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.
“Give me a spark of Nature’s fire—that’s all the learning I desire.”
Robert Burns (1759—1796), Scottish poet and lyricist.
Focus: Internal Locus of Control
“Courage is being able to go from failure to failure without giving up.”
Winston Churchill (1874—1965), British Prime Minister during WWII.
Focus: Perspective
“… Yet while I walked I was not independent of her. She often found me holding her skirts lest something should come out of the woods and eat me up. Several old logs and stumps imposed upon me, and got themselves taken for enormous animals. I could plainly see their legs, eyes, ears, and teeth, till I got close enough to see that the eyes were knots, washed white with rain, and the legs were broken limbs, and the ears and teeth only such because of the point from which they were seen. ….”
Frederick Douglass (1818—1895), author of Life and Times of Frederick Douglass, abolitionist, orator.
Focus: Perspective
“Each night, when I go to sleep, I die. And the next morning, when I wake up, I am reborn.”
Mahatma Gandhi (c. 1940), opposed British rule advocating nonviolent resistance and civil disobedience
Focus: Change
“A fool thinks himself to be wise, but a wise man knows himself to be a fool.”
William Shakespeare (c. 1600), English writer and dramatist.
Focus: Perspective
“Two roads diverged in a wood. I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference.”
Robert Frost (1874–1963), American poet.
Focus: Perspective
“Quality means doing it right when no one is looking.”
Henry Ford (1863—1947), American industrialist.
Focus: Internal Locus of Control
“There is nothing so useless as doing efficiently that which should not be done at all.”
Peter Drucker, Austrian-American management consultant and theorist.
Focus: Perspective
“Those who deny freedom to others, deserve it not for themselves.”
Abraham Lincoln (1809—1865), born into poverty, American lawyer, politician, and statesman who served as the 16th President of the United States.
Focus: Perspective
“Nothing is more difficult, and therefore more precious, than to be able to decide.”
Napoleon Bonaparte (1769—1821), French Emperor from 1804 until 1814 and again in 1815.
Focus: Perspective
“It is not enough to have a good mind; the main thing is to use it well.”
René Descartes (1596—1650), French philosopher, scientist, and mathematician.
Focus: Perspective
“To play a wrong note is insignificant; to play without passion is inexcusable.”
Ludwig von Beethoven (1770—1827), German composer and pianist.
Focus: Internal Locus of Control
“Very little is needed to make a happy life; it is all within yourself, in your way of thinking.”
Marcus Aurelius, Roman emperor from 161 to 180 CE and a Stoic philosopher.
Focus: Individual Primacy
“On matters of style, swim with the current, on matters of principle, stand like a rock.”
Thomas Jefferson, Founding Father, served as the third President of the United States.
Focus: Interaction
“Real knowledge is to know the extent of one’s ignorance.”
Confucius (551—479 BCE), Chinese philosopher.
Focus: Perspective
“What you get by achieving your goals is not as important as what you become by achieving your goals.”
Henry David Thoreau (1817—1862), American naturalist and philosopher, best known for his book Walden, Ralph Waldo Emerson was his mentor and friend.
Focus: Individual Primacy
“I play the notes as they are written, but it is God who makes the music.”
Johann Sebastian Bach (1685—1750), German composer and musician.
Focus: Perspective
“Silence is very important. The silence between the notes is as important as the notes themselves.”
Wolfgang Mozart (1756—1791), prolific composer.
Focus: Interaction
“Although the world is full of suffering, it is also full of the overcoming of it.”
Helen Keller (1880—1968), first deaf-blind person in the United States to earn a Bachelor of Arts degree (Radcliffe College of Harvard University).
Focus: Perspective
“I do not believe in the creed professed by the Jewish church, by the Roman church, by the Greek church, by the Turkish church, by the Protestant church, nor by any church that I know of. My own mind is my own church.
Thomas Paine (1737—1809), Founding Father, political theorist, and revolutionary
Focus: Individual Primary
“Apply reason to difficulties; harsh circumstances can be softened, narrow limits can be widened, and burdensome things can be made to press less severely on those who bear them cleverly.”
Seneca, Roman philosopher about 2000 years ago.
Focus: Perspective
“If you can’t offend, you can’t be honest.”
Thomas Paine (1737—1809), Founding Father, political theorist, and revolutionary.
Focus: Perspective
“As I grow older, I pay less attention to what men say. I just watch what they do.”
Andrew Carnegie (1835—1919), Scottish-American, industrialist, and philanthropist; expanded steel industry, one of the richest Americans in history.
Focus: Interaction
“There are no big problems, there are just a lot of little problems.”
Henry Ford (1863—1947), American industrialist.
Focus: Perspective
”By working faithfully eight hours a day, you may eventually get to be boss and work twelve hours a day.”
Robert Frost (1874—1963), American poet.
Focus: Perspective
”No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it’s not the same river and he’s not the same man.”
Heraclitus (535—475 BCE) , Greek Poet, Philosopher.
Focus: Change
“Within you is a stillness and a sanctuary to which you can retreat at any time and be yourself.”
Hermann Hesse (1877—1962), German-Swiss poet, novelist, and painter.
Focus: Internal Locus of Control
“If there is no struggle, there is no progress.”
Frederick Douglass (1818—1895), author of Life and Times of Frederick Douglass, abolitionist, orator.
Focus: Change
“Of all bad men, religious bad men are the worst.”
C.S. Lewis (1898—1963), British writer, literary scholar, and Anglican lay theologian.
Focus: Perspective
“What counts in making a happy marriage is not so much how compatible you are but how you deal with incompatibility.”
Leo Tolstoy (1828—1910), Russian writer, notable works include War and Peace.
Focus: Interaction
“People generally see what they look for, and hear what they listen for.”
Nelle Harper Lee (1926—2016), American novelist, she wrote To Kill a Mockingbird, won Pulitzer Prize.
Focus: Locus of Control
“The worst wheel of the cart makes the most noise.”
Benjamin Franklin (1706—1790), Founding Father of the United States, drafter and signer of the Declaration of Independence.
Focus: Perspective
“If you would be a real seeker after truth, it is necessary that at least once in your life you doubt, as far as possible, all things.”
René Descartes (1596—1650), French philosopher, scientist, and mathematician.
Focus: Perspective
“The Pessimist sees difficulty in every opportunity. The Optimist sees opportunity in every difficulty.”
Winston Churchill, British Prime Minister during WWII.
Focus: Perspective
“He that is discontented in one place will seldom be happy in another.”
Aesop (620–564 BCE), Greek storyteller credited with a number of fables.
Focus: Perspective
“In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity.”
Albert Einstein (1879—1955), German-born theoretical physicist.
Focus: Perspective
“I know that my plainness of speech makes them hate me, and what is their hatred but a proof that I am speaking the truth?”
Socrates (470—399 BCE), Greek philosopher from Athens who is credited as the founder of Western philosophy.
Focus: Interaction
“Ignorance, the root and stem of every evil.”
Plato, The Republic, Book 8; (427—348 BCE), ancient Greek philosopher, most decisive philosophical influences thought to have been Socrates, along with pre-Socratics Heraclitus, Pythagoras, and Parmenides.
Focus: Perspective
“I am an old man and have known a great many troubles, but most of them never happened.”
Mark Twain (1835—1910), American writer, humorist, entrepreneur, and lecturer.
Focus: Perspective
“No man is free who is not master of himself.”
Epictetus (50—135 CE), Greek, born into slavery, Stoic philosopher.
Focus: Internal Locus of Control
“You can have no dominion greater or less than that over yourself.”
Leonardo Da Vinci, Italian artist (c. 1500).
Focus: Internal of Locus of Control
“There is no greater harm than that of time wasted.”
Michelangelo (1475—1564), Italian sculptor—Pietà and David; painter—Sistine Chapel.
Focus: Perspective
“What lies behind you and what lies in front of you, pales in comparison to what lies inside of you.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803—1882), seen as a champion of individualism, American philosopher and abolitionist. Friedrich Nietzsche considered him “the most gifted of the Americans” and Walt Whitman referred to him as his “master.”
Focus: Individual Primacy
“You have power over your mind–not outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength.”
Marcus Aurelius, Roman emperor from 161 to 180 CE and a Stoic philosopher.
Focus: Internal Locus of Control
“Beware of little expenses; a small leak will sink a great ship.”
Benjamin Franklin (1706—1790), Founding Father of the United States, drafter and signer of the Declaration of Independence.
Focus: Perspective
“I have never met a man so ignorant that I couldn’t learn something from him.”
Galileo Galilei (1564—1642), Italian astronomer, physicist and engineer.
Focus: Perspective
“I speak to everyone in the same way, whether he is the garbage man or the president of the university.”
Albert Einstein, (1879—1955), German-born theoretical physicist.
Focus: Perspective
“A person is but the product of their thoughts. What they think, they become.”
Mahatma Gandhi (c. 1940), opposed British rule advocating nonviolent resistance and civil disobedience.
Focus: Internal Locus of Control
“Character is much easier kept than recovered.”
Thomas Paine
Focus: Change
“The more we value things outside our control, the less control we have.”
Marcus Aurelius, Roman emperor from 161 to 180 CE and a Stoic philosopher.
Focus: Internal Locus of Control
“When the well is dry, we know the worth of water.”
Benjamin Franklin (1706—1790), printer, Founding Father of the United States, drafter and signer of the Declaration of Independence.
Focus: Interaction
“For many men, the acquisition of wealth does not end their troubles, it only changes them.”
Seneca, Roman philosopher about 2000 years ago.
Focus: Perspective
“Nothing gives one person so much advantage over another as to remain always cool and unruffled under all circumstances.”
Thomas Jefferson, Founding Father, served as the third President of the United States.
Focus: Perspective
“People grow through experience if they meet life honestly and courageously. This is how character is built.”
Eleanor Roosevelt (1884—1962), activist, first lady of the United States from 1933 to 1945, during her husband President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s four terms in office, making her the longest-serving first lady of the United States.
Focus: Individual Primacy
“When the debate is lost, slander becomes the tool of the losers.”
Socrates (470—399 BCE), Greek philosopher from Athens who is credited as the founder of Western philosophy.
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 (1835—1910), American writer, humorist, entrepreneur, and lecturer.
Focus: Perspective
“The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. To be your own man is hard business. If you try it, you will be lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself.”
Rudyard Kipling (1865—1936), English novelist and journalist; born in British India.
Focus: Individual Primary
“People only see what they are prepared to see.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803—1882), seen as a champion of individualism, American philosopher and abolitionist.
Focus: Interaction
“It is easy to be brave from a safe distance.”
Aesop (620–564 BCE), Greek storyteller credited with a number of fables.
Focus: Interaction
“That men do not learn very much from the lessons of history is the most important of all the lessons of history.”
Aldous Huxley (1894—1963), English writer and philosopher.
Focus: Internal Locus of Control
“You can love a person dear to you with a human love, but an enemy can only be loved with divine love.”
Leo Tolstoy (1828—1910), Russian writer, notable works include War and Peace.
Focus: Perspective
“Few are those who see with their own eyes and feel with their own hearts.”
Albert Einstein (1879—1955), German-born theoretical physicist.
ocus: Internal Locus of Control
”There never was a good knife made of bad steel.”
Benjamin Franklin (1706—1790), inventor, Founding Father of the United States, drafter and signer of the Declaration of Independence.
Focus: Interaction
“He has not learned the lesson of life who does not every day surmount a fear.”
Julius Caesar (100—44 BCE), Roman general, politician, named himself dictator of Roman Empire; ruled less than one year before assassinated by political rivals.
Focus: Internal Locus of Control
“People might not get all they work for in this world, but they must certainly work for all they get.”
Frederick Douglass (1818—1895), author of Life and Times of Frederick Douglass, abolitionist, orator.
Focus: Perspective
”O, what a tangled web we weave when first we practice to deceive!”
Sir Walter Scott (1771—1832), Scottish historian, novelist, poet, and playwright.
Focus: Interaction
“Don’t expect to build up the weak by pulling down the strong.”
Calvin Coolidge (1872—1933), 30th President of the United States, Republican, reputation as a small-government conservative.
Focus: Perspective
“When the people find that they can vote themselves money, that will herald the end of the republic.”
Benjamin Franklin (1706—1790), statesman, Founding Father of the United States, drafter and signer of the Declaration of Independence.
Focus: Perspective
“When everything seems to be going against you, remember that the airplane takes off against the wind, not with it.”
Henry Ford (1863—1947), American industrialist.
Focus: Interaction
”Quality means doing it right when no one is looking.”
Henry Ford (1863—1947), American industrialist.
Focus: Internal Locus of Control
“It’s not what you look at that matters, it’s what you see.”
Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862), American naturalist and philosopher, best known for his book Walden, Ralph Waldo Emerson was his mentor and friend.
Focus: Interaction
“The man who will use his skill and constructive imagination to see how much he can give for a dollar, instead of how little he can give for a dollar, is bound to succeed.”
Henry Ford (1863—1947), American industrialist.
Focus: Perspective
“It is the peculiar quality of a fool to perceive the faults of others and to forget his own.”
Cicero (106—43 BCE), Roman statesman, lawyer, scholar, and writer.
Focus: Perspective
“If you are distressed by anything external, the pain is not due to the thing itself, but to your estimate of it; and this you have the power to revoke at any moment.”
Marcus Aurelius, Roman emperor from 161 to 180 CE and a Stoic philosopher.
Focus: Internal Locus of Control
“Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect.”
Mark Twain (1835—1910), American writer, humorist, entrepreneur, and lecturer.
Focus: Internal Locus of Control
“The expectations of life depend upon diligence; the mechanic that would perfect his work must first sharpen his tools.”
Confucius (551—479 BCE), Chinese philosopher.
Focus: Interaction
“If people knew how hard I worked to get my mastery, it wouldn’t seem so wonderful at all.”
Michelangelo (1475—1564), Italian sculptor—Pietà and David; painter—Sistine Chapel.
Focus: Interaction
”I cannot make my days longer, so I strive to make them better.”
Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862), American naturalist and philosopher, best known for his book Walden, Ralph Waldo Emerson was his mentor and friend.
Focus: Perspective
“It’s no use going back to yesterday, because I was a different person then.”
Lewis Carroll (1832—1898), English author, poet, and mathematician; most notable works include Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.
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
Focus: Perspective
“Never do anything against conscience even if the state demands it.”
Albert Einstein (1879—1955), German-born theoretical physicist.
Focus: Individual Primary
“Victory has a thousand fathers; defeat is an orphan.”
Focus: Perspective
”The greatest minds are capable of the greatest vices as well as of the greatest virtues.”
René Descartes, French philosopher, scientist, and mathematician
Focus: Interaction
“Cowards die many times before their actual deaths.”
Julius Caesar (100—44 BCE), Roman general, politician, named himself dictator of Roman Empire; ruled less than one year before assassinated by political rivals.
Focus: Perspective
“You cannot teach a man anything; you can only help him find it within himself.”
Galileo Galilei (1564—1642), Italian astronomer, physicist and engineer. Focus: Internal Locus of Control
”What sweetness is left in life, if you take away friendship? Robbing life of friendship is like robbing the world of the sun. A true friend is more to be esteemed than kinsfolk.”
Cicero (106—43 BCE), Roman statesman, lawyer, scholar, and writer.
Focus: Perspective
”A friend to all is a friend to none.”
Aristotle (384—322 BCE, On Reasoning; ancient Greek philosopher, writings covered natural sciences, philosophy, linguistics, economics, politics, psychology, and the arts.
Focus: Perspective
“Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities.”
Focus: Interaction
”Our greatness lies not so much in being able to remake the world as being able to remake ourselves.”
Mahatma Gandhi, (c. 1940), opposed British rule advocating nonviolent resistance and civil disobedience.
Focus: Internal Locus of Control
“There is nothing noble in being superior to your fellow men. True nobility lies in being superior to your former self.”
Ernest Hemingway (1899—1961), American novelist, 1954 Nobel Prize in Literature.
Focus: Individual Primary
”The really unhappy person is the one who leaves undone what they can do, and starts doing what they don’t understand; no wonder they come to grief.”
Johann W. Goethe (1749—1832), viewed as the most influential German writer.
Focus: Perspective
“Half the world is composed of people who have something to say and can’t, and the other half who have nothing to say and keep on saying it.”
Robert Frost (1874—1963), American poet.
Focus: Perspective
“Opportunity is missed by most because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.”
Thomas Edison (1847—1931), American inventor.
Focus: Perspective
“Be courteous to all, but intimate with few, and let those few be well tried before you give them your confidence.”
George Washington (1732—1799), military officer, statesman, Founding Father, served as the first President of the United States.
Focus: Interaction
“Only as far as a man is happily married to himself is he fit for married life and family life in general.”
Novalis (1772—1801), German aristocrat, poet, novelist, philosopher, and mystic.
Focus: Individual Primary
“In every walk with nature, one receives far more than he seeks.”
John Muir (1838—1914), Scottish-born American, naturalist, author, environmental philosopher, botanist, and early advocate for the preservation of wilderness
Focus: Interaction
“I’m a greater believer in luck, and I find the harder I work the more I have of it.”
Thomas Jefferson (1743—1826), lawyer, architect, philosopher, Founding Father, served as the third President of the United States.
Focus: Interaction
“Those who rob Peter to pay Paul can always depend on the support of Paul.”
George Bernard Shaw (1856—1950), Irish playwright, critic, polemicist, political activist, awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature.
Focus: Interaction
“Alexis de Tocqueville had no memory for words nor for figures, but he possessed the strongest possible remembrance of ideas; when once grasped his mind retained them forever.”
Gustave de Beaumont (1802—1866), French magistrate, friend of Tocqueville.
Focus: Perspective
“Consciences must be free if they are to stand in judgment on the Last Day.”
Focus: Perspective
“No one can give you better advice than yourself.”
Cicero (106—43 BCE), Roman statesman, lawyer, scholar, and writer.
Focus: Individual Primary
“When I use a word,” Humpty-Dumpty said, “it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less.”
Lewis Carroll (1832—1898), English author, poet, and mathematician; most notable works include Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.
Focus: Internal Locus of Control
“The forms of grammar are never persistently obeyed, and cannot be…The English Language is grandly lawless like the race who use it—or, rather, breaks out of the little laws to enter truly the higher ones.”
Walt Whitman (1819—1892), An American Primer in Leaves of Grass; American poet.
Focus: Internal Locus of Control
“Religion is the fashionable substitute for belief.”
Oscar Wilde (1854—1900), Irish poet and playwright, The Importance of Being Earnest.
Focus: Perspective
“It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.”
Aristotle (384—322 BCE), ancient Greek philosopher, writings covered natural sciences, philosophy, linguistics, economics, politics, psychology, and the arts.
Focus: Interaction
“Anyone who can only think of one way to spell a word obviously lacks imagination.”
Mark Twain (1835—1910), American writer, humorist, entrepreneur, and lecturer.
Focus: Perspective
“Life is a sexually transmitted disease. That is, it is transmitted sexually and terminates in death.”
Focus: Perspective
“Let the dead bury the dead.”
Exodus 32.32; Psalms 69:28; Revelations 3:5
Focus: Perspective
“A nervous breakdown may lead to a spiritual breakthrough.”
Focus: Change
“Even a stopped clock is correct twice a day.”
Focus: Interactions
“Only thing certain is death and taxes.”
Focus: Perspective
“Doubt is uncomfortable, certainty is ridiculous.”
Voltaire (1694—1778), writer, philosopher, historian, advocate of freedom of speech, freedom of religion, and separation of church and state.
Focus: Perspective
“Enemies—listen to them—tell you what’s wrong with you.”
Ben Franklin (1706–1790), diplomat, Founding Father of the United States, drafter and signer of the Declaration of Independence.
Focus: Interactions
“The unexamined life is not worth living.”
Socrates, (470—399 BCE), Greek philosopher from Athens who is credited as the founder of Western philosophy. Apology.
Focus: Individual Primacy
“If you wish to talk to me, define your terms.”
Voltaire (1694—1778), writer, philosopher, historian, advocate of freedom of speech, freedom of religion, and separation of church and state.
Focus: Interactions
“The beginning of wisdom is the definitions of terms.”
Socrates (470—399 BCE), Greek philosopher from Athens who is credited as the founder of Western philosophy.
Focus: Interactions
“Vague and nebulous is the beginning of all things, but not their end.”
Focus: Change
“The world we have created is a product of our thinking.
It cannot be changed without changing our thinking.”
Albert Einstein (1879—1955), German-born theoretical physicist.
Focus: Change
“I have learned silence from the talkative, toleration from the intolerant, and kindness from the unkind; yet strange, I am ungrateful to those teachers.”
Kalil Gibran (1883—1931), Lebanese-American writer, wrote one of the best-selling books of all time.
Focus: Interactions
“If a nation expects to be ignorant and free—it expects to have what never has been and never will be.”
Thomas Jefferson, Founding Father, served as the third President of the United States.
Focus: Perspective
“In the hands of judges, the Constitution is a mere thing of wax that judges can twist and shape to their liking and in their own design.”
Thomas Jefferson, Founding Father, served as the third President of the United States.
Focus: Interactions
“I know everything about hitting and nothing about living.”
Darryl Strawberry (b. 1962), interview on 60 Minutes (4-15-01), New York Mets Baseball Hall of Fame.
Focus: Perspective
“Better to be a thorn in the side of a friend than an echo.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803—1882), champion of individualism, American philosopher and abolitionist. Friedrich Nietzsche considered him “the most gifted of the Americans” and Walt Whitman referred to him as his “master”.
Focus: Interaction
“The hidden language of winks and nods.”
Focus: Interaction
“At times, we have the paralysis of analysis.”
Focus: Interaction
Five Jewish men who influenced the history of Western civilization:
Moses said the law is everything.
Jesus said love is everything.
Marx said capital is everything.
Freud said sex is everything.
Einstein said everything is relative.
Focus: Perspective
“The hole and the patch should be commensurate.”
Thomas Jefferson, Founding Father, served as the third President of the United States.
Focus: Interaction
“Moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue.”
Focus: Perspective
“Desiring recognition, he was a statue in search of a pedestal.”
Focus: Interaction
“The natural tendency is for liberty to yield and central government to increase.”
George Washington (1732—1799), military officer, statesman, Founding Father, served as the first President of the United States.
Focus: Perspective
“Where there is much desire to learn, there of necessity will be much arguing.”
John Milton (1606—1674), English poet and historian, epic poem Paradise Lost.
Focus: Interaction
“First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.”
Mahatma Gandhi (c. 1940), opposed British rule advocating nonviolent resistance and civil disobedience
Focus: Change
“It took me 17 years to get 3000 hits in baseball; in golf I did it in one day.”
Hank Aaron (1934—2021), considered one of the greatest baseball players in history, inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame, broke Babe Ruth’s record for home runs.
Focus: Perspective
“What matters most in sports was not whether you won or lost but how you played the game.”
Grantland Rice, father of American sports writing.
Focus: Individual Primacy
“Elected representatives should be subject to periodical rotation. For nothing so strongly impels a man to regard the interest of his constituents as the certainty of returning to the general masses of the people from whence he was taken and where he must participate in their burdens.”
George Mason (1725—1792), deemed father of the Bill of Rights, Founding Father.
Focus: Interaction
“In my first draft, I did not change one word; that word was on page 85.”
Focus: Perspective
“The reward of a thing well done is to have it done.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803—1882), seen as a champion of individualism, American philosopher and abolitionist. Friedrich Nietzsche considered him “the most gifted of the Americans” and Walt Whitman referred to him as his “master.”
Focus: Interaction
“What you have inherited from your fathers, earn over again for yourselves, or it will not be yours.”
Johann Goethe (1749—1832), regarded as the greatest and most influential German writer.
Focus: Internal Locus of Control
“Show me the man you honor, and I will know what kind of man you are.”
Thomas Carlyle (1795—1881), Scottish historian and essayist.
Focus: Interaction
“Never close your lips to those to whom you have opened your heart.”
Charles Dickens (1812—1870), English writer, works include A Tale of Two Cities.
Focus: Interaction
“It is not because things are difficult that we do not dare; it is because we do not dare that they are difficult.”
Seneca, Roman philosopher about 2000 years ago.
Focus: Interaction
“To be everywhere is to be nowhere.”
Seneca, Roman philosopher about 2000 years ago.|
Focus: Interaction
“When I approach a child, he inspires in me two sentiments: tenderness for what he is, and respect for what he may become.”
Louis Pasteur (1822—1895), French chemist and microbiologist, germ theory, discoveries of the principles of vaccination, microbial fermentation, and pasteurization, the last of which was named after him.
Focus: Change
“He’s the type of guy who thought Joan of Arc was Noah’s wife.”
Focus: Change
“A little rebellion is a healthy part of maturation.”
Thomas Jefferson, Founding Father, served as the third President of the United States.
Focus: Change
“Every day people are straying away from the church and going back to God.”
Lenny Bruce (1925—1966), American stand-up comedian, social critic, and satirist.
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. Your integrity is your destiny…it is the light that guides your way.”
Heraclitus (535—475 BCE), Greek poet, philosopher.
Focus: Individual Primacy
“Have you learn’d lessons only of those who admired you, and were tender with you, and stood aside for you? Have you not learn’d great lessons from those who reject you, and brace themselves against you? Or who treat you with contempt, or dispute the passage with you?”
Walt Whitman (1819—1892), Stronger Lessons; American poet, essayist, and journalist, considered one of the most influential poets in American history.
Focus: Change
“Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses your understanding.”
Kahlil Gibran (1883—1931), The Prophet, Lebanese-American writer, wrote one of the best-selling books of all time.
Focus: Change
“And in much of your talking, thinking is half murdered. For thought is a bird of space, that in a cage of words may indeed unfold its wings but cannot fly. There are those among you who seek the talkative through fear of being alone.”
Kahlil Gibran (1883—1931), The Prophet, Lebanese-American writer, wrote one of the best-selling books of all time.
Focus: Interaction
“You can observe a lot by just watching.”
Yogi Berra
Focus: Perspective
“But you who are strong and swift, see that you do not limp before the lame, deeming it kindness.”
Kahlil Gibran (1883—1931), The Prophet, Lebanese-American writer, wrote one of the best-selling books of all time.
Focus: Interaction
“Only when you drink from the river of silence shall you indeed sing.”
Kahlil Gibran (1883—1931), The Prophet, Lebanese-American writer, wrote one of the best-selling books of all time.
Focus: Internal Locus of Control
“We wanderers, ever seeking the lonelier way.”
Kahlil Gibran (1883—1931), The Prophet, Lebanese-American writer, wrote one of the best-selling books of all time.
Focus: Internal Locus of Control
“…the fewer ideas that men have the surer they are that they are right.”
Clarence Darrow (1857—1938), Attorney for the Damned, p. 128.
Focus: Change
“I have reached a point where I am sure of my ignorance.”
Nathaniel Cantor, Dynamics of Learning, 1947, p. 226.
Focus: Internal Locus of Control
“I’m just a square in your circle of friends.”
Western Song Lyrics
Focus: Perspective
“If there is something that characterizes my life, it is that I have had to struggle with the world’s dramatic future—the future always tending to shake the ground of the present on which I had my feet.”
Jose Ortega y Gasset (1883—1955), Spanish philosopher and essayist, defends the values of meritocratic liberalism
Focus: Change
“Any fool can make a rule, and every fool will mind it.”
Henry David Thoreau (1817—1862), American naturalist and philosopher, best known for his book Walden, Ralph Waldo Emerson was his mentor and friend.
Focus: Internal Locus of Control
“We have a good section of cross people.”
Focus: Perspective
“Children are marvelous, they don’t bore you with pictures of their parents.”
Focus: Perspective
“Regarding materialism, a man in an auto accident was moaning to arriving medics: Oh my BMW. Medic said, we can’t find your left arm, man. Man said, Oh my Rolex watch.”
Cecil Murray, First African Methodist Episcopal Church of Los Angeles
Focus: Perspective
“To err is human; to forgive is not district policy.”
Focus: Perspective
“A child who is protected from all controversial ideas is as vulnerable as a child who is protected from every germ. The infection, when it comes—and it will come—may overwhelm the system, be it the immune system or the belief system.”
Jane Smiley, Chicago Tribune; Readers’ Digest, circa March 1995
Focus: Change
“There is a rule in sailing where the more maneuverable ship should give way to the less maneuverable craft. I think this is sometimes a good rule to follow in human relationships as well.”
Joyce Brothers, Readers Digest, circa March 1995
Focus: Interactions
“Old age is like climbing a mountain. The higher you get, the more tired and breathless you become. But your view becomes much more extensive.”
Ingmar Bergman, Readers’ Digest, circa March 1995
Focus: Change
“When I first met this very talented person I just knew he had something—so I recommended a doctor to him and he got rid of it.”
Focus: Perspective
“None love the messenger who brings bad news.”
Sophocles (497—406 BCE), ancient Greek playwright
Focus: Interactions
“People will resist, as a rule, any change that tends to threaten their practices and percepts.”
W.R. Miles and C.C. Miles, Mental Changes in Normal Aging.
Focus: Change
“Government is not reason; it is not eloquence: it is force! Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master.”
George Washington (1732—1799), military officer, statesman, Founding Father, served as the first President of the United States.
Focus: Perspective
Said of government: “It possesses an innate lust to expand its power with an appetite that grows with every bite.”
James Madison (1751—1836), Founding Father, served as the fourth U.S. President.
Focus: Perspective
“He who splits his own wood warms himself twice.”
Focus: Perspective
“I’m sorry this letter is so long, but I didn’t have time to make it shorter?”
Blaise Pascal, French mathematician, sixteenth letter dated 12-4-1656.
Focus: Perspective
“Doubt is uncomfortable, certainty is ridiculous.”
Voltaire, French philosopher and author, c. 1750.
Focus: Perspective
“I disapprove of what you say but I will defend to the death your right to say it.”
Attributed to Voltaire who said something similar. Phrase was coined in 1906 by a biographer of Voltaire to sum up the French writer’s views.
Focus: Individual Primacy
“A government large enough to give you everything you want, is also, large enough to take all you have.”
Gerald Ford, U.S. President, First Address, August 1974.
Focus: Perspective
“The challenge in life is not getting what you want, but wanting it after you get it.”
Kathryn Hepburn, American Actress
Focus: Change
“Is not dread of thirst when your well is full, the thirst that is unquenchable?”
Kahlil Gibran, The Prophet
Focus: Perspective
“If you are alone you belong entirely to yourself…If you are accompanied by even one companion you belong only half to yourself, or even less, in proportion to the thoughtlessness of his conduct; and if you have more than one companion you will fall more deeply into the same plight.”
Leonardo da Vinci, Italian artist, c. 1500.
Focus: Internal Locus of Control
“I went into the woods for I wished to live deliberately. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life! To put to rout all that was not life, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.”
Henry David Thoreau (1817—1862), American naturalist, essayist, and philosopher.
Focus: Individual Primacy
“And if you cannot work with love but only with distaste, it is better that you should leave your work and sit at the gate of the temple and take alms of those who work with joy.”
Kahlil Gibran, The Prophet, (1883—1931), Lebanese-American writer, wrote one of the best-selling books of all time.
Focus: Internal Locus of Control
“At the end of the game, the pawn and the king go to back in the same box.”
Italian Proverb
Focus: Perspective
“The course of true love never did run smooth.”
William Shakespeare, English poet, dramatist, and actor, c. 1600.
Focus: Interaction
“I love you, not so much for what you are, but what I am when I am with you.”
Mary Carolyn Davies
Focus: Individual Primacy
“To lead the people, walk behind them.”
Lao Tzu or Laozi, Chinese (c. 500 BCE), Taoist philosopher.
Focus: Perspective
“To know oneself is to study oneself in action with another person.”
Tao of Jeet Kune Do, 1975, a book expressing Bruce Lee’s martial arts philosophy.
Focus: Interaction
“Those who know do not speak; those who speak do not know.”
Lao Tzu or Laozi, Chinese, c. 500 BCE, Taoist philosopher.
Focus: Perspective
“The most foolish mistake we could possibly make would be to allow the subjected people to carry arms. History shows that all conquerors who have allowed their subjected peoples to carry arms have prepared their own fall.”
Adolph Hitler, Edict of March 18, 1938
Focus: Perspective
“Ideas are far more powerful than guns. We don’t allow our enemies to have guns, why should we allow them to have ideas?”
Joseph Stalin (1878—1953), dictator of Soviet Union from 1924 until his death in 1953, Marxism–Leninism philosophy.
Focus: Perspective
“I have never let schooling interfere with my education.”
Mark Twain (1835—1910), American writer, humorist, entrepreneur, and lecturer.
Focus: Individual Primary
“If one consults a sufficiently large number of people for a long enough time, one can develop insurmountable opposition to the most innocuous idea.”
A supplement to Parkinson’s Law
Focus: Interaction
“Your most unhappy customers are your greatest source of learning.”
Bill Gates (b. 1955), business magnate, investor, and philanthropist, co-founding software giant Microsoft, Forbes list of the world’s wealthiest people.
Focus: Interaction
“The pursuit of perfection often impedes improvement.”
George Will (b. 1941), political commentator, Pulitzer Prize for Commentary.
Focus: Perspective
“Anything I’ve ever done that ultimately was worthwhile…initially scared me to death.”
Betty Bender (1972—1991), American R&B singer.
Focus: Change
“ You miss 100 percent of the shots you never take.”
Wayne Gretzky (b. 1961) Canadian former professional ice hockey, called the greatest ice hockey player ever by sportswriters, players, The Hockey News, and by the NHL itself, Hockey Hall of Fame.
Focus: Perspective
“All power tends to corrupt; absolute power corrupts absolutely.”
Lord Acton, British historian.
Focus: Interaction
“Expecting the world to treat you fairly because you are a good person is a little like expecting the bull not to attack you because you are a vegetarian.”
Dennis Wholey (b. 1939), American TV host and producer, author of self-help books.
Focus: Perspective
“Those who will not reason, are bigots, those who cannot, are fools, and those who dare not, are slaves.”
Lord Byron
Focus: Perspective
“The academic community has in it the biggest concentration of alarmists, cranks and extremists this side of the giggle house.”
William F. Buckley Jr. (1925—2008), American conservative political commentator.
Focus: Perspective
“We cannot strengthen the weak by weakening the strong.”
Abraham Lincoln (1809—1865), born into poverty, American lawyer, politician, and statesman who served as the 16th President of the United States.
Focus: Change
“There are some kinds of failure that are better than success.”
Henry van Dyke (1852—1933), Story of the other Wise Man, professor of English literature at Princeton.
Focus: Perspective
“The torpedo accomplishes its goal by going forward, making errors, and continually correcting them. We are engineered to move toward the goal of our imagination.”
T.F. James, Cosmopolitan Magazine, Jan 1959.
Focus: Change
“As each day is to be spent, a new one awaits us tomorrow.”
Focus: Change
“I hesitate to teach, because I know that learning is discovering that which is within you.”
Jan de Swart (1908—1987), sculptor and inventor.
Focus: Internal Locus of Control
“True light is that which radiates from within.”
Khalil Gibran
Focus: Internal Locus of Control
“If criticism could harm, the skunk would be dead.”
Proverb
Focus: Internal Locus of Control
“We are all immersed in the atmosphere of our own thinking, which is the direct result of all we have ever said, thought, or done.”
Focus: Interaction
“I had gotten to the point where I was either going to play the violin much better or I was going to break it over my knee.”
Ellen Taaffe Zwilich (b. 1939), American composer, the first female composer to win the Pulitzer Prize for Music.
Focus: Interaction
“Faith is to believe in things that we do not see, and the reward of this faith is to see in what we believe.”
Proverb
Focus: Interaction
“They talk of my drinking but never my thirst.”
Scottish Proverb
Focus: Interaction
“For every problem, there exists a simple and elegant solution which is absolutely wrong.”
Wagoner, University of California at Berkeley
Focus: Perspective
“Freedom rings where opinions clash.”
Adlai Stevenson (1900—1965), United States Ambassador to the United Nations
Focus: Change
“The world we have created is a product of our thinking. It cannot be changed without changing our thinking.”
Albert Einstein (1879—1955), German-born theoretical physicist.
Focus: Interaction
“People who know the right answer always end up burning other people at the stake…it is arrogant to believe one knows what is good for someone else.”
Bruno Bettelheim, Nazi concentration camp survivor, Univ. of Chicago, psychoanalyst.
Focus: Interaction
“Last thing a fish would discover is water.”
Ralph Litton, anthropologist.
Focus: Change
“The right to be let alone is the most comprehensive of rights, and the right most valued by civilized men.”
Justice Brandeis, famous dissent in Olmstead, SCOTUS.
Focus: Individual Primary
“I did develop a strong view, partly through taking philosophy, that there is no provable certainty. Once you accept that premise, you view decisions as being about probabilities and trade-offs. That basic approach has framed everything I’ve done. And, I might add, an awful lot of investors would have stayed out of trouble in the late ‘90s if they had better understood the risks and the probabilistic aspects of what they were engaged in.”
Robert Rubin, United States Treasury Secretary (under Clinton).
Focus: Perspective
“Man is the measure of all things.”
Protagoras (490—420 BCE), pre-Socratic Greek philosopher and rhetorical theorist, numbered as one of the sophists by Plato.
Focus: Perspective
“In Germany they first came for the Communists and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Communist. Then they came for the Jews, and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Jew. Then they came for the trade unionists…. Then they came for me…no one was left to speak up.”
Pastor Martin Niemoller (1892—1984), German theologian and Lutheran pastor, best known for his opposition to the Nazi regime.
Focus: Perspective
“Penicillin came from Alexander Fleming’s chance observation in 1928 that bacteria were absent around a certain mold in a lab dish; in the early 1970s, a Japanese scientist, Akira Endo, had a hunch that fungi could break down cholesterol, after testing 6,000 types of mushroom and mold by hand, he found one that did so—which led to the $22 billion class of anticholesterol drugs called statins.”
Serendipitous insight.
Focus: Change
“Our goal is to establish a government of laws instead of men.”
John Adams (1735—1826), American statesman, attorney, diplomat; Founding Father, served as the second President of the United States.
Focus: Perspective
“Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge.”
Charles Darwin, c. 1875, English naturalist, geologist, and biologist.
Focus: Interaction
“The finest inheritance you can give to a child is to allow it to make its own way, completely on its own feet.”
Focus: Individual Primacy
Charlie and I detest taking even small risks unless we feel we are being adequately compensated for doing so. About as far as we will go down that path is to occasionally eat cottage cheese a day after the expiration date on the carton.”
Warren E. Buffett, 2003 Annual Report, Berkshire Hathaway.
Focus: Internal Locus of Control
“There are some experiences in life which should not be demanded twice from any man; and one of them is listening to the Brahms Requiem.”
George Bernard Shaw (1856—1950), Irish playwright, critic, polemicist, political activist, awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature.
Focus: Perspective
“We didn’t lose the game; we just ran out of time.”
Vince Lombardi (1913—1970), Pro Football Hall of Fame, considered by many to be the greatest coach in football history.
Focus: Perspective
“I don’t even butter my bread; I consider that cooking.”
Katherine Hepburn (1907—2003), American actress, four Academy Awards for Best Actress, known for her headstrong independence, spirited personality, and outspokenness, regularly playing strong-willed, sophisticated women.
Focus: Perspective
“Consciousness is not reducible to neural events. The meaning of the message will never be found in the chemistry of the ink.”
Roger Sperry (1913—1994), Nobel laureate; “split-brain” neurophysiologist [cited in Brain/Mind, April ‘94].
Focus: Interaction
“Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?” “ That depends a good deal on where you want to get to,” said the Cat. “I don’t much care where,” said Alice. “Then it doesn’t matter which way you go,” said the Cat.
Lewis Carroll (1832—1898), English author, poet, and mathematician; most notable works include Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.
Focus: Interaction
“And so tyranny naturally arises out of democracy, and the most aggravated form of tyranny and slavery out of the most extreme form of liberty.”
Plato, The Republic, Book 8; (427—348 BCE), ancient Greek philosopher, most decisive philosophical influences thought to have been Socrates, along with pre-Socratics Heraclitus, Pythagoras, and Parmenides.
Focus: Perspective
“It’s very satisfying for a columnist to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable.”
Wall Street Journal cited as an Old Cliché
Focus: Interaction
“There’s nothing is this world more instinctively abhorrent to me than finding myself in agreement with my fellow-humans.”
Focus: Interaction
“The first step is the hardest.”
Focus: Change
“The man whose authority is recent is always stern.”
Focus: Change
“Life comes from physical survival but the good life comes from what we care about.”
Focus: Interaction
“Courage is doing what you’re afraid to do. There can be no courage unless you’re scared.”
Focus: Interaction
“Ability is of little account without opportunity.”
Focus: Interaction
“My life is a battle.”
Focus: Interaction
“It is easy to sit up and take notice, what is difficult is getting up and taking action.”
Focus: Change
“The problems of victory are more agreeable than those of defeat, but they are no less difficult.”
Focus: Perspective
“Life is a tough game. There are times when you’ve got to play hurt, when you’ve got to block out the pain.”
Focus: Perspective
“Friendship is to have the latchkey of another’s mind.”
Focus: Interaction
“Good judgment comes from experience, and experience — well, that comes from poor judgment.”
Will Rogers (1879—1935), a Native American, born as a citizen of the Cherokee Nation, vaudeville performer, actor, and humorous social commentator.
Focus: Change
“The dread of loneliness is greater than the fear of bondage, so we get married.”
Focus: Perspective
“The purpose of life is to be defeated by greater and greater things.”
Focus: Interaction
“The price for independence is often isolation and solitude.”
Focus: Internal Locus of Control
“The squeaking wheel doesn’t always get the grease. Sometimes it gets replaced.”
Focus: Interaction
“We are all of us resigned to death—It’s life we aren’t resigned to.”
Focus: Perspective
“Holding onto hate is like taking poison and waiting for some else to die.”
Focus: Perspective
“A man must consider what a rich realm he abdicates when he becomes a conformist.”
Focus: Perspective
“If you want to be happy for a year, plant a garden. If you want to be happy for life, plant a tree.”
Focus: Perspective
“Like everything metaphysical, the harmony between thought and reality is to be found in the grammar of the language.”
Focus: Interaction
“Freedom to speak and act is meaningless without the freedom to think.”
Focus: Interaction
“Cause-effect thinking” has no place in his system.”
Referring to Kantor, in Pronko’s Panorama of Psychology.
Focus: Interaction
“A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it.”
Max Planck (1858—1947), German theoretical physicist whose discovery of energy quanta won him the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1918.
Focus: Change
“Do the thing we fear, and death of fear is certain.”
Focus: Change
“Never discourage anyone who continually makes progress, no matter how slow.”
Focus: Change
“If all the economists in the world were laid end-to-end, they would still not reach a conclusion.”
Focus: Interaction
“Confidence is the result of hours and days and weeks and years of constant work and dedication.”
Focus: Change
“The nation that will insist upon drawing a broad line of demarcation between the fighting man and the thinking man is liable to find its fighting done by fools and its thinking by cowards.”
Sir William Francis Butler, quoted in Wall Street Journal, 5-13-05, p. A12.
Focus: Perspective
“I hate the theatre, I also hate the sight of blood, but it’s in my veins.”
Focus: Perspective
“Vague and nebulous is the beginning of all things, but not their end.”
Kahlil Gibran, The Prophet
Focus: Change
“Give me a place to stand and a lever long enough and I will move the world.”
Archimedes (287—212 BCE), Greek scientist, mathematician, physicist, engineer, astronomer, and inventor.
Focus: Perspective
“I once told Nixon that the Presidency is like being a jackass caught in a hail storm. You’ve got to just stand there and take it.”
Lyndon Johnson (1908—1973), 36th President of the United States; escalated Vietnam War, democrat advocating social liberalism through equality.
Focus: Perspective
“Anyone who has begun to think places some portion of the world in jeopardy.”
John Dewey (1859—1952), American philosopher, psychologist, and educational reformer.
Focus: Change
“We wanderers, ever seeking the lonelier way….”
Kahlil Gibran (1883—1931), The Prophet, Lebanese-American writer, wrote one of the best-selling books of all time.
Focus: Internal Locus of Control
“Life is experience, experience in relationship…Does not relationship mean not only communion with people but intimacy with things and ideas?”
Krishnamurti (1895—1986), First and Last Freedom; philosopher, speaker, writer.
Focus: Perspective
“Judge not that ye be not judged.”
Bible, Matthew 7:1
Focus: Interaction
“The person who says: not I, but God in me is always in great danger of imagining that he is God.”
Dag Hammarskjold (1905—1961), cited in Markings, Foreword xxii by Auden; Swedish economist, Secretary-General of the United Nations.
Focus: Perspective
“And then, there are those who rub against one another in order to create the illusion of intimacy.”
Focus: Interactions
“In 1849, at age of 28, Fyodor Dostoyevsky was unjustly accused of political conspiracy and sentenced to four years of hard labor at a Siberian prison camp. He endured horrifying degradation, never lost faith in the human qualities and from this crushing experience of imprisonment, he emerged spiritually strengthened.”
From the jacket of The House of the Dead.
Focus: Individual Primacy
“Life in Lubbock, Texas, taught me two things. One is that God loves you and you’re going to burn in hell. The other is that sex is the most awful filthy thing on earth and you should save it for someone you love.”
Butch Hancock of the Flatlanders
Focus: Perspective
She described “…a large measure of church politics, which may surpass even academic politics in sheer viciousness.”
Description by Christopher Willcox reviewing The No-Nonsense Network by Rita Rizzo (Wall Street Journal 9-6-2005) .
Focus: Perspective
“Three groups spend other people’s money: children, thieves, politicians. All three need supervision.”
Dick Armey (b. 1940), former United States House Majority Leader.
Focus: Perspective
“Few things are as morbidly fascinating as watching someone else’s catastrophe from a safe distance.”
James Gipson, Chairman and President, Clipper Fund 6-30-2004.
Focus: Perspective
“Demonstrating all the decorum of a stampede on the Serengeti.”
Focus: Perspective
“The unspeakable in full pursuit of the uneatable.”
Oscar Wilde’s description of fox hunting, which he considered a repellant practice; (1854—1900), Irish poet and playwright, The Importance of Being Earnest.
Focus: Perspective
“Clement Attlee is a very modest man. And with reason.”
Winston Churchill, British Prime Minister during WWII.
Focus: Interaction
“Between two evils I always pick the one I never tried before.”
Mae West (1893—1980), American actress, singer, and comedian.
Focus: Perspective
“The individual regresses in a crowd and descends several rungs in the ladder of civilization.”
Gustave Le Bon (1841—1931), anthropology, social psychologist, medicine, and physics.
Focus: Interaction
“Worldly wisdom teaches that it is better for reputation to fail conventionally than to succeed unconventionally.”
John Maynard Keynes, c. 1936, English economist and philosopher.
Focus: Interaction
“It’s déjà vu all over again.”
Yogi Berra
Focus: Perspective
“Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery, and today is a gift; that’s why they call it the present.”
Eleanor Roosevelt (1884—1962), activist, first lady of the United States from 1933 to 1945, during her husband President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s four terms in office, making her the longest-serving first lady of the United States.
Focus: Perspective
“…wall of separation between church and state….”
Found in 1802, Thomas Jefferson’s letter to Baptist Association of Danbury, Connecticut
Focus: Perspective
“If I had known I was going to live this long, I would have taken better care of myself.”
Mickey Mantle (1931—1995), regarded as the greatest switch hitter in baseball history. Inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame, appeared in 12 World Series. Well-publicized bout with alcoholism that led to his death from liver cancer.
Focus: Perspective
“New thoughts and new truths go through three stages. First, they are ridiculed. Next, they are violently opposed. Finally, they are accepted as being self-evident.”
Arthur Schopenhauer (1788—1860), known for his pessimistic view of life.
Focus: Change
“Some people regard private enterprise as a predatory tiger to be shot. Others look on it as a cow they can milk. Not enough people see it as a healthy horse, pulling a sturdy wagon.”
Winston Churchill, British Prime Minister during WWII.
Focus: Perspective
“Religion without science is blind; science without religion is lame.”
Albert Einstein (1879—1955), German-born theoretical physicist.
Focus: Interaction
“Nobody can make you feel inferior without your permission.”
Eleanor Roosevelt
Focus: Individual Primacy
“Nothing in the world will take the place of persistence…persistence and determination alone are omnipotent.”
Calvin Coolidge (1872—1933), 30th President of the United States, Republican, reputation as a small-government conservative.
Focus: Internal Locus of Control
“Science is the art of creating suitable illusions, which the fool enjoys or argues against, but the wise man enjoys for their beauty or ingenuity, without being blind to the fact that they are human veils and curtains concealing the abysmal darkness of the unknowable.”
Carl Jung (1875—1961), cited in ETC: A review of General Semantics, Winter 2003-2004, Swiss psychiatrist and psychoanalyst.
Focus: Perspective
“We have eliminated the real world—which world is left? The world of appearances? Not at all. Together with the real world we have eliminated also the world of appearances.”
Friedrich Nietzsche (1844—1900), German philosopher, prose—loves words, cultural critic; citation from ETC: A review of General Semantics, v. 60, #4, Winter 2003-2004.
Focus: Perspective
“Walt Disney (1901–1966), American animator, film producer, fired by a newspaper for lacking ideas, went bankrupt several times before he built Disneyland.”
Focus: Perspective
“If you think you’re too small to make a difference, you haven’t been in bed with a mosquito.”
Focus: Perspective
“I am wiser than others because he knows nothing, and thinks that he knows; I neither know nor think that I know.”
Socrates (470—399 BCE), Greek philosopher from Athens who is credited as the founder of Western philosophy, cited from Apology, p. 11.
Focus: Perspective
“It was not that he was insincere in all that he was daily saying, but simply that he never thought about it.”
Anthony Trollope (1815—1882), English novelist
Focus: Interaction
“It’s only when the tide goes out that you discover who’s been swimming naked.”
Warren Buffett
Focus: Perspective
“I pray to live up to how good my dog thinks I am.”
Focus: Perspective
“Suppose you were an idiot and suppose you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself.”
Mark Twain (1835—1910), American writer, humorist, entrepreneur, and lecturer.
Focus: Perspective
“All except the shallowest living involves tearing up one rough draft after another.”
Msg. John J. Sullivan, The Leaflet Missal.
Focus: Change
The lad said “I am the best hitter;” several tries after throwing ball up and missing, “I am the best pitcher.”
Focus: Perspective
“The power to tax is the power to destroy.”
Chief Justice John Marshall (1755—1835), American statesman, lawyer, and Founding Father, fourth Chief Justice of the United States, citation from McCulloch v. Maryland.
Focus: Perspective
“Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.”
“Hanlon’s Razor” is a useful mental concept or guiding principle.
Focus: Interaction
“out of sight, out of mind” [English] was translated into German as “invisible idiot.”
Brussels, Belgium, EU translators.
Focus: Perspective
“The market climbs a wall of worry and slides down a slope of hope.”
Focus: Interaction
“Be less curious about people and more curious about ideas.”
Marie Curie (1867—1934), Polish and naturalized-French physicist and chemist, conducted pioneering research on radioactivity. She was the first woman to win a Nobel Prize and the first person to win a Nobel Prize twice,
Focus: Perspective
”It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.”
Aristotle (384—322 BC), On Reasoning; ancient Greek philosopher, writings covered natural sciences, philosophy, linguistics, economics, politics, psychology, and the arts.
Focus: Interaction
“Knowledge is power.”
Francis Bacon (1561—1626), Lord Chancellor of England under King James I. Father of empiricism.
Focus: Perspective
“Some books are to be tasted; others swallowed; and some few to be chewed and digested.”
Francis Bacon (1561—1626), Lord Chancellor of England under King James I. Father of empiricism.
Focus: Internal Locus of Control
“Cautious, careful people always casting about to preserve their reputation or social standards never can bring about reform.”
Susan B. Anthony (1820—1906), women’s rights activist, woman’s right to vote, abolitionist.
Focus: Change
“Youth is a wonderful thing; what a crime to waste it on children.”
George Bernard Shaw (1856—1950), Irish playwright, critic, polemicist and political activist, Nobel Prize in Literature.
Focus: Perspective
“Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man’s character, give him power.”
Abraham Lincoln (1809—1865), born into poverty, American lawyer, politician, and statesman who served as the 16th President of the United States.
Focus: Perspective
“If you want something talked about, ask a man; if you want something done, ask a woman.”
Margaret Thatcher (1925—2013), first female British Prime Minister, chemist, barrister.
Focus: Change
“I don’t need a friend who changes when I change and who nods when I nod; my shadow does that much better.”
Plutarch, Greek philosopher, historian, and priest; c. 100 CE.
Focus: Interaction
“Give me a stock clerk with a goal and I’ll give you a man who will make history. Give me a man with no goals and I’ll give you a stock clerk.”
James Cash Penney, retail magnate.
Focus: Internal Locus of Control
“Making mistakes is the privilege of the active. It is always the mediocre people who are negative, who spend their time proving that they were not wrong.”
Ingvar Kamprad, Ikea Founder.
Focus: Internal Locus of Control
“He who speaks knows not; he who knows speaks not.”
Focus: Perspective
“In the business world, everyone is paid in two coins: cash and experience. Take the experience first; the cash will come later.”
Harold Green (b. 1968), professional football player.
Focus: Interaction
“To think is to differ.”
Clarence Darrow (1857—1938), attorney, Scopes “Monkey” Trial, Leopold and Loeb murder trial.
Focus: Internal Locus of Control
“I will stop pretending to be stupid if you will stop pretending to know something.”
GFB (Gordon F. Brown)
Focus: Interaction
“In the beginning of a change, the patriot is a scarce man, and brave, and hated, and scorned. When his cause succeeds, the timid join him, for then it costs nothing to be a patriot.”
Mark Twain (1835—1910), American writer, humorist, entrepreneur, and lecturer.
Focus: Interaction
“Nothing strengthens the judgment and quickens the conscience like individual responsibility.”
Elizabeth Cady Stanton (1815—1902), activist, women’s right to vote, abolitionist.
Focus: Internal Locus of Control
“Our character…is an omen of our destiny, and the more integrity we have and keep, the simpler and nobler that destiny is likely to be.”
George Santayana (1863—1952), Spanish-American philosopher, essayist, cultural critic.
Focus: Internal Locus of Control
“There’s nothing I like less than bad arguments for a view that I hold dear.”
Daniel Dennett (b. 1942), cognitive scientist, philosophy of mind, atheist.
Focus: Internal Locus of Control
Said of the juror: “It is not only his right, but his duty…to find the verdict according to his own best understanding, judgment, and conscience, though in direct opposition to the direction of the court.”
John Adams, second U.S. President in 1771; quoted in Yale Law Journal, 74 (1964):173.
Focus: Internal Locus of Control
“Jurors should acquit even against the judge’s instruction…if exercising their judgment with discretion and honesty they have a clear conviction that the charge of the court is wrong.”
Alexander Hamilton (1755—1804), citation from Yale Review 57, (June 1968), p. 481; The Federalist Papers, Founding Father, served as first Secretary of Treasury.
Focus: Internal Locus of Control
“You might never fail on the scale I did, but some failure in life is inevitable 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 fail by default.”
J.K. Rowling (b. 1965), British author, wrote Harry Potter, 600 million copies, philanthropist.
Focus: Individual Primary
“Unburdened by convictions of his own, he could be everything to everybody.”
Said of a high-ranking politician by Prof. Dornbusch, economics/international business, MIT.
Focus: Interaction
“Diplomacy is the art of saying ‘nice doggie’ until you can find a rock.”
Will Rogers (1879—1935), a Native American, born as a citizen of the Cherokee Nation, vaudeville performer, actor, and humorous social commentator.
Focus: Interaction
“He can compress the most words into the smallest idea of any man I ever met.”
Abraham Lincoln (1809—1865), born into poverty, American lawyer, politician, and statesman who served as the 16th President of the United States.
Focus: Interaction
“We are only as good as our metaphors.”
René Descartes (1596—1650), French philosopher, scientist, and mathematician.
Focus: Perspective
“A man who doesn’t read the newspapers is ill-informed but one who reads the paper is misinformed.”
Mark Twain (1835—1910), American writer, humorist, entrepreneur, and lecturer.
Focus: Perspective
“Give me the liberty to know, to utter, and to argue freely according to conscience, above all liberties.”
John Milton, English poet and historian; epic poem Paradise Lost, 1667.
Focus: Internal Locus of Control
Alice in Wonderland talking with a caterpillar: “Who are you? The caterpillar replied, “I don’t know, I am changing.”
Focus: Change
“There is no disgrace in honest failure; there is disgrace in fearing to fail”
Henry Ford (1863—1947), American industrialist.
Focus: Internal Locus of Control
“You cannot teach a man anything; you can only help him find it within himself.”
Galileo Galilei (1564-1642), Italian astronomer, physicist and engineer.
Focus: Internal Locus of Control
“The supreme quality for leadership is unquestionably integrity. Without it, no real success is possible.”
Dwight D. Eisenhower, Supreme Commander of Allied Forces, 34th U.S. President.
Focus: Individual Primary
“Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one.”
Albert Einstein (1879–1955), German-born theoretical physicist.
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 (c. 500 BCE), ancient Greek pre-Socratic philosopher.
Focus: Change
“Watch your thoughts, for they will become actions. Watch your actions, for they’ll become… habits. Watch your habits for they will forge your character. Watch your character, for it will make your destiny.”
Margaret Thatcher (1925—2013), first female British Prime Minister, chemist, barrister.
Focus: Change
“Above all, don’t lie to yourself. The man who lies to himself and listens to his own lie comes to a point that he cannot distinguish the truth within him, or around him, and so loses all respect for himself and for others. And having no respect he ceases to love.”
Fyodor Dostoevsky, Russian novelist, four years in a Siberian prison camp, acclaimed novel Crime and Punishment (1866).
Focus: Individual Primary
“We either make ourselves miserable, or we make ourselves strong. The amount of work is the same.”
Carlos Castaneda (1925—1998), writer, anthropologist.
Focus: Internal Locus of Control
“The thing that makes you exceptional, if you are at all, is inevitably that which makes you lonely.”
Lorraine Hansberry (1930—1965), playwright and writer, first African American female author to have a play performed on Broadway.
Focus: Perspective
“When you are content to be simply yourself and don’t compare or compete, everyone will respect you.”
Lao Tzu or Laozi, Chinese, c. 500 BCE, Taoist philosopher.
Focus: Internal Locus of Control
“When everything seems to be going against you, remember that the airplane takes off against the wind, not with it.”
Henry Ford (1863—1947), American industrialist.
Focus: Perspective
“When you judge others, you do not define them; you define yourself.”
Earl Nightingale (1921—1989), motivational writer and speaker
Focus: Interaction
“Nobody ever did, or ever will, escape the consequences of his choices.”
Alfred A. Montapert (b. 1912), American philosopher, author, speaker, and engineer.
Focus: Interaction
“Teach thy tongue to say ‘I do not know’, and thou shalt progress.”
Maimonides, c. 1180, Sephardic Jewish philosopher.
Focus: Perspective
“I have learned to seek my happiness by limiting my desires, rather than in attempting to satisfy them.”
John Stuart Mill (1806–1873), English philosopher, political economist, politician and civil servant. One of the most influential thinkers in the history of classical liberalism.
Focus: Internal Locus of Control
“Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe.”
Abraham Lincoln (1809—1865), born into poverty, American lawyer, politician, and statesman who served as the 16th President of the United States.
Focus: Interaction
“We can know only that we know nothing. And that is the highest degree of human wisdom.”
Leo Tolstoy (1828—1910), Russian writer, notable works include War and Peace.
Focus: Perspective
“Whoever is careless with the truth in small matters cannot be trusted with important matters.”
Albert Einstein (1879—1955), German-born theoretical physicist.
Focus: Interaction
“The greatest deception men suffer is from their own opinions.”
Leonardo da Vinci, Italian artist, c. 1500.
Focus: Interaction
“You can’t go back and change the beginning, but you can start where you are and change the ending.”
C.S. Lewis (1898—1963), British writer, literary scholar, and Anglican lay theologian.
Focus: Change
“Education is an admirable thing, but it is well to remember from time-to-time that nothing that is worth knowing can be taught.”
Oscar Wilde (1854—1900), Irish poet, playwright, The Importance of Being Earnest.
Focus: Internal Locus of Control
“The secret of change is to focus all your energy, not on fighting the old, but on building the new.”
Socrates (470—399 BCE), Greek philosopher from Athens who is credited as the founder of Western philosophy.
Focus: Change
“I will permit no man to narrow and degrade my soul by making me hate him.”
Booker T. Washington (1856—1915), leader in the African-American community, educator, author, orator, and adviser to several presidents of the United States.
Focus: Internal Locus of Control