Author Unknown
Forgiveness is the fragrance the violet sheds on the heel that has crushed it.
Many people seem to think that opportunity means a chance to get money without earning it.
Opportunities are often missed because we are broadcasting when we should be listening.
Time invested in improving ourselves cuts down on time wasted in disapproving of others.
"What made the deepest impression upon you?" inquired a friend one day of Lincoln, "when you stood in the presence of the Falls of Niagara, the greatest of natural wonders?" ---- "The thing that stuck me most forcibly when I saw the Falls," Lincoln responded with the characteristic deliberation, "was where in the world did all that water come from?"
Religion is a man using a divining rod. Philosophy is a man using a pick and shovel.
Shortchange your education now and you may be short of change the rest of your life.
Freedom also includes the right to mismanage your own affairs.
If happiness could be brought, few of us could pay the price.
There is a growing suspicion that what the world needs now is a religion that will cover the other six days of the week.
Clever liars give details, but the cleverest don't.
Nine out of ten people who change their minds are wrong the second time too.
Every success is built on the ability to do better than good enough.
If the truth be known, most successes are built on a multitude of failures.
A handful of common sense is worth a bushel of learning.
Success isn't necessarily permanent - but neither is failure.
The biggest shortage of all is the shortage of common sense.
The secret of success is to do all you can do without thought of success.
A little tact and wise management may often evade resistance, and carry a point, where direct force might be in vain.
Results are what you expect, and consequences are what you get.
No poet sings because he must sing. At least no great poet does. A great poet sings because he chooses to sing.
Our wisdom comes usually from our experience, and our experience comes largely from our experience.
If your children look up to you, you've made a success of life's biggest job.
Your life can't go according to plan if you have no plan.
Conversation is an exercise of the mind; gossip is merely an exercise of the tongue.
There is one way to handle the ignorant and malicious critic. Ignore him.
The average person living to age 70 has 613,000 hours of life. This is too long a period not to have fun.
Imagination is the pontoon bridge making way for the timid feet of reason.
Behind every successful man there are usually a lot of unsuccessful years.
Good habits are formed; bad habits we fall into.
Perpetual worry will get you to one place ahead of time - the cemetery.
Some have half-baked ideas because their ideals are not heated up enough.
Before a man can wake up and find himself famous he has to wake up and find himself.
If you don't like your own character there may be a new one ready-made and waiting for you. The snake sheds its skin with impunity, relying on the same nature which you rely on.
The test of any man's character is how he takes praise.
So live that your memories will be part of your happiness.
Mankind's worst enemy is fear of work.
You can judge your age by the amount of pain you feel when you come in contact with a new idea
Only those who have the patience to do simple things perfectly ever acquire the skill to do difficult things easily.
A patient man is one who can put up with himself.
Peace won by the compromise of principles is a short-lived achievement.
Peace may cost as much as war, but it is a better buy.
The best answer to answer to anger is silence.
Some families can trace their ancestors back three hundred years, but can't tell you where their children were last night.
A lot of good arguments are spoiled by some fool who knows what he is talking about.
Nothing improves the memory more than trying to forget.
Don't mind criticism. If it is untrue, disregard it; if unfair, keep from irritation; if it is ignorant, smile; if it is justified it is not criticism, learn from it.
Many of us have heard opportunity knocking at our door, but by the time we unhooked the chain, pushed back the bolt, turned two locks, and shuts off the burglar alarm - it was gone.
Desire for security keeps littleness little and threatens the great with smallness.
A recent survey was said to prove that the people we Americans most admire are our politicians and doctors. I don't believe it. They are simply the people we are most afraid of. And with the most reason.
We cannot be too earnest, too persistent, too determined, about living superior to the herd-instinct.
Flattery looks like friendship, just like a wolf looks like a dog.
If a man defrauds you one time, he is a rascal; if he does it twice, you are a fool.
Find expression for a sorrow and it will become dear to you. Find expression for a joy, and you will intensify its ecstasy.
Beware of the man who knows the answer before he understands the question.
Courage is always greatest when blended with meekness; intellectual ability is most admired when it sparkles in the setting of modest self-distrust; and never does the human soul appear so strong as when it foregoes revenge and dares to forgive any injury.
An expert knows all the answers - if you ask the right questions.
A college education never hurt anybody who was willing to learn after he got it.
Mistakes are a great educator when one is honest enough to admit them and willing to learn from them
Happiness will never come to those who fail to appreciate what they already have.
Happiness is in the heart, not in the circumstances.
It's never too late to have a happy childhood.
If someone offers to furnish a sure test, ask what the test was which made the sure test sure.
Let your friends be the friends of your deliberate choice.
The man who has strong opinions and always says what he thinks is courageous - and friendless.
Hate pollutes the mind.
Most people pay too much for the things they get for nothing.
Friendship is love with understanding.
If we miraculously became the people we hate, how lovable we would find ourselves.
Hatred is a boomerang which is sure to hit you harder than the one at whom you throw it.
Friendship is a living thing that lasts only as long as it is nourished with kindness, empathy and understanding.
Religion is meant to be bread for daily use, not cake for special occasions.
To feel "fit as a fiddle" you must tone down your middle.
"Oh," replied his patient, with no malice aforethought, "he told me to come and see you."
Having supplied them with names, omnipotence, justice, knowledge, Providence, - what are they?
It is impossible to make wisdom hereditary.
A good laugh is sunshine in a house.
When you laugh, be sure to laugh at what people do and not at what people are.
Honesty is a question of right or wrong, not a matter of policy.
The greatest paradox of them all is to speak of "civilized warfare."
One look around us ought to show that all our arbitrary measures and bounds have been clamped on us by mankind.
Why keep on enacting laws when we already have more than we can break.
No punishment of the unrighteous has ever been too severe in the eyes of the righteous.
Our children seem to have wonderful taste, or none - depending, of course, on whether or not they agree with us.
The best leader is the one who has the sense to surround himself with outstanding people and self-restraint not to meddle with how they do their jobs.
Outstanding leaders appeal to the hearts of their followers - not their minds.
It is almost impossible to smile on the outside without feeling better on the inside.
Spare minutes are the Gold-dust of time; the portions of life most fruitful in good and evil; the gaps through which temptations enter.
It is a pleasure to give advice, humiliating to need it, normal to ignore it.
Too many people confine their exercise to jumping to conclusions, running up bills, stretching the truth, bending over backward, lying down on the job, sidestepping responsibility and pushing their luck.
A great fortune in the hands of a fool is a great misfortune.
Successful leaders have the courage to take action where others hesitate.
No poet sings because he must sing. At least no great poet does. A great poet sings because he chooses to sing
The more you talk to yourself, the more apt you are to lie.
It is easier to believe a lie that one has heard a thousand times than to believe a fact that no one has heard before.
Make service your first priority, not success and success will follow.
Some people lose their health getting wealth and then lose their wealth gaining health.
If people did not prefer reaping to sowing, there would not be a hungry person in the land.
Big men become big by doing what they didn't want to do when they didn't want to do it.
You know how you hate to be interrupted, so why are you always doing it to me.
The bigger a man's head gets, the easier it is to fill his shoes.
A conscience is like a baby. It has to go to sleep before you can.
One should be more concerned about what his conscience whispers than about what other people shout.
When you can think of yesterday without regret and tomorrow without fear, you are near contentment.
Courage is not the absence of fear, but the conquest of it.
Everybody's a self-made man; but only the successful ones are ever willing to admit it.
Like swift water an active mind never stagnates.
If a cluttered desk is a sign of a cluttered mind, just what does an empty desk mean?
Nature abhors a vacuum. When a head lacks brains, nature fills it with conceit.
What we are doing at the moment is more that just one thing added to the rest; it is a memoir.
Behavior is what a man does, not what he thinks, feels, or believes
Create the kind of climate in your organization where personal growth is expected, recognized and rewarded.
Catch your people doing something right and let them know you appreciate it.
A good name, like good will, is attained by many actions and may be lost by one.
He that boasts of his own knowledge proclaims his ignorance
The human mind must believe in something, so why not let it believe what it does believe.
Enthusiasm is that kindling spark which marks the difference between the leaders in every activity and the laggards who put in just enough to "get by."
Protest long enough that you are right, and you will be wrong. It is easier to admire hard work if you don't do it.
Enthusiasm is very good lubrication for the mind.
The only person worth envying is he person who doesn't envy.
Excellence is best described as doing the right things right - selecting the most important things to be done and then accomplishing them 100% correctly.
Opinions are the cheapest commodities in the world.
The deadliest contagion is majority opinion.
A man is getting along on the road to wisdom when he begins to realize that his opinion is just an opinion.
He who ashamed of his poverty would be equally proud of his wealth.
Procrastination is the grave in which opportunity is buried.
It is better to live richly than to die rich.
On his examination paper a boy wrote, "A natural death is where you die by yourself without a doctor's help.
So few people think. When we find one who really does, we call him a genius
Many things are worse than defeat,and compromise with evil is one of them.
The tipping custom originated in England when small sums were dropped into a box marked T.I.P.S. --TO INSURE PROMPT SERVICE.
Freedom is a package deal - with it comes responsibilities and consequences.
Prayer doesn't change things. It changes people and they change things.
Few cases of eyestrain have been developed by looking on the bright side of things.
One thing about the school of experience is that it will repeat the lesson if you flunk the first time.
Children begin by loving their parents. As they grow older, they judge them. Sometimes they forgive them.
Prejudice is the reasoning of fools.
To reprove small faults within due vehemence, is as absurd as if a man should take a great hammer to kill a fly on his friend's forehead.
Practicing the Golden Rule is not a sacrifice; it is an investment.
Today is the tomorrow you worried about yesterday.
Humor - the perfect relationship of the parts to the whole.
To live so that you would not be ashamed to sell the family parrot to the town gossip, is to have lived well
An expert gossiper knows how much to leave out of a conversation
Gossip is sometimes referred to as halitosis of the mind
Our five senses are incomplete without the sixth - a sense of humor.
Every tomorrow has two handles. We can take hold of it by the handle of anxiety, or by the handle of faith.
Faith is like electricity. You can't see it, but you can see the light.
It is usually best to be generous with praise, but cautious with criticism.
Criticism is the disapproval of people, not for having faults, but having faults different from your own.
Someone has described science as an orderly arrangement of what, at the moment, seems to be facts.
It is strange that we do not temper our resentment of criticism with a thought for our many faults which have escaped us.
The hardest work in the world is that which should have been done yesterday.
You can buy education, but wisdom is a gift from God.
If you would attain greatness, think no little thoughts.
Wise men are not always silent, but they know when to be.
Too many people run out of ideas long before they run out of words.
The best mind might be the wisest mind if it were a mind alone that produces wisdom.
It isn't easy for an idea to squeeze itself into a head filled with prejudice.
If wisdom were on sale in the open market, the stupid would not even ask the price.
We are born brave, trusting and greedy, and most of us remain greedy.
Before a diamond shows its brilliancy and prismatic colors it has to stand a good deal of cutting and smoothing.
People are changed, not by coercion or intimidation, but by example.
Children are natural mimics; they act like their parents in spite of every effort to teach them good manners.
When thoughts fails of words, they find imagination waiting at their elbow to teach a new language without words.
The written word can be erased - not so with the spoken word.
One thing you can give and still keep is your word.
The guilty catch themselves.
After all, life is really simple; we ourselves create the circumstances that complicate it.
Life is tragic for those who have plenty to live on and nothing to live for.
To be free of destructive stress don't sweat the small stuff and by realizing that all stuff is small.
Think highly of yourself, for the world takes you at your own estimate.
The good Lord gave me a brain that works so fast that in one moment I can worry as much as it would take others a whole year to achieve.
To save time is to lengthen life.
Get into the habit of asking yourself if what you are doing can be handled by someone else.
It would take battalions of angels to protect us from our dreaded dangers, though in a long lifetime few of the dangers come to anything.
Neurotics chase after people and jobs they don't really want, just to prove that they are like everybody else - which is the last thing they really want.
Vacant minds must have their uses, yet it seems a pity to waste first-class bodies on them.
You are today where your thoughts have brought you; you will be tomorrow where your thoughts take you. You cannot escape the results of your thoughts.
If you had it all to do over, would you fall in love with yourself again?
Thinking things has been done through the ages; knowing things remains to be done.
If marriage is your object,You'd better start loving your subject.
The brain that bubbles with phrases has hard work to collect its thoughts.
A good marriage winds up as a meeting of minds, which had better be pretty good to start with.
Analysis and synthesis ordinarily clarify matters for us about as much as taking a Swiss watch apart and dumping its wheels, springs, hands, threads, pivots, screws and gears into a layman's hands for reassembling, clarifies a watch to a layman.
The price is what you pay; the value is what you receive.
"Luck" is a very good word if you put a P before it.
Practical observation commonly consists of collecting a few facts and loading them with guesses.
Luck always seems to be against the man who depends on it.
Early civilizations complained about still earlier ones, much as we do about both
Men of genius are admired, men of wealth are envied, men of power are feared; but only men of character are trusted
You can't truthfully explain your smallest action without fully revealing your character.
Cheerfulness greases the axles of the world.
None of us are responsible for all the things that happen to us, but we are responsible for the way we act when they do happen.
It doesn't do any good to sit up and take notice if you keep on sitting.
Where we go and what we do advertises what we are.
Successful men follow the same advice they prescribe for others.
Advice is the only commodity on the market where the supply always exceeds the demand.
Age withers only the outside.
Old age may seem a long way off. But on the day it doesn't, it will be too late to do anything about it.
Where ambition ends happiness begins.
The size of a man is measured by the size of the thing that makes him angry.
People who know the least always argue the most.
If you get up one time more than you fall, you will make it through.
A fellow who says he has never told a lie has just told one.
We promise according to our hopes and perform according to our fears.
A patient going to a doctor for his first visit was asked, "And whom did you consult before coming to me?""Only the village druggist," was the answer."And what sort of foolish advice did that numbskull give you?" asked the doctor, his tone and manner denoting his contempt for the advice of the layman."Oh," replied his patient, with no malice aforethought, "he told me to come and see you."
Our health always seems much more valuable after we lose it.
There are many roads to hate, but envy is the shortest of them all.
Love is to man an embarrassment, even a word; it is to a woman an excuse for existence, especially the word.
One of the weaknesses of our age is our apparent inability to distinguish our need from our greed.
No one finds life worth living; he must make it worth living.
If the world were so organized that everything has to be fair, no living creature could survive for a day. The birds would be forbidden to eat worms, and everyone's self-interest would have to be served.
If you look for the positive things in life; you will find them.
We always prefer war on our terms to peace on someone else's.
Life is too short to be taken seriously.
Imagination was given man to compensate for what he is not, and a sense of humor to console him for what he is.
Replying to the tributes paid to him at a testimonial dinner, Herbert Bayard Swope said; "I cannot give you the formula for success, but I can give you the formula for failure. Try to please everybody."
A smooth sea never made a skillful mariner, neither do uninterrupted prosperity and success qualify for usefulness and happiness. The storms of adversity, like those of the ocean, rouse the faculties, and excite the invention, prudence, skill and fortitude or the voyager. The martyrs of ancient times, in bracing their minds to outward calamities, acquired a loftiness of purpose and a moral heroism worth a lifetime of softness and security.
