Samuel Butler

"Life is like playing a violin in public and learning the instrument as one goes on."
- Samuel Butler

Gilbert K. Chesterton

A man does not know what he is saying until he knows what he is not saying.
- Gilbert K. Chesterton

Henry Ford

"An idealist is a person who helps other people to be prosperous."
- Henry Ford

Josh Billings

Love is said to be blind, but I know some fellows in love who can see twice as much in their sweethearts as I do.
- Josh Billings

Faith Baldwin

Character builds slowly, but it can be torn down within incredible swiftness.
- Faith Baldwin

Voltaire

Doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty is absurd.
- Voltaire

William Shakespeare

“I will wear my heart upon my sleeve for daws to peck at.”
- William Shakespeare, Othello (1564-1616)

Colin Powell

There are no secrets to success. It is the result of preparation, hard work, learning from failure.
- Colin Powell

H. L. Mencken

In the United States, doing good has come to be, like patriotism, a favorite device of persons with something to sell.
- H. L. Mencken

Peter Townsend

So much of what I am I got from you. I had no idea how much of it was secondhand.
- Peter Townsend

Tao Te Ching

When you look for it, there is nothing to see. When you listen for it, there is nothing to hear. When you use it, it is inexhaustible.
- Tao Te Ching

Victor Hugo

A library implies an act of faith.
- Victor Hugo

Maurice Wagner

At the heart of personality is the need to feel a sense of being lovable without having to qualify for that acceptance.
- Maurice Wagner

Aristophanes

Wise men learn many things from their enemies.
- Aristophanes

Dalai Lama

It is very important to generate a good attitude, a good heart, as much as possible. From this, happiness in both the short term and the long term for both yourself and others will come.
- Dalai Lama

Anonymous

The hardest job facing kids today is to learn good manners without seeing any.
- Anonymous

Henny Youngman

Just got back from a pleasure trip: I took my mother-in-law to the airport.
- Henny Youngman

Chuang Tzu

The fish trap exists because of the fish. Once you've gotten the fish you can forget the trap. The rabbit snare exists because of the rabbit. Once you've gotten the rabbit, you can forget the snare. Words exist because of meaning. Once you've gotten the meaning, you can forget the words. Where can I find a man who has forgotten words so I can talk with him?
- Chuang Tzu

William Shedd

“A ship in a harbor is safe, but that’s not what ships are built for.”
- William Shedd

Richard Baker

To get rich never risk your health. For it is the truth that health is the wealth of wealth.
- Richard Baker

Margaret Thatcher

You don't tell deliberate lies, but sometimes you have to be evasive.
- Margaret Thatcher

Abraham Lincoln

I am not bound to win, but I am bound to be true. I am not bound to succeed, but I am bound to live by the light that I have. I must stand with anybody that stands right, and stand with him while he is right, and part with him when he goes wrong.
- Abraham Lincoln

Bertrand Russell

Remember your humanity and forget the rest.
- Bertrand Russell

Ralph Waldo Emerson

"The louder he talked of his honor, the faster we counted our spoons."
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

Jeannette Rankin

"You can no more win a war than you can win an earthquake."
- Jeannette Rankin

Ronnie Shakes

"I like life. It's something to do."
- Ronnie Shakes

Everett Dirksen

Life is not a static thing. The only people who do not change their minds are incomptetents in asylums, who can't are those in cemeteries.
- Everett Dirksen

Audrey Hepburn

I probably hold the distinction of being one movie star who, by all laws of logic, should never have made it. At each stage of my career, I lacked the experience.
- Audrey Hepburn

Henry David Thoreau

Why level downward to our dullest perception always, and praise that as common sense? The commonest sense is the sense of men asleep, which they express by snoring.
- Henry David Thoreau

Mark Twain

The self taught man seldom knows anything accurately, and he does not know a tenth as much as he could have known if he had worked under teachers, and besides, he brags, and is the means of fooling other thoughtless people into going and doing as he himself has done.
- Mark Twain