Quotes

Your beliefs become your thoughts, 
Your thoughts become your words,
Your words become your actions,
Your actions become your habits,
Your habits become your values,
Your values become your destiny.
~Mahatma Gandhi

Fate whispers to the warrior, “You are not strong enough to withstand the storm.” The warrior whispers back, “I am the storm.” ~Author Unknown

Never be diverted either by what you wish to believe, or by what you think would have beneficent social effects if it were believed. But look only, and solely, at what are the facts. ~Bertrand Russell

The flower doesn’t dream the bee. It blossoms and the bee comes.  ~Mark Nepo, The Book of Awakening

Awakening begins when a man realizes that he is going nowhere and does not know where to go. ~George Gurdjieff

And loss of control is always the source of fear. It is also, however, always the source of change. ~James Frey

Our greatest responsibility is to be good ancestors. ~Jonas Salk

I’d rather see folks doubt what’s true than accept what isn’t.
~Frank A. Clark

Be the person who breaks the cycle. If you were judged, choose understanding. If you were rejected, choose acceptance. If you were shamed, choose compassion. Be the person you needed when you were hurting, not the person who hurt you. Vow to be better than what broke you—to heal instead of becoming bitter so you can act from your heart, not your pain.
~Lori Deschene

When I despair, I remember that all through history the way of truth and love has always won. There have been tyrants and murderers, and for a time, they can seem invincible, but in the end, they always fall. Think of it–always. ~Mahatma Gandhi

Where law ends, tyranny begins. ~John Locke

The success or failure of your deeds does not add up to the sum of your life. Your spirit cannot be weighed. Judge yourself by the intention of your actions and by the strength with which you have faced the challenges that stood in your way. The universe is vast, though we are so small. There is really only one thing we can ever truly control … whether we are good or evil. ~Oma Desala, Stargate SG1

Because it is so clear, it takes a long time to realize it. If you immediately know the candlelight is fire, then the meal was cooked a long time ago. ~Monk, Stargate SG1

To resist the influence of others, knowledge of oneself is most important. ~Teal’c, Stargate SG1

Reality is a construct of simple-minded fools who can’t function in the absence of boundaries. ~Sung, Picard

Until he extends his circle of compassion to all living things, man will not himself find peace. ~Albert Schweitzer

Success is not final; failure is not fatal. It is the courage to continue that counts. (This saying evolved over time, and the phrase about courage was appended to a preexisting adage. The earliest evidence of the full saying appeared in an advertisement for Budweiser beer in the 1930s. The linkage to Churchill appeared in the 1960s and has no substantive support. ~Quote Investigator https://quoteinvestigator.com/2013/09/03/success-final/)

A human being is part of a whole, called by us the “Universe,” a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings, as something separated from the rest—a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circles of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty. ~Albert Einstein (1879–1955)

Be not the slave of your own past – plunge into the sublime seas, dive deep, and swim far, so you shall come back with new self-respect, with new power, and with an advanced experience that shall explain and overlook the old. ~Ralph Waldo Emerson

Take nothing but memories,
Leave nothing but footprints.
~Chief Seattle

Certainly anyone who has the power to make you believe absurdities has the power to make you commit atrocities. ~Voltaire
(Translated from French: Certainement qui est en droit de vous rendre absurde, est en droit de vous rendre injuste.)

“Gratitude turns what we have into enough.” ~Aesop

The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing. ~Edmund Burke

The tyrant will always find a pretext for his tyranny. ~Aesop (Moral of the fable, The Wolf and the Lamb)

One of the marks of the end of a democratic republic is the normalization of political violence. (Author Unknown)

You don’t love someone for their looks, or their clothes, or for their fancy car, but because they sing a song only you can hear. ~Oscar Wilde

All prosperity begins in the mind and is dependent only upon the full use of our creative imagination. ~ Ruth Ross

No age or time of life, no position or circumstance, has a monopoly on success. Any age is the right age to start doing! ~Ralph W. Gerard

Resistance causes pain and lethargy. It is when we practice acceptance that new possibilities appear. ~Anonymous

Great disputing repels truth. ~French Proverb

The modern patriotism, the true patriotism, the only rational patriotism is loyalty to the nation all the time, but loyalty to the government only when it deserves it. ~Mark Twain

The first method for estimating the intelligence of a ruler is to look at the men he has around him. ~Niccolo Machiavelli

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

Once you can laugh at your own weaknesses, you can move forward. Comedy breaks down walls. It opens up people. If you’re good, you can fill up those openings with something positive. Maybe you can combat some of the ugliness in the world. ~Goldie Hawn

The various religions are like different roads converging on the same point. What difference does it make if we follow different routes, provided we arrive at the same destination?
~Mahatma Gandhi

Every moment is an organizing opportunity, every person a potential activist, every minute a chance to change the world. ~Dolores Huerta

After silence, that which comes nearest to expressing the inexpressible is music. ~Aldous Huxley

First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Socialist.
Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Trade Unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me—
and there was no one left to speak for me.
~Martin Niemöller

We must learn to live together as brothers or perish together as fools. ~Martin Luther King, Jr.

Be calm in arguing; for fierceness makes error a fault, and truth discourtesy. ~George Herbert

In the process of gaining our rightful place, we must not be guilty of wrongful deeds. Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred. We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline. ~Martin Luther King Jr.

Do not keep silent when your own ideas and values are being attacked. If a dictatorship ever comes to this country, it will be by the fault of those who keep silent. We are still free enough to speak. Do we have time? No one can tell. ~Ayn Rand

Freedom is not choosing; that is merely the move that we make when all is already lost. Freedom is knowing and understanding and respecting things quite other than ourselves. ~Iris Murdoch

I may not agree with what you say, but to your death I will defend your right to say it. ~Voltaire

The price of apathy towards public affairs is to be ruled by evil men. ~Plato

A man dies when he refuses to stand up for that which is right. A man dies when he refuses to stand up for justice. A man dies when he refuses to take a stand for that which is true.
~Martin Luther King Jr.

If American women would increase their voting turnout by ten percent, I think we would see an end to all of the budget cuts in programs benefiting women and children. ~Coretta Scott King

People everywhere enjoy believing things that they know are not true. It spares them the ordeal of thinking for themselves and taking responsibility for what they know. ~Brooks Atkinson

What governs men is the fear of truth. ~Henri Frederic Amiel

The world as we have created it is a process of our thinking. It cannot be changed without changing our thinking.
~ Albert Einstein

The day science begins to study non-physical phenomena, it will make more progress in one decade than in all the previous centuries of its existence. ~Nikola Tesla

Democracy is a dynamic power and not a static condition. It is not absolute. It cannot be taken for granted. Its condition is freedom and its aim is truth.
~from Indian Democracy on India Opines

Every great change is preceded by chaos. ~Deepak Chopra

Love in action is the answer to every problem in our lives and in this world. Love in action is the force that helped us make it to this place, and it’s the truth that will set us free. ~Susan Taylor

We are each of us angels with only one wing, and we can fly by embracing one another other. ~Luciano De Crescenzo

Despite its difficulties, chaos has led to some incredibly wonderful thinking, so in a sense, chaos really has been a gift to mankind. (Author Unknown)

If at first you don’t succeed, you’re running about average. ~M.H. Alderson

Kung Fu (TV Series)

Master Po: Death is an end to life, as waking is an end to sleep.

Caine: How can strangers take on such importance to our
souls? Master Kan: Because our soul does not keep time; it
merely records growth.

Nobody reads a mystery to get to the middle. They read it to get to the end. If it’s a letdown, they won’t buy any more. The first page sells that book. The last page sells your next book. ~Mickey Spillane

When the earth is dying there shall arise a new tribe of all colours and all creeds. This tribe shall be called The Warriors of the Rainbow and it will put forth in actions not words. ~Prophecy of the Native American Hopi People

There will come a time when the earth is sick and the animals and plants begin to die. Then the Indians will regain their spirit and gather people of all nations, colors and beliefs to join together in the fight to save the Earth: The Rainbow Warriors. ~Prophecy of the Native American Sioux People

The basic difference between an ordinary person and a warrior is that a warrior takes everything as a challenge, while an ordinary person takes everything as a blessing or a curse.
~Carlos Castaneda

I believe that we are solely responsible for our choices, and we have to accept the consequences of every deed, word, and thought throughout our lifetime. ~Elisabeth Kubler-Ross

I am certain that after the dust of centuries has passed over our cities, we, too, will be remembered not for victories or defeats in battle or politics, but for our contribution to the human spirit. ~John F. Kennedy

Repetition does not transform a lie into a truth.
~Franklin D. Roosevelt

Destiny is not a matter of chance; it is a matter of choice. It is not a thing to be waited for; it is a thing to be achieved. ~William Jennings Bryan

True friendship is a plant of slow growth, and must undergo and withstand the shocks of adversity before it is entitled to the appellation. ~George Washington

It is certain that a book is not harmless merely because no one is consciously offended by it. ~T.S. Eliot

Humility is a very strange thing. The minute you think you’ve got it, you’ve lost it. (Author Unknown)

To vilify a great man is the readiest way in which a little man can himself attain greatness. ~Edgar Allan Poe

No man will make a great leader who wants to do it all himself or get all the credit for doing it. ~Andrew Carnegie

Then join hand in hand,
Brave Americans all,
By uniting we stand,
By dividing we fall.
~John Dickinson

I believe that living on the edge, living in and through your fear, is the summit of life, and that people who refuse to take that dare condemn themselves to a life of living death.
~John H. Johnson

A government that robs Peter to pay Paul can always depend on the support of Paul. ~George Bernard Shaw

Now is no time to think of what you do not have. Think of what you can do with what there is. ~Ernest Hemingway

A sense of duty is useful in work but offensive in personal relations. People wish to be liked, not to be endured with patient resignation. ~Bertrand Russell

One of the nice things about problems is that a good many of them do not exist except in our imaginations. ~Steve Allen

No tree becomes rooted and sturdy unless many a wind assails it. For by its very tossing it tightens its grip and plants its roots more securely; the fragile trees are those that have grown in a sunny valley. ~Seneca the Younger

The preservation of the means of knowledge among the lowest ranks is of more importance to the public than all the property of all the rich men in the country. ~John Adams
(Dissertation on the Canon and Feudal Law, 1765)

Flowers do not force their way with great strife.
Flowers open to perfection slowly in the sun.
Don’t be in a hurry about spiritual matters.
Go step by step, and be very sure.
~Grace Cooke / White Eagle

The one important thing I have learned over the years is the difference between taking one’s work seriously and taking one’s self seriously. The first is imperative and the second is disastrous. ~Dame Margot Fonteyn

Only the guy who isn’t rowing has time to rock the boat.
~Jean-Paul Sartre

Be not afraid of growing slowly, be afraid only of standing still. ~Chinese Proverb

If you are depressed, you are living in the past.
If you are anxious, you are living in the future.
If you are at peace, you are living in the present.
~Lao Tzu

We cannot change anything until we accept it. Condemnation does not liberate, it oppresses. ~Carl Jung

There are two ways of spreading light: to be the candle or the mirror that reflects it. ~Edith Wharton

Nothing splendid has ever been achieved except by those who dared believe that something inside them was superior to circumstance. ~Bruce Barton

Life is 10% what happens to you and 90% how you react to it. ~Charles R. Swindoll

The first rule is to keep an untroubled spirit. The second is to look things in the face and know them for what they are. ~Marcus Aurelius

Love is a symbol of eternity. It wipes out all sense of time, destroying all memory of a beginning and all fear of an end. ~Madame de Stael

Toleration is the greatest gift of the mind; it requires the same effort of the brain that it takes to balance oneself on a bicycle. ~Helen Keller

The road to success is dotted with many tempting parking spaces. ~Will Rogers

The wound is the place where the Light enters you. ~Rumi

We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give. ~Winston Churchill

Life engenders life. Energy creates energy. It is by spending oneself that one becomes rich. ~Sarah Bernhardt

Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.
~Martin Luther King, Jr.

Our duty, as men and women, is to proceed as if limits to our ability did not exist. We are collaborators in creation.
~Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

Success is a moving target. ~Darlene Foster

There’s no trick to being a humorist when you have the whole government working for you. ~Will Rogers

There’s a world of difference between truth and facts. Facts can obscure the truth. ~Maya Angelou

The happiness of your life depends upon the quality of your thoughts: therefore, guard accordingly, and take care that you entertain no notions unsuitable to virtue and reasonable nature. ~Marcus Aurelius

The glory of great men should always be measured by the means they have used to acquire it.
~Francois de La Rochefoucauld (1678)

Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn. ~Benjamin Franklin

The ideals that have lighted my way, and time after time have given me new courage to face life cheerfully, have been kindness, beauty, and truth. ~Albert Einstein

Life will break you. Nobody can protect you from that, and living alone won’t either, for solitude will also break you with its yearning. You have to love. You have to feel. It is the reason you are here on earth. You are here to risk your heart. You are here to be swallowed up. And when it happens that you are broken, or betrayed, or left, or hurt, or death brushes near, let yourself sit by an apple tree and listen to the apples falling all around you in heaps, wasting their sweetness. Tell yourself you tasted as many as you could. ~Louise Erdrich, The Painted Drum

With love you don’t bargain. There, the choice is not yours. Love is a mirror, it reflects only your essence, if you have the courage to look in its face. ~Rumi

Love is of all passions the strongest, for it attacks simultaneously the head, the heart and the senses. ~Lao Tzo

He who is devoid of the power to forgive is devoid of the power to love. ~Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

What sunshine is to flowers, smiles are to humanity.
~Joseph Addison

When a thing is funny, look for hidden truth.
~George Bernard Shaw

The man who begins to say it can’t be done is often interrupted by somebody else doing it. ~quote generally attributed to Confucius, George Bernard Shaw, or Elbert Hubbard

When everything seems to be going against you, remember that the airplane takes off against the wind, not with it.
~Henry Ford

The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits. ~Albert Einstein

Your friends will believe in your potential, your enemies will make you live up to it. ~Tim Fargo

We usually get what we anticipate. ~Claude Bristol

Part of the healing process is sharing with other people who care. ~Jerry Cantrell

First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win. ~Mahatma Gandhi

It is not more surprising to be born twice than once; everything in nature is resurrection. ~Voltaire

My time has not yet come either; some are born posthumously. ~Friedrich Nietzche

The law of floatation was not discovered by contemplating the sinking of things. ~Thomas Troward

[The Divine] is everywhere, in every direction, in every space, without exception. ~Kamla K. Kapur

If our votes mattered, they wouldn’t let us do it. ~Mark Twain

Your mind is a powerful thing. When you filter it with positive thoughts, your life will start to change. ~Buddha

Miracles are not contrary to nature, but only contrary to what we know about nature. ~St. Augustine

We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit. ~Aristotle

Gratitude is not only the greatest of virtues, but the parent of all others. ~Cicero

Compassion is not religious business, it is human business.  It is not  luxury,  it is essential for our own peace and mental stability.  It is essential for human survival. ~Dalai Lama

In the practice of tolerance, one’s enemy is the best teacher. ~Dalai Lama

No act of kindness, no matter how small, is ever wasted. ~Aesop

Forgiveness is mental floss!  Build the capacity to forgive slowly – start with little unkind acts, otherwise you’ll sabotage yourself.  When we forgive, we forgive the actor, not the action. ~Steven & Ondrea Levine

I add my breath to your breath
That our lives may be long on this earth
That the lives of our people may be long
May the Mother bless you with life
May your life path be fulfilled
~Keresan Prayer~

As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others. ~Nelson Mandella

She finally understood the vision.  She must walk alone.
Everything she had lived through had prepared her for this journey.  And she was not afraid.  For the first time, Ayla felt the strength of her own spirit. ~Jean Auel, Clan of the Cave Bear

For LIGHT, I go directly to the source of light, not to any of the reflections. ~Peace Pilgrim

We are healed by a suffering only by experiencing it to the full. ~Marcel Proust

If women could move mountains…  They wouldn’t!  What’s the point?  Mountains look great just where they are!
~Jane Evershed, Power of Women card series

Fear is the main source of superstition, and one of the main sources of cruelty.  To conquer fear is the beginning of wisdom. ~Bertrand Russell

You gain strength, courage and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face.  You are able to say to yourself, “I lived through this horror.  I can take the next thing that comes along.”  You must do the thing you think you cannot do. ~Eleanor Roosevelt

On no subject are our ideas more warped and pitiable than on death.  Let children walk with nature, let them see the beautiful blendings and communions of death and life, their joyous inseparable unity, as taught in woods and meadows, plains and mountains and streams of our blessed star, and they will learn that death is stingless indeed, and as beautiful as life, and that the grave has no victory, for it never fights.  All is divine harmony. ~John Muir

Prayer indeed is good, but while calling on the gods a man should himself lend a hand. ~Hippocrates

…the moment one definitely commits oneself, then Providence moves too.  All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred. ~W. H. Murray

Death is not the greatest loss in life.  The greatest loss is what dies inside us while we live. ~Norman Cousins

He who has a why to live can bear almost any how. ~Nietzsche

Courage is the price that life exacts
for granting peace.  The soul that
Knows it not, knows no release
From little things; knows not the
livid loneliness of fear, Nor mountain
heights where bitter joy can hear
The sound of wings.
~Amelia Earhart

Independence?  That’s middle-class blasphemy.  We are all dependent on one another, every soul of us on earth.
~George Bernard Shaw

The best thing about the future is that it comes only one day at a time. ~Abraham Lincoln

It is the commonest of mistakes to consider that the limit of our power of perception is also the limit of all there is to perceive. ~C.W. Leadbeater

Humor is a prelude to faith and
Laughter is the beginning of prayer.
~Reinhold Niebuhr

Some of my best friends are children. ~J.D. Salinger

One word frees us of all the weight and pain of life: That word is love. ~Sophocles 406 B.C.

Until one has loved an animal, part of their soul remains
unawakened. ~Anatole France

Dear God, Help me believe the truth about myself, no matter how beautiful it is. ~John McGrann

Discipline is the bridge between goals and accomplishments. ~Jim Rohn

Humor is something that thrives between man’s aspirations and his limitations.  There is more logic in humor than in anything else. Because, you see, humor is truth. ~Victor Hugo

Creativity can solve almost any problem.  The creative act, the defeat of habit by originality, overcomes everything.
~George Lois

We are not to fear the strangeness we feel.  The future must enter into us long before it happens. ~Rainer Maria Rilke

Life is no brief candle to me.  It is a sort of splendid torch which I have got hold of for the moment, and I want to make it burn as brightly as possible before handing it on to future generations. ~George Bernard Shaw

If a free society can’t help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich. ~John F. Kennedy, Inaugural Address

I see in the near future a crisis approaching that unnerves me and causes me to tremble for the safety of my country…corporations have been enthroned and an era of corruption in high places will follow, and the money power of the country will endeavor to prolong its reign by working on the prejudices of the people until all wealth is aggregated in a few hands and the Republic is destroyed.
~President Abraham Lincoln, November 21, 1884 

We must embrace pain and burn it as fuel for our journey. ~Kenji Miyazawa

This is the final test of a gentleman: his respect for those who can be of no possible service to him. ~William Lyon Phelps

*************

Stay out of the ‘Why’ and enter the ‘What.’  ‘Why’ is a circuitous mental process that often confounds.  When we enter the ‘What’ and explore the qualities (color, texture, etc.) of our feelings, the ‘Why’ will present itself.

Turn judgment into compassion.  Turn greed into generosity.  Turn ignorance into wisdom.  Turn hate into forgiveness.  Hate is more toxic than any chemical; it works from the inside out.

The problem with setting a good example for our children is that it can take all the fun out of our own middle age.  Discern wisely!

If you stay in one place long enough, the world will come to you; it doesn’t have a choice…

Fear heralds growth.  B-r-e-a-t-h-e.  Expand.  Welcome the
experience.

22 thoughts on “Quotes”

    1. Hi Tina,

      I agree with D. Wallace Peach! Given that you have fed me a healthful dose of your choice quotes, I would like to reciprocate in kind and share with you my most favourite quotes published in a special post at https://soundeagle.wordpress.com/2017/10/18/the-quotation-fallacy/

      The post also contains a very detailed and logical discussion on various issues regarding quotations, including the cognitive and social influences on decision making in relation to interpreting and using quotations.

      Please enjoy!

      Liked by 2 people

      1. Your post is absolutely awesome, SoundEagle! I will have to read in sections, as I’m afraid fatigue has caught up with me at the moment. Thank you for the link, and for visiting and commenting. The light of your soul shines through ❤

        Liked by 1 person

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