"Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge? Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?"—T. S. Eliot (1888-1965), American-English poet, playwright, and literary critic. (Quotation is from his poem, The Rock, 1934)
“When I am working on a problem, I never think about beauty. But
when I have finished, if the solution is not beautiful, I know it is
wrong.”—R. Buckminster Fuller (1895-1983), American inventor, designer, architect, and author
“I have a retort, timed and well-framed, laden with irony and literary allusion—but I refuse to favor you with it. I have my dignity.” —Larry Niven (1910-1983), British actor and novelist.
“One person—resolute—abiding by truth shall rally a majority.” —Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882), American poet, essayist, and lecturer.
"Never a lip is curved with pain that can't be kissed into smiles again." —Bret Harte (1839-1902), American poet
“Energy begets energy. Life begets life. It is in spending ourselves that we grow rich.” —Sarah Bernhardt, (1844-1923), French actress.
“If there must be trouble, let it be in my day, that my child may have peace.” —Thomas Paine (1737-1809), American author and revolutionary
"The trouble with most of our prayers is that we give them as if we were picking up the telephone and ordering groceries—we place our order and hang up. We need to meditate, contemplate, think of what we are praying about and for and then speak to the Lord as one man speaketh to another." —Gordon B. Hinckley (1910-2008), American writer and educator, 15th president of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
“Unless you listen, you can’t know anybody. Oh, you will know facts and what is in the newspapers and all of history, perhaps. But you will not know one single person. You know, I have come to think listening is love, that’s what it really is.” —Brenda Ueland (1891-1985), American journalist, editor, writer, and teacher of writing
“The invention of the teenager was a mistake. Once you identify a period of life in which people get to stay out late but don't have to pay taxes—naturally, no one wants to live any other way.” —Judith Martin (Miss Manners), American columnist and expert on ettiquette.
"Never a tear bedims the eye that time and patience will not dry." —Bret Harte
“Quote me as saying I was misquoted.” —Julius Henry “Groucho” Marx, (1890-1977), American comedian and film star
“There’s always room for a good one.” —Dutch proverb
“If you can't be kind, at least be vague.” —Judith Martin
"I've been rich and I've been poor. Rich is better." —Disputed but take your pick: Sophie Tucker, Gertrude Stein, Mae West, W. C. Fields, Beatrice Kaufman, and others.
“We are born charming, fresh and spontaneous and must be civilized before we are fit to participate in society.” —Judith Martin
"Dear Miss Manners: What is the proper way to eat potato chips? Gentle Reader: With a knife and fork. A fruit knife and an oyster fork, to be specific. Good heavens, what is the world coming to? Miss Manners does not mind explaining the finer points of gracious living, but she feels that anyone without the sense to pick up a potato chip and stuff it in their face should probably not be running around loose on the streets." —Judith Martin
"I wanted a perfect ending. Now I've learned, the hard way, that some poems don't rhyme, and some stories don't have a clear beginning, middle and end. " —Gilda Radner (1946-1989), American commedienne and actress
"I believe the world will be saved by beauty. I am a believer because Christianity is that beauty." —Fyodor Dostoyevsky (1821-1881), Russian writer of novels, essays, and short stories (from his novel, The Idiot)
“If anyone could prove to me that Christ is outside the truth, and if the truth really did exclude Christ, I should prefer to stay with Christ and not with truth.” —Fyodor Dostoyevsky
"There are three possible parts to a date, of which at least two must be offered: entertainment, food, and affection. It is customary to begin a series of dates with a great deal of entertainment, a moderate amount of food, and the merest suggestion of affection. As the amount of affection increases, the entertainmwnt can be reduced proportionately. When the affection IS the entertainment, we no longer call it dating. Under no circumstances can the food be omitted."—Judith Martin, Miss Manners' Guide to Excruciatingly Correct Behavior
“I don't want to drive up to the pearly gates in a shiny sports car, wearing beautifully, tailored clothes, my hair expertly coiffed, and with long, perfectly manicured fingernails.
I want to drive up in a station wagon that has mud on the wheels from taking kids to scout camp.
I want to be there with a smudge of peanut butter on my shirt from making sandwiches for a sick neighbor's children.
I want to be there with a little dirt under my fingernails from helping to weed someone's garden.
I want to be there with children's sticky kisses on my cheeks and the tears of a friend on my shoulder.
I want the Lord to know I was really here and that I really lived.” —Marjorie Pay Hinckley (1910-2001), American author; wife of Gordon B. Hinckley.
“Life should not be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside in a cloud of smoke, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming "Wow! What a Ride!” —Hunter S. Thompson (1937-2005), American journalist and author.
“The only way to get through life is to laugh your way through it. You either have to laugh or cry. I prefer to laugh. Crying gives me a headache.” —Marjorie Pay Hinckley
“Nobody likes a person who goes around saying, 'Nobody likes me.'” —Daniel Kemper Lubben
“It's better to live too far from family and wish you lived closer, than to live too close to family and wish you lived farther.” —Daniel Kemper Lubben
“It is essential that anyone reading this book know at the outset that the author is apolitical. I was convinced in 1927 that humanity's most fundamental survival problems could never be solved by politics.”—R. Buckminster Fuller, Grunch of Giants
“When the devil can’t win he gets theatrical.” —Daniel Kemper Lubben
"If you whine, you get nothing." —Daniel Kemper Lubben
“No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friend’s or of thine own were. Any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind. And therefore, never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.” —From Meditation XVII by John Donne (1572-1631), English poet, satirist, lawyer, and cleric in the Church of England.
"Where your talents and the needs of the world cross, there lies your vocation." —Aristotle (384 BC – 322 BC), Greek philosopher, writer, and polymath...a student of Plato and teacher of Alexander the Great.
"Whenever the offense inspires less horror than the punishment, the rigor of penal law is obliged to give way to the common feelings of mankind." —Edward Gibbon(1737-1794), English Historian and member of parliament (quote is from his book The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire).
"Your hands are not made to type out memos. Or put paper through fax machines. Or hold a phone up while you talk to people you dislike. A hundred years from now your hands will rot like dust in your grave. You have to make wonderful use of those hands now. Kiss your hands so they can make magic." —James Altucher (born 1968, New York, NY) American entrepreneur, author, and blogger at jamesaltucher.com.
"If you don't know what to do, do nothing."—My grandmother, Lorene Elizabeth Gage Ehrhardt (1900-1969)
"If you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all."—Just about every mother who ever lived but it was also spoken by Thumper's mother in Disney's movie, Bambi.
"If you don't know what to do, read The Book of Mormon."—Hugh Nibley (1910–2005), American author, Mormon apologist, and professor at Brigham Young University.
"The brain craves for information as the body craves for food."—Nigel Calder, (1930-) British Science Writer. From his book, The Mind of Man (London: British Broadcasting Corp., 1970), 33.
"If you don't stand for something you will fall for anything."—Malcolm X (1925–1965), born Malcolm Little and also known as El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz, American Muslim minister and human rights activist. [contributed by Harm Lubben]
"Be excellent to each other." —from the movie Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure. [contributed by Cheryl Lubben]
"A smart baby is far more edifying company than a stupid dean."—Hugh Nibley, from his essay More Brigham Young on Education.
"Keep [your] riches, and with them I promise you leanness of soul, darkness of mind, narrow and contracted hearts."—Brigham Young, second president of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Journal of Discourses 12:127.
"If a man comes in the midst of this people with money, let him use it in making improvements, in building, in beautifying his inheritance in Zion, and in increasing his capital by thus putting out his money to usury. Let him go and make a great farm, and stock it well, and fortify all around with a good and efficient fence. What for? Why for the purpose of spending his money."—Brigham Young, Journal of Discourses 1:254.
"A child can tell you the truth, in child-like language, while falsehood . . . requires a scholastic education to make falsehood pass for truth. . . . Men are educated to promulgate and sustain false theories to make money. . . . But if the profession of a lawyer is chosen, . . . he needs to be educated in all the learning of the age to be successful—. . . to make things appear what they really are not."—Brigham Young, Journal of Discourses 11:214-215.
"Our object is not to stay alive but to live as we should."—Aristotle (384 BC – 322 BC), Greek philospher and polymath, a student of Plato and teacher of Alexander the Great.
"Work less, wear less, eat less, and we shall be a great deal wiser, healthier, and wealthier people."—Brigham Young
"There are many who struggle and climb and finally reach the top of the ladder, only to find that it is leaning against the wrong wall."—Boyd K. Packer (1924-), American educator and religious leader, president of the Quorum of Twelve Apostles or the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. From his speech The Arts and the Spirit of the Lord, see Brigham Young University Studies 16 (Summer 1976): page 576.
"If we all labor a few hours a day, we could then spend the remainder of our time in rest and the improvement of our minds."—Brigham Young, Journal of Discourses 19:47
"Stop watching the clock. Time will Pass. But will You?"—from a clock on an elementary classroom wall. [Contributed by Lynne Edison]
"The worst betrayal in life is not your lover, a friend or dreams but your body against your mind."—Lynne Edison (aka 'Cousin Lynnie')
"For I know that my redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth: And though after my skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God."—Job 19:24,25
"Now, this restoration shall come to all, both old and young, both bond and free, both male and female, both the wicked and the righteous; and even there shall not so much as a hair of their heads be lost; but every thing shall be restored to its perfect frame, as it is now, or in the body, and shall be brought and be arraigned before the bar of Christ the Son, and God the Father, and the Holy Spirit, which is one Eternal God, to be judged according to their works, whether they be good or whether they be evil. Now, behold...this mortal body is raised to an immortal body, that is from death, even from the first death unto life, that they can die no more; their spirits uniting with their bodies, never to be divided; thus the whole becoming spiritual and immortal, that they can see no more corruption."—Alma 11:44-45 (The Book of Mormon)
"He who takes offense when offense was not intended is a fool, yet he who takes offense when offense is intended is an even greater fool for he has succumbed to the will of his adversary."—Brigham Young
"Suppose that Jesus Christ and holy angels should object to us on frivolous things, what would become of us? We must be merciful to one another and overlook small things...Nothing is so much calculated to lead people to forsake sin as to take them by the hand, and watch over them with tenderness. When persons manifest the least kindness and love to me, O what power it has over my mind, while the opposite course has a tendency to harrow up all the harsh feelings and depress the human mind."—Joseph Smith, 1805-1844 (from Teachings of the Prophet, Joseph Smith, page 240)
"War is the health of the State."—Randolph Bourne (1886-1918), American essayist and anti-war advocate.
"Expecting a trouble-free life because you are a good person is like expecting the bull not to charge you because you are a vegetarian."—Jeffrey R. Holland
"Money doesn't matter at all, as long as you have too much of it."—Hamilton Nolan ( ), Blog editor and Staff Writer at Gawker Media (written with great sarcasm)
"The War Between the States established this principle that the federal government is through its courts the final judge of its own powers."—Woodrow Wilson (1856-1924), a leader of the Progressive Movement in America and 28th president of the United States of America (This is how progressives like to think.)
“Among the many misdeeds of the British rule in India, history will look upon the [Indian Arms] Act [of 1878] depriving a whole nation of arms, as the blackest.” —Mahatma Gandhi (1869-1948), Indian non-violent revolutionary
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