Quotes to inspire and reflect

To Thales the primary question was not what do we know, but how do we know it.

The more laws, the less justice.

Better to rely on one powerful king than on many little princes.

I pay very little regard...to what any young person says on the subject of marriage. If they profess a disinclination for it, I only set it down that they have not yet seen the right person.

Every man has his own destiny: the only imperative is to follow it, to accept it, no matter where it leads him.

In this age, which believes that there is a short cut to everything, the greatest lesson to be learned is that the most difficult way is, in the long run, the easiest.

Since the dawn of time there have been those among us who have been willing to go to extraordinary lengths to gain access to that domain normally reserved for birds, angels, and madmen. Steven B.

Cleave to no faith when faith brings blood.

Digressions, objections, delight in mockery, carefree mistrust are signs of health; everything unconditional belongs in pathology.

Babylon violated diminishes Alexander; Rome enslaved diminishes Caesar; massacred Jerusalem diminishes Titus. Tyranny follows the tyrant. Woe to the man who leaves behind a shadow that bears his form.

Never let your inferiors do you a favor - it will be extremely costly

Do pleasant things yourself, but unpleasant things through others.

It is well enough that the people of this nation do not understand our banking and monetary system, for if they did, I believe there would be a revolution before tomorrow morning.

There are many people who reach their conclusions about life like schoolboys: they cheat their master by copying the answer out of a book without having worked the sum out for themselves.

Good sense is, of all things among men, the most equally distributed: for everyone thinks himself so abundantly provided with it, that those even who are the most difficult to satisfy in everything else, do not usually desire a larger measure of this quality than they already possess.

Anger dwells only in the bosom of fools.

Long experience has taught me this about the status of mankind with regard to matters requiring thought: the less people know and understand about them, the more positively they attempt to argue concerning them, while on the other hand to know and understand a multitude of things renders men cautious in passing judgement upon anything new.

It is characteristic of the military mentality that nonhuman factors (atom bombs, strategic bases, weapons of all sorts, the possession of raw materials, etc.) are held essential, while the human being, his desires, and thoughts - in short, the psychological factors - are considered as unimportant and secondary...The individual is degraded...to "human materiel".

There are two ways of resisting war: the legal way and the revolutionary way. The legal way involves the offer of alternative service not as a privilege for a few but as a right for all. The revolutionary view involves an uncompromising resistance, with a view to breaking the power of militarism in time of peace or the resources of the state in time of war.

Broadly speaking, the short words are the best, and the old words best of all.

The aim (of education) must be the training of independently acting and thinking individuals who, however, can see in the service to the community their highest life achievement.

I never came upon any of my discoveries through the process of rational thinking.

Heroism on command, senseless violence, and all the loathsome nonsense that goes by the name of patriotism -- how passionately I hate them!

In the long run, you hit only what you aim at: Therefore, aim high.

Say all you have to say in the fewest possible words, or your reader will be sure to skip them; and in the plainest possible words or he will certainly misunderstand them.

Life is beautiful. Life is sad.

Every living thing is a sort of imperialist, seeking to transform as much as possible of its environment into itself.

I cannot conceive otherwise than that He, the Infinite Father, expects or requires no worship or praise from us, but that He is even infinitely above it.

In these days, a man who says a thing cannot be done is quite apt to be interrupted by some idiot doing it.

If a man cannot forget, he will never amount to much.

True greatness consists in the use of a powerful understanding to enlighten oneself and others.

There are people who make things happen, there are people who watch things happen, and there are people who wonder what happened. To be successful, you need to be a person who makes things happen.

Our greatest natural resource is the minds of our children.

Sometimes people carry to such perfection the mask they have assumed that in due course they actually become the person they seem. W.

Convinced myself, I seek not to convince.

I know this--a man got to do what he got to do.

A woman can forgive a man for the harm he does her...but she can never forgive him for the sacrifices he makes on her account. W.

Alcohol is a very necessary article... It makes life bearable to millions of people who could not endure their existence if they were quite sober. It enables Parliament to do things at eleven at night that no sane person would do at eleven in the morning.

Do you think that the things people make fools of themselves about are any less real and true than the things they behave sensibly about? They are more true: they are the only things that are true.

I never resist temptation because I have found that things that are bad for me do not tempt me.

Ah! the clock is always slow; It is later than you think.

Intolerance itself is a form of egoism, and to condemn egoism intolerantly is to share it.

A writer must refuse to allow himself to be transformed into an institution.

For an idea ever to be fashionable is ominous, since it must afterwards be always old-fashioned.

The truth is cruel, but it can be loved, and it makes free those who have loved it.

Nothing is really so poor and melancholy as art that is interested in itself and not in its subject.

When you strike at a king, you must kill him.

Miss Brooke had that kind of beauty which seems to be thrown into relief by poor dress.