Quotes For You

The beginning of knowledge

2026-05-13T07:00:00.001+08:00

The beginning of knowledge is the discovery of something we do not understand. - Frank Herbert

If knowledge can create problems, it is not through ignorance that we can solve them. - Isaac Asimov

The only good is knowledge and the only evil is ignorance. - Socrates

There is much pleasure to be gained from useless knowledge. - Bertrand Russell

To be conscious that you are ignorant is a great step to knowledge. - Benjamin Disraeli

All men by nature desire knowledge. - Aristotle

If a man empties his purse into his head no one can take it away from him. An investment in knowledge always pays the best interest. - Benjamin Franklin

Imagination is the beginning of creation

2026-05-07T00:07:00.001+08:00

Imagination is the beginning of creation. You imagine what you desire, you will what you imagine and at last you create what you will. - George Bernard Shaw

Only the curious will learn and only the resolute overcome the obstacles to learning. The quest quotient has always excited me more than the intelligence quotient. - Eugene S. Wilson

Curiosity killed the cat, but for a while I was a suspect. - Steven Wright

What we have to do is to be forever curiously testing new opinions and courting new impressions. - Walter Pater

Imagination is more important than knowledge... - Albert Einstein

Seize the moment of excited curiosity on any subject to solve your doubts; for if you let it pass, the desire may never return, and you may remain in ignorance. - William Wirt

The cure for boredom

2026-04-22T18:21:00.000+08:00

The cure for boredom is curiosity. There is no cure for curiosity. - Dorothy Parker

The penalty for success is to be bored by the people who used to snub you. - Nancy Astor

Every hero becomes a bore at last. - Ralph Waldo Emerson

A bore is a man who deprives you of solitude without providing you with company. - Gian Vincenzo Gravina

The capacity of human beings to bore one another seems to be vastly greater than that of any other animal. - H. L. Mencken

A finished person is a boring person. - Anna Quindlen

Good-bye. I am leaving because I am bored. - George Saunders, last words

An honest politician

2026-04-15T07:00:00.001+08:00

An honest politician is one who, when he is bought, will stay bought. - Simon Cameron

Mothers may still want their sons to grow up to be President, but according to a famous Gallup poll of some years ago, some 73 percent do not want them to become politicians in the process. - John F. Kennedy, Profiles in Courage, 1956

Government is too big and too important to be left to the politicians. - Chester Bowles

Get all the fools on your side and you can be elected to anything. - Frank Dane

If you cannot get rid of the family skeleton, you may as well make it dance. - George Bernard Shaw

Happiness is having a large, loving, caring, close-knit family in another city. - George Burns

A family is a unit composed not only of children but of men, women, an occasional animal, and the common cold. - Ogden Nash

I can't think of anything to write about except families. They are a metaphor for every other part of society. - Anna Quindlen

It is dismal coming home, when there is nobody to welcome one! - Ann Radcliffe, The Mysteries of Udolpho, 1764

Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way. - Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina, Chapter 1, first line

I find television very educating

2026-04-08T12:58:00.001+08:00

I find television very educating. Every time somebody turns on the set, I go into the other room and read a book. - Groucho Marx

Our thoughts are free. - Cicero

How many a man has dated a new era in his life from the reading of a book. - Henry David Thoreau

Never read a book through merely because you have begun it. - John Witherspoon

Be careful about reading health books. You may die of a misprint. - Mark Twain

Read not to contradict and confute, nor to find talk and discourse, but to weigh and consider. - Sir Francis Bacon

Reading is to the mind what exercise is to the body. - Sir Richard Steele

I have come to the conclusion that politics are too serious a matter to be left to the politicians. - Charles De Gaulle

Ninety percent of the politicians give the other ten percent a bad reputation. - Henry Kissinger

That's the trouble with a politician's life-somebody is always interrupting it with an election. - Will Rogers

If we had no winter

2026-02-20T07:00:00.001+08:00

If we had no winter, the spring would not be so pleasant: if we did not sometimes taste of adversity, prosperity would not be so welcome. - Anne Bradstreet, 'Meditations Divine and Moral,' 1655

In the spring time, the only pretty ring time, when birds do sing... sweet lovers love the spring. - William Shakespeare, As You Like It, Act V, sc. 3

[Spring is] when life's alive in everything. - Christina Rossetti

An optimist is the human personification of spring. - Susan J. Bissonette

Winter is on my head, but eternal spring is in my heart. - Victor Hugo

To be interested in the changing seasons is a happier state of mind than to be hopelessly in love with spring. - George Santayana

I have always thought the actions of men the best interpreters of their thoughts. - John Locke

Change your thoughts and you change your world. - Norman Vincent Peale

Except our own thoughts, there is nothing absolutely in our power. - Rene Descartes

Make not your thoughts your prisons. - William Shakespeare, Antony and Cleopatra, Act V, sc. 2

Speak when you are angry

2026-02-13T06:00:00.001+08:00

Speak when you are angry--and you will make the best speech you'll ever regret. - Laurence J. Peter

Do not fight verbosity with words: speech is given to all, intelligence to few. - Moralia

By trying we can easily learn to endure adversity -- another man's I mean. - Mark Twain

Remember that there is nothing stable in human affairs; therefore avoid undue elation in prosperity, or undue depression in adversity. - Socrates

Friendship make prosperity more shining and lessens adversity by dividing and sharing it. - Cicero

Adversity is the state in which man most easily becomes acquainted with himself, being especially free of admirers then. -Samuel Johnson

Adversity causes some men to break; others to break records. - William Arthur Ward

Always seek out the seed of triumph in every adversity. - Og Mandino

Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, give him power. - Abraham Lincoln

Spring is when you feel like whistling even with a shoe full of slush. - Doug Larson

Personality can open doors

2026-01-28T07:00:00.018+08:00

Personality can open doors, but only character can keep them open. - Elmer G. Letterman

Men show their characters in nothing more clearly than in what they think laughable. - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Nature magically suits a man to his fortunes, by making them the fruit of his character. - Ralph Waldo Emerson

In attempts to improve your character, know what is in your power and what is beyond it. - Francis Thompson

People with courage and character always seem sinister to the rest. - Hermann Hesse

Discretion in speech is more than eloquence. - Sir Francis Bacon

Where there is a great deal of free speech there is always a certain amount of foolish speech. - Sir Winston Churchill

Today's public figures can no longer write their own speeches or books, and there is some evidence that they can't read them either. - Gore Vidal

Well-timed silence hath more eloquence than speech. - Martin Farquhar Tupper

Speak properly, and in as few words as you can, but always plainly; for the end of speech is not ostentation, but to be understood. - William Penn

Have no fear of perfection

2026-01-21T15:30:00.000+08:00

Have no fear of perfection - you'll never reach it. - Salvador Dali

Laughter is inner jogging. - Norman Cousins

Laugh at yourself first, before anyone else can. - Elsa Maxwell

Perfection is a road, not a destination. Every time I live, I get an education. - Burk Hudson

Artists who seek perfection in everything are those who cannot attain it in anything. - Eugene Delacroix

The thing that is really hard, and really amazing, is giving up on being perfect and beginning the work of becoming yourself. - Anna Quindlen

Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away. - Antoine de Saint-Exupery

I never expect to see a perfect work from imperfect man. - Alexander Hamilton, The Federalist

Assert your right to make a few mistakes. If people can't accept your imperfections, that's their fault. - Dr. David M. Burns

Character is like a tree and reputation like its shadow. The shadow is what we think of it; the tree is the real thing. - Abraham Lincoln

People grow through experience if they meet life honestly and courageously. This is how character is built. - Eleanor Roosevelt

Let me embrace thee

2026-01-14T07:00:00.001+08:00

Let me embrace thee, sour adversity, for wise men say it is the wisest course. - William Shakespeare, Henry VI, Part III, Act III, sc. 1

Fire is the test of gold; adversity, of strong men. - Seneca

Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, give him power. - Abraham Lincoln

Remember that there is nothing stable in human affairs; therefore avoid undue elation in prosperity, or undue depression in adversity. - Socrates

In prosperity our friends know us; in adversity we know our friends. - John Churton Collins

Adversity causes some men to break; others to break records. - William Arthur Ward

Laughter gives us distance. It allows us to step back from an event, deal with it and then move on. - Bob Newhart

One doesn't have a sense of humor. It has you. - Larry Gelbart

Always laugh when you can. It is cheap medicine. - Lord Byron

Laughter is the closest distance between two people. - Victor Borge

Do not trust all men

2026-01-07T08:58:00.005+08:00

Do not trust all men, but trust men of worth; the former course is silly, the latter a mark of prudence. - Democritus

College isn't the place to go for ideas. - Helen Keller

The direction in which education starts a man will determine his future life. - Plato

Education is the ability to listen to almost anything without losing your temper or your self-confidence. - Robert Frost

A person who trusts no one can't be trusted. - Jerome Blattner

Trust thyself only, and another shall not betray thee. - Thomas Fuller

As soon as you trust yourself, you will know how to live. - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Faust

You may be deceived if you trust too much, but you will live in torment if you do not trust enough. - Frank Crane

The people I distrust most are those who want to improve our lives but have only one course of action. - Frank Herbert

It is better to suffer wrong than to do it, and happier to be sometimes cheated than not to trust. - Samuel Johnson

Drive thy business

2025-12-31T07:00:00.001+08:00

Drive thy business or it will drive thee. - Benjamin Franklin

Success in business requires training and discipline and hard work. But if you're not frightened by these things, the opportunities are just as great today as they ever were. - David Rockefeller

A dinner lubricates business. - Lord William Stowell

There's no business like show business, but there are several businesses like accounting. - David Letterman

No one travelling on a business trip would be missed if he failed to arrive. - Thorstein Veblen

My own business always bores me to death; I prefer other people's. - Oscar Wilde, Lady Windermere's Fan, 1892

In the business world, the rearview mirror is always clearer than the windshield. - Warren Buffett

I have never let my schooling interfere with my education. - Mark Twain

Education is simply the soul of a society as it passes from one generation to another. - G. K. Chesterton

Education is what survives when what has been learned has been forgotten. - B. F. Skinner

Do not protect yourself by a fence

2025-12-24T00:20:00.001+08:00

Do not protect yourself by a fence, but rather by your friends. - Czech Proverb

The gem cannot be polished without friction, nor man perfected without trials. - Chinese Proverb

Drink nothing without seeing it; sign nothing without reading it. - Spanish Proverb

You've got to do your own growing, no matter how tall your grandfather was. - Irish Proverb

When you have given nothing, ask for nothing. - Albanian Proverb

Examine what is said, not him who speaks. - Arab Proverb

Complain to one who can help you. - Yugoslav Proverb

If you scatter thorns, don't go barefoot. - Italian Proverb

Never rely on the glory of the morning nor the smiles of your mother-in-law. - Japanese Proverb

Whoever gossips to you will gossip about you. - Spanish Proverb

The trouble with being punctual

2025-12-17T08:32:00.003+08:00

The trouble with being punctual is that nobody's there to appreciate it. - Franklin P. Jones

This time, like all times, is a very good one, if we but know what to do with it. - Ralph Waldo Emerson

Half our life is spent trying to find something to do with the time we have rushed through life trying to save. - Will Rogers, New York Times, Apr. 29, 1930

Time cools, time clarifies; no mood can be maintained quite unaltered through the course of hours. - Mark Twain

The whole life of man is but a point of time; let us enjoy it. - Plutarch

Time is at once the most valuable and the most perishable of all our possessions. - John Randolph

We must use time as a tool, not as a crutch. - John F. Kennedy

The sinews of war are infinite money. - Cicero

When you have given nothing, ask for nothing. - Albanian Proverb

Examine what is said, not him who speaks. - Arab Proverb

BACA LAGI

If you gotta go, you gotta go

2025-12-13T16:47:00.000+08:00

I don't think about risks much. I just do what I want to do. If you gotta go, you gotta go. - Lillian Carter

What you risk reveals what you value. - Jeanette Winterson

Life is a risk. - Diane Von Furstenberg

There is no point in doing more efficiently that which should not be done at all. - Peter Drucker

If one does not know to which port one is sailing, no wind is favorable. - Seneca

Reverie is when ideas float in our mind without reflection or regard of the understanding. - John Locke

If small and nimble are qualities at one extreme of a continuum that is bookended at the other side by heavy and dominant, the former traits are ideally suited for points of origin and times of high volatility. These are periods of constant change, multiple openings, and perpetually shifting opportunity. The latter set of qualities, conversely, will fare best in times of maturity, when making sharp turns is no longer part of the navigation. - Dan Ramsden, CEO and Venture capitalist

Just trust yourself then you will know how to live. - Goethe

Optimism is the faith that leads to achievement; nothing can be done without hope. - Helen Keller

Our lives improve only when we take chances - and the first and most difficult risk we can take is to be honest with ourselves. - Walter Anderson

BACA LAGI

There is always some madness in love

2025-12-03T08:59:00.004+08:00

There is always some madness in love. But there is also always some reason in madness. - Friedrich Nietzsche

Everyone is born with genius, but most people only keep it a few minutes. - Edgard Varese

You're only given a little spark of madness. You mustn't lose it. - Robin Williams

There is only one difference between a madman and me. I am not mad. - Salvador Dali

In a mad world only the mad are sane. - Akira Kurosawa

Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. - Albert Einstein (attributed)

There is no great genius without some touch of madness. - Seneca

If you don't risk anything you risk even more. - Erica Jong

Take calculated risks. That is quite different from being rash. - George S. Patton

There are risks and costs to a program of action. But they are far less than the long-range risks and costs of comfortable inaction. - John F. Kennedy

Rogues are preferable to imbeciles

2025-11-26T07:00:00.006+08:00

Rogues are preferable to imbeciles because they sometimes take a rest. - Alexandre Dumas

I was seldom able to see an opportunity until it had ceased to be one. - Mark Twain

Actions lie louder than words. - Carolyn Wells

Words without actions are the assassins of idealism. - Herbert Hoover

Strong reasons make strong actions. - William Shakespeare

Only actions give life strength; only moderation gives it a charm. - Jean Paul Richter

No matter how cynical you get, it is impossible to keep up. - Lily Tomlin

Rest is the sweet sauce of labor. - Plutarch

You must not come lightly to the blank page. - Stephen King

Reason should direct and appetite obey. - Cicero

Courage is being scared to death

2025-11-19T07:00:00.001+08:00

Courage is being scared to death - but saddling up anyway. - John Wayne

A cynic is not merely one who reads bitter lessons from the past, he is one who is prematurely disappointed in the future. - Sidney J. Harris

Idealism is what precedes experience; cynicism is what follows. - David T. Wolf

Habit is habit and not to be flung out of the window by any man, but coaxed downstairs a step at a time. - Mark Twain

No man ever listened himself out of a job. - Calvin Coolidge

Do not anticipate trouble, or worry about what may never happen. Keep in the sunlight. - Benjamin Franklin

A friend is a gift you give yourself. - Robert Louis Stevenson

Words, once they are printed, have a life of their own. - Carol Burnett

Any fool can criticize, condemn, and complain - and most fools do. - Dale Carnegie

I have always thought the actions of men the best interpreters of their thoughts. - John Locke

Give all to love

2025-11-12T07:00:00.001+08:00

Give all to love; obey thy heart. - Ralph Waldo Emerson

Don't worry about the world coming to an end today. It's already tomorrow in Australia. - Charles M. Schulz

All things must change to something new, to something strange. - Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

The body says what words cannot. - Martha Graham

Flattery is like cologne water, to be smelt of, not swallowed. - Josh Billings

The power of accurate observation is commonly called cynicism by those who have not got it. - George Bernard Shaw

A cynic is a man who, when he smells flowers, looks around for a coffin. - H. L. Mencken

No matter how cynical you get, it is impossible to keep up. - Lily Tomlin

Cynics regarded everybody as equally corrupt... Idealists regarded everybody as equally corrupt, except themselves. - Robert Anton Wilson

Never be a cynic, even a gentle one. Never help out a sneer, even at the devil. - Vachel Lindsay

Dreams come true

2025-11-05T07:00:00.003+08:00

Dreams come true. Without that possibility, nature would not incite us to have them. - John Updike

In all affairs it's a healthy thing now and then to hang a question mark on the things you have long taken for granted. - Bertrand Russell

A thinker sees his own actions as experiments and questions--as attempts to find out something. Success and failure are for him answers above all. - Friedrich Nietzsche, The Gay Science, section 41

The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing. One cannot help but be in awe when he contemplates the mysteries of eternity, of life, of the marvelous structure of reality. It is enough if one tries merely to comprehend a little of this mystery every day. Never lose a holy curiosity. - Albert Einstein

Keep true to the dreams of thy youth. - Friedrich von Schiller

The aim of life is self-development. To realize one's nature perfectly - that is what each of us is here for. - Oscar Wilde

The wisest men follow their own direction. - Euripides

We need men who can dream of things that never were. - John F. Kennedy, speech in Dublin, Ireland, June 28, 1963

Dreams surely are difficult, confusing, and not everything in them is brought to pass for mankind. For fleeting dreams have two gates: one is fashioned of horn and one of ivory. Those which pass through the one of sawn ivory are deceptive, bringing tidings which come to nought, but those which issue from the one of polished horn bring true results when a mortal sees them. - Homer, The Odyssey

My dreams were all my own; I accounted for them to nobody; they were my refuge when annoyed - my dearest pleasure when free. - Mary Shelly

Men fear thought

2025-10-29T07:00:00.001+08:00

Men fear thought as they fear nothing else on earth -- more than ruin -- more even than death.... Thought is subversive and revolutionary, destructive and terrible, thought is merciless to privilege, established institutions, and comfortable habit. Thought looks into the pit of hell and is not afraid. Thought is great and swift and free, the light of the world, and the chief glory of man. - Bertrand Russell

Nature magically suits a man to his fortunes, by making them the fruit of his character. - Ralph Waldo Emerson

Henceforth I ask not good fortune. I myself am good fortune. - Walt Whitman

Fortune does not change men, it unmasks them. - Suzanne Necker

Every man is the architect of his own fortune. - Sallust

Fortune favors the brave. - Virgil, Aeneid

We should manage our fortunes as we do our health - enjoy it when good, be patient when it is bad, and never apply violent remedies except in an extreme necessity. - Francois de La Rochefoucauld

It is better to know some of the questions than all of the answers. - James Thurber

It is not every question that deserves an answer. - Publilius Syrus, Maxims

Judge of a man by his questions rather than by his answers. - Voltaire

I would rather be accused of...

2025-10-22T07:00:00.001+08:00

I would rather be accused of breaking precedents than breaking promises. - John F. Kennedy

The best measure of a man's honesty isn't his income tax return. It's the zero adjust on his bathroom scale. - Arthur C. Clarke

Though I am not naturally honest, I am so sometimes by chance. - William Shakespeare

Being entirely honest with oneself is a good exercise. - Sigmund Freud

I have always noticed that people will never laugh at anything that is not based on truth. - Will Rogers

Any fool can tell the truth, but it requires a man of some sense to know how to lie well. - Samuel Butler

An intellectual is a man who takes more words than necessary to tell more than he knows. - Dwight D. Eisenhower

I not only use all the brains that I have, but all that I can borrow. - Woodrow Wilson

An intelligence test sometimes shows a man how smart he would have been not to have taken it. - Laurence J. Peter

It is not worth an intelligent man's time to be in the majority. By definition, there are already enough people to do that. - G. H. Hardy

Henceforth I ask not good fortune

2025-10-15T00:25:00.002+08:00

Henceforth I ask not good fortune. I myself am good fortune. - Walt Whitman

Behind every great fortune there is a crime. - Honore de Balzac

Many men can make a fortune but very few can build a family. - J. S. Bryan

Nature magically suits a man to his fortunes, by making them the fruit of his character. - Ralph Waldo Emerson

Fortune does not change men, it unmasks them. - Suzanne Necker

Depend not on fortune, but on conduct. - Publilius Syrus

Every man is the architect of his own fortune. - Sallust

Fortune favours the bold. – Virgil

Good fortune is what happens when opportunity meets preparation. – Seneca

Fortune is like glass — the brighter it shines, the more easily it is broken. – Publilius Syrus

We can't all be heroes

2025-10-08T07:00:00.003+08:00

We can't all be heroes because somebody has to sit on the curb and clap as they go by. - Will Rogers

Any fool can make a rule, and any fool will mind it. - Henry David Thoreau

Think enthusiastically about everything; but especially about your job. If you do, you'll put a touch of glory in your life. If you love your job with enthusiasm, you'll shake it to pieces. You'll love it into greatness. - Norman Vincent Peale

In the truest sense, freedom cannot be bestowed; it must be achieved. - Franklin D. Roosevelt, Speech, September 22, 1936

I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than to those attending too small a degree of it. -Thomas Jefferson, to Archibald Stuart, 1791

We fight not to enslave, but to set a country free, and to make room upon the earth for honest men to live in. - Thomas Paine, The Crisis, no. 4, September 11, 1777

Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety. - Benjamin Franklin, Historical Review of Pennsylvania, 1759

The only freedom which deserves the name, is that of pursuing our own good in our own way, so long as we do not attempt to deprive others of theirs, or impede their efforts to obtain it. - John Stuart Mill, On Liberty, 1859

You can't separate peace from freedom because no one can be at peace unless he has his freedom. - Malcolm X, Malcolm X Speaks, 1965

Liberty means responsibility. That is why most men dread it. - George Bernard Shaw

When the eagles are silent

2025-10-01T07:00:00.007+08:00

Image: ChatGPT

When the eagles are silent, the parrots begin to jabber. - Sir Winston Churchill

Don't sacrifice your political convictions for the convenience of the hour. - Edward M. Kennedy

I am always doing that which I can not do, in order that I may learn how to do it. - Pablo Picasso

We may go to the moon, but that's not very far. The greatest distance we have to cover still lies within us. - Charles de Gaulle

Know how to ask. There is nothing more difficult for some people, nor for others, easier. - Baltasar Gracian

Diplomacy is the art of saying 'Nice doggie' until you can find a rock. - Will Rogers

It is always a silly thing to give advice, but to give good advice is fatal. - Oscar Wilde

Humility is the embarrassment you feel when you tell people how wonderful you are. - Laurence J. Peter

A true friend is the greatest of all blessings, and that which we take the least care of all to acquire. - Francois de La Rochefoucauld

Tact is the ability to describe others as they see themselves. - Abraham Lincoln