EDUCATION QUOTES
Also see www.light-a-fire.net for inspirational
quotes about schooling.
ACCOUNTABILITY
Not everything that can
be counted counts,
and not everything that
counts can be counted.
— Albert
Einstein, physicist (1879-1955)
ADVERSITY
Affliction,
like the iron-smith, shapes as it smites.
-- Christian
Bovee, lawyer and author (1820-1904)
ADVOCACY
During times of universal deceit,
telling the truth
becomes a revolutionary act.
— George Orwell,
British novelist (1903-50)
To sin by silence when they should
protest makes cowards of men.
—Abraham
Lincoln, 16th President (1809-65)
No army can resist a good idea whose
time has come.
—Victor Hugo, French writer (1802-85)
In a democracy dissent
is an act of faith. Like medicine, the test of its
value is
not in its taste, but in its effects.
— J.
William Fulbright, U.S. senator (1905-1995)
To do
nothing is sometimes a good remedy.
—
Hippocrates, physician (460-c.377 BC)
Those
who profess to favor freedom and yet deprecate agitation, are men who want
crops without plowing the ground.
— Frederick Douglass,
abolitionist, editor
and orator (1817-1895)
AMERICANISM
The history of liberty is
a history of limitations of government power, not the increase of it.
— Woodrow Wilson
Those who would
sacrifice liberty for security
deserve neither.
—Benjamin
Franklin
I would rather be exposed
to the inconveniences
attending too much
liberty
than to those attending
too small a degree of it.
— Thomas Jefferson, 3rd U.S. president,
architect and author (1743-1826)
ART
An artist is not paid
for his labor but for his vision.
— James McNeill Whistler, painter (1834-1903)
A man who works with his
hands is a laborer; a man who works with his hands and his
brain is a craftsman; but a man who works with his hands and his brain and his
heart is an artist.
— Louis
Nizer, lawyer (1902-1994)
I saw
the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free.
—
Michelangelo Buonarroti, sculptor, painter,
architect,
and poet (1475-1564)
The
perfection of art is to conceal art.
—
Quintilian (Marcus Fabius
Quintilianus),
rhetorician (c. 35-95)
ASSESSMENT
Perhaps the greatest social service
that can be rendered by anybody to the country and to mankind is to bring up a
family.
— George Bernard Shaw,
dramatist, critic,
novelist, and Nobel laureate (1856-1950)
People are like stained glass
windows:
they sparkle and shine when the sun
is out,
but when the darkness sets in their
true beauty is revealed
only if there is a light within.
— Elizabeth
Kubler-Ross, psychiatrist and author (1926- )
BOOKS
Nothing
ought to be more weighed than the nature of books recommended by a public
authority. So recommended they soon form the character of the age.
— Edmund
Burke, British political philosopher
One who
does not read good books
knows no more than one who cannot
read.
- Mark Twain, American author and humorist
(1835-1910)
A truly great book should
be read in youth, again in maturity
and once more in old
age, as a fine building should be seen
by morning light, at
noon and by moonlight.
—
Robertson Davies, writer (1913-1995)
A room
without books is as a body without a soul.
— Cicero, Roman statesman
orator and writer
(106-43 B.C.)
No man can be called
friendless when he has
God and the companionship of good books.
— Elizabeth Barrett
Browning, poet (1806-1861)
Books are like
imprisoned souls till someone takes them down from a shelf and frees them.
— Samuel
Butler, writer (1835-1902)
Books
are the bees which carry the quickening pollen
from one
to another mind.
— James Russell Lowell,
poet, essayist, and diplomat (1819-1891)
No two
persons ever read the same book.
— Edmund
Wilson, critic (1895-1972)
To sit alone in the
lamplight with a book spread out before you,
and hold intimate
converse with men of unseen generations -- such is a pleasure beyond compare.
— Kenko
Yoshida, essayist (1283-1352)
There is no remedy so
easy as books, which if they do not give
cheerfulness,
at least restore quiet to the most troubled mind.
— Lady Mary Wortley Montagu,
author (1689-1762)
You think your pains and
heartbreaks are unprecedented in the history of the world, but then you read.
It was books that taught me that the things that tormented me were the very
things that connected me with all the people who were alive, or who have ever
been alive.
— James Baldwin, writer (1924-1987)
The instruction we find
in books is like fire. We fetch it from our
neighbours, kindle it at
home, communicate it to
others, and it becomes the property of all.
—-
Voltaire, philosopher and writer (1694-1778)
CENSORSHIP
The peculiar evil of
silencing the expression of an opinion is, that it is robbing the human race, posterity as well as the existing generation;
those who dissent from the opinion, still more than those who hold it. If the
opinion is right, they are deprived of the opportunity of exchanging error for
truth: if wrong, they lose, what is almost as great a benefit, the clearer
perception and livelier impression of truth, produced by its collision with
error.
-- John Stuart Mill, philosopher
and economist (1806-1873)
CHANGE
There
are two kinds of fool. One says, "This is old, and therefore good."
And one says, "This is new, and therefore better."
— John Brunner, science fiction writer (1934-1995)
Our heads are round so that thoughts
can change direction.
-- Francis Picabia,
painter and poet (1879-1953)
CHARACTER
He that wrestles with us strengthens
our nerves,
and sharpens our skill. Our
antagonist is our helper.
— Edmund Burke, statesman and writer (1729-1797)
Conscience
is thoroughly well-bred and soon leaves off talking to those who do not wish to
hear it.
—- Samuel
Butler, writer (1835-1902)
Gratitude is not only
the "greatest of virtues,
but the parent of all
others."
— Cicero, Roman orator (106 - 43 B.C.)
No man
is an Island, entire of itself; 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, poet (1573-1631)
Honest criticism is hard
to take, particularly from a relative, a friend,
an acquaintance, or a stranger.
— Franklin
P. Jones, businessman (1887-1929)
A dose
of adversity is often as needful as a dose of medicine.
—
Old West pioneer saying
To be able under all
circumstances to practice five things constitutes
perfect virtue; these
five things are gravity, generosity of soul,
sincerity,
earnestness and kindness.
—
Confucius, philosopher and teacher (c. 551-478 BC)
It was
by perseverance that the snail reached the ark.
— Charles Haddon Spurgeon, English preacher (1834-92)
Life is mostly froth and
bubble,
Two things stand like
stone,
Kindness in another's
trouble,
Courage in your own.
— Adam
Lindsay Gordon, poet (1833-1870)
If we
escape punishment for our vices, why should we complain if we are not rewarded
for our virtues?
— John
Churton Collins, literary critic (1848-1908)
CHARITY
The highest exercise of charity is
charity towards the uncharitable.
— J.S
Buckminster,
clergyman
and editor (1797-1812)
CHILDREN
What a
child doesn't receive he can seldom later give.
— P.D. James, writer (1920- )
If you want your
children to turn out well,
spend twice as much time
with them, and half as much money.
— Abigail
Van Buren, advice columnist (1918- )
Children
are unpredictable.
You
never know what inconsistency they're going to catch you in next.
— Franklin P. Jones, businessman (1887-1929)
If you want children to
improve,
let them overhear the
nice things you say about them to others.
— Haim
Ginott, child psychologist (1922-73)
The soul is healed by being with
children.
-- Fyodor Dostoyevsky,
novelist (1821-1881)
CIVIL RIGHTS
(T)he rights of man come not from
the generosity of the state,
but from the hand of God.
— John F. Kennedy, 35th President of the United States
(1917-63)
COMMUNICATION
He who
establishes his argument by noise and command,
shows
that his reason is weak.
— Michel
De Montaigne, essayist (1533-1592)
Don't argue with an
idiot;
people watching may not
be able to tell the difference.
—
Anonymous
Eyes are vocal, tears have tongues,
/
And there are words not made with
lungs.
-- Richard Crashaw,
poet (1613-1649)
CONFLICT
RESOLUTION
If there
be time to expose through discussion the falsehood and the fallacies, to avert
the evil by the processes of education, the remedy to be applied is more
speech, not enforced silence.
— Louis
Dembitz Brandeis, lawyer, judge, and writer (1856-1941)
If I am
walking with two other men, each of them will serve as my teacher. I will pick
out the good points of the one and imitate them, and the bad points of the
other and correct them in myself.
—
Confucius, philosopher and teacher (c. 551-478 BCE)
CONSCIENCE
Conscience
is a dog that does not stop us from passing but that we cannot prevent from
barking.
-- Nicolas
de Chamfort, writer (1741-1794)
When you battle with your conscience
and lose, you win.
-- Henny Youngman,
comedian and violinist (1906-1998)
CONSENSUS
Consensus
is the absence of leadership.
— Margaret Thatcher, British prime minister (1925- )
COOPERATIVE GROUP
LEARNING
As regards intellectual
work, it remains a fact, indeed,
that great decisions in
the realms of thought and momentous discoveries and solutions of
problems are only possible to an individual working in solitude.
— Sigmund
Freud, founder of psychoanalysis (1856-1939)
CORRUPTION
Men are
more often bribed by their loyalties and ambitions
than by
money.
— Robert H. Jackson, U.S. Supreme Court justice (1892-1954)
It is difficult to get a
man to understand something when his salary
depends
upon his not understanding it.
— Upton
Sinclair, novelist and reformer (1878-1968)
CREATIVITY
Creativity
is allowing yourself to make mistakes.
Art is
knowing which ones to keep.
— Scott Adams, cartoonist (1957- )
The world in general
doesn't know what to make of originality;
it is startled out of
its comfortable habits of thought,
and its first reaction
is one of anger.
— W.
Somerset Maugham, writer (1874-1965)
(On snowflakes): How full of the
creative genius is the air in which these are generated! I should hardly admire
them more if real stars fell and lodged on my coat.
— Henry David Thoreau,
writer and philosopher, Journal, 1856
Creativity is so delicate a flower that praise tends to make
it bloom while discouragement often nips it at the bud.
—
Alex Osborn, advertising
executive,
developer of the technique called "brainstorming"
(1886-1967)
CRITICAL THINKING
An open mind, like an
open mouth, does have a purpose; and that is, to close it upon something solid.
Otherwise, it could end up like a city sewer, rejecting absolutely nothing.
— G.K.
Chesterton, author (1874-1936)
In questions of science,
the authority of a thousand is not worth the
humble reasoning of a single
individual.
— Galileo
Galilei, physicist and astronomer (1564-1642)
See everything, overlook a great
deal, correct a little.
— Pope John XXIII (1881-1963)
How much easier it is to be critical
than to be correct.
- Benjamin Disraeli, British prime
minister (1804-1881)
CURIOSITY
The
whole art of teaching is only the art of awakening the natural curiosity of
young minds for the purpose of satisfying it afterwards.
— Anatole France, novelist, essayist, Nobel laureate (1844-1924)
DISCIPLINE
I have always found that
mercy bears richer fruits than strict justice.
— Abraham
Lincoln, 16th U.S. President (1809-1865)
DIVERSITY
Let us enrich ourselves with our
mutual differences.
-- Paul Valery, poet
and philosopher (1871-1945)
ECONOMICS
Socialism is the philosophy of failure, the creed of
ignorance
and the gospel of envy.
— Winston Churchill, British statesman (1874-1965)
Nature
uses as little as possible of anything.
— Johannes Kepler, astronomer (1571-1630)
Permit me to issue and
control the money of a nation,
and I care not who makes
its laws.
— Amschel
Mayer Rothschild, banker (1743-1812)
Did you know that the worldwide food
shortage that threatens up to 500 million children could be alleviated at the
cost of only one day, only ONE day, of
modern warfare.
— Peter
Ustinov, actor, writer and director
(1921-2004)
EDUCATION
I am always ready to
learn,
but I do not always like
to be taught.
— Winston Churchill, British statesman (1874-1965)
What
sculpture is to a block of marble, education is to a human soul.
— Joseph
Addison, essayist and poet (1672-1719)
What is education?
Properly speaking, there is no such thing as education. Education is simply the
soul of a society as it passes from one generation to another. Whatever the
soul is like, it will have to be passed on somehow, consciously or
unconsciously, and that transition may be called education. . . . What we need
is to have a culture before we hand it down. In other words, it is a truth,
however sad and strange, that we cannot give what we have not got, and cannot
teach to other people what we do not know ourselves.
— G.K.
Chesterton, British author (1874-1936)
Rewards
and punishments are the lowest form of education.
—
Chuang-Tzu, philosopher (4th c. BC)
Education is not the filling of a
bucket,
but the lighting of a fire.
-- W.B.Yeats, Irish
poet and Nobel Prize winner (1865-1939)
EFFORT
We aim above the mark to hit the
mark.
— Ralph
Waldo Emerson, writer and
philosopher
(1803-1882)
Fall seven times. Stand up eight.
— Japanese proverb
ELDERLY
Our
society must make it right and possible for old people not to fear the young or
be deserted by them, for the test of a civilization is the way that it cares
for its helpless members.
— Pearl S.
Buck, Nobelist novelist (1892-1973)
ENCOURAGEMENT
In
everyone's life at some time, our inner fire goes out. It is then burst into
flame by an encounter with another human being. We should all be thankful for
those people who rekindle the inner spirit.
— Albert Schweitzer, humanitarian
(1875-1965)
We learn
as much from sorrow as from joy,
as much
from illness as from health,
from
handicaps as from advantages - and indeed perhaps more.
— Pearl S. Buck, Nobelist novelist (1892-1973)
ENTHUSIASM
Nothing
great was ever achieved without enthusiasm.
— Ralph Waldo Emerson, writer, philosopher (1803-1882)
None are so old as those who have
outlived enthusiasm.
— Henry David Thoreau, writer (1817-1862)
You can do anything if you have
enthusiasm. Enthusiasm is the yeast that makes your hopes rise to the stars.
Enthusiasm is the spark in your eyes, the swing in your gait, the grip of your
h and, the irresistible surge of your will and your energy to execute your
ideas. Enthusiasts are fighters, they have fortitude, they have staying
qualities. Enthusiasm is at the bottom of all progress! With it, there is
accomplishment. Without it there are only alibis.
— Henry Ford, industrialist (1863-1947)
Those who are fired with an
enthusiastic idea and who allow it to take hold and dominate their thoughts
find that new worlds open for them. As long as enthusiasm holds out, so will
new opportunities.
— Norman Vincent Peale, minister and author (1898-1993)
EXPERIENCE
Experience
is that marvelous thing that enables you to recognize a mistake when you make
it again.
— Franklin P. Jones, businessman (1887-1929)
Without
your wounds, where would your power be? . . .
In Love's service, only wounded
soldiers can serve.
— Thornton Wilder, author and playwright
(1897-1975)
FAITH
I do not feel obliged to
believe that the same God
who has endowed us with
sense, reason, and intellect
has intended us to forgo
their use.
— Galileo
Galilei, physicist and astronomer (1564-1642)
No snowflake ever falls in the wrong
place.
— Zen
saying
FREEDOM
A free
society is a place where it's safe to be unpopular.
— Adlai Stevenson, statesman (1900-1965)
GIFTEDNESS
All kids are gifted; some
just open their packages earlier than others.
-- Michael Carr
GOOD VS. EVIL
There are a thousand
hacking at the branches of evil
to one who is striking
at the root.
— Henry David
Thoreau,
naturalist and author (1817-1862)
As
nightfall does not come at once, neither does oppression. In both instances
there is a twilight when everything remains seemingly unchanged. And it is in
such twilight that we all must be most aware of change in theair -- however
slight -- lest we become unwitting victims of the darkness.
— William
O. Douglas, judge (1898-1980)
GOVERNMENT
A patriot must always be
ready to defend his country
against its government.
— Edward Abbey, naturalist and author (1927-1989)
The government is like a
baby's alimentary canal, with a happy appetite at one end and no responsibility
on the other.
-- Ronald
Reagan, 42nd President (1911 - 2004)
Governments like clocks,
go from the motion men give them;
and as governments are
made and moved by men, so by them they are ruined too. Wherefore governments
rather depend upon men than men upon government.
— William Penn,
founder of Pennsylvania (1644-1718)
If ye
love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the
animating contest of freedom, go home from us in peace. We ask not your
counsels or your arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your
chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that you were our
countrymen.
— Samuel Adams, American statesman (1722-1803)
We have
no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions
unbridled by morality and religion. Avarice, ambition, revenge, or gallantry,
would break the strongest cords of our Constitution as a whale goes through a
net. Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is
wholly inadequate to the government of any other.
— John Adams, 2nd
American president (1735-1826)
It has long, however, been
my opinion, and I have never shrunk from its expression . . . that the germ of
dissolution of our federal government is in the constitution of the federal
judiciary; . . . working like gravity by night and by day, gaining a little
today and a little tomorrow, and advancing its noiseless step like a thief,
over the field of jurisdiction, until all shall be usurped."
— Thomas Jefferson, 3rd
American president (1743-1826)
The only sure bulwark of
continuing liberty is a government
strong enough to protect
the interests of the people,
and a people strong
enough and well enough informed
to maintain its
sovereign control over its government.
— Franklin
D. Roosevelt, 32nd US President (1882-1945)
GUIDANCE
The gem cannot be polished without
friction,
nor man perfected without trials.
— Chinese
Proverb
Please
subdue the anguish of your soul.
Nobody
is destined only to happiness or to pain.
The
wheel of life takes one up and down by turn.
—
Kalidasa, dramatist (c. 4th century)
The hottest places in hell are
reserved for those who, in time of great moral crisis, maintain their
neutrality.
— Dante Alighieri,
poet (1265-1321)
His
mother had often said, When you choose an action, you choose the consequences
of that action. She had emphasized the corollary of this axiom even more
vehemently: when you desired a consequence you had damned well better take the
action
that
would create it.
— Lois
McMaster Bujold, writer (1949- )
Man must cease attributing his
problems to his environment,
and learn again to exercise his will
— his personal responsibility
in the realm of faith and morals.
— Albert Schweitzer,
humanitarian (1875-1965)
One's age should be tranquil, as
childhood should be playful. Hard work at either extremity of life seems out of
place. At midday the sun may burn, and men labor under it; but the morning and
evening should be alike calm and cheerful.
— Thomas Arnold,
educator (1795-1842)
He is the best physician
who is the most ingenious inspirer
of hope.
—
Samuel Taylor Coleridge,
poet, critic, and philosopher (1772-1834)
If you are afraid of being lonely,
don't try to be right.
— Jules Renard, writer
(1864-1910)
Language exerts hidden power, like a
moon on the tides.
— Rita Mae Brown,
writer, 1944-
HABITS
I've
been on a constant diet for the last two decades. I've lost a total of 789
pounds. By all accounts, I should be hanging from a charm bracelet.
— Erma Bombeck, humorist (1927-1996)
HEALTH
Take rest; a field that
has rested gives a bountiful crop.
— Ovid, Roman poet (43 B.C. - A.D. 17?)
If you think health care
is expensive now,
wait until you see what
it costs when it's free.
— P.J.
O'Rourke, writer (1947- )
HISTORY
History is more or less bunk.
— Henry Ford, industrialist
(1863-1947)
Our youth now love
luxury. They have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for
their elders and love chatter in place of exercise; they no longer rise when
elders enter the room; they contradict
their parents, chatter before company; gobble up their food and tyrannize their
teachers.
—
Socrates, philosopher (469 - 399 B.C.)
Let the American youth
never forget, that they possess a
noble inheritance,
bought by the toils, and sufferings, and
blood of their
ancestors; and capacity, if wisely improved, and
faithfully guarded, of
transmitting to their latest posterity
all the substantial
blessings of life, the peaceful enjoyment of
liberty,
property, religion, and independence."
— Joseph
Story, U.S. judge (1779-1849)
HUMAN RELATIONS
Kindness
is in our power, even when fondness is not.
— Samuel Johnson, lexicographer (1709-1784)
He who wishes to secure
the good of others
has already secured his
own.
—
Confucius (c. 551-479? BC)
Wrongs
are often forgiven, but contempt never is.
Our
pride remembers it forever.
— G.K.
Chesterfield, statesman and writer (1694-1773)
But man, proud man, /
Drest in a little brief
authority, /
Most ignorant of what
he's most assured, /
His glassy essence, like
an angry ape, /
Plays such fantastic
tricks before high heaven /
As make the angels weep.
— William Shakespeare, playwright and poet (1564-1616)
The meeting of two
personalities is like the contact of two chemical
substances: if there is any
reaction, both are transformed.
— Carl
Jung, psychiatrist (1875-1961)
Never miss a good chance
to shut up.
— Will
Rogers, humorist (1879-1935)
HUMILITY
The
greatest of faults, I should say, is to be conscious of none.
— Thomas
Carlyle, writer (1795-1881)
IMAGINATION
Imagination
is more important than knowledge.
— Albert
Einstein, scientist (1879-1955)
INDIVIDUALITY
To be
nobody but myself -- in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make
you everybody else -- means to fight the hardest battle which any human being
can fight, and never stop fighting.
-- E.E. Cummings,
poet (1894-1962)
INFLUENCE
The soundest argument
will produce no more conviction in an empty head than the most superficial
declamation; as a feather and a guinea fall with equal velocity in a vacuum.
-- Charles Caleb Colton, author and
clergyman (1780-1832)
INVENTION
Invention requires an excited mind;
execution, a calm one.
-- Johann Peter
Eckermann, poet (1792-1854)
KNOWEDGE
Knowledge
is like a garden:
if it is not cultivated, it cannot
be harvested.
-- Guinean saying
LEARNING
I have
always imagined that paradise will be a kind of library.
— Jorge
Luis Borges, writer (1899-1986)
The love of learning, the
sequestered nooks,
And all the sweet serenity of books.
— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, poet (1807-1882)
Learning is acquired by
reading books; but the much more necessary
learning,
the knowledge of the world, is only to be acquired by reading man, and studying
all the various editions of them.
— Philip Dormer Stanhope,
statesman and writer (1694-1773)
Only one
who bursts with eagerness do I instruct; only one who bubbles with excitement,
do I enlighten.
— Confucius, philosopher and teacher (551 - 479 B.C.)
I do not know what I may
appear to the world;
but to myself I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the seashore, and
diverting myself now and then finding a smoother
pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth
lay all undiscovered before me.
— Isaac Newton, philosopher
and mathematician (1642-1727)
Learning
is like rowing upstream: not to advance is to drop back.
— Chinese
proverb
Personally, I'm always ready to
learn, although I do not always like being taught.
— Sir Winston Churchill, British prime minister
(1874-1965)
LIFE
I went
to the woods because I wished to live deliberately,
to front
only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn
what it
had to teach, and not, when I came to die,
discover
that I had not lived.
— Henry David Thoreau,
naturalist and author (1817-1862)
Three grand essentials
to happiness in this life are something to do,
something to love, and something to
hope for.
— Joseph
Addison, writer (1672-1719)
MATHEMATICS
When
you are dissatisfied and would like to go back to your youth,
think
of Algebra.
— Will Rogers, humorist (1879-1935)
Black holes are where God divided by
zero.
— Steven Wright, comedian (1955- )
MEDIA
Television is altering
the meaning of "being informed" by creating a species of information
that might properly be called disinformation. . . . Disinformation does not
mean false information. It means misleading information — misplaced,
irrelevant, fragmented or superficial information — information that creates
the illusion of knowing something, but which in fact leads one away from
knowing.
— Neil Postman,
author, media critic,
professor (1931-2003)
MILITARY EDUCATION
The soldier, above all
other men, is required to practice the greatest act of religious training - sacrifice.
In battle and in the face of danger and death, he discloses those Divine
attributes which his Maker gave when He created man in His own image. No
physical courage and no brute instinct can take the place of Divine help which
alone can sustain him. However horrible the incidents of war may be, the
soldier who is called upon to offer and to give his life for his country is the
noblest development of mankind.
— Gen. Douglas MacArthur, U.S. general
(1880-1964)
MONEY
Money
may be the husk of many things but not the kernel.
It brings you food, but
not appetite; medicine, but not health; acquaintance, but not friends;
servants, but not loyalty;
days of joy, but not
peace or happiness.
— Henrik
Ibsen, playwright (1828-1906)
The most efficient labor-saving
device
Is still money.
— Franklin P. Jones, businessman (1887-1929)
MORALITY
The ultimate test of a moral society
is the kind of world that it leaves to its children.
— Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Christian theologian
and Holocaust martyr (1906-1945)
Be
not too hasty to trust or admire the teachers of morality; they discourse like angels
but they live like men.
— Samuel Johnson, lexicographer
(1709-1784)
MUSIC
A book is a story for the mind. A
song is a story for the soul.
-- Eric
Pio, poet
I think
I should have no other mortal wants, if I could always have plenty of music. It
seems to infuse strength into my limbs and ideas into my brain. Life seems to
go on without effort, when I am filled with music.
—
George Eliot (Mary Ann Evans),
British novelist (1819-80)
If music be the food of love, play
on. . . .
— William Shakespeare,
English playwright (1564-1616)
NATURE
Earth laughs in flowers.
— Ralph Waldo Emerson, writer and
philosopher (1803-1882)
He who
is cruel to animals becomes hard also in his dealings with men. We can judge
the heart of a man by his treatment of animals.
— Immanuel
Kant, philosopher (1724-1804)
There is pleasure in the
pathless woods,
There is rapture in the
lonely shore,
There is society where
none intrudes,
By the deep sea, and
music in its roar:
I love not man the less,
but nature more.
— Lord
Byron, poet (1788-1824)
Nature is ever at work building and
pulling down, creating and destroying, keeping everything whirling and flowing,
allowing no rest but in rhythmical motion, chasing everything in endless song
out of one beautiful form into another.
-- John Muir, naturalist
and explorer (1838-1914)
PARENTING
We spend
the first twelve months of our children's lives
teaching them
to walk and talk,
and the next
twelve years telling them to sit down and shut up.
— Phyllis Diller,
comedienne (1917- )
The best
thing to spend on your children is your time.
— Louise Hart, poet,
author and photojournalist
Nothing has a
stronger influence
psychologically
on their environment
and
especially on their children
than the
unlived life of the parent.
— Carl Jung,
psychologist (1875-1961)
The thing
that impresses me the most about America is the way parents obey their
children.
—
Edward, Duke of Windsor (1894-1972)
A good education
is the next best thing
to a pushy mother.
-- Charles M. Schulz, "Peanuts" cartoonist
(1922-2000)
PEDAGOGY
(Teaching Methods)
The
mind is not a vessel that needs filling
but wood that needs igniting.
-- Plutarch, Greek historian and thinker (A.D. 46-120)
PHILOSOPHY
What a
strange machine man is! You fill him with bread, wine, fish, and radishes, and
out comes sighs, laughter, and dreams.
— Nikos Kazantzakis, poet and novelist
(1883-1957)
To be a philosopher is not merely to
have subtle thoughts, nor even to found a school, but so to love wisdom as to
live according to its dictates, a life of simplicity, independence,
magnanimity, and trust.
— Henry
David Thoreau, naturalist and author (1817-1862)
Sacred cows
make the best hamburger.
— Mark Twain, author and
humorist (1835-1910)
PLANNING
Little
Strokes, Fell great Oaks.
— Benjamin
Franklin, statesman, author, and
inventor
(1706-1790)
POETRY
Poetry is to prose as dancing is to
walking.
— John Barrington
Wain, writer (1925-1994)
It is
difficult to get the news from poems
yet men
die miserably every day for lack of what is found there.
— William Carlos Williams (1883-1963)
In science
one tries to tell people, in such a way as to be understood by everyone, something
that no one ever knew before. But in poetry, it's the exact opposite.
— Paul Dirac, physicist
(1902-1984)
Poetry
is indeed something divine. It is at once the centre and circumference of
knowledge; it is that which comprehends all science, and that to which all
science must be referred. It is at the same time the root and blossom of all
other systems of thought; it is that from which all spring, and that which
adorns all; and that which,
If blighted, denies the
fruit and the seed, and withholds
from the barren world
the nourishment
and the succession of
the scions of the tree of life.
— Percy
Bysshe Shelley, Defence Of Poetry,
(written 1821, published 1840)
POLITICS
Washing
one's hands of the conflict between the powerful and the powerless means to
side with the powerful, not to be neutral.
— Paulo Freire,
educator (1921-1997)
The penalty that good men pay for
not being interested in politics is to be governed by men worse than
themselves.
— Plato, philosopher (427-347 BCE)
When money speaks, the truth keeps
silent.
— Russian proverb
PROBLEM-SOLVING
You can never solve a problem on the
level on which it was created.
— Albert
Einstein, physicist, Nobel laureate (1879-1955)
For every ten problems
you see coming down the road,
nine roll harmlessly
into the ditch before they arrive.
— Calvin
Coolidge, 30th U.S. President (1872-1933)
RELATIONSHIPS
Ships that pass in the
night and speak to each other in passing;
Only a signal shown and
a distant voice in the darkness;
So on the ocean of life
we pass and speak to one another,
Only a look and a voice;
then darkness again and a silence.
— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, poet (1807-1882)
No man is an Island,
entire of itself; 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, poet
(1573-1631)
RELIGION
Of
all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion
and morality are indispensable supports. In vain would that man claim the
tribute of patriotism who should labor to subvert these great pillars of human
happiness.
— George Washington, 1st
U.S. President,
(1732-99)
I am
much afraid that schools will prove to be the great gates of hell unless they
diligently labor in explaining the Holy Scriptures, engraving them in the
hearts of youth.
— Martin Luther, German theologian
(1483-1546)
Liberty cannot be
established without morality, nor
morality without
religion.
— Alexis
de Tocqueville, French statesman
(1805-1859
A patriot without
religion in my estimation is as great a
paradox as an honest man
without the fear of God.
— Abigail Adams, U.S. First Lady (1744-1818)
The
highest flight of charity, devotion, trust, patience, bravery to which the
wings of human nature have spread themselves, have been flown for religious
ideals.
— Henry James, philosopher (1811-82)
The means by which we live have outdistanced the ends for
which we live. Our scientific power has outrun our spiritual power. We have
guided missiles and misguided men.
— Martin Luther King Jr.,
civil rights activist (1929-68)
SCIENCE
When one tugs at a
single thing in nature,
he finds it attached to
the rest of the world.
— John
Muir, naturalist, explorer, and writer (1838-1914)
The only solid piece of scientific
truth about which I feel totally confident is that we are profoundly ignorant
about nature. . . . It is this sudden confrontation with the depth and scope of
ignorance that represents the most significant contribution of twentieth-century
science to the human intellect.
— Lewis Thomas,
physician and writer (1913-93)
The science of life is a superb and
dazzlingly lighted hall which may be reached only by passing through a long and
ghastly kitchen.
— Claude Bernard ,French physiologist (1813-1878)
SELF-ESTEEM
A man
has to live with himself,
and he
should see to it that he always has good company.
— Charles
Evans Hughes, jurist (1862-1948)
There
are many who find a good alibi far more attractive than an achievement. For an
achievement does not settle anything permanently. We still have to prove our
worth anew each day:
we have
to prove that we are as good today as we were yesterday.
But when we have a valid alibi for
not achieving anything
we are fixed, so to speak, for life.
— Eric Hoffer, writer (1902-1983)
Half the harm that is done in this world is
due to people who want to feel important. They don't mean to do harm-- but the
harm does not interest them. Or they do not see it, or they justify it because
they are absorbed in the endless struggle to think well of themselves.
—T.S. Elliot, writer (1888-1965)
Of
all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be
the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under
omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep,
his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us
for
our own good will torment us without end for they do so
with
the approval of their own conscience.
— C. S. Lewis, English writer (1898-1963)
Examine the records of history,
recollect what has happened within the circle of your own experience, consider
with attention what has been the conduct of almost all the greatly unfortunate,
either in private or public life, whom you may have either read of, or hear of,
or remember, and you will find that the misfortunes
of by far the greater part of them
have arisen
from their not knowing when they
were well,
when it was proper for them to set
still and to be contented.
— Adam Smith, economist (1723-1790)
SERVICE
The
highest exercise of charity is charity towards the uncharitable.
— J.S.
Buckminster, clergyman and editor (1797-1812)
SORROW
Every blade in the
field—
every leaf in the
forest—
lays down its life in
its season
as beautifully as it was
taken up.
—
Henry David Thoreau,
writer (1817-1862)
For each thorn, there's
a rosebud...
for each twilight—a
dawn...
for each trial—the
strength to carry on,
For each stormcloud—a
rainbow...
for each shadow—the
sun...
for each parting—sweet
memories
when sorrow is done.
— Ralph
Waldo Emerson,
writer
(1803-1882)
Look for the rainbow
that gracious thing,
made up of tears and
light.
— Samuel
Taylor Coleridge,
writer
(1772-1834)
Though nothing can bring
back the hour
of splendor in the
grass, of glory in the flower,
We will grieve not,
rather find
Strength in what remains
behind.
— William
Wordsworth,
poet
(1770-1850)
TAXES
I contend
that for a nation to try to tax itself into prosperity
is like a man standing in a bucket
and trying to lift himself up by the
handle.
— Winston Churchill,
British statesman (1874-1965)
I'm proud to pay taxes in the United
States; the only thing is,
I could be just as proud for half
the money.
-- Arthur
Godfrey, television host, entertainer (1903-1983)
TELEVISION
The
television, that insidious beast, that Medusa which freezes a billion people to
stone every night, staring fixedly, that Siren which called and sang and
promised so much and gave, after all, so little.
--Ray
Bradbury, science-fiction writer (1920- )
TRIALS
Certainly virtue is like
precious odours, most fragrant when they are
incensed, or crushed:
for prosperity doth best discover vice,
but adversity doth best
discover virtue.
— Francis
Bacon, essayist, philosopher, and
statesman
(1561-1626)
TRUTH
There
are times when we must sink to the bottom of our misery to understand truth,
just as we must descend to the bottom of a well to see the stars in broad
daylight.
— Vaclav Havel, writer,
Czech Republic president (1936- )
UNIONS
There are three things to
be considered about an organization: what it offers to the public, what it
offers to its own rank and file, and what it offers to the leaders. The last of
these too often, in practice, outweighs the other two.
-- Bertrand Russell, English philosopher
(1872-1970)
WORK ETHIC
Just as appetite comes by eating so
work brings inspiration.
— Igor
Stravinsky, composer (1882-1971)
WRITING
Easy
reading is damned hard writing.
—
Nathaniel Hawthorne, writer (1804-1864)
Works of imagination
should be written in very plain language; the more purely imaginative they are
the more necessary it is to be plain.
— Samuel Taylor Coleridge,
poet and philosopher (1772-1834)
Words are the soul's
ambassadors, who go /
Abroad upon her errands
to and fro.
— James
Howell, writer (c. 1594-1666)
Substitute
damn every time you're inclined to write very; your editor will delete it and
the writing will be just as it should be.
— Mark
Twain, author and humorist (1835-1910)
Words are like money;
there is nothing so useless,
unless when in actual
use.
— Samuel
Butler, writer (1835-1902)
But words are things, a
small drop of ink, /
Falling like dew upon a
thought, produces /
That which makes
thousands, perhaps millions, think.
— Lord Byron, poet (1788-1824)
The best writing is
rewriting.
— E.B. White, writer (1899-1985)
Work on good prose has
three steps: a musical stage
when it is composed, an
architectonic one when it is built,
and a textile one when
it is woven.
— Walter
Benjamin, critic and philosopher (1982-1940)