Stuff to Ponder

A place for quotes I have run across that have especially caught my eye. This page will be constantly growing and changing.

‘Tis better to be silent and be thought a fool, than to speak and remove all doubt  -  Mark Twain

Without effort, you cannot be prosperous. Though the land be good, You cannot have an abundant crop without cultivation.  -  Plato

A hammer shatters glass but forges steel. Adversity is like the hammer, and what it does to a person depends on what they are made of.  -  Russian Proverb

Keep your friends close, but your enemies closer – Don Michael Corleone, The Godfather Part II

Common looking people are the best in the world: that is the reason the Lord makes so many of them.  -  Abraham Lincoln

That which does not kill you makes you stronger  -  Friederich Nietzsche

America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves.  – Abraham Lincoln

A superior man is modest in his speech, but exceeds in his actions. -  Confucius

Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.  -  Ernest Hemingway

Aim above morality. Be not simply good, be good for something. -  Henry David Thoreau

Books serve to show a man that those original thoughts of his aren’t very new at all.  -  Abraham Lincoln

“I am” is reportedly the shortest sentence in the English language. Could it be that “I do” is the longest sentence? -  George Carlin

I sometimes wonder whether all pleasures are not substitutes for joy.  -  C.S. Lewis

As a single footstep will not make a path on the earth, so a single thought will not make a pathway in the mind. To make a deep physical path, we walk again and again. To make a deep mental path, we must think over and over the kind of thoughts we wish to dominate our lives.  -  Henry David Thoreau

Be more concerned with your character than your reputation, because your character is what you really are, while your reputation is merely what others think you are.   -  John Wooden

I have just three things to teach: simplicity, patience, compassion. These three are your greatest treasures.  -  Lao Tzu

A man is what he thinks about all day long.  -  Ralph Waldo Emerson

A man’s character may be learned from the adjectives which he habitually uses in conversation.  -  Mark Twain

He is richest who is content with the least, for content is the wealth of nature. – Socrates

They’re not that different from you, are they? Same haircuts. Full of hormones, just like you. Invincible, just like you feel. The world is their oyster. They believe they’re destined for great things, just like many of you, their eyes are full of hope, just like you. Did they wait until it was too late to make from their lives even one iota of what they were capable? Because, you see gentlemen, these boys are now fertilizing daffodils. But if you listen real close, you can hear them whisper their legacy to you. Go on, lean in. Listen, you hear it? – - Carpe – - hear it? – - Carpe, carpe diem, seize the day boys, make your lives extraordinary. – Professor Keating, Dead Poets Society

Never tell your problems to anyone…20% don’t care and the other 80% are glad you have them. – Coach Lou Holtz

Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen. -  Albert Einstein

Be who you are and say what you feel because those who mind don’t matter and those who matter don’t mind. -  Dr. Seuss

Watch your thoughts; they become words. Watch your words; they become actions. Watch your actions; they become habits. Watch your habits; they become character. Watch your character; it becomes your destiny. – Frank Outlaw

When one door closes, another opens; but we often look so long and so regretfully upon the closed door that we do not see the one that has opened for us.  – Alexander Graham Bell

Forgive your enemies, but never, never forget their names. – John F. Kennedy

Never be afraid to try. Remember…amateurs built the ark, professionals built the Titanic. – unknown

You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.    – Wayne Gretzky

Do, or do not. There is no ‘try’.   - Yoda, The Empire Strikes Back

We are what we repeatedly do; excellence, then, is not an act but a habit.  —  Aristotle

When I was a boy I was told that anybody could become President. Now I’m beginning to believe it.  —  Clarence Darrow

Fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, hate leads to suffering
-  Yoda, Star Wars Episode One: The Phantom Menace

Imagination was given to man to compensate him for what he is not, and a sense of humor was provided to console him for what he is.  — Oscar Wilde

It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.  —  Aristotle

You know we just don’t recognize the most significant moments of our lives while they’re happening.  Back then I thought, well, there’ll be other days.  I didn’t realize that that was the only day.  -  Moonlight Graham, Field of Dreams

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

Anyone who doesn’t take truth seriously in small matters cannot be trusted in large ones either. -  Albert Einstein

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