H. Robertson's Collection of Aphorisms
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TRUTH
This is a collection of aphorisms, mostly, that seem to be worth saving.
(Begun 10 January 1996.) First, here are some rules.
>From chapter 2, "The Rules of Misquotation" in Ralph Keyes _Nice Guys
Finish Seventh: False Phrases, Spurious Sayings, and Familiar
Misquotations._ 1992.
Axiom 1. Any quotation that can be altered will be.
Corollary 1A: Vivid words hook misquotes in the mind.
Corollary 1B: Numbers are hard to keep straight.
Corollary 1C: Small changes can have a big impact (or: what a difference
an a makes).
Corollary 1D: If noted figures don't say what needs to be said, we'll say
it for them.
Corollary 1E: Journalists are a less than dependable source of accurate
quotes.
Corollary 1F: Famous dead people make excellent commentators on current
events.
Axiom 2. Famous quotes need famous mouths.
Corollary 2A: Well-known messengers get credit for clever comments they
report from less celebrated mouths.
Corollary 2B: Particularly quotable figures receive more than their share
of quotable quotes.
Corollary 2C: Comments made about someone might as well have been said by
that person.
Corollary 2D: Who you think said something may depend on where you live.
Corollary 2E: Vintage quotes are considered to be in the public domain.
Corollary 2F: In a pinch, any orphan quote can be called a Chinese proverb.
1. The belief that there is only one truth and that oneself is in
possession of it seems to me the deepest root of all evil that is in the
world. Max Born, physicist. (See also 63.)
2. A good aphorism is too hard for the tooth of time, and is not worn
away by all the centuries, although it serves as food for every epoch.
Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (1844-1900) _Miscellaneous Maxims and
Opinions_ (1879)
3. Misquotation is, in fact, the pride and privilege of the learned. A
widely-read man never quotes accurately, for the rather obvious reason
that he has read too widely. Hesketh Pearson (1887-1964) _Common
Misquotations_ (1934) introduction
4. The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to
do nothing. Edmund Burke?, (perhaps a modernization of 5, or the
inspiration for 45.)
5. When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall,
one by one, an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle.
_Thoughts on the Cause of the Present Discontents_(1770)
6. When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is
possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something
is impossible, he is very probably wrong.
_Profiles of the Future_ (1962; rev. 1973)
``Hazards of Prophecy: The Failure of Imagination''
(Arthur C.) Clarke's First Law
7. But the only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to
venture a little way past them into the impossible.
_Profiles of the Future_ (1962; rev. 1973)
``Hazards of Prophecy: The Failure of Imagination''
Clarke's Second Law
8. Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.
_Profiles of the Future_ (1962; rev. 1973)
``Hazards of Prophecy: The Failure of Imagination''
Clarke's Third Law
9. No man is an Island, entire of it self; every man is a piece of the
Continent, a part of the main; if a clod be washed away by the sea,
Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a
manor of thy friends or of thine own were; any man's death diminishes
me, because I am involved in Mankind; And therefore never send to know
for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.
John Donne (c.1571-1631)
_Devotions upon Emergent Occasions_ (1624) ``Meditation XVII''
10. Laws are like sausages. It is better not to see them being made.
Otto von Bismarck-Schoenhausen (1815-1898) Chancellor of Germany (Attr.)
11. Hath not a Jew eyes? hath not a Jew hands, organs, dimensions,
senses, affections, passions? fed with the same food, hurt with the same
weapons, subject to the same diseases, healed by the same means, warmed
and cooled by the same winter and summer, as a Christian is? If you
prick us, do we not bleed? if you tickle us, do we not laugh? if you
poison us, do we not die? and if you wrong us, shall we not revenge?
If we are like you in the rest, we will resemble you in that.
Shakespeare_The Merchant of Venice_ (1596-1598) act 3, sc. 1, l.63
12. Go placidly amid the noise and haste, and remember what peace there
may be in silence. As far as possible, without surrender, be on
good terms with all persons. Speak your truth quietly and clearly;
and listen to others, even to the dull and ignorant; they too have
their story. Avoid loud and aggressive persons, they are vexations
to the spirit. If you compare yourself with others, you may become
vain and bitter, for always there will be greater and lesser
persons than yourself. Enjoy your achievements as well as your
plans. Keep interested in your own career, however humble; it is a
real possession in the changing fortunes of time. Exercise caution
in your business affairs, for the world is full of trickery. But
let this not blind you to what virtue there is; many persons strive
for high ideals, and everywhere life is full of heroism. Be
yourself. Especially do not feign affection. Neither be cynical
about love; for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment it is
as perennial as the grass. Take kindly the counsel of the years,
gracefully surrendering the things of youth. Nurture strength of
spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune. But do not distress
yourself with dark imaginings. Many fears are born of fatigue and
loneliness. Beyond a wholesome discipline, be gentle with
yourself. You are a child of the universe no less than the trees
and the stars; you have a right to be here. And whether or not it
is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.
Therefore be at peace with God, whatever you conceive Him to be.
And whatever your labors and aspirations, in the noisy confusion of
life, keep peace with your soul. With all its sham, drudgery and
broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world. Be careful. Strive
to be happy. Max Ehrman (1872-1945) ``Desiderata''(1927)
13. It is better to wear out than to rust out.
Richard Cumberland (1631-1718)
in G. Horne _The Duty of Contending for the Faith_ (1786) p. 21, n.
14. One of the principal objects of theoretical research in any
department of knowledge is to find the point of view from which the
subject appears in greatest simplicity.
J. Willard Gibbs, Collected Works, v.1; p. 10.
15. We think few people sensible except those who agree with us.
La Rouchefoucauld
16. The Earth does not belong to us; we belong to the Earth.
Man did not weave the web of life; he is merely a strand in it.
Whatever he does to the web, he does to himself.
Chief Seattle (c.1786-1866) [1854]
17. He's a Blockhead who wants a proof of what he Can't Perceive
And he's a Fool who tries to make such a Blockhead believe.
William Blake (1757-1827), Notebooks, 1793
18. A Truth that's told with bad intent
Beats all the Lies you can invent
William Blake, Auguries of Innocence, 53
19. I was angry with my friend
I told my wrath, my wrath did end.
I was angry with my foe:
I told it not, my wrath did grow.
-William Blake, Songs of Experience, A Poison Tree
20. Seek simplicity but distrust it. A N Whitehead
21. There is always one moment in childhood when the door opens and lets
the future in. - Graham Greene, The Power and the Glory
22 You can't get ahead while getting even. Dick Armey
23. If at first you do succeed, try to remember how. Dennis McClain
24. What is done with joy is always better done. H. L. Mencken
25. "All that glitters is not gold" is from _Parabolae_, a book of poems
written circa 1175 by Alanus de Insulis, a French monk: _Non teneas
aurum totum quod splendet ut aurum_ = "Do not hold everything gold that
shines like gold". It was Englished by Chaucer in the _Canterbury
Tales_ (1389) as: "But al thyng which that shyneth as the gold / Nis
nat gold, as that I have herd it told."
26. Fowler quoted a correspondent who urged him to proscribe "not
all", and commented: "This gentleman has logic on his side, logic
has time on its side, and probably the only thing needed for his
gratification is that he should live long enough."
27. I grow old ever learning new things. Solon, fragment
28. Regrets and complaints about relations are to be attributed to the
same cause, which is not old age, but men's characters and tempers;
for he who is of a calm and happy nature will hardly feel the
pressure of age, but for someone with the opposite deposition, youth
and old age are equally a burden. -Plato,_The Republic_, Book 1
29. Age is only a number, a cipher for the records. A man can't retire
his experience. He must use it. Experience achieves more with less
energy and time. -Bernard Baruch, on his 85th birthday, UPI news
report, August 20, 1955
30. Age is strictly a case of mind over matter. If you don't mind it
doesn't matter. -Jack Benny, in _The New York Times_
31. Every simplification is an oversimplification. --A N Whitehead
32. ``It's a magical world, Hobbes, old buddy! Let's go exploring!"
Bill Watterson had Calvin say this in the comic strip's last panel,
31 December 1995.
33. "I'm going to be immortal or die trying"
Yosarian from Catch 22 by Joe Heller
34. Conservatives are not necessarily stupid, but most stupid people are
conservatives. John Stewart Mill
35. A conservative is a man with two perfectly good legs who, however,
has never learned how to walk forward. Franklin Delano Roosevelt
36. A conservative is a man who does not think that anything should be
done for the first time. Frank Vanderlip
37. I used to think I was confused; now I'm not so sure. Anon.
38. It isn't what you know that counts; it's what you think of in time.
Anon.
39. The biologist thinks he is a chemist,
The chemist thinks he is a physicist,
The physicist thinks he is a God,
And God thinks She is a mathematician.
Paula Thompson
40. I have made this letter longer than usual
because I lack the time to make it shorter.
(Je n'ai fait celle-ci plus longue que parce que je n'ai pas eu le
loisir del la faitre plus courte.)
Pascal, Blaise (1623-1662)
French mathematician, physisist, theologian and man of letters.
Inventor of the calculating machine 1647, Provincial letters XVI
41. Oh, how desperately bored, in spite of their grim determination to
have a Good Time, the majority of pleasure-seekers really are!
Aldous Huxley (1894-1963), British author.
Do What You Will, "Holy Face" (1929).
42. Some things have to be believed to be seen.
RALPH HODGSON
43. The eye sees only what the mind is prepared to comprehend.
HENRI BERGSON (1859-1941)
44. Those who dream by day are cognizant of many things
that escape those who dream only at night.
EDGAR ALLAN POE
45. In Germany they came first 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, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a
trade unionist. Then they came for the Catholics, and I didn't
speak up because I was a Protestant. Then they came for me, and
by that time no one was left to speak up.
--Martin Niemoeller (1892-1984)
46. Democracy is a form of government that substitutes election by the
incompetent many for appointment by the corrupt few.
GEORGE BERNARD SHAW (1856-1950)
47. Democracy is a form of government in which it is permitted to wonder
aloud what the country could do under first-class management.
SENATOR SOAPER
48. Democracy is the recurrent suspicion that more than half of the people
are right more than half of the time.
E.B. WHITE
49. Democracy encourages the majority to decide things about which the
majority is ignorant.
JOHN SIMON
50. Democracy is a government where you can say what you think even if you
don't think.
ANONYMOUS
51. Many forms of Government have been tried, and will be tried in this
world of sin and woe. No one pretends that democracy is perfect or
all-wise. Indeed, it has been said that democracy is the _worst_
form of Government except all those others that have been tried from
time to time.
WINSTON CHURCHILL
52. Democracy is the art and science of running the circus from the
monkey cage.
H.L. MENCKEN (1880-1956)
53. Experience is one thing you can't get for nothing.
Oscar Wilde
54. "Hae ye heard whit ma auld mither's postit tae me?
It fair maks me hamesick," says Private McPhee.
"And whit did she send ye?" says Private McPhun,
As he cockit his rifle and bleezed at a Hun.
"A haggis! A HAGGIS!" says Private McPhee;
"The brawest big haggis I ever did see.
And think! it's the morn when fond memory turns
Tae haggis and whuskey -- the Birthday o' Burns."
- 'The Haggis of Private McPhee', Robert Service
55. A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion,
butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet,
balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take
orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze
a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal,
fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.
Lazarus Long by Robert A Heinlein
56. When they outlaw marriage, then only outlaws will have inlaws! Anon
57. Happiness is having a large, loving, caring, close-knit family in
another city. George Burns
58. There is no duty we so much underrate as the duty of being happy.
Robert Louis Stevenson
59. A really happy man is one that can enjoy the scenery on a detour.
Anonymous
60. For the rest of my life, whenever it rains,
I will think of him and smile.
Liza Minnelli on Gene Kelly, CBS-TV news, February 2, 1996
61. Slow me down, Lord!
Ease the pounding of my heart
By the quieting of my mind.
Steady my harried pace
With a vision of the eternal reach of time.
Give me,
Amidst the confusions of my day,
The calmness of the everlasting hills.
Break the tensions of my nerves
With the soothing music of the sighing streams
That live in my memory.
Help me to know
The magical restoring power of sleep.
Teach me the art
Of taking minute vacations of slowing down to
look at a flower;
To chat with an old friend or to make a new one;
To pat a stray dog;
To watch a spider build a web;
To smile at a child;
Or to read a few lines from a good book.
Remind me each day
That the race is not always to the swift;
That there is more to life than increasing its speed.
Let me look upward
Into the branches of the towering oak
And know that it grew slowly and well.
Slow me down, Lord,
And inspire me to send my roots deep
into the soil of life's enduring values
That I may grow toward the stars
Of my greater destiny.
Wilferd Peterson.
62. Science is the belief in the ignorance of the experts.
Richard P. Feynman
63. I believe that ideas such as absolute certitude, absolute exactness,
final truth, etc. are figments of the imagination which should not
be admissable in any field of science...This loosening of thinking
seems to me to be the greatest blessing which modern science has
given us. For the belief in a single truth and in being the
possessor thereof is the root cause of all evil in the world.
Max Born
64. We are trying to prove ourselves wrong as quickly as possible,
because only in that way can we find progress.
Richard P. Feynman
65. DETERIORATA
Go placidly amid the noise and waste,
And remember what comfort there may be in owning a piece thereof.
Avoid quiet and passive persons, unless you are in need of sleep.
Rotate your tires.
Speak glowingly of those greater than yourself,
And heed well their advice -- even though they be turkeys.
Know what to kiss -- and when.
Remember that two wrongs never make a right,
But that three do.
Wherever possible, put people on "HOLD".
Be comforted, that in the face of all aridity and disillusionment,
And despite the changing fortunes of time,
There is always a big future in computer maintenance.
-- National Lampoon --
66. Doubt is the key to knowledge.
Persian Proverb.
67. Our greatest glory is not in never failing,
but in rising every time we fail.
Confucius
68. The most beautiful experience we can have is the mysterious.
It is the fundamental emotion which stands at the cradle of true art
and true science.
-Albert Einstein, _The World As I See It_, 1934
69. Procrastination is the thief of time:
Year after year it steals, till all are fled,
And to the mercies of a moment leaves
The vast concerns of an eternal scene.
Edward Young (English poet, 1683-1765)
70. Learning is the best of all wealth;
it is easy to carry,
thieves cannot steal it,
the tyrants cannot seize it;
neither water nor fire can destroy it;
and far from decreasing, it increases by giving.
Naladiyar (c.5th-6th century) Tamil ethical literature
71. What sculpture is to a block of marble, education is to an
human soul.
Joseph Addison (1672-1719), English essayist.
Spectator, no. 215 (London, 6 Nov. 1711).
72. The citizens of the United States of America have a right to applaud
themselves for having given to mankind examples of an enlarged and
liberal policy--a policy worthy of imitation. All possess alike
liberty of conscience and immunities of citizenship. It is now no
more that toleration is spoken of, as if it was by the indulgence of
one class of people that another enjoyed the exercise of their
inherent natural rights. For happily the government of the United
States, which gives bigotry no sanction, to persecution no
assistance, requires only that they who live under its protection
should demean themselves as good citizens.
George Washington, _To the Jewish Congregation, New Port, Rhode
Island_, August, 1790
73. Whenever you are to do a thing, though it can never be known
but to yourself, ask yourself how you would act were all
the world looking at you and act accordingly.
Thomas Jefferson
74. Language is the dress of thought.
Samuel Johnson
75. Language is a city to the building of which every human being
brought a stone.
MARK TWAIN (1835-1910)
76. Mathematicians are like Frenchmen: whatever you say to them they
translate into their own language and forthwith it is something
entirely different.
GOETHE (1749-1832)
77. Man invented language to satisfy his deep need to complain.
LILY TOMLIN
78. We dissect nature along lines laid down by our native language.
Language is not simply a reporting device for experience but a
defining framework for it.
BENJAMIN WHORF (1897-1941)
79. It's a strange world of language in which skating on thin ice
can get you into hot water.
FRANKLIN P. JONES
80. BELLADONNA: In Italian, a beautiful woman. In English, a deadly
poison. Thus proving the essential identity of the two languages.
AMBROSE BIERCE (1842-1914?), "THE DEVIL'S DICTIONARY"
81. Language is the armory of the human mind, and at once contains the
trophies of its past and the weapons of its future conquests.
SAMUEL COLERIDGE (1772-1834)
82.
No teacher I of boys or smaller fry,
No teacher I of teachers, no, not I.
Mine was the distant aim, the longer reach,
To teach men how to teach men how to teach.
A B Ramsay
83. If you can't change your mind, do you still have one?
Caroline Malmgren-Davis
84. I wonder why I wonder why.
I wonder why I wonder.
I wonder why I wonder why I wonder why I wonder.
Etruscan puzzlement.
86. Now my own suspicion is that the universe is not only queerer than
we suppose, but queerer than we *can* suppose. I have read and heard
many attempts at a systematic account of it, from materialism and
theosophy to the Christian systems or that of Kant, and I have
always felt that they were too simple. I suspect that there are more
things in heaven and earth than are dreamed of, or can be dreamed of,
in any philosophy. That is the reason why I have no philosophy
myself, and must be my excuse for dreaming.
J. B. S. Haldane, British geneticist (1856-1928)
from "Possible Worlds", in "Possible Worlds and other essays",
Chatto & Windus, London, 1927. p286
87. Horatio: O day and night, but this is wondrous strange!
Hamlet: And therefore as a stranger give it welcome.
There are more things in heaven and Earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.
W. Shakespeare, Hamlet, Act I, Scene V
88. Pick a flower on Earth and you move the farthest star!
Paul Dirac
89. Physicists are the Peter Pans of the human race. They never grow up,
they keep their curiosity.
I. I. Rabi
90. Rascality has limits; stupidity has not.
Old Chinese proverb
91. Any language begins being a music and ends being an algebra.
Andri Marie AMPHRE [1775 - 1836]
92. The best teacher is one who suggests rather than dogmatizes, and
inspires his listener with the wish to teach himself.
-- Edward Bulwer
93. Who dares to teach must never cease to learn.
John Colton Dana
94. A great pleasure is doing what other people say you cannot do.
Walter Bagehot
95. There is no happiness except in the realization that we have
accomplished something.
Henry Ford
96. Happiness lies in the joy of achievement and the thrill of creative
effort.
Franklin D Roosevelt
97. A conservative young man has wound up his life before it was unrolled.
We expect old men to be conservative but when a nation's young men
are so, its funeral bell has already rung.
Henry Ward Beecher (1813-1887) Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit
US clergyman, writer
98. Possunt quia posse videntur. (They can because they think they can.)
Virgil (70-19 BC), Aeneid, v
99. If the creator had a purpose in equipping us with a neck, he
surely meant us to stick it out.
Arthur Koestler, _Encounter_
100. If it had not been for the discontent of a few fellows who had not
been satisfied with their conditions, you would still be living in
caves. Intelligent discontent is the mainspring of civilization.
Progress is born of agitation. It is agitation or stagnation.
Eugene V Debs (1855-1926), American socialist
101. I cannot give you a formula for success but I can give you the formula
for failure--which is: Try to please everybody.
Herbert Bayard Swope (1830-1958), speech, 1950 (US newspaper editor)
102. Millions long for immortality who do not know what to do with
themselves on a rainy Sunday afternoon.
Susan Ertz (1894-1985) British novelist
103. From childhood's hour I have not been
As others were--I have not seen
As others saw.
Edgar Allan Poe Alone
104. We act as though comfort and luxury are the chief requirements of life,
when all we need to make us really happy is something to be
enthusiastic about.
Charles Kingsley
105. Begin difficult things when they are easy.
Do great things when they are small.
The difficult things of the world must once have been easy.
The great things must once have been small.
A thousand mile journey begins with one step.
Lao Tse
106. Nobody makes a greater mistake then he who does nothing
because he could only do a little.
Edmund Burke
107. Knock, Knock.
Who's there?
Opportunity.
Don't be silly - opportunity doesn't knock twice!
Norman Dale
108. A man is known by the quotations he keeps.
Old Scottish proverb.
109. Old minds are like old horses; you must exercise them if you wish
to keep them in working order. (Adams)
110. Of course, it's very easy to be witty tomorrow, after you get a
chance to do some research and rehearse your ad libs. (Adams)
111. Nothing in education is so astonishing as the amount of ignorance
it accumulates in the form of inert facts. (Adams)
112. If it's free, it's advice; if you pay for it, it's counseling; if
you can use either one, it's a miracle. (Adams)
113. It is well for people who think to change their minds
occasionally in order to keep them clean....For those who do not
think, it is best at least to rearrange their prejudices once in a
while.
Luther Burbank (1849-1926)b. 7 Mar
114. To laugh is to risk appearing the fool.
To weep is to risk appearing sentimental.
To reach out is to risk involvement.
To expose feelings is to risk exposing your true self.
To place your ideas and dreams before the crowd is to risk their love.
To love is to risk not being loved in return.
To live is to risk dying.
To hope is to risk despair.
To try is to risk failure.
But the greatest hazard of life is to risk nothing.
The one who risks nothing
_does_ nothing
_has_ nothing
and finally _is_ nothing.
They may avoid sufferings and sorrow,
but they simply cannot learn,
feel,
change,
grow or love.
Chained by their certitude, they are a slave;
they have forfeited freedom.
Only one who risks is free. (Temporarily anonymous)
115. You have no right to erect your toll-gate upon the highways of thought.
Robert G. Ingersoll (1833-1899), _The Ghosts_
US lawyer, orator, statesman
116. It is a blessed thing that in every age some one has had individuality
enough and courage enough to stand by his own convictions.
I believe it was Magellan who said, "The church says the earth is flat;
but I have seen its shadow on the moon, and I have more confidence
even in a shadow than in the Church."
On the prow of his ship were disobedience, defiance, scorn, and success.
Robert G. Ingersoll, quoted in _The Great Quotations_
117. The man who finds a truth lights a torch.
Robert G. Ingersoll, _The Truth_
118. There is a tide in the affairs of men,
Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune;
Omitted, all the voyage of their life
Is bound in shallows and in miseries.
On such a full sea are we now afloat,
And we must take the current when it serves,
Or lose our ventures.
William Shakespeare, Julius Caesar
119. A leader is best
When people hardly know he exists,
Not as good when people obey and acclaim him,
Worst when they despise him.
-Lao Tze, Tao Te King (The Way)
120. For a long time it had seemed to me that life was about to
begin--real life. But there was always some obstacle in the way.
Something to be got through first, some unfinished business, time
still to be served, a debt to be paid. Then life would begin. At
last it dawned on me that these obstacles were my life."
>>>Fr. Alfred D'Souza
121. The Guy in the Glass
When you get what you want in your struggle for pelf,
And the world makes you King for a day,
Just go to the mirror and look at yourself,
And see what that guy has to say.
For it isn't your Father or Mother, or Wife,
Who judgment upon you must pass.
The feller whose verdict counts most in your life
Is the guy staring back from the glass.
He's the feller to please, never mind all the rest,
For he's with you clear up to the end.
And you've passed the most dangerous, difficult test
If the guy in the glass is your friend.
You may be like Jack Horner and "chisel" a plum,
And think you're a wonderful guy,
But the man in the glass says you're only a bum,
If you can't look him straight in the eye.
You can fool the whole world down the pathway of years,
And get pats on the back as you pass,
But your final reward will be heartache and tears
If you've cheated the guy in the glass.
-- Dale Wimbrow (c)1934
122. Men spend their lives in anticipations, in determining to be vastly
happy at some period when they have time. But the present time has
one advantage over every other - it is our own. Past opportunities
are gone, future have not come. We may lay in a stock of pleasures,
as we would lay in a stock of wine; but if we defer the tasting of
them too long, we shall find that both are soured by age.
C. C. Colton
123. Don't accept your dog's admiration as conclusive evidence that
you are wonderful. Ann Landers
124. A dog will look up on you; a cat will look down on you; however,
a pig will see you eye to eye and know it has found an equal.
Sir Winston Churchill
125. If a dog jumps in your lap, it is because he is fond of you; but if
a cat does the same thing, it is because your lap is warmer.
Alfred North Whitehead
126. The cat could very well be man's best friend but would never stoop
to admitting it. Doug Larson
127. THE COLD WITHIN
Six humans trapped by happenstance
in black and bitter cold
Each possessed a stick of wood,
Or so the story's told.
Their dying fire in need of logs,
the first woman held hers back
For on the faces around the fire
She noticed one was black.
The next man looking 'cross the way
Saw one not of his church
And couldn't bring himself to give
The fire his stick of birch.
The third one sat in tattered clothes
He gave his coat a hitch,
Why should his log be put to use
To warm the idle rich?
The rich man just sat back and thought
Of the wealth he had in store,
And how to keep what he had earned
From the lazy, shiftless poor.
The black man's face bespoke revenge
As the fire passed from his sight,
For all he saw in his stick of wood
Was a chance to spite the white.
And the last man of this forlorn group
Did naught except for gain,
Giving only to those who gave
Was how he played the game.
The logs held tight in death's stilled hands
Was proof of human sin,
They didn't die from the cold without,
They died from the cold within.
128. There wouldn't be such a thing as counterfeit gold if there were no
real gold somewhere."
Sufi proverb
129. I am trying to find the rest of this poem. It may be of Lakota origin:
Do not stand at my grave and weep.
I am not there. I do not sleep.
I am the thousand winds that blow.
I am the diamond glints on the snow.
I am the sunlight on ripened grain.
I am the gentle autumn's rain.
When you awaken in the morning's hush,
I am the swift uplifting rush
of quiet birds in circled flight.
I am the soft stars that shine at night.
Do not stand at my grave and cry.
I am not there. I did not die."
129. I think there is a world market for maybe five computers.
--Thomas Watson, chairman of IBM, 1943
130. There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home.
--Ken Olson, president, chairman and founder of Digital Equipment
Corp., 1977
131. This 'telephone' has too many shortcomings to be seriously considered
as a means of communication. The device is inherently of no value to
us.
--Western Union internal memo, 1876
132. The wireless music box has no imaginable commercial value. Who would
pay for a message sent to nobody in particular?
--David Sarnoff's associates in response to his urgings for
investment in the radio in the 1920s
133. Heavier-than-air flying machines are impossible.
--Lord Kelvin, president, Royal Society, 1895.
134. So we went to Atari and said, 'Hey, we've got this amazing thing,
even built with some of your parts, and what do you think about
funding us? Or we'll give it to you. We just want to do it. Pay
our salary, we'll come work for you.' And they said, 'No.' So then
we went to Hewlett-Packard, and they said, 'Hey, we don't need
you. You haven't got through college yet.'
Apple Computer Inc. founder Steve Jobs on attempts to get Atari
and H-P interested in his and Steve Wozniak's personal computer
135. Stocks have reached what looks like a permanently high plateau.
--Irving Fisher, Professor of Economics, Yale University, 1929
136. Airplanes are interesting toys but of no military value.
--Marechal Ferdinand Foch, Professor of Strategy, Ecole Superieure
de Guerre.
137. Everything that can be invented has been invented.
--Charles H. Duell, Commissioner, U.S. Office of Patents, 1899
138. Louis Pasteur's theory of germs is ridiculous fiction.
--Pierre Pachet, Professor of Physiology at Toulouse, 1872
139. The abdomen, the chest, and the brain will forever be shut from the
intrusion of the wise and humane surgeon.
--Sir John Eric Ericksen, British surgeon, appointed
Surgeon-Extraordinary to Queen Victoria, 1873.
140. THE RACE
I
"Quit! Give up! You're beaten!" they shout at me and plead.
"There's just too much against you now. This time you can't succeed!"
And as I start to hang my head in front of failure's face
My downward fall is broken by the memory of a race.
And hope refills my weakened will as I recall that scene
For just the thought of that short race rejuvenates my being.
A children's race; young boys, young men; how I remember well.
Excitement, sure! But also fear. It wasn't hard to tell.
They all lined up so full of hope; each thought to win that race.
Or tie for first, or if not that--at least take second place.
And fathers watched from off the side, each cheering for his son
And each boy hoped to show his Dad that he would be the one.
The whistle blew and off they went, young hearts and hopes afire.
To win and be the hero there was each young boy's desire.
And one boy in particular whose Dad was in the crowd
Was running near the lead and thought: "My Dad will be so proud."
But as they sped down the field across a shallow dip
The little boy who thought to win lost his step and slipped.
Trying hard to catch himself his hands flew out to brace
And 'mid the laughter of the crowd he fell flat on his face.
So down he fell and with him hope--he couldn't win it now.
Embarrassed, sad, he only wished to disappear somehow.
But as he fell his Dad stood up and showed his anxious face
Which to the boy so clearly said: "Get up and win the race."
He quickly rose, no damage done; behind a bit, that's all
And ran with all his mind and might to make up for his fall.
So anxious to restore himself--to catch up and to win
His mind went faster than his legs. He slipped and fell again!
He wished then he had quit before with only one disgrace
"I'm hopeless as a runner now. I shouldn't try to race."
But in the laughing crowd he searched and found his Father's face
That steady look which said again: "Get up and win the race."
So up he jumped to try again--ten yards behind the last
"If I'm to gain those yards," he thought, "I've got to move so fast."
Exerting everything he had he regained eight or ten
But trying so hard to catch the lead he slipped and fell again!
Defeat! He lay there silently. A tear dropped from his eye
"There's no sense running anymore--three strikes, I'm out--why try?
The will to rise had disappeared. All hope had fled away.
So far behind--so error prone--a loser all the way.
"I've lost so what's the use," he thought, "I'll live with my disgrace."
But then he thought about his Dad who soon he'd have to face.
"Get up" an echo sounded low. "Get up and take your place
You were not meant for failure here. Get up and win the race."
"With borrowed will get up" it said. "You haven't lost at all.
For winning is no more than this--to rise each time you fall."
So up he rose to run once more and with a new commit
He resolved that win or lose at least he wouldn't quit.
So far behind the others now--the most he'd ever been
Still he gave it all he had and ran as though to win.
Three times he'd fallen, stumbling. Three times he rose again.
Too far behind to hope to win he still ran to the end.
They cheered the winning runner as he crossed the line first place.
Head high, and proud, and happy--no falling--no disgrace.
But when the fallen youngster crossed the line last place
The crowd gave him the greater cheer for finishing the race.
And even though he came in last with head bowed low, unproud
You would have thought he won the race to listen to the crowd.
And to his Dad he sadly said, "I didn't do so well."
"To me, you won," his Father said. "You rose each time you fell."
And now when things seem dark and hard and difficult to face
The memory of that little boy helps me in my own race.
For all of life is like that race w (Apparently incomplete.)
141. Regret for things we did,
Can be tempered by time;
It is regret for things we did not do,
That is inconsolable.
Posted by JD Lewis, Cadet, USAFA '98
142. It's Nice to be Wanted...but it's not nice to be had.
143. To give away money is an easy matter and in any man's power. But to
decide to whom to give it, and how large and when, and for what
purpose and how, is neither in every man's power nor an easy
matter. Aristotle
144. Shall we make a new rule of life from tonight: always try to
be a little kinder than is necessary."
Sir James M. Barrie
145. Believe nothing merely because you have been told it...Do
not believe what your teacher tells you merely out of
respect for the teacher. But whatsoever, after due
examination and analysis, you find to be kind, conducive
to the good, the benefit, the welfare of all beings --
that doctrine believe and cling to, and take it as your
guide.
Buddha
146. A hundred times every day I remind myself that my inner and
outer life depends on the labors of other men, living and
dead, and that I must exert myself in order to give in
the measure as I have received and am still receiving.
Albert Einstein
147. Our lives are fed by kind words and gracious behavior. We
are nourished by expressions like 'excuse me' and other
such simple courtesies...Rudeness, the absence of the
sacrament of consideration, is but another mark that our
time-is-money society is lacking in spirituality, if not
also in its enjoyment of life.
Ed Hays
148. Some people make you happy wherever they go, and some people
make you happy whenever they go.
Laura Burgholder
149. There's a world of difference between truth and facts. Facts can
obscure truth. Maya Angelou
150. The thorn from the bush one has planted, nourished and pruned
pricks more deeply and draws more blood. Maya Angelou
151. Children's talent to endure stems from their ignorance of
alternatives. Maya Angelou
152. It is not enough to have a good mind. The main thing is to use it
well. Rene Descartes
153. Everybody thinks himself so well supplied with common sense that
even those most difficult to please. . . never desire more of it
than they already have. Rene Descartes
154. In the stress of modern life, how little room is left for that
most comfortable vanity that whispers in our ears that failures
are not faults! Agnes Repplier
155. Like simplicity and candor, and other much-commented qualities,
enthusiasm is charming until we meet it face to face, and cannot
escape from its charm. Agnes Repplier (1858-1950) U.S. Essayist
156. It's necessary to be slightly underemployed if you are to do
something significant. James D. Watson
157. Science seldom proceeds in the straightforward logical manner
imagined by outsiders. Instead, its steps forward (and sometimes
backward) are often very human events in which personalities and
cultural traditions play major roles. James D. Watson
158. One could not be a successful scientist without realizing that, a
goodly number of scientists are not only narrow-minded and dull,
but also just stupid. James D. Watson (1928- __) U.S. biochemist(DNA)
159. Sometimes I think we're alone in the universe,
and sometimes I think we're not. In either case
the idea is quite staggering - Arthur C. Clarke.
160. Reality is the leading cause of stress, for those in touch with it.
Woody Allen
161. First they say it's impossible; then they steal your concepts;
finally they claim it was their idea to begin with.
Everyone who has ever had an idea.
162. We must believe in free will, we have no choice.
Isaac B. Singer.
163. The object of opening the mind as of opening the mouth
is to close it again on something solid.
G. K. Chesterton
164. Ours is a world of nuclear giants and ethical infants.
We know more about war than we know about peace,
more about killing than we know about living.
We have grasped the mystery of the atom
and rejected the Sermon on the Mount.
Bradley, General Omar N.
165. Being in the army is like being in the Boy Scouts, except that the Boy
Scouts have adult supervision.
Clark, Blake
166. I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but
World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.
Einstein, Albert (1879-1955)
167. We are going to have peace even if we have to fight for it.
Eisenhower, Dwight D.
168. We trained hard, but it seemed that every time we were beginning to
form up into teams, we would be reorganized. I was to learn later
in life that we tend to meet any new situation by reorganizing;
and a wonderful method it can be for creating the illusion of
progress while producing confusion, inefficiency, and demoralization.
Petronius Arbiter, 210 BC
169. Football is a mistake. It combines the two worst elements of
American life: Violence and committee meetings.
George Will
170. A meeting is an event where minutes are taken and hours wasted.
James T. Kirk
171. Any simple problem can be made unsolvable if enough meetings are held to
discuss it.
Mark Twain
172. If computers get too powerful, we can organize them into
committee. That'll do them in.
Aloysius J. Shakespeare
173. A boss creates fear, a leader confidence.
A boss fixes blame, a leader corrects mistakes.
A boss knows all, a leader asks questions.
A boss makes work drudgery, a leader makes it interesting.
A boss is interested in himself or herself,
a leader is interested in the group.
Ewing, Russel H.
174. We gain strength, and courage, and confidence by each experience in
which we really stop to look fear in the face ... we must do that
which we think we cannot.
Roosevelt, Eleanor (1884-1962)
175. Here's what I know about regret. It's always present, even if
unseen, like the moon in the day sky. The tigers of regret are patient.
They can stay hidden for a long time, then pounce. Time doesn't soften
all regrets. Some live even beyond the grave, inherited by the next
generation. To regret is human; to be human is to regret.
Jenijoy LaBelle, a professor of literature at CalTech, in LA Times
176. We've arranged a global civilization in which most crucial elements
profoundly depend on science and technology. We have arranged
things so that almost no one understands science and technology.
This is a prescription for disaster. We might get away with it for a
while, but sooner or later this mixture of ignorance and power is
going to blow up in our faces.
Carl Sagan, in The Demon Haunted World; Science as a Candle in
the Dark
177. Dime con quiin andas, y te dire quiin eres.
CERVANTES, MIGUEL DE (1547-1616) in Don Quixote, but may be a
Spanish proverb. (Tell me thy company, and I'll tell thee who
thou art.)
178. What sculpture is to a block of marble, education is to the human
soul. The philosopher, the saint, the hero, the wise, and the good,
or the great, very often lie hid and concealed in a plebeian, which
a proper education might have disinterred and brought to light.
Joseph Addison.
179. Education fails unless the three R's at one end of the school spectrum
lead ultimately to the Four P's at the other -- Preparation for
Earning, Preparation for Living, Preparation for Understanding,
Preparation for Participation in the problems involved in the making
of a better world.
Norman Cousins.
180. Education is not to teach men facts, theories or laws, not to reform
or amuse them or make them expert techinicians. It is to unsettle
their minds, widen their horizons, inflame their intellect, teach
them to think straight, if possible, but to think neverthless.
Robert M Hutchins.
181. Today only the well-educated man or woman is equipped to work in an
age of technology or to be a good citizen in an age of complexity.
John F Kennedy
182. It is not what we eat but what we digest that makes us strong,
It is not what we read but what we remember that makes us wise,
It is not what we earn but what we save that makes us rich,
It is not what beliefs we hold but what we do with those beliefs
that make us what we are.
Old Chinese misquotation.
183. It is not a man's duty, as a matter of course, to devote himself to
the eradication of any, even the most enormous wrong; he may still
properly have other concerns to engage him; but it is his duty, at
least, to wash his hands of it, and, if he gives it no thought
longer, not to give it practically his support. If I devote myself
to other pursuits and contemplations, I must first see, at least,
that I do not pursue them sitting upon another man's shoulders. I
must get off him first, that he may pursue his contemplations too.
Henry David Thoreau, Civil Disobedience
184. There is as much difference between us and ourselves as between us
and others. We are all a patchwork, so shapeless and diverse in
composition that each bit, each moment, plays its own game.
Montaigne
185. All contradictions may be found in me...bashful, insolent; chaste,
lascivious; talkative, taciturn; tough, delicate; clever, stupid;
surly, affable; lying, truthful; learned, ignorant; liberal,
miserly and prodigal: all of this I see in myself to some extent
according to how I turn...I have nothing to say about myself
absolutely, simply and solidly, without concusion and without
mixture, or in one word.
Montaigne
186. "He's the biggest lier in Washington," said Lincoln,
referring to a then well-known lawyer. "Reminds me of an old
fisherman who got a reputation for stretching the truth.
He got a pair of scales and insisted on weighing each fish he caught
before witnesses. One day a doctor borrowed the scales to weigh
a new baby. The baby weighed forty-seven pounds."
Abraham Lincoln, quoted in Emanuel Hertz, _Lincoln Talks_, p. 599
(1986)
187. "I have been told that a young would-be composer wrote to Mozart,
asking advice as to how to compose a symphony. Mozart responded
that a symphony was a complex and demanding form and that it would
be better to start with something simpler. The young man
protested, 'But Herr Mozart, you wrote symphonies when you were
younger than I am now.' And Mozart replied, 'I never asked how.'"
Story told by Isaac Asimov, quoted in "Mozartiana" by Joseph Solman.
188. It could probably be shown by facts and figures that there is
no distinctly native American criminal class except Congress.
Mark Twain Following the Equator (1897)
189. The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It
is the source of all true art and all science. He to whom this
emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand
rapt in awe, is as good as dead: his eyes are closed.
Albert Einstein