Maxims

Light is good in whatever lamp it may burn, even as a rose is beautiful in

whatever garden it may bloom. – Dr. S. Radha Krishnan

Ability is poor man’s wealth.

It is better to light one candle than curse the darkness.

Saying is one thing and doing another.

The great end of life is not knowledge but Action.

Literature in itself is not a means of solving problems, these can be solved only by
action, by social and political action.

Do noble things, do not dream them all day long.

No one knows what he can do till he tries.

One must learn by doing the thing, though you think you know, you have no
certainty until you try.

Our deeds determine us, as much as we determine our deeds.

We become just by performing just actions, temperate by performing temperate

actions, brave by performing brave actions. – Aristotle

To go against the dominant thinking of your friends, of most of the people you see
everyday, is perhaps the most difficult act of heroism you can perform.

There is no such thing as a great talent without great willpower.

There are no gains without pains.

I desire so to conduct the affairs of the administration that if at the end when I
come down the reins of power, I have lost every other friend on earth, I shall have
one friend left and that friend shall be down inside me. – Abraham Lincoln

Every advantage has it’s tax.

Adversity introduces a man to himself.

God brings men into deep waters, not to drown them, but to cleanse them.
Adversity attracts the man of character. He seeks out the better joy, responsibility.

There is no education like adversity.

Constant success shows us but one side of the world, adversity brings out the
reverse of the picture.

Adversity is the first path to truth.

Fire is the test of gold, adversity of strong men.

One can tell the ideals of a nation by its advertisements.

Advertisement is 85% confusion and 15% commission.

Advertising in the final analysis should be news. If it is not news it is worthless.

Advice is seldom welcome, and those who want it the most always like it the
least.

Praise is well, but affection is the final and most precious reward that any man can
win.

What youth deemed crystal, age finds out was dew.

A diplomat is a man who always remembers a woman’s birthday but never

remembers her age. – Robert Frost

Old age can only be understood as a whole, it is not solely a biological, but also a
cultural fact.

The man who has not anything to boast of, but his illustrious ancestors is like a
potato, the only good belonging to him is underground.

Angels fly, because they take themselves lightly.

Be not forgetful to entertain strangers, for thereby some have entertained angels
awareness. – New Testament : Hebrews

Appearances are often deceiving. Judge not according to the appearance.

Not keeping an appointment is an act of clear dishonesty, you may as well borrow
a person’s money as his time.

Art without life is a poor affair and vice versa.

Art is indeed not the bread but the wine of life.

Every great advance in natural knowledge has involved the absolute rejection of
authority.

Nothing except a battle lost can be half so melancholy as a battle won.

Beautiful young people are accidents of nature. Beautiful old people are works of
art.

The beauty of a strong, lasting commitment is often best understood by a man

incapable of it.

A journey of thousand miles must begin with a single step. – Lao Tzu

Faith without work is dead.

A man must not swallow more beliefs than he can digest.

Every man is entitled to be valued by his best moment.

There is no cure for birth and death. Save to enjoy the interval.

Fortune sides with him who dares.

A book is sacred, may be as great a thing as a battle.

A dose of poison can do it’s work only once, but a bad book can go on poisoning
people’s minds for any length of time.

There will never be a civilized country until we spend more money for books than
we do for ( chewing gum ).

We often pardon those who bore us, but we cannot pardon those whom we bore.

Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear, not absence of fear.

Even cowards can endure hardship, only the brave can endure suspense.

Physical bravery is an animal instinct, moral bravery is a much higher and truer
courage.

The crest and crowning of all good life’s final star is brotherhood.
When the man you like switches from what he said a year ago, or four years ago,
he is a broadminded person who has courage enough to change his mind with
changing conditions. When a man you do not like does it, he is a liar who has
broken his promises.

Business is like oil. It won’t mix with anything but business.

All business sagacity reduces itself in the last analysis to a judicious use of
sabotage.

To preserve in one’s duty and be silent is the best answer to calumny.

- George Washington

Capitalism did not arise because capitalist stole the land or the worker’s tools but
because it was more efficient than feudalism. It will perish because it is not
merely less efficient than socialism but actually self destructive.

In a really just cause the weak conquer the strong.

There is no secrecy comparable to celerity. – Francis Bacon

Chance happens to all, but to turn chance to account is the gift of the few.

The art of progress is to preserve order amidst change and preserve change amidst
order.

Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is
faced.

The great hope of society is individual character.

Man’s character is his fate.

Talent is nurtured in solitude, character is formed in the stormy billows of the

world. – Goethe

Character is a by-product, it is produced in the great manufacture of daily duty.

- Woodrow Wilson

You cannot build character and courage by taking away man’s initiative and
independence. – Abraham Lincoln

Charity begins at home, is the voice of the world.

Charity which longs to publish itself, ceases to be charity.

Cheat me in price, but not in the goods I purchase.

A child is not a vase to be filled, but a fire to be lit.

Children are like wet cement, whatever falls on them marks an impression.

To make your children capable of honesty is the beginning of education.

- John Ruskin

In certain trying circumstances, profanity furnishes a relief denied even to prayer.

Circumstances are the rulers of the weak, but instruments of the wise.

If you would know and not be known, live in a city.

Civilization is a movement and not a condition, a voyage and not a harbour.

Civilization begins with order, grows with liberty and dies in chaos.

Civilization has made the peasantry it’s pack animal.

Civilization of one epoch becomes the manure of the next.

Cleverness is serviceable for everything, sufficient for nothing.

A man of great commonsense and good taste meaning thereby a man without
originality or moral courage. - G.B.Shaw

Commonsense is an uncommon degree, and is what the world calls wisdom.

Those who are inclined to compromise never makes a revolution. – K.Ataturk

It is the weak man who urges compromise never the strong man.

The integrity of men is to be measured by their conduct.

The confidence which we have in ourselves gives birth to much of that which we
have in others.

Never do anything against conscience even if the state demands it. –A.Einstein

Conscience is the frame of character and love is the covering for it.

Man would rather be in error with the sanction of their conscience than be right
with the mere judgment of his reason.
A conservative government is organized hypocrisy.

Consistency is the quality of a stagnant mind.

Conversation enriches the understanding, but solitude is the school of genius.

- Gibbon

Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies.

To copy is to put an end to creativeness. Unless there is originality one can do

nothing.

A man of courage is also full of faith. - Cicero

Courage is almost a contradiction in terms. It means a strong desire to live, taking

the form of a readiness to die.

Country is not a mere zone or territory. The true country is the idea to which it
gives birth, it is the thought of the sense of communion which unites in one all the
sons of territory.

God almighty hates a quitter.

Poverty is the mother of crime.

Crime, like virtue has it’s degrees.

A critic is a man who knows the way but can’t drive the car.

A cynic is a man who knows the price of everything and values of nothing.
- Oscar Wilde

A danger foreseen is half avoided - Thomas Fuller

A single death is a tragedy, a million deaths is a statistic. - Joseph Stalin

Decency is indecency’s conspiracy of silence. – G.B.Shaw

It is double pleasure to deceive the deceiver. – La Fontaine

There are some defeats more triumphant than victories. – Montaigne

Our deeds determine us as much as we determine our deeds.

- George Eliot

Noble deeds that are concealed are most esteemed. – Pascal

Great things are done when men and mountains meet, this is not done by jostling
in the street. – William Blake

The blind lead the blind, it’s the democratic way. – Henry Miller

Democracy passes into despotism. – Plato

Do not despair, not even over the fact that you don’t despair,

Desire is the very essence of man.

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.

Timid men prefer the calm of despotism to the boisterous sea of liberty.
- Thomas Jefferson

Whom God wishes to destroy he first makes mad.

Without dialogue there is no communication, and without communication there is

no true education.

When liberty becomes license, the dictatorship is near.

All diplomacy is a continuation of war by other means.

Diplomacy is to do and say the nastiest thing in the nicest way.

A diplomat is one who can tell you to go to hell so tactfully, that you start
packing.

Discipline must come through liberty.

Disappointment is the nurse of wisdom.

Our fear of disasters that may never happen robs us of the courage to meet the ills
that do occur.

Discord gives a relish for concord.

Great ability without discretion comes almost invariably to a tragic end.

Best doctors in the world are Doctor Diet, Doctor Quiet and Doctor Merry man.

The more one comes to know men, the more one comes to admire the dog.
Dreams are the true interpreters of our inclinations, but there is art required to sort
and understand them.

Drown not thyself to save a drowning man.

The reward of one duty done is the power to fulfill another. – George Eliot

Eat to live and not live to eat. – B. Franklin

Economist is a man who advises what should be done with the money someone
else made.

Political institutions are a superstructure resting on an economic foundation.

When you see a situation you cannot understand, look for the financial interest.

Education makes people easy to lead, but difficult to drive, easy to govern, but
impossible to enslave.

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

The roots of education is bitter but the fruit is sweet. – Aristotle

Thoughts breathe, words burn.

No person who is enthusiastic about his work has anything to fear from life.

Men are made by nature unequal. It is vain therefore to treat them as if they were
equal. – Froude

Errors like straws upon the surface flow, he who would search for pearls must
dive below.

To err is human, to forgive divine. – Pope

Evil often triumphs, but never conquers.

Evil communications corrupt good manners.

An excuse is worse and more terrible than a lie because an excuse is a lie guarded.

Excess on occasion is exhilarating. It prevents moderation from acquiring the

deadening effect of habit.
Children have more need of models than of critics.

An expert is one who knows more and more about less and less, until one knows
nothing of anything.

An expert is someone who knows some of the worst mistakes that can be made in
his subject and how to avoid them.

Be slow of tongue and quick of eye.

A cheerful face is nearly as good for an invalid as healthy weather.

Facts do not cease to exist just because they are ignored.

God give me strength to face a fact though it lay me.

Faith is continuation of reason.

Faith that stands on authority is not faith. – R.W. Emerson

Man can be attracted but not forced to the faith. You may drive people to baptism,
you won’t move people one step further to religion.

Fame can never make us lie down contentedly on a death bed.

Lust for fame is the last that a wise man shakes off. – Tacitus

Fame is proof that people are gullible. – R.W.Emerson

Fame is but the breath of the people, and that often unwholesome. – Rousseau

All happy families resemble one another, every unhappy family is unhappy in it’s
own way. - Tolstoy

He who strikes terror into others is himself in continual fear.

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

The man who fights for his fellow man is a better man than the one who fights for
himself.

Where force is necessary, there it must be applied boldly, decisively and

completely.

Fortune favours the bold.

Fortune truly helps those who are of good judgement.

There can be no real freedom without the freedom to fail.

Those who deny freedom to others deserve it nor themselves. – A.Lincoln

The cause of freedom is the cause of God.

Freedom is my birth right. – Bal Gangadhar Tilak

A friend may well be reckoned the masterpiece of nature. – R.W.Emerson

A true friend is the most precious of all possessions and the one we take the least
thought about acquiring.

As old wood is best to burn, old horse to ride, old books to read and old wine to
drink so are old friends always most trusty to use.

Most friendship is feigning, most loving mere folly. – Shakespeare

No one can forbid us the future.

When all else is lost the future still remains.

The present is great with the future.

I never think of the future. It comes soon enough. – A.Einstein

Life is too short for chess.

Many a gem of wisdom has gone unsaid, because someone lacked the ability to
express it.

Every generation revolts against it’s fathers and makes friends with it’s
grandfathers.

Genius is a long impatience.

Genius is one percent inspiration and ninety nine percent perspiration. T.A.Edison

A gentleman is a man who can disagree without being disagreeable.

The manner of giving is worth more than the gift.

God is a circle whose centre is everywhere and whose circumference is nowhere.

There is a crack in everything God has made. – R.W.Emerson

God is mind and God is infinite, hence all is mind.

To a man with an empty stomach, food is God. – M.K.Gandhi

A good deed is one that brings a smile of joy to the face of another.
-Prophet Mohammed

The power of choosing good and evil is within the reach of all.

Grace is the absence of everything that indicates pain or difficulty, hesitation or

incongruity.

The gratitude of most men is but a secret desire of receiving greater benefits.

We cannot all be great but we can always attach ourselves to something that is
great.

There is a great man who makes every man feel small. But the real great man is
the man who makes every man feel great. – Charles Dickens

A great man is always willing to be little. – R.W.Emerson

Great deeds are usually wrought at great risks.

The great man is he who does not lose his child’s heart.

People who are greedy have extraordinary capacities for waste. They must take in
too much.

There is no grievance that is a fit object of redress by mob law. – A.L

No one will be so welcome a guest that he will not annoy the host after three days.

The guilty think all talk is of themselves.

Habit : the shackles of the free.

When habit has strengthened our sense of duties, they leave us no time for other
things, but when young we neglect them and this gives us time for anything.
- T.Jefferson

Habit if not resisted soon becomes necessity. – St. Augustine

No one can be perfectly happy till all are happy

You have no more right to consume happiness without producing it than to

consume wealth without producing it. - Bernard Shaw

A happy life consists in tranquility of mind. - Cicero

The necessity of pursuing true happiness is the foundation of our liberty.

Superfluity comes sooner by white hair, but competency lives longer.

- Shakespeare

All the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand. – Shakespeare

Hatred is a prolonged form of suicide.

Make haste slowly. – Augustus

There is a limit to the best of health; disease is always a near neighbour.

The first wealth is health. – Emerson

Early to bed and early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise.

The preservation of health is a duty. Few seem conscious that there is such a thing
as physical morality.

A sound mind in a sound body is a short but full description of a happy state in
this world.

Heaven is not reached by a single bound, but we build the ladder by which we
rise.

The kingdom of heaven is not a place but a state of mind.

You cannot help men permanently by doing for them what they could do for
themselves. – Abraham Lincoln

God helps those who help themselves. – A.Sidney

A hero is no braver than anyone else, he is only brave five minutes longer.
R.W Emerson

History repeats itself, that’s one of the things wrong with history.
In history character and events occur twice, first as tragedy then as farce. – Karl
Marx

No single man makes history. History cannot be seen just as one cannot se grass
growing.

Home is the girl’s prison and the woman’s workhouse. – G. B. Shaw

Character once pawned is never redeemed.

Honesty is praised and starves.

Hope is a good breakfast, but it is a bad supper. – Francis Bacon

Hospitality consists in a little fire, a little food and an immense quiet. R.W.
Emerson

The great advantage of a hotel is that it’s a refuge from home life. – G.B Shaw

Fools build houses and wise men live in them.

The best sauce for food is hunger. – Socrates

An empty stomach is not a good political adviser. - Einstein

No one can worship God nor love his neighbour on an empty stomach.
Woodrow Wilson

Bring ideas in and entertain them royally, for one of them may be the king.

Serious people have few ideas. People with ideas are never serious.

It is in our idleness, in our dreams, that the submerged truth comes sometimes to
the top.

Idleness is only the refuge of weak minds.

Nearly all men die of their medicines and not of their illnesses.

Imagination is more important than knowledge. – Albert Einstein

As a final incentive before giving up a difficult task, try to imagine it successfully

accomplished by someone you violently dislike.

To be poor and independent is very nearly an impossibility.

The strongest man in the world is he who stands most alone.

The truest test of independent judgement is being able to dislike someone who
admires us, and to admire someone who dislikes us.

Every individual has a place to fill in the world, and is important in some respect
whether he chooses to be so or not.

Follow your own bent, no matter what people say. – Karl Marx

Inflation is like getting stuck in a traffic jam. You find you are a part of the
problem, but you can’t workout what to do about it.

Delay in justice is injustice.

A writer is rarely so well inspired as when he talks about himself.

Intellect annuls fate. So far as a man thinks, he is free. – R.W. Emerson

The highest intellects, like the tops of mountains, are the first to catch and to
reflect the dawn.

Intelligence is not to make no mistakes, but quickly to see how to make them
good.

One of the functions of intelligence is to make account of the dangers that come
from trusting solely the intelligence.

Interest in oneself, on the contrary, leads to no activity of a progressive kind. It

may lead to the keeping of a diary, to getting psycho-analysed, or perhaps to
becoming a monk. – Bertrand Russell

Whoever is winning at the moment will always seem to be invincible.

The true creator is necessity, which as the mother of our invention. – Plato

It is not love that is blind, but jealousy.

Jealousy is always born with love, but does not always die with it.

There is no greater glory than love, nor any greater punishment than jealousy.

Journalism is literature in hurry.

Every newspaper editor owes tribute to the devil.

The shortest distance b/w two jokes makes a perfect speech.

A thing of beauty is a joy for ever. – Keats

Justice is truth in action. – Disraeli

Justice without force is impotent ; force without justice is tyranny.

Everywhere there is one principle of justice, which is the interest of the stronger.
- Plato

All justice comes from God – he alone is it’s source. – J. J. Rousseau

Kindness is never wasted. Even though it may have no effect on recipient, at least
it benefits the bestower.

You cannot do a kindness too soon, for you never know how soon it will be too
late. – R. W. Emerson

Knowledge is of two kinds, we know a subject ourselves, or we know where we

can find information upon it. – Samuel Johnson

Knowledge is two fold, and consists not only an affirmation of what is true, but is
the negation of that which is false.

Knowledge is power.

Knowledge without integrity is dangerous and dreadful.

He who knows others is learned; he who knows himself is wise. – Lao-Tsze

You can be erudite with the knowledge of others, you can be wise only with your
own wisdom.

Ladder is ascended only a step after step.

No man should be allowed to own any land that he does not use.

Language is the dress of thought. – Samuel Johnson

The ability to laugh together is the essence of love.

A lawyer with his brief case can steal more than a hundred men with guns.
- Mario Puzo

Men learn while they teach.

They know enough who know how to learn.
A learned man is an idler who kills time by study. – G.B. Shaw

Much learning does not teach understanding.

There is much more learning than knowing in the world.

Increased means and increased leisure are the two civilizers of man. – Disraeli

Liberty is a boisterous sea. Timid men prefer the calm of despotism. – T.Jefferson

We are always getting ready to live but never living. – R.W.Emerson

Life is a tragedy when seen in close up, but a comedy in long shot.
– Charlie Chaplin

It is long and hard and painful to create life; it is short and easy to steal the life
others have made. – G.B.Shaw

Nothing in life is to be feared. It is only to be understood. – Marie Curie

What matters is not to add years to your life but to add life to your years.

There are two ways of spreading light, to be the candle, or the mirror that reflects
it.

It is impossible to love and be wise. – Francis Bacon

Love is like measles, all the worse when it comes late in life.

Young men wish : love, money and health, one day they’ll say : health, money
and love.

If an individual is able to love productively, he loves himself too, if he can love

only others, he cannot love at all.

Love arrives on tiptoe and bangs the door when it leaves.

The first duty of love is to listen.

Work and love – these are the basics. Without them there is neurosis.

Our first love and last love is self love.

Love is an ocean of emotions, entirely surrounded by expenses.

Love those who love you. – Voltaire

Fortune favours the brave.

Luck is not something you can mention in the presence of self made men.

Shallow men believe in luck. Strong men believe in cause and effect. – Emerson

One machine can do the work of fifty ordinary men. No machine can do the work
of extraordinary man.

Everyone is more or less mad on one point.

One man with courage makes a majority.

A man is what he does.

Man is a piece of the universe made alive. – Emerson

A successful man is one who can lay a firm foundation with the bricks that others
throw at him.

When a man meets his mate, society begins.

Few men of action have been able to make a graceful exit at the appropriate times.

Every man is a consumer and hence ought to be a producer. – R.W.Emerson

The instinct of ownership is fundamental in man’s nature.

All mankind is divided into three classes ; those who are immovable, those who
are movable, and those who move. – Benjamin Franklin

The majority of mankind always has been and always will be composed of
imbeciles.

It is good manners which make the excellence of a neighbourhood. No wise man

will settle where they are lacking. – Confucius

What once were vices are now manners. – Seneca

Good breeding consists in concealing how much we think of ourselves and how
little we think of the other person. – Mark Twain

Suit your manner to the man.

Marriage has many pains, but celibacy has no pleasures.

Marriage is popular because it combines the maximum of temptation with the

maximum of opportunity. – G.B.Shaw

Love, the quest; marriage, the conquest; divorce, the inquest.

A sound marriage is not based on complete frankness, it is based on a sensible

reticence.

Keep the eyes wide open before marriage and half shut afterwards.

Beware lest in your anxiety to avoid war you obtain a master.

The physician heals, nature makes almost perfect. – Aristotle

Nature, time and patience are the three great physicians.

Mediocrity knows nothing higher than itself, but talent instantly recognizes
genius. – Arthur Conan Doyle

A good memory is one trained to forget a trivial.

We must always have old memories and young hopes.

Vanity plays lurid tricks with our memory.

You never realize what a good memory you have until you try to forget.

Memory is the mother of all wisdom.

Middle age is the awkard period when Father time starts catching up with Mother
nature.

God is mind, and God is infinite; hence all is mind.

A feeble body weakens the mind. – Rousseau

Mind has the ability to move matter.

The mind is an ice-berg, it floats with only one seventh of it’s bulk above water.

Every new opinion, at it’s starting, is precisely in a minority of one.

The greatest general is he who makes the fewest mistakes. – Napolean Bonaparte
Discipline is the soul of an army. – George Washington

Mistakes live in the neighbourhood of truth and therefore delude. – R.N.Tagore

It is the true nature of mankind to learn from mistakes and not from example.

The Vain crowds wandering blindly by cries is mob.

Every man has a mob self and individual self in varying proportion.

Money is like muck, not good except it be spread. – Francis Bacon

It is very difficult for the prosperous to be humble. – Jane Austen

Money disappears like magic.

Love of money is the root of all evil. – G.B.Shaw

When it is a question of money everybody is of the same religion. – Voltaire

A fool and his money are soon parted.

Money is like arm or leg, use it or lose it. – Henry Ford

There is nothing in the world so demoralizing as money. - Sophocles

Money should circulate like rainwater.

Money can’t buy friends, but you can get a better class of enemy.

Morality is a private and costly luxury.

No morality can be founded on authority, even if the authority were divine.

What is home without a mother ?

Music, the greatest good that mortals know, and all of heaven we have here below.
– J.Addison

All the sounds of the earth are like music.

Music is the shorthand of emotion. – Leo Tolstoy

Music is the universal language of mankind. – Long Fellow

Without mysticism man can achieve nothing great.

The beginning of wisdom is to call things by their right names.

A nation reveals itself not only by the men it produces, but also by the men it
honours, the men it remembers. – John.F.Kennedy

Nations get as good or as bad a government as they deserve. – Allen Hume

Nations are what their deeds are.

The destiny of any nation, at any given time, depends on the opinion of it’s young
men under five and twenty. – Goethe

A nation without means of reform is without means of survival.

Nature has always more power than education. – Voltaire

Nature to be commanded, must be obeyed. – Francis Bacon

Nature abhors a vacuum.

Nature is our mother.

Nature goes her own way, and all that to us seems an exception is really according
to order. – Goethe

Never does nature say one thing and wisdom another.

The poetry of earth is never dead. – John Keats

What else is nature but God ? - Seneca

Necessity will teach a man, however stupid he be, to be wise.

Necessity makes even the timid brave.

Necessity with impartial justice, allots the fates of high and low alike.

The good neighbour looks beyond the external accidents and discerns those inner
qualities that make all men human, and therefore, brothers. – Martin Luther King

We make our friends, we make our enemies, but God makes our next door
neighbours.

All good things that exist are the fruit of originality.

When we hear news, we should always wait for the sacrament of confirmation.
- Voltaire
Newspapers are the world’s mirrors.

Histories are a kind of distilled newspapers. – Thomas Carlyle

News like substances, ought to be divided into solids, fluids and gases and
appropriately labeled as such for publication. – Sydney Harris

A newspaper is not just for reporting the news as it is, but to make people angry
enough to do something about it. – Mark Twain

It is better to be nobly remembered, than nobly born. – Ruskin

Virtue is the first title of nobility.

Noble blood is an accident of fortune; noble actions characterize the great.

Nothing has happened to you unless you make much of it.

Nothing would be done at all if a man waited till he could do it so well that no one
could find fault with it.

Non-violence is the first article of my faith. – M.K.Gandhi

The fear of some divine and supreme power keeps men in obedience.

The reluctant obedience of distant provinces generally costs more than it is worth.

Obedience alone gives the right to command.

He who yields a prudent obedience exercises a partial control.

Outside every fat man there is an even fatter man trying to close in.

Let us love our occupations. – Charles Dickens

Public office is the last refuge of the incompetent.

As we grow old…the beauty steals inwards. – R.W.Emerson

Old wood best to burn, old wine to drink, old friend to trust and old authors to
read. – Francis Bacon
An old wife, an old dog and ready money are faithful friends. –Benjamin Franklin

If in the last few years you haven’t discarded a major opinion or acquired a new
one, check your pulse. You may be dead.

All have opinions, but only few men think.

Too often we enjoy the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought.
- John.F.Kennedy

Opinions cannot survive if one has no chance to fight for them.

Freedom of opinion can only exist when the government thinks itself secure.
-Bertrand Russell

Opinion is the main thing which does good or harm in the world. It is our false
opinion of things which ruins us.

New opinions are always suspected, and usually opposed, without any other
reason but because they are not already common.

It requires ages to destroy a popular opinion. – Voltaire

One can present people with opportunities, one cannot make them equal to them.

Equality of opportunity means equal opportunity to be unequal.

A good opportunity is seldom presented and is easily lost.

The secret of success in life, is for a man to be ready for his opportunity when it
comes. – Disraeli

Opportunity may be hard to recognize if you are only looking for a lucky break.

Do not suppose opportunity will knock at your door.

An optimist sees an opportunity in every calamity, a pessimist sees a calamity in

every opportunity.

Optimists and pessimists have one fault in common; they are afraid of the truth.

The latest definition of an optimist is one who fills up his crossword puzzle in ink.

Oratory is the power to talk people out of their sober and natural opinions.

The object of oratory is not truth, but persuasion.

Orthodoxy is the bourbon of the world of thought. It learns not, neither can it
forget.

The art of life is the avoiding of pain. – Thomas Jefferson

The pain of the mind is worse than the pain of the body.

It is almost a definition of a gentleman to say that he is one who never inflicts

pain. – Cardinal Newman

For all the happiness mankind can gain is not in pleasure, but in rest from pain.

A picture is a poem without words.

Parents these days scarcely bring up children, they finance them.

Children begin by loving their parents. After a time they judge them. Rarely, if
ever, do they forgive them. – Oscar Wilde

There are no illegitimate children- only illegitimate parents.

The joys of parents are secret, and so are their griefs and fears, they cannot utter
the one, nor will they utter the other. – Francis Bacon

There is no friendship, no love, like that of the parent for the child.

It is with our passions, as it is with fire and water, that are good servants but bad
masters.

Passions unguarded are for the most part mere madness.

Passion is universal humanity. Without it religion, history, romance and art would
be useless.

The past is always dogging our heals, striving ceaselessly to vanish the present.

Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.
– George Santayana

In the carriages of the past you can’t go anywhere. – Maxim Gorky

Don’t look back, something may be gaining on you.

Patience is the companion of wisdom. – St.Augustine

Beware the fury of a patient man.

Patience and delay achieve more than force and rage. – La Fontaine

Everything comes if a man will only wait. – B. Disraeli

A man without patience is a lamp without oil.

Our patience will achieve more than our force.

Patience is bitter, but it’s fruit is sweet. – Rousseau

Patience is the art of hoping.

Though patience be a tired more, yet she will plod. – Shakespeare

Adopt the pace of nature, her secret is patience. – Emerson

All things come around to him who will but wait. – Longfellow

Not one loves his country for its size or eminence, but because it is his own.
- Seneca

Patriotism varies from a devotion to a moral lunacy.

Patriots always talk of dying for their country and never of killing for their
country. - Bertrand Russell

A peace which depends upon fear is nothing but a suppressed war.

The name of peace is sweet and the thing itself good, but between peace and
slavery there is the greatest difference. – Cicero

We may not have achieved permanent peace, but we do have a permanent peace
conference.

Peace is liberty in tranquility. – Cicero

Peace like charity, begins at home.

Only a peace between equals can last. – Woodrow Wilson

Peace rules the day, where reason rules the mind.

A bad peace is even worse than war. – Tacitus

The more you sweat in peace, the less you bleed in war.

God must have loved the plain people, He made so many of them. – A.Lincoln

People do not lack strength, they lack will. – Victor Hugo

Human beings are not perfectible, they are improvable.

For our perfection we have to be vitally savage and mentally civilized, we should
have the gift to be natural with nature and human with society. – R.N.Tagore

Trifles make perfection, and perfection is no trifle. – Michalangelo

Victory belongs to the most persevering. – Napoleon

Much effort, much prosperity. – Euripides

Great works are performed not by strength, but by perseverance.

- Samuel Johnson

Sorrow and silence are strong, and patient endurance is Godlike. –

H.W.Longfellow

A married philosopher is a comic character.

Fly the pleasure that bites tomorrow.

The great pleasure in life is doing what people say you cannot do.

Poetry is truth dwelling in beauty.

Politicians are like ships, noisiest when lost in a fog.

The statesman shears the sheep, the politician skins them.

Men of power have no time to read, yet men who do not read are unfit for power.

Power corrupts the few, while weakness corrupts the many.

To refuse praise reveals a desire to be praised twice over.

Who can say more than this rich praise, that you alone are you ? - Shakespeare

A single grateful thought raised to heaven is the most perfect prayer.

Prayer is the voice of faith.

The greatest prayer is patience. – Buddha

In prayer it is better to have a heart without words than words without a heart.

Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age. – A.Einstein

A prejudice is a vagrant opinion without visible means of support.

It is never too late to give up your prejudices. – Thoreau

A pun is the lowest form of humor when you don’t think of it first.

Do not be too quick to believe anything you read.

Maxims of men disclose their hearts.

It is the good reader that makes the good book. – R.W.Emerson

Read the best books first, or you may not have a chance to read them at all.
- Thoreau

Reading is to the mind what exercise is to the body. – Addison

Art of reading is to skip judiciously.

Reading maketh a full man. – Francis Bacon

The last function of reason is to recognize that there is a infinity of things which
surpass it. – Pascal

Reason can in general do more than blind force.

Man must not check reason by tradition, but must check tradition by reason.
- Tolstoy

The only justification of rebellion is success.

Religion is what an individual does with his own solitariness.

Religion is behaviour and not mere belief. – S.RadhaKrishnan

Responsibility is the high price of self ownership.

Every man is the architect of his own fortune.

A great revolution is never the fault of the people, but of the government. –Goethe

Every revolution was first a thought in one man’s mind. – Emerson

Morals today are corrupted by our worship of riches. – Cicero

Riches either serve or govern the possessor. – Thoreau

The road to ruin is always kept in good repair.

All men that are ruined are ruined on the side of their natural propensities.

Rumor travels faster, but it does not stay put as long as truth.

Science without conscience is but the death of the soul. – Montaigne

The whole of science is nothing more than a refinement of everyday thinking.

- Albert Einstein

Science says the first word on everything, and the last word on nothing.
– Victor Hugo

Art is I, science is we.

Science is nothing but perception. – Plato

To love oneself is the beginning of a life long romance. – Oscar Wilde

Silence along with modesty is a great aid to conversation. – Montaigne

Silence is the safety zone of conversation. – Arnold Glasow

Speech of time, silence is of eternity. – T.Carlyle

No one sins by an act he cannot avoid. – St.Augustine

Laugh and the world laughs with you, cry and you cry alone.

The sleep of a labouring man is sweet.

Most people stop smoking in two stages, first they give up their cigarettes, then
they give up yours.

One may smile, and smile, and be a villain. – Shakespeare

The pillars of truth and the pillars of freedom are the pillars of society.
All sorrows are bearable, if there is bread.

Speech is the index of mind. – Seneca

Speech is civilization itself. The word, even the most contradictious word,
preserves contact – it is silence which isolates. – Thomas Mann

It requires more courage to suffer than to die. – Napolean

We are confronted with mass superstition, that education can only be achieved by
the use of institutions like the school.

Suspicion of one’s own motives is especially necessary for the philanthropist and
the executive. – Bertrand Russell

Sympathy is a supporting atmosphere, and in it we unfold easily and well.

- Emerson

Tact is the ability to make a person see the lightning without letting him feel the
bolt. -O.A.Battista

Without tact you can learn nothing. – Disraeli

Concealed talent brings no reputation.

We talk little when vanity does not make us.

Fatigue makes women talk more and men less. – C.S.Lewis

No one was ever really taught by another; each of us has to teach himself.
- Vivekananda

A teacher as a person is more important than a teacher as a technician. What he is

has more effect than anything he does.

One good schoolmaster is worth a thousand priests. – R.G.Ingersoll

Men have become the tools of their tools. – Thoreau

Blessed is the man that endureth temptation.

A man is but a product of his thoughts. – M.K.Gandhi

Not work, but the thought that he must work is what makes the lazy man tired.
They can because they think they can. – Virgil

Great thoughts reduced to practice become great acts.

The highest result of education is tolerance. – Hellen Keller

He travels fastest who travels alone. – Rudyard Kipling

There is nothing worse for mortals than a wandering life. – Homer

Every calamity is a spur and valuable hint. – R.W.Emerson

Problems are only opportunities in work clothes. – H.J.Kaiser

Truth is tough. – O.W.Holmes

Truth is often eclipsed but never extinguished. – Livy

Truth is the only safe ground to stand upon. – E.C.Shantors

Man has no nobler function than to defend the truth.

Those who love truth are superior to those who just know the truth. – Confucius

The love of truth has it’s reward in heaven and even on earth.

Resistance to tyrants is obedience to God. – Thomas Jefferson

All for one, one for all. – A.Dumas

Liberty and union, now and forever, will be one and inseparable. – D.Webster

There are only two forces that unite men- fear and interest. – Napolean

There are as many fools at a university as elsewhere…..But their folly has a

certain stamp, the stamp of university training…..It is trained folly. – W.Gerhardi

The universe is not only queerer than we imagine, it is queerer than we can ever
imagine. – J.B.S.Haldane

Unselfishness is more paying, only people have not the patience to practice it.
-Swami Vivekananda

Never cast ye your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet,
and turn again and rend you. – Matthew
I love the valiant ; but it is not enough to wield a broad sword, one must also
know against whom. – Nietzsche

Variety is the very spice of life, this gives it all it’s flavour.

No pleasure lasts long unless there is variety in it. – P.Syrus

Vice knows she’s ugly, so puts on her mask. – Benjamin Franklin

Every village has to become a self-sufficient republic. – Mahatma Gandhi

Our peace must be the peace of victors, not of the vanquished.

In war there is no substitute for victory. – D.MacArthur

Virtue is not always amiable.

Virtue in this world should be malleable.

When men grow virtuous in their old age, they only make a sacrifice to God of
the devil’s leavings. – Alexander Pope

True virtue is life under the direction of reason. – Benedict Spinoza

Virtue is health, vice is sickness. – Petrarch

Violence is good for those who have nothing to lose. – JeanPaulSartre

Uncontrolled violence is a fault of youth. – Seneca

Where there is no vision, people perish.

Vision is the art of seeing things invisible. – Jonathan Swift

A moment’s insight is sometimes worth a life’s experience. – O.W.Holmes

War cannot be divorced from politics for a single moment. – MaoTse-Tung

In war whichever side may call itself the victor, there are no winners, but all are
losers. – Chamberlain

There never was a good war or a bad peace. – B.Franklin

It takes twenty years or more of peace to make a man, it takes only twenty
seconds of war to destroy him.
War is nothing more than the continuation of politics by other means.

We ask the outcome of a war, not the cause. - Seneca

Another form of wastefulness is expenditure of words beyond the income of

ideas.

The remedy for weakness is not brooding over weakness, but thinking of strength.
Vivekananda

One cannot strengthen the weak by weakening the strong. – A.Lincoln

The insolence of wealth will creep out. – Samuel Johnson

The world loves a spice of wickedness. – Longfellow

Wisdom comes by disillusionment. – George Santayana

Knowledge comes, but wisdom lingers. – Tennyson

The function of wisdom is discriminating between good and evil. – Cicero

Wisdom denotes the pursuing of the best ends by the best means.

Wisdom sends us back to our childhood. – Pascal

No one is wise at all times.

Wisdom outweighs any wealth. - Sophocles

Pure reason avoids extremes, and requires one to be wise in moderation. –Moliere

Woman is woman’s natural ally as well as enemy. – Euripides

A woman is like your shadow, follow her, she flies; fly from her, she follows.

With words we govern men. –Benjamin Disraeli

Proper words in proper places make the true definition of style. – Jonathan Swift

Words should be scattered like seeds, no matter how small the seed may be, if it
has once found favourable ground, it unfolds it’s strength. – Seneca

The right word may be effective, but no word was ever as effective as a rightly
timed pause. – Mark Twain
When your work speaks for itself, don’t interrupt. – Henry.J.Kaiser

Be not solitary, be not idle.

It is better to wear out than to rust out. – R.Cumberland

There is no substitute for hard work. – Edison

To the worker, God himself lends aid. – Euripides

A bad workman never gets a good tool. – Thomas Fuller

Worry is a circle of inefficient thoughts whirling about a point of fear.

- Austen Riggs

Search not a wound too deep lest thou maketh a new one. – T. Fuller

Writing, when properly managed is but a different name for conversation.

To be wronged is nothing, unless you continue to remember it. – Confucius

All sorts of things and weather

Must be taken together
To make up a year
And a sphere - Emerson

Keep true to the dreams of thy youth. – Schiller

In youth we learn, in age we understand.

The young man knows the rules, but the old man knows the exceptions.
– O.W.Holmes

Youth is looking for new answers, so they can question them.

Blind zeal can only do harm.

Labour with what zeal we will, something still remains undone. – LongFellow