A daily quote is sent in addition to the vocabulary word from the A.Word.A.Day mailing list. These are my favorite quotes.
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There are no chaste minds. Minds copulate wherever they meet. - Eric Hoffer, philosopher and author (1902-1983)
The whole art of teaching is only the art of awakening the natural curiosity of young minds for the purpose of satisfying it afterwards. - Anatole France, novelist, essayist, Nobel laureate (1844-1924)
Politeness is the art of choosing among your thoughts. - Madame de Stael, writer (1766-1817)
We are all equal before the law, but not before those appointed to applyit. - Stanislaw J. Lec, poet and aphorist (1909-1966)
Some people walk in the rain, others just get wet. - Roger Miller, musician (1936-1992)
Tomatoes and oregano make it Italian;
Wine and tarragon make it French.
Sour cream makes it Russian;
Lemon and cinnamon make it Greek.
Soy sauce makes it Chinese;
Garlic makes it good.
- Alice May Brock, author (1941- )
Rudeness is a weak imitation of strength. - Eric Hoffer, philosopher and author (1902-1983)
Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge. - Charles Darwin, naturalist and author (1809-1882)You have not converted a man because you have silenced him. - John Morley,
statesman and writer (1838-1923)
Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it. - George Santayana, philosopher (1863-1952)
No matter how far you have gone on the wrong road, turn back. - Turkish proverb
Experience is that marvelous thing that enables you to recognize a mistake when you make it again. - Franklin P. Jones
A poem begins with a lump in the throat. - Robert Frost, poet (1874-1963)
When I am working on a problem I never think about beauty. I only think about how to solve the problem. But when I have finished, if the solution is not beautiful, I know it is wrong. - R. Buckminster Fuller, engineer, designer, and architect (1895-1983)
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. - Arthur C Clarke, science fiction writer (1917- )
It is only those who have neither fired a shot nor heard the shrieks and groans of the wounded who cry aloud for blood, more vengeance, more desolation. War is hell. - William Tecumseh Sherman, Union General in the American Civil War (1820-1891)
The skill of writing is to create a context in which other people can think. - Edwin Schlossberg, designer (1945- )
The hypothalamus is one of the most important parts of the brain, involved in many kinds of motivation, among other functions. The hypothalamus controls the "Four F's": fighting, fleeing, feeding, and mating. - Heard in a neuropsychology classroom
Ordering a man to write a poem is like commanding a pregnant woman to give birth to a red-headed child. - Carl Sandburg, poet and biographer (1878-1967)
Every saint has a past and every sinner a future. - Oscar Wilde, writer (1854-1900)
Writing is like driving a car at night. You can only see as far as the headlights, but you make the whole trip that way. - E.L. Doctorow, writer (1931- )
Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear - not absence of fear. - Mark Twain, U.S. Author (1835-1910)
Math anxiety: an intense lifelong fear of two trains approaching each other at speeds of 60 and 80 MPH. - Rick Bayan
Nothing that grieves us can be called little: by the eternal laws of proportion a child's loss of a doll and a king's loss of a crown are events of the same size. - Mark Twain, author and humorist (1835-1910)
There are a thousand thoughts lying within a man that he does not know till he takes up a pen to write. - William Makepeace Thackeray, novelist (1811-1863)
In everyone's life, at some time, our inner fire goes out. It is then burst into flame by an encounter with another human being. We should all be thankful for those people who rekindle the inner spirit. - Albert Schweitzer, philosopher, physician, and musician (1875-1965)
All the world's a stage and most of us are desperately unrehearsed. - Sean O'Casey, playwright (1880-1964)
If you wish to make an apple pie truly from scratch, you must first invent the universe. - Carl Sagan, astronomer and writer (1934-1996)
Mathematics is the language with which God has written the universe.- Galileo Galilei, physicist and astronomer (1564-1642)
When love and skill work together, expect a masterpiece. - John Ruskin, author, art critic, and social reformer (1819-1900)
Language is the apparel in which your thoughts parade in public. Never clothe them in vulgar and shoddy attire. - Dr. George W. Crane
I am no more humble than my talents require. - Oscar Levant, composer (1906-1972)
You can discover what your enemy fears most by observing the means he uses to frighten you. - Eric Hoffer, philosopher and author (1902-1983)
Sometimes to remain silent is to lie. - Miguel de Unamuno, philosopher and writer (1864-1936)
Tact is the ability to describe others as they see themselves. - Abraham Lincoln, 16th president of the U.S (1809-1865)
Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, give him power. - Abraham Lincoln, 16th president of the U.S (1809-1865)
What you are thunders so that I cannot hear what you say to the contrary. - Ralph Waldo Emerson, writer and philosopher (1803-1882)
Authority without wisdom is like a heavy axe without an edge, fitter to bruise than polish. - Anne Bradstreet, poet (1612-1672)
The first human who hurled an insult instead of a stone was the founder of civilization. - Sigmund Freud, neurologist, founder of psychoanalysis (1856-1939)
I do not think there is any thrill that can go through the human heart like that felt by the inventor as he sees some creation of the brain unfolding to success... Such emotions make a man forget food, sleep, friends, love, everything. - Nikola Tesla, electrical engineer and inventor (1856-1943)
When it is dark enough, you can see the stars. - Ralph Waldo Emerson, writer and philosopher (1803-1882)
The secret of life is honesty and fair dealing. If you can fake that, you've got it made. - Groucho Marx
The hottest places in hell are reserved for those who, in time of great moral crisis, maintain their neutrality. - Dante Alighieri, poet (1265-1321)
The value of marriage is not that adults produce children, but that children produce adults. - Peter De Vries, editor, novelist (1910-1993) [The Tunnel of Love, 1954]
Science is built with facts as a house is with stones--but a collection of facts is no more a science than a heap of stones is a house. - Jules Henry Poincare (1854-1912)
Power is not revealed by striking hard or often, but by striking true. - Honore de Balzac (1799-1850)
What you do speaks so loud that I cannot hear what you say. - Ralph Waldo Emerson, writer and philosopher (1803-1882)
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To laugh often and much; |
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To win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children; |
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To earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends; |
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To appreciate beauty; |
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To find the best in others; |
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To leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch or a redeemed social condition; |
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To know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. |
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This is to have succeeded. |
By the time a man realizes that maybe his father was right, he usually has a son who thinks he's wrong. - Charles Wadsworth
To those who do not know mathematics it is difficult to get across a real feeling as to the beauty, the deepest beauty of nature. If you want to learn about nature, to appreciate nature, it is necessary to understand the language that she speaks in. - Richard Feynman (1918-1988)
Hofstadter's Law: The time and effort required to complete a project are always more than you expect, even when you take into account Hofstadter's Law.
Wit makes its own welcome, and levels all distinctions. No dignity, no learning, no force of character, can make any stand against good wit. - Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882)
Whenever people say 'We mustn't be sentimental,' you can take it they are about to do something cruel. And if they add 'We must be realistic,' they mean they are going to make money out of it. - Brigid Brophy, author.
I have yet to hear a man ask for advice on how to combine marriage and a career. -Gloria Steinem, women's rights activist, editor (1934- )
Perhaps the most valuable result of all education is the ability to make yourself do the thing you have to do, when it ought to be done, whether you like it or not. -Thomas Henry Huxley
An education isn't how much you have committed to memory, or even how much you know. It's being able to differentiate between what you know and what you don't. -Anatole France, author
Many a man thinks he is buying pleasure, when he is really selling himself to it. -Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790)
Seven blunders of the world that lead to violence: -Mahatma Gandhi (1869-1948)
wealth without work,
pleasure without conscience,
knowledge without character,
commerce without morality,
science without humanity,
worship without sacrifice,
politics without principle.
Knowledge is a process of piling up facts; wisdom lies in their simplification. -Martin H. Fischer
This is my rule of married life: it's better to be happy than to be right. -Click & Clack, the Tappet Brothers
Our plans miscarry because they have no aim. When a man does not know what harbor he is making for, no wind is the right wind. -Seneca
We are only figments of God's imagination.
One is always a long way from solving a problem until one actually has the answer. -Stephen Hawking
Isn't Disney World a People Trap Operated by a Mouse? -Steven Wright
Most of us ask for advice when we know the answer but we want a different one. -Ivern Ball
A friend is a person with whom I may be sincere. Before him I may think aloud. -Ralph Waldo Emerson, American writer and philosopher (1803-1882)
It is one of the blessings of old friends that you can afford to be stupid with them. -Ralph Waldo Emerson
Every great movement must experience three stages: ridicule, discussion, adoption. -John Stuart Mill
Absurdity, n. a statement or belief manifestly inconsistent with one's own opinion. -Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary (1906)
The liar's punishment is not in the least that he is not believed, but that he cannot believe anyone else. -George Bernard Shaw
A designer knows he has achieved perfection not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away. -Antoine de Saint-Exupery
It is proof of a base and low mind for one to wish to think with the masses or majority, merely because the majority is the majority. Truth does not change because it is, or is not, believed by a majority of the people. -Giordano Bruno
Why is it when we talk to God we're praying -- but when God talks to us, we're schizophrenic? -Lily Tomlin
Making the decision to have a child is momentous -- it is to decide forever to have your heart go walking around outside your body. -Elizabeth Stone
Heredity is a splendid phenomenon that relieves us of responsibility for our shortcomings. -Doug Larson
Love does not consist in gazing at each other, but in looking outward together in the same direction. -Antoine de Saint-Exupery
An object in possession seldom retains the same charm that it had in pursuit. -Gaius Plinius (c. 61-112 A.D.)
Leadership is getting someone to do what they don't want to do in order to achieve what they want to achieve. -Tom Landry
There's 2 possible outcomes: If the result confirms the hypothesis, then you've made a measurement. If the result is contrary to the hypothesis, then you've made a discovery. -Fermi
It's all right to tell a man to lift himself by his own bootstraps, but it is a cruel jest to say to a bootless man that he ought to lift himself by his own bootstraps. -Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929-1968)
You may have a fresh start any moment you choose, for this thing we call failure' is not the falling down, but the staying down. -Mary Pickford
What is done well is done quickly enough. -Augustus Caesar
The best way to have a good idea is to have lots of ideas. -Linus Pauling
Good ideas are not adopted automatically. They must be driven into practice with courageous patience. -Admiral Hyman Rickover
The moment of victory is much too short to live for that and nothing else. -Martina Navratilova
And the fox said to the little prince: men have forgotten this truth, but you must not forget it. You become responsible, forever, for what you have tamed. -Antoine de Saint-Exupery [The Little Prince]
Any fool can make a rule, and every fool will mind it. -Cousin Woodman
I'm somewhat shy about the brutal facts of being a carnivore. I don't like meat to look like animals. I prefer it in the form of sausages, hamburger and meat loaf, far removed from the living thing. -John Updike, New York Times, 1982
Life is like a dog-sled team. If you ain't the lead dog, the scenery never changes. -Lewis Grizzard
The real art of conversation is not only to say the right thing at the right place but to leave unsaid the wrong thing at the tempting moment. -Dorothy Nevill
Some people approach every problem with an open mouth. -Adlai Stevenson
Loyalty to a petrified opinion never yet broke a chain or freed a human soul. -Mark Twain, U.S. Author (1835-1910)
Education is what survives when what has been learned has been forgotten. -- B.F. Skinner
Having children makes you no more a parent than having a piano makes you a pianist. -Michael Levine [Lessons at the Halfway Point]
When we quit thinking primarily about ourselves and our own self-preservation, we undergo a truly heroic transformation of consciousness. -Joseph Campbell
The willow which bends to the tempest, often escapes better than the oak which resists it; and so in great calamities, it sometimes happens that light and frivolous spirits recover their elasticity and presence of mind sooner than those of a loftier character. -Walter Scott (1771-1832)
Grandchildren don't make a man feel old; its the knowledge that he's married to a grandmother. -Agatha Christie
Children need love, especially when they do not deserve it. -- Harold S. Hulbert
We've heard that a million monkeys at a million keyboards could produce the Complete Works of Shakespeare; now, thanks to the Internet, we know this is not true. -- Robert Wilensky
Noise proves nothing--often a hen who has merely laid an egg cackles as if she had laid an asteroid. -- Mark Twain, U.S. Author (1835-1910)
They may forget what you said, but they will never forget how you made them feel. -Carl W. Buechner
I don't want yes men around me. I want everyone to tell the truth, even if it costs them their jobs. -Samuel Goldwyn