed by father after an argument.
Focus: Individual Primacy
“Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson (c. 1870), champion of individualism, Oliver Wendell Holmes considered his The American Scholar to be America’s Intellectual Declaration of Independence.
Focus: Individual Primacy
“Truth does not become more true by virtue of the fact that the entire world agrees with it, nor less so even if the whole world disagrees with it.”
Maimonides (c. 1160 CE), Spanish rabbi, Torah scholar, astronomer, physician, philosopher.
Focus: Jurisdiction
“If you can’t explain it simply, you don’t understand it well enough.”
Albert Einstein (c. 1940), made contributions to quantum mechanics and philosophy of science.
Focus: Individual Primacy
“Success is the sum of small efforts – repeated day in and day out.”
Robert Collier (c. 1850), English lawyer, politician, judge.
Focus: Change
“I cannot teach anybody anything. I can only make them think.”
Socrates (c. 370 BCE), Greek philosopher, credited as the founder of Western philosophy.
Focus: Individual Primacy
“The world breaks everyone, and afterward, some are stronger at the broken places.”
Ernest Hemingway, short-story writer and journalist (c. 1940).
Focus: Change
“To hold a pen is to be at war.”
Voltaire, French Enlightenment thinker, advocate of freedom of speech and religion (c. 1740).
Focus: Individual Primacy
“Do not wait for the last judgment. It comes every day.”
Albert Camus, French philosopher, author, and journalist, 1957 Nobel Prize in Literature, The Stranger (c. 1940).
Focus: Individual Primacy
“In America, the president reigns for four years, and journalism governs forever and ever.”
Oscar Wilde, Irish poet and playwright (c. 1890).
Focus: Jurisdiction
“Truth is confirmed by inspection and delay; falsehood by haste and uncertainty.”
Tacitus, Roman historian and politician (c. 100 CE).
Focus: Interaction
“Remember upon the conduct of each depends the fate of all.”
Alexander the Great, king of Greek Macedon, largest empire in history (c. 340 BCE).
Focus: Individual Primacy
“Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive.”
C. S. Lewis, Oxford professor, Anglican lay theologian, literary scholar (c. 1950).
Focus: Jurisdiction
“All governments suffer a recurring problem: Power attracts pathological personalities. It is not that power corrupts but that it is magnetic to the corruptible.”
Frank Herbert, American science-fiction author, Dune, journalist (c. 1970).
Focus: Jurisdiction
“To argue with a person who has renounced the use of reason is like administering medicine to the dead.”
Thomas Paine, Founding Father, philosopher, political theorist, Common Sense (c. 1776).
Focus: Individual Primacy
“People with courage and character always seem sinister to the rest.”
Hermann Hesse, German-Swiss poet, novelist, painter (c. 1940).
Focus: Individual Primacy
“Without education, we are in a horrible and deadly danger of taking educated people seriously.”
G. K. Chesterton, English author, philosopher, Christian apologist, Father Brown (c. 1917).
Focus: Individual Primacy
“Hard times create strong men. Strong men create good times. Good times create weak men. And, weak men create hard times.”
G. Michael Hopf, USA Today bestselling author of over forty books (c. 2015).
Focus: Change
“The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other peoples’ money.”
Margaret Thatcher, Prime Minister of England, Conservative Party, “Iron Lady” (c. 1980).
Focus: Jurisdiction
“Everything has been figured out, except how to live.”
Jean-Paul Sartre, French philosopher, existentialism (c. 1940).
Focus: Individual Primacy
“No problem can withstand the assault of sustained thinking.”
Voltaire, French Enlightenment thinker, advocate of freedom of speech and religion (c. 1740).
Focus: Change
“People are not that easy to read. Sincerity and empathy can easily be faked. That is as true now as it was in 1863.”
Warren Buffett, successful businessman, $135 billion, philanthropist, partner Charlie Munger (c. 2024).
Focus: Individual Primacy
“The most powerful factors in the world are clear ideas in the minds of energetic men of good will.”
Sir John Arthur Thomson, Scottish naturalist, authored several notable books (c. 1900).
Focus: Individual Primacy
“Courage is what it takes to stand up and speak; courage is also what it takes to sit down and listen.”
Sir Winston Churchill, British Prime Minister during the Second World War (c. 1940).
Focus: Individual Primacy
“Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people.”
Eleanor Roosevelt, diplomat and activist, First Lady (c. 1940).
Focus: Individual Primacy
“Can anything be so elegant as to have few wants, and to serve them one’s self?”
Ralph Waldo Emerson, American essayist, lecturer, philosopher, abolitionist (c. 1840).
Focus: Individual Primacy
“Two things define you: your patience when you have nothing and your attitude when you have everything.”
George Bernard Shaw, playwright, political activist, Nobel Prize in Literature (c. 1900).
Focus: Individual Primacy
“It takes half your life before you discover life is a do-it-yourself project.”
Napoleon Hill, American self-help author, Think and Grow Rich (c. 1940).
Focus: Individual Primacy
“The content of your character is your choice. Day by day, what you choose, what you think and what you do is who you become.”
Heraclitus, Sophist, philosophical relativism, pre-Socratic, scientific methodology, the “unity of opposites” (c. 500 BCE).
Focus: Individual Primacy
“The most difficult thing in life is to know yourself.”
Thales, Greek pre-Socratic philosopher, one of the seven sages of Greek thinking (c. 570 BCE).
Focus: Individual Primacy
“The things that we love tell us what we are.”
Thomas Aquinas, Dominican friar, theologian, Sicily, proponent of natural theology (c. 1265).
Focus: Individual Primacy
“No man will make a great leader who wants to do it all himself or get all the credit for doing it.”
Andrew Carnegie, Scottish-American industrialist, philanthropist, steel industry, one of the richest Americans in history (c. 1900).
Focus: Interaction
“Beautiful young people are accidents of nature, but beautiful old people are works of art.”
Eleanor Roosevelt, diplomat, activist, First Lady (c. 1940).
Focus: Perspective
“It is during our darkest moments that we must focus to see the light.”
Aristotle, Greek philosopher, set early modern science, joined Plato’s Academy, tutored the young Alexander the Great (c. 350 BCE).
Focus: Individual Primacy
“Victory finds a hundred fathers but defeat is an orphan.”
Written by Count Galeazzo Ciano in his diary (c. 1942). The Count was foreign minister and son-in-law of Italian dictator Benito Mussolini. The Count was also put to death by the dictator.
Also attributed to Tacitus, Roman historian and politician (c. 100 CE).
Focus: Jurisdiction
“Intelligent individuals learn from everything and everyone; average people, from their experiences. The stupid already have all the answers.”
Socrates, Greek philosopher from Athens, put to death for “irreverence towards state gods,” credited as the founder of Western Philosophy, teacher to Plato, Plato teacher to Aristotle (c. 430 BCE).
Focus: Individual Primacy
“I am not afraid of an army of lions led by a sheep; I am afraid of an army of sheep led by a lion.”
Alexander the Great, king of Greek Macedon, the largest empire in history (c. 340 BCE).
Focus: Individual Primacy
“There is nothing permanent except change.”
Heraclitus, Sophist, philosophical relativism, pre-Socratic, scientific methodology, the “unity of opposites” (c. 500 BCE).
Focus: Change
“You can resolve to live your life with integrity. Let your credo be this: Let the lie come into the world, let it even triumph. But not through me.”
Alexander Solzhenitsyn, Russian author, Soviet dissident, Gulag prison system, 1970 Nobel Prize in Literature (c. 1970).
Focus: Individual Primacy
“The way I see it, if you want the rainbow, you gotta put up with the rain.”
Dolly Parton, American singer-songwriter, actress, philanthropist, country music (c. 1980).
Focus: Perspective
“The only freedom which deserves the name is that of pursuing our own good in our own way, so long as we do not attempt to deprive others of theirs, or impede their efforts to obtain it.”
John Stuart Mill, English philosopher, political economist, “the most influential English-speaking philosopher of the 1800s, supported women’s suffrage” (c. 1835).
Focus: Individual Primacy
“No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it’s not the same river and he’s not the same man.”
Heraclitus, Sophist, philosophical relativism, pre-Socratic, scientific methodology, the “unity of opposites” (c. 500 BCE).
Focus: Individual Primacy
“I do not know anyone who has gotten to the top without hard work. That is the recipe. It will not always get you to the top, but it will get you pretty near.”
Margaret Thatcher, Prime Minister of England, Conservative Party, “Iron Lady” (c. 1980).
Focus: Individual Primacy
“Thinking is the hardest work there is, which is probably the reason why so few engage in it.”
Henry Ford, founder of Ford Motor Company, cars for middle-class Americans (c. 1900).
Focus: Perspective
“Leadership is the art of getting someone else to do something you want done because he wants to do it.”
Dwight D. Eisenhower, Supreme Commander of Allied Forces during World War II, U.S. President 1953-1961 (c. 1950).
Focus: Interaction
“Live and act within the limit of your knowledge and keep expanding it to the limit of your life.”
Ayn Rand, Russian-born American author, Atlas Shrugged (c. 1940).
Focus: Individual Primacy
“Success is getting what you want. Happiness is wanting what you get.”
Dale Carnegie, American writer, lecturer, How to Win Friends and Influence People (c. 1936).
Focus: Individual Primacy
“What lies behind you and what lies in front of you, pales in comparison to what lies inside of you.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nietzsche described him as “the most gifted of the Americans,” Walt Whitman called him his “master” (c. 1940).
Focus: Individual Primacy
“As I grow older, I pay less attention to what men say. I just watch what they do.”
Andrew Carnegie, Scottish-American industrialist, philanthropist, steel industry, one of the richest Americans in history (c. 1900).
Focus: Interaction
“Human beings are born with different capacities; if they are free, they are not equal. And if they are equal, they are not free.”
Friedrich August von Hayek (c. 1960), Austrian-British academic, Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics
Focus: Individual Primacy
“We must operate with partial knowledge, and be provisionally content with probabilities; in history as in science and politics, relativity rules, and all formulas should be suspect.”
Will and Ariel Durant (c. 1950), The Lessons of History, Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction, unified history
Focus: Perspective
“Whoever cannot seek the unforeseen sees nothing, for the known way is an impasse.”
Heraclitus (c. 500 BCE), pre-Socratic philosopher, “unity of opposites”
Focus: Change
“If a man knows not to which port he sails, no wind is favorable.”
Lucius Annaeus Seneca (c. 50 CE), Roman Stoic philosopher, tutor to Nero
Focus: Individual Primacy
“A mind that is stretched by a new experience can never go back to its old dimensions.”
Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. (c. 1900), U.S. Supreme Court Justice
Focus: Individual Primacy
“He has not learned the lesson of life who does not every day surmount a fear.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson (c. 1940), called “the most gifted of the Americans” by Nietzsche
Focus: Change
“Few are those who see with their own eyes and feel with their own hearts.”
Albert Einstein (c. 1945), reshaped scientific understanding with the theory of relativity
Focus: Individual Primacy
“When you reach the end of your rope, tie a knot and hang on.”
Franklin D. Roosevelt (c. 1940), longest-serving U.S. president, overcame polio
Focus: Individual Primacy
“The risk of a wrong decision is preferable to the terror of indecision.”
Maimonides (c. 1160 CE), Spanish rabbi, philosopher, physician
Focus: Change
“The best way to find out if you can trust somebody is to trust them.”
Ernest Hemingway (c. 1940), short-story writer, journalist
Focus: Interaction
“Many of the great achievements of the world were accomplished by tired and discouraged men who kept on working.”
Oscar Wilde (c. 1890), Irish poet, playwright
Focus: Change
“Re-examine all you have been told. Dismiss what insults your soul.”
Walt Whitman (c. 1860), American poet, journalist, Leaves of Grass
Focus: Individual Primacy
“If you just set out to be liked, you will be prepared to compromise on anything at any time and would achieve nothing.”
Margaret Thatcher (c. 1980), British Prime Minister, “Iron Lady”
Focus: Individual Primacy
“Happiness depends more upon the internal frame of a person’s own mind, than on the externals in the world.”
George Washington (c. 1776), first U.S. president, presided over the Constitutional Convention
Focus: Individual Primacy
“I have never met a man so ignorant that I couldn’t learn something from him.”
Galileo Galilei (c. 1615), Italian astronomer, physicist, champion of heliocentrism
Focus: Interaction
“Those who stand for nothing fall for everything.”
Alexander Hamilton (c. 1776), Founding Father, first U.S. Secretary of the Treasury
Focus: Individual Primacy
“It starts with a vision: You create intentions and then you put intentions into motion; they become your reality.”
Jon Batiste (c. 2020), Grammy-winning pianist and singer, Album of the Year We Are
Focus: Individual Primacy
“No change of circumstances can repair a defect of character.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson (c. 1940), mentor to Walt Whitman
Focus: Individual Primacy
“I pay no attention whatever to anybody’s praise or blame. I simply follow my own feelings.”
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (c. 1770), one of the greatest composers in Western music
Focus: Individual Primacy
“Our country may be likened to a new house. We lack many things, but we possess the most precious of all—liberty!”
James Monroe (c. 1776), Founding Father, fifth U.S. president, friend of James Madison
Focus: Individual Primacy
“Perfect is the enemy of good.”
Voltaire (c. 1740), French Enlightenment thinker, advocate for freedom of speech and religion
Focus: Perspective
“The question isn’t who is going to let me; it’s who is going to stop me.”
Ayn Rand (c. 1940), Russian-American author, Atlas Shrugged
Focus: Individual Primacy
“Difficulties strengthen the mind, as labor does the body.”
Seneca (c. 50 CE), Roman Stoic philosopher
Focus: Interaction
“I’m a greater believer in luck, and I find the harder I work the more I have of it.”
Thomas Jefferson (c. 1776), primary author of the Declaration of Independence
Focus: Individual Primacy
“When someone is in your heart, they’re never truly gone.”
Mitch Albom (c. 2000), American author, Tuesdays with Morrie
Focus: Perspective
“We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark; the real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light.”
Plato (c. 380 BCE), foundational thinker in Western philosophy
Focus: Change
“The true soldier fights not because he hates what is in front of him, but because he loves what is behind him.”
G.K. Chesterton (c. 1920), English author, creator of Father Brown
Focus: Individual Primacy
“Friendship improves happiness and abates misery, by the doubling of our joy and the dividing of our grief.”
Cicero (106—43 BCE), Roman statesman, lawyer, scholar, and writer.
Focus: Perspective
“Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate.”
Carl Jung (c. 1940), Swiss psychiatrist, found the school of analytic psychologist, associate of Freud, central concept individuation
Focus: Internal Locus of Control
“Moderation in temper is always a virtue; but moderation in principle is always a vice.”
Thomas Paine (c. 1776), Founding Father, philosopher, political theorist, Common Sense
Focus: Perspective
“It’s not that I’m so smart, it’s just that I stay with problems longer.”
Albert Einstein (c. 1945), theoretical physicist, theory of relativity, reshaping scientific understanding of human nature.
Focus: Individual Primacy
“Life is a storm, my young friend. You will bask in the sunlight one moment, be shattered on the rocks the next. What makes you a man is what you do when that storm comes.”
Alexandre Dumas (c. 1850) widely read French author, The Count of Monte Cristo, The Three Musketeers; novels adapted into nearly 200 films.
Focus: Perspective
“On matters of style, swim with the current, on matters of principle, stand like a rock.”
Thomas Jefferson (c. 1776), primary author Declaration of Independence, lawyer
Focus: Individual Primacy
“Wise men speak because they have something to say; Fools because they have to say something.”
Plato (c. 380 BCE), Greek, foundational thinker in Western philosophy, student of Socrates, teacher of Aristotle, influenced by Pythagoras and Heraclitus,
Focus: Interaction
“A people that values its privileges above its principles soon loses both.”
Dwight D. Eisenhower (c. 1950), Supreme Commander of Allied Forces World War II, U.S. President 1953-1961
Focus: Perspective
“The best effect of fine persons is felt after we have left their presence.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson (c. 1940), Nietzsche described him as “the most gifted of the Americans,” Walt Whitman called him his “master”
Focus: Interaction
“The two most important days in your life are the day you’re born and the day you find out why.”
Mark Twain (c. 1880), described as the greatest humorist the United States has produced
Focus: Individual Primacy
“It is impossible to live without failing at something unless you live so cautiously that you might as well not have lived at all, in which case you have failed by default.”
J.K. ROWLING (c. 2000), British author, Harry Potter, philanthropist
Focus: Individual Primacy
“Genius is eternal patience.“
Michelangelo (c. 1525), Italian sculptor, painter, architect, poet, rival of the older Leonardo da Vinci, Pieta, David, Sistine Chapel,
Focus: Individual Primary
“My personal hobbies are reading, listening to music, and silence.”
Edith Sitwell (c. 1917), British poet and critic
Focus: Individual Primacy
“A gem cannot be polished without friction, nor a man perfected without trials.”
Seneca (c. 50 CE), Rome, Stoic philosopher, tutor to Nero who later forded Seneca to take his own life
Focus: Interaction
“To talk well and eloquently is a very great art, but that an equally great one is to know the right moment to stop.”
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (c. 1770), one of the greatest composer in the history of Western music, died 35 years old, more than 800 works, recognized at 5 years old
Focus: Interaction
“The physician should not treat the disease but the patient who is suffering from it.”
Maimonides (c. 1160 CE), Spanish rabbi, Torah scholar, astronomer, physician, philosopher
Focus: Perspective
“If you want a happy ending, that depends, of course, on where you stop your story.”
Orson Welles (c. 1940), American actor, writer, producer, narrator of The War of the Worlds
Focus: Interaction
“Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself.”
Leo Tolstoy (c. 1900), Russian writer, “War and Peace,”
Focus: Individual Primacy
“Pursue some path, however narrow and crooked, in which you can walk with love and reverence.”
Henry David Thoreau (c. 1840), American naturalist, essayist, poet, philosopher, Walden, austerity, abolitionist,
Focus: Individual Primary
“If any one comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple.” Luke 14:26
Jesus (c. 30 CE), Jewish preacher and religious leader, central figure of Christianity
Focus: Individual Primary
“For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven: a time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted; a time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up;” Ecclesiastes 3
Kohelet (c. 300 BCE), Hebrew Old Testament”
Focus: Perspective
“Everything is habit-forming, so make sure what you do is what you want to be doing.”
Wilt Chamberlain (c. 1970), holds 72 NBA records, played for Harlem Globetrotters
Focus: Individual Primacy
“This is a tough game. There are times when you’ve got to play hurt, when you’ve got to block out the pain.”
Shaquille O’Neal (c. 2000), regarded as one of the greatest basketball players of all time
Focus: Individual Primacy
“Faith is taking the first step even when you don’t see the whole staircase.”
Martin Luther King, Jr. (c. 1955), American Baptist minister, activist, political philosopher, leader in the civil right movement
Focus: Change
“Love your Enemies, for they tell you your Faults.”
Benjamin Franklin (c. 1776), U.S. Founding Father, writer, scientist, inventor, statesman, diplomat, printer, political philosopher, drafter and signer of Declaration of Independence
Focus: Perspective
“The battles that count aren’t the ones for gold medals. The struggles within yourself … that’s where it’s at.”
Jesse Owens (c. 1936), American track and field athlete, won four gold medals at the 1936 Olympic Games, set three world records, as a black man, was credited with “single-handedly crushing Hitler’s myth of Aryan supremacy
Focus: Individual Primacy
“To argue with a person who has renounced the use of reason is like administering medicine to the dead.”
Thomas Paine (c. 1776), Founding Father, philosopher, political theorist, Common Sense
Focus: Interaction
“The most intense conflicts, if overcome, leave behind a sense of security and calm that is not easily disturbed.”
Carl Jung (c. 1940), Swiss psychiatrist, found the school of analytic psychologist, associate of Freud, central concept individuation”
Focus: Change
“There’s nothing is this world more instinctively abhorrent to me than finding myself in agreement with my fellow-humans.”
Malcolm Muggeridge (c. 1960), English journalist, satirist, author, media personality, attracted to communism and went to live in the Soviet Union in 1930s, the experience turned him into an anti-communist
Focus: Interaction
“The things you really need are few and easy to come by; but the things you can imagine you need are infinite, and you will never be satisfied.”
Epicurus (c. 280 BCE). ancient Greek philosopher, founded Epicureanism
Focus: Perspective
“Human beings are born with different capacities, if they are free, they are not equal. And if they are equal, they are not free.”
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (c. 1970), Russian author, Soviet dissident, challenged political repression, wrote about the cruelty in The Gulag Archipelago, 1970 Nobel Prize in Literature
Focus: Individual Primacy
“You become what you give your attention to”
Epicurus (c. 280 BCE). ancient Greek philosopher, founded Epicureanism
Focus: Individual Primacy
“No one should be discouraged, Theaetetus, who can make constant progress, even though it be slow.” From Sophist
Plato (c. 380 BCE), Greek, foundational thinker in Western philosophy, student of Socrates, teacher of Aristotle, influenced by Pythagoras and Heraclitus,
Focus: Individual Primacy
“The soul that is within me no man can degrade.”
Frederick Douglass (c. 1840), American orator, best selling author, escaped from slavery in Maryland became a national leader of the abolitionist movement in Massachusetts
Focus: Individual Primacy
“The greater danger for most of us lies not in setting our aim too high and falling short; but in setting our aim too low, and achieving our mark.”
Michelangelo (c. 1525), Italian sculptor, painter, architect, poet, rival of the older Leonardo da Vinci, Pieta, David, Sistine Chapel,
Focus: Individual Primacy