Wealth - Quotes

The fortunate man is he who, born poor, or nobody, works gradually up to wealth and consideration, and, having got them, dies before he finds they were not worth so much trouble. - Charles Reade

The more wealth a man has, the louder his children talk. - Edgar Watson Howe

The most wanton torture is that of the rich trying to kill time. - Lewis F. Korns

The use we make of our fortune determines its sufficiency. A little is enough if used wisely, and too much if expended foolishly. - Christian Nestell Bovee

The wealthy seldom possess wealth: oftener they are possessed by it. - Ivan Panin

There is some magic in wealth, which can thus make persons pay their court to it, when it does not even benefit themselves. How strange it is, that a fool or knave, with riches, should be treated with more respect by the world, than a good man, or a wise man in poverty! - Ann Radcliffe

Those that say they despise riches are saints or liars. - Austin O’Malley

Those who have earned a fortune are usually more careful of it than those who have inherited one. - Charles Caleb Colton

Titles, riches, and fine houses signify no more to the making of one man better than another, than the finer saddle to the making the better horse. - Wellins Calcott

True wealth is of the heart, not of the purse. - Og Mandino

Very few men acquire wealth in such a manner as to receive pleasure from it. Just as long as there is the enthusiasm of the chase they enjoy it; but when they begin to look around, and think of settling down, they find that that part by which joy enters is dead in them. They have spent their lives in heaping up colossal piles of treasure, which stand, at the end, like the pyramids in the desert sands, holding only the dust of kings. - Henry Ward Beecher

We may lack riches, but the greatest fortune is what lies in our hearts. - Dean Koontz

Wealth consists not in having great possessions, but in having few wants. - Epictetus

Wealth hath never given happiness, but often hastened misery. - Martin Farquhar Tupper

Wealth is a relative thing, since he that has little and wants less is richer than he that has much but wants more. True contentment depends not upon what we have; a tub was large enough for Diogenes, but a world was too little for Alexander. - Charles Caleb Colton

Wealth is a tool of freedom. But the pursuit of wealth is the way to slavery. - Frank Herbert

Wealth is both an enemy and a friend. - Nepalese Proverb

Wealth is not his that has it, but his that enjoys it. - Benjamin Franklin

Wealth is nothing more or less than a tool to do things with. It is like the fuel that runs the furnace or the belt that runs the wheel – only a means to an end. - Henry Ford

Wealth is the parent of luxury and indolence, and poverty of meanness and viciousness, and both of discontent. - Plato

Wealth makes an ugly person beautiful to look on and an incoherent speech eloquent; and wealth alone can enjoy pleasure even in sickness and can conceal its miseries. - Sophocles

Wealth which breeds idleness ... is only a sort of human oyster-bed, where heirs and heiresses are planted, to spend a contemptible life of slothfulness in growing plump and succulent for the grave-worm's banquet. - Horace Mann

Who is rich? He that enjoys his portion. - Benjamin Franklin

Worldly prosperity is like writing on water. - Unknown

Vanity - Quotes

There is nothing which vanity does not desecrate. - Henry Ward Beecher

To be a man's own fool is bad enough; but the vain man is everybody's. - William Penn

To feel vanity on account of anything, is proving that we are not accustomed to it. - Pierre Claude Victoire Boiste

To say that a man is vain means merely that he is pleased with the effect he produces on other people. A conceited man is satisfied with the effect he produces on himself. - Max Beerbohm

Vain is equivalent to empty; thus vanity is so miserable a thing, that one cannot give it a worse name than its own. It proclaims itself for what it is. - Chamfort

Vanity and pride are different things, though the words are often used synonymously. A person may be proud without being vain. Pride relates more to our opinion of ourselves, vanity to what we would have others think of us. - Jane Austen

Vanity blossoms but bares no fruit. - Nepalese Proverb

Vanity can easily overtake wisdom. It usually overtakes common sense. - Julian Casablancas

Vanity does not refer to the opinion a man entertains of himself, but to that which he wishes others to entertain of him. - William Hazlitt

Vanity is a desire of personal glory, the wish to be appreciated, honoured, and run after, not because of one's personal qualities, merits, and achievements, but because of one's individual existence. At best, therefore, it is a frivolous beauty whim it befits. - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Vanity is a weakness. I know this. It's a shallow dependence on the exterior self, on how one looks instead of what one is. - Dennis Lehane

Vanity is apt to inspire contempt, but that becomes immediately tempered by a gentler and more gracious feeling; for the vain man desires to win our approbation, and in this way he flatters us. - Arthur Lynch

Vanity is often so excessive, that those who are compelled to walk on crutches would fain make us believe they are raised on stilts. - Eliza Cook

Vanity is often the unseen spur. - William Makepeace Thackeray

Vanity is so secure in the heart of man that everyone wants to be admired – even I who write this, and you who read this. - Blaise Pascal

Vanity is the poison of agreeableness; yet as poison, when artfully and properly applied, has a salutary effect in medicine, so has vanity in the commerce and society of the world. - Lord Greville

Vanity is the quicksand of reason. - George Sand

Vanity is what makes the man in a rut think he's in the groove. - Evan Esar

Vanity plays lurid tricks with our memory. - Joseph Conrad

Vanity working on a weak head produces every sort of mischief. - Jane Austen

Vanity's a confounded donkey, very apt to put his head between his legs and chuck us over; but Pride's a fine horse, who will carry us over the ground, and enable us to distance our fellow travelers.... How often have you read of people rising from nothing, and becoming great men? This was from talent, sure enough; but it was talent with pride to force it onward, not talent with vanity to check it. - Frederick Marryat

We are so vain that we even care for the opinion of those we don't care for. - Marie Von Ebner-Eschenbach

We say little if not egged on by vanity. - Francois Duc de la Rochefoucauld

We think we are being interesting to others when we are being interesting to ourselves. - Jack Gardner

What makes the vanity of others insupportable is that it wounds our own. - Francois de la Rochefoucauld

When men will not be reasoned out of a vanity, they must be ridiculed out of it. - L’estrange

Understanding - Quotes

The greater our level of understanding, the harder the tests become. - Muhammad Ali

The highest action a human being can attain is learning for understanding, because to understand is to be free. - Baruch Spinoza

The human understanding is like a false mirror, which, receiving rays irregularly, distorts and discolours the nature of things by mingling its own nature with it. - Francis Bacon

The human understanding, from its peculiar nature, easily supposes a greater degree of order and equality in things than it really finds. - Francis Bacon

The majority of people have no understanding of the things with which they daily meet, nor, when instructed, do they have any right knowledge of them, although to themselves they seem to have. - Heraclitus

The more clearly you understand yourself and your emotions, the more you become a lover of what is. - Baruch Spinoza

The noblest pleasure is the joy of understanding. - Leonardo da Vinci

The power of a thing or an act is in the meaning and the understanding. - Nicholas Black Elk

To understand the heart and mind of a person, look not at what he has already achieved, but at what he aspires to. - Kahlil Gibran

To understand is to perceive patterns. - Isaiah Berlin

Treat people with understanding when you can, and fake it when you can't until you do understand. - Kim Harrison

Understanding can overcome any situation, however mysterious or insurmountable it may appear to be. - Norman Vincent Peale

Understanding does not necessarily mean agreement. - Unknown

Understanding is a process by which something that is external to us loses its externality and gains access to our inner self. - Hans Heinrich Eggebrecht

Understanding is a three edged sword: your side, their side, and the truth. - J. Michael Straczynski

Understanding is the essence of Love. If you cannot understand you cannot love. - Unknown

Understanding is the first step to acceptance, and only with acceptance can there be recovery. - J.K. Rowling

We have to understand that the world can only be grasped by action, not by contemplation. The hand is more important than the eye. The hand is the cutting edge of the mind. - Jacob Bronowski

We shall see but little way if we require to understand what we see. How few things can a man measure with the tape of his understanding! How many greater things might he be seeing in the meanwhile. - Henry David Thoreau

What a man does not understand, he does not possess. - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Wouldn't we all do better not trying to understand, accepting the fact that no human being will ever understand another, not a wife with a husband, nor a parent a child? - Graham Greene

You do ill if you praise, but worse if you censure, what you do not understand. - Leonardo Da Vinci

You don’t need strength to let go of something. What you really need is understanding. - Guy Finleyv

You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view – until you climb into his skin and walk around in it. - Harper Lee

Trust - Quotes

To be trusted is a greater compliment than being loved. - George MacDonald

Trust because you are willing to accept the risk, not because it’s safe or certain. - Unknown

Trust becomes solidified when words consistently back up by deeds. - George David Miller

Trust breeds trust. You have to give it to get it. - Elena Gilbert

Trust dies but mistrust blossoms. - Sophocles

Trust him little who praises all, him less who censures all, and him least who is indifferent about all. - Johann Kaspar Lavater

Trust him with little who, without proofs, trusts you with everything. - Eliza Cook

Trust him with none of thy individualities who is, or pretends to be, two things at once. - Johann Caspar Lavater

Trust is a fragile thing. Once earned, it affords us tremendous freedom. But once trust is lost, it can be impossible to recover. Of course, the truth is, we never know who we can trust. Those we're closest to can betray us and total strangers can come to our rescue. In the end, most people decide to trust only themselves. It really is the simplest way to keep from getting burned. - Mary Alice Young

Trust is easy to destroy, but it takes time to build. - Slade

Trust is not something bestowed, but earned. - Remington Steele

Trust is not something you win, it’s something you build. - Amanda

Trust is only dangerous when you have to rely on it. - Kerr Avon

Trust is the fruit of a relationship in which you know you are loved. - WM. Paul Young

Trust is won not given. - Tobsha Learner

Trust men and they will be true to you; treat them greatly and they will show themselves great. - Ralph Waldo Emerson

Trust the devil you know. - Linc Stark

Trust the still, small voice that says, “this might work and I’ll try it. - Diane Mariechild

Trust thy self, and another shall not betray thee. - Benjamin Franklin

Trust yourself. You know more than you think you do. - Benjamin Spock

Trusting you is my decision. Proving me right is your choice. - Unknown

Ultimately, there can be no complete healing until we have restored our primal trust in life. - Georg Feuerstein

We’re never so vulnerable than when we trust someone – but paradoxically, if we cannot trust, neither can we find love or joy. - Walter Anderson

Whoever is careless with the truth in small matters cannot be trusted with important matters. - Albert Einstein

Without trust there's no friendship, no closeness. None of the emotional bonds that makes us who we are. - Commander William T. Riker

You can only trust yourself… and barely that. - Paige Wilson

You may be deceived if you trust too much, but you will live in torment unless you trust enough. - Frank Crane

Truth - Quotes

The truth that makes men free is for the most part the truth which men prefer not to hear. - Herbert Sebastian Agar

The truth that survives is simply the lie that is pleasantest to believe. - H. L. Mencken

The Truth told with bad intent beats all the lies you can invent. - William Blake

The truth waits for anyone who wishes to find it. - Unknown

The truth will come out, it always does. - William Bell

The truth will set you free, but first it will make you miserable. - James A. Garfield

The truth, it has the habit of revealing itself. - Hercule Poirot

The very truth hath a colour from the disposition of the utterer. - George Eliot

The way you twist the truth should make you a very successful politician. - Colonel Downey

The words of truth are always paradoxical. - Lao Tzu

There are many truths of which the full meaning cannot be realized until personal experience has brought it home. - John Stuart Mill

There are only two mistakes one can make along the road to truth; not going all the way, and not starting. - The Buddha

There are some things that can't be the truth even if they did happen. - Ken Kesey

There are truths which some men despise because they have not examined, and which they will not examine because they despise. - Charles Caleb Colton

There are two kinds of truth, small truth and great truth. You can recognize a small truth, because its opposite is falsehood. The opposite of a great truth is another great truth. - Niels Bohr

There is a basic truth in everyone we meet. Look closely and listen well, and the true meaning of a fellow-man will be revealed. - Unknown

Truth is both the way and the goal, the direction to the destination and the destination itself. - Unknown

Truth never yet fell dead in the streets; it has such affinity with the soul of man, the seed however broadcast will catch somewhere and produce its hundredfold. - Theodore Parker

Life - Quotes

To find the air and the water exhilarating, to be thrilled by the stars at night, to be elated over a bird’s nest or a wildflower in spring – these are some of the rewards of the simple life. - John Burroughs

My life changed the day I moved beyond just wishing for things and I started earning them. That is the day I learned that we don’t get what we wish for, we get what we work for. - Steve Maraboli

Life is not about warming yourself by the fire, life is about building the fire. And generosity is the match… If you want happiness for an hour, take a nap, but if you want happiness for a lifetime, help somebody. - Larry Luchino

Life, he realizes, was much like a song. In the beginning there is mystery, in the end there is confirmation, but it’s in the middle where all the emotion resides to make the whole thing worthwhile. - Nicholas Sparks

Real life isn’t always going to be perfect or go our way, but the recurring acknowledgement of what is working in our lives can help us not only to survive but surmount our difficulties. - Sarah Ban Breathnach

We only have one life and one body to care for, and we better do it right. You never know what tomorrow may bring and so we better live this life the best we can and be grateful for everything we have. - Novak Djokovic

It’s funny how, in this journey of life, even though we may begin at different times and places, our paths cross with others so that we may share our love, compassion, observations, and hope. - Steve Maraboli

Life, is energy. It is the energy that makes your heart beat and makes you breathe, that causes the cells of your body to automatically grow and reproduce the moment you are conceived! - Tae Yun Kim

More on Life Here, and the book The Mystery of Life - a collection of quotes on and pertaining to life.

Time - Quotes

The grand instructor, time. - Edmund Burke

The long unmeasured pulse of time moves everything. There is nothing hidden that it cannot bring to light, nothing once known that may not become unknown. Nothing is impossible. - Sophocles

The more sand that has escaped from the hourglass of our life, the clearer we should see through it. - Jean Paul

The more time you spend contemplating what you should have done… you lose valuable time planning what you can and will do. - Lil Wayne

The most difficult thing about Time, I have learned, is doing it. - Roger Zelazny

The only reason for time is so that everything doesn’t happen at once. - Albert Einstein

There was a time when time did not yet exist. - Emil Cioran

There’s never enough time to do all the nothing you want. - Bill Watterson

Those who understand the value of time use it as prudent people do their money – they make a little go a great way. - Eliza Cook

Time ... advances like the slowest tide, but retreats like the swiftest torrent. - Charles Caleb Colton

Time as he grows old teaches all things. - Aeschylus

Time be thine, and thy best graces spend it at thy will. - William Shakespeare

Time changes everything except something within us which is always surprised by change. - Thomas Hardy

Time changes the nature of the whole world; everything passes from one state to another and nothing stays like itself. - Lucretius

Time cleanses what it touches over time. - Aeschylus

Time discovers truth. - Lucius Seneca

Time does not pass, it continues. - Marty Rubin

Time doesn’t actually exist. Clock exists. Time is just an agreed upon construct. We have taken distance (one rotation of the Earth and one orbit of the sun), divided it up into segments, then given those segments labels. While it has its uses, we have been programmed to live our lives by this construct as if it were real. We have confused our shared construct with something that is tangible and thus have become its slave. - Unknown

Time felt slower when we do nothing but wait. - Toba Beta

Time flies never to be recalled. - Virgil

Time flies over us, but leaves its shadow behind. - Nathaniel Hawthorne

Time flies. Time waits for no man. Time heals all wounds. All any of us wants is more time. Time to stand up. Time to grow up. Time to let go. Time. - Dr. Meredith Grey

Time forks perpetually toward innumerable futures. - Jorge Luis Borges

Time has no divisions to mark its passage, there is never a thunderstorm or blare of trumpets to announce the beginning of a new month or year. Even when a new century begins it is only we mortals who ring bells and fire off pistols. - Thomas Mann

Time is a created thing. To say "I don't have time" is to say "I don't want to." - Lao Tzu

Time is a great teacher, but unfortunately it kills all its pupils. - Hector Louis Berlioz

Time is a kind of river, an irresistible flood sweeping up men and events and carrying them headlong, one after the other, to the great sea of being. - Marcus Aurelius

Time is always relative.... For the terminally ill, six months are a lifetime, and not a very long one. To a three-year-old waiting for Christmas, it's an eternity so distant it's not even worth thinking about. - John Saul

Time is but the stream I go a fishing in. - Henry David Thoreau

Time is just quantified eternity. - Deepak Chopra

Thoughts - Quotes

Man being made a reasonable, and so a thinking creature, there is nothing more worthy of his being, than the right direction and employment of his thoughts; since upon this depends both his usefulness to the public, and his own present and future benefit in all respects. - William Penn

Man is distinguished from the brute animals in proportion as thought prevails over sense: but in the healthy processes of the mind, a balance is constantly maintained between the impressions from outward objects and the inward operations of the intellect:- for if there be an overbalance in the contemplative faculty, man thereby becomes the creature of mere meditation, and loses his natural power of action. - Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Man is made or unmade by himself. In the armory of thought he forges the weapons by which he destroys himself. He also fashions the tools with which he builds for himself heavenly mansions of joy and strength and peace. - James Allen

New conditions of life will stimulate thought and give new forms to its expression. - James Russell Lowell

Nothing in this world requires such long seasoning and ripening as new thoughts. - Henry Ward Beecher

Nothing is so fragile as thought in its infancy; an interruption breaks it: nothing is so powerful, even to overturning empires, when it reaches its maturity. - Christian Nestell Bovee

Original thought is like original sin: both happened before you were born to people you could not have possibly met. - Fran Lebowitz

Our achievements of today are but the sum total of our thoughts of yesterday. You are today where the thoughts of yesterday have brought you and you will be tomorrow where the thoughts of today take you. - Blaise Pascal

Our thoughts are like roots which reach out in every direction into the cosmic ocean of formless energy, and these thought-roots set in motion vibrations like themselves and attract the affinities of our desires and ambitions. - Orison Swett Marden

Our thoughts at least are ours. - William Wordsworth

Real, constructive mental power lies in the creative thought that shapes your destiny, and your hour-by-hour mental conduct produces power for change in your life. Develop a train of thought on which to ride. The nobility of your life as well as your happiness depends upon the direction in which that train of thought is going. - Lawrence J. Peter

The glow of one warm thought is to me worth more than money. - Thomas Jefferson

The highest stage in moral culture at which we can arrive, is when we recognise that we ought to control our thoughts. - Charles Darwin

The man who gives me a new thought enriches me. - Reuen Thomas

The most dangerous thief is unwholesome thought. - Gautama Buddha

The thought manifests as the word. The word manifests as the deed. The deed develops into habit. And the habit hardens into character. So watch the thought and its ways with care. And let it spring from love, born out of concern for all beings. - Buddha

The wise man hath his thoughts in his head; the fool, on his tongue. - Ivan Panin

The world is your kaleidoscope, and the varying combinations of colours, which at every succeeding moment it presents to you are the exquisitely adjusted pictures of your ever-moving thoughts. - James Allen

Teaching - Quotes

Good teachers know how to bring out the best in students. - Charles Kuralt

Good teaching is more a giving of right questions than a giving of right answers. - Josef Albers

Great teachers empathize with kids, respect them, and believe that each one has something special that can be built upon. - Ann Lieberman

He who dares to teach must never cease to learn. - Richard Henry Dann

Housework is a breeze. Cooking is a pleasant diversion. Putting up a retaining wall is a lark. But teaching is like climbing a mountain. - Fawn M Brodie

I am learning all the time. The tombstone will be my diploma. - Eartha Kitt

I cannot teach anybody anything, I can only make them think. - Socrates

I have come to believe that a great teacher is a great artist and that there are as few as there are any other great artists. Teaching might even be the greatest of the arts since the medium is the human mind and spirit. - John Steinbeck

I have learned silence from the talkative, toleration from the intolerant, and kindness from the unkind; yet, strange, I am ungrateful to those teachers. - Khalil Gibran

I like a teacher who gives you something to take home to think about besides homework. - Lily Tomlin

I never teach my pupils, I only attempt to provide the conditions in which they can learn. - Albert Einstein

I pretend not to teach, but to inquire. - John Locke

I think the teaching profession contributes more to the future of our society than any other single profession. - John Wooden

I’m more interested in arousing enthusiasm in kids than in teaching the facts. The facts may change, but that enthusiasm for exploring the world will remain with them the rest of their lives. - Seymour Simon

I’ve been making a list of the things they don’t teach you at school. They don’t teach you how to love somebody. They don’t teach you how to be famous. They don’t teach you how to be rich or how to be poor. They don’t teach you how to walk away from someone you don’t love any longer. They don’t teach you how to know what’s going on in someone else’s mind. They don’t teach you what to say to someone who’s dying. They don’t teach you anything worth knowing. - Neil Gaiman

Ideal teachers are those who use themselves as bridges over which they invite their students to cross; then, having facilitated their crossing, joyfully collapse, encouraging them to create their own. - Nikos Kazantzakis

If you have forgotten how to be a child you cannot teach children. - Austin O’Malley

I'm not a teacher: only a fellow traveler of whom you asked the way. I pointed ahead – ahead of myself as well as you. - George Bernard Shaw

In learning you will teach, and in teaching you will learn. - Phil Collins

In teaching you cannot see the fruit of a day’s work. It is invisible and remains so, maybe for twenty years. - Jacques Barzun

It is always the teacher who must learn the most ... or else nothing real has happened in the exchange. - Kim Stanley Robinson

It is better to teach a few things perfectly than many things indifferently. - Andre Maurois

It is the supreme art of the teacher to awaken joy in creative expression and knowledge. - Albert Einstein

It is the supreme art of the teacher to awaken joy in creative expression and knowledge. - Albert Einstein

It's the student who makes the teacher, not the other way around. - Carlos Ruiz Zafon

Society - Quotes

A society regulated by a public sense of justice is inherently stable. - John Rawls

A society that fears knowledge is a society that fears itself. - Bernard Beckett

If we desire a society of peace, then we cannot achieve such a society through violence. If we desire a society without discrimination, then we must not discriminate against anyone in the process of building this society. If we desire a society that is democratic, then democracy must become a means as well as an end. - Bayard Rustin

Societies in decline have no use for visionaries. - Anaïs Nin

Society comprises two classes: those who have more food than appetite, and those who have more appetite than food. - Sébastien-Roch Nicolas

Society knows perfectly well how to kill a man and has methods more subtle than death. - Andre Gide

We live in a society exquisitely dependent on science and technology, in which hardly anyone knows anything about science and technology. - Carl Sagan

We seldom realize, for example that our most private thoughts and emotions are not actually our own. For we think in terms of languages and images which we did not invent, but which were given to us by our society. - Alan W. Watts

Without creative, independently thinking and judging personalities the upward development of society is as unthinkable as the development of the individual personality without the nourishing soil of the community. - Albert Einstein

A picture is made up of so many square inches of painted canvas; but if you should look at these one at a time, covering the others, until you had seen them all, you would still not have seen the picture. There may, in all such cases, be a system or organization in the whole that is not apparent in the parts. In this sense, and in no other, is there a difference between society and the individuals of which it is composed; a difference not residing in the facts themselves but existing to the observer on account of the limits of his perception. A complete view of society would also be a complete view of all the individuals, and vice versa; there would be no difference between them. - Charles Horton Cooley

All that is valuable in human society depends upon the opportunity for development accorded the individual. - Albert Einstein

An individual takes on significance only in his relationship to society as a whole. - Brian Herbert & Keven J. Anderson

Any decent society must generate a feeling of community. Community offsets loneliness. It gives people a vitally necessary sense of belonging. Yet today the institutions on which community depends are crumbling in all the techno-societies. The result is a spreading plague of loneliness. - Alvin Toffler

Anyway, no drug, not even alcohol, causes the fundamental ills of society. If we’re looking for the source of our troubles, we shouldn’t test people for drugs, we should test them for stupidity, ignorance, greed and love of power. - P. J. O’Rourke

As long as society is absolutely divided as milk is, the cream being at the top and the impoverished milk at the bottom, so long will society be unbalanced, and liable to be thrown into convulsions out of which will spring wars. A circulation throughout keeps it in health. - Henry Wad Beecher

Everyone who receives the protection of society owes a return for the benefit. - John Stuart Mill

Hitherto, every form of society has been based ... on the antagonism of oppressing and oppressed classes. - Karl Marx

How to gain the advantages of society, without at the same time losing ourselves, is a question of no slight difficulty. The wise man often follows the crowd at a little distance, in order that he may not come suddenly upon it, nor become entangled with it, and that he may with some means of amusement maintain a clear and quiet pathway. - Arthur Helps

I truly believe that individuals can make a difference in society. Since periods of change such as the present one come so rarely in human history, it is up to each of us to make the best use of our time to help create a happier world. - Dalai Lama

If you really wish to become a man of society, you must learn first either to be an imbecile or to hold your tongue. - Octave Mirbeau

In individuals, insanity is rare; but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule. - Friedrich Nietzsche

My definition of a free society is a society where it is safe to be unpopular. - Adlai Stevenson

Never try to get into society, so-called. Those who try seldom get in, and if they do edge through the portals they always feel clammy and unworthy when under the scrutiny of the elect. Sit outside and appear indifferent, and after a while they may sent for you. If not, it will be money in your pocket. - George Ade

No society has been able to abolish human sadness, no political system can deliver us from the pain of living, from our fear of death, our thirst for the absolute. It is the human condition that directs the social condition, not vice versa. - Eugène Ionesco

Our society is changing so rapidly that none of us can know what it is or where it is going. - Edwin H. Land

Socially we are woven into the fabric of society, where every man is like one thread in a piece of cloth. No single thread has a right to say, "I will stay here no longer," and draw out. No man has a right to make a hole in the well-woven fabric of society. - Henry Ward Beecher

Society exists only as a mental concept; in the real world there are only individuals. - Oscar Wilde

Society is a masked ball, where everyone hides his real character, and reveals it by hiding. - Ralph Waldo Emerson

Society is a sphere that demands all our energies, and deserves all that it demands. - Charles Caleb Colton

Society is divided into two classes, the shearers and the shorn. - Nicolas Chamfort

Society is in a process of evolution. Man is yet primitive. All that has gone before is a preparation for better things to come, but we are moving rapidly, and, I believe, securely, toward nobler things. - Elbert Hubbard

Society is not merely a select body of spiritual or intellectual persons, but a great organism composed of all kinds of members, a net containing bad and good. - Robert Hugh Benson

Society is to the individual what the sun and showers are to the seed. It develops him, expands him, unfolds him, calls him out of himself. Other men are his opportunity. Each one is a match which ignites some new tinder in him unignitible by any previous match. Without these the sparks of individuality would sleep in him forever. - Orison Swett Marden

Society never advances. It recedes as fast on one side as it gains on the other. Society acquires new arts, and loses old instincts. - Ralph Waldo Emerson

Society would be a charming affair if we were only interested in one another. - Chamfort

Society, my dear, is like salt water, good to swim in but hard to swallow. - Arthur Stringer

The happiness of society is the end of government. - John Adams

The majority is never right. Never, I tell you! That's one of these lies in society that no free and intelligent man can help rebelling against. Who are the people that make up the biggest proportion of the population – the intelligent ones or the fools? - Henrik Ibsen

To me the progress of society consists in nothing more than in bringing out the individual, in giving him a consciousness of his own being, and in quickening him to strengthen and elevate his own mind. - William E. Channing

We must stop thinking of the individual and start thinking about what is best for society. - Hillary Clinton

Quote Worthy

Be strong. You never know who you are inspiring. - Unknown

Originality and the feeling of one’s own dignity are achieved only through work and struggle. - Fyodor Dostoevsky

Those who are able to see beyond the shadows and lies of their culture will never be understood, let alone believed, by the masses. - Plato

Sometimes, no matter how nice you are, how kind you are how caring you are, how loving you are, it just isn’t enough for some people. - Unknown

In order to find balance, sometimes you need to bend a little. - Sherri Bishop

No one is perfect. We make mistakes. We say wrong things. We do wrong things. We fall. We get up. We learn. We grow. We move on. We live! - Unknown

Two ways to have peace of mind. Forgive what you cannot forget. Forget what you cannot forgive. - Unknown

A house is only a place. It has no life of its own. It needs human voices, activity and laughter to come alive. - Erma Bombeck

A microscopic phantom of the universe; this is all that we are able to be. - Henri Frederic Amiel

Perspective has limitations. Something to keep in mind whenever we believe our own viewpoint to be the only true and valid one. - Unknown

Every day is a new beginning. Treat it that way. Stay away from what might have and look at what can be. - Marsha Petrie Sue

Be somebody who makes everybody feel like a somebody. - Unknown

More Quotes Here - And the book Quote Worthy

Life - Quotes

This life is what you make it. No matter what, you’re going to mess up sometimes, it’s a universal truth. But the good part is you get to decide how you’re going to mess it up. - Marilyn Monroe

Yes! live life with every fibre of one's being, surrender oneself to it, with no thoughts of rebellion, without deluding oneself that one can improve it and render it painless. - Emile Zola

Each new epoch in life seems an encounter. There is a tussle and a cloud of dust, and we come out of it triumphant or crest-fallen, according as we have borne ourselves. - Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

How passionately we love everything that cannot last: the dazzling crystallory of winter, the spring in bloom, the fragile flight of butterflies, crimson sunsets, a kiss, and life. - Dean Koontz

Life is life – whether in a cat, or dog or man. There is no difference there between a cat or a man. The idea of difference is a human conception for man's own advantage. - Sri Aurobindo

Real life ... it was an ambiguous world, where actions sometimes had no meaning, where chaos reigned and no one was allowed to see the big picture, only their small portion of it. - Bentley Little

That's what life is, just one learning experience after another, and when you're through with all the learning experiences you graduate and what you get for a diploma is, you die. - Frederik Pohl

The meaning of our lives is revealed through experiences that at first seem at odds with each other – moments we wish would never end and moments we wish had never begun. - John Eldredge

More on Life Here, and the book The Mystery of Life - a collection of quotes on and pertaining to life.

Humour / Memes

Secret - Quotes

Secrets are easy to hear and hard to keep. - Ken Alstad

Some men are tempted to violate secrecy from the uneasiness secrecy gives them, and others, merely to impress you with the extent of their confidence. - Norman MacDonald

Some men promise to keep your secret and yet reveal it without knowing they are doing so; they do not wag their lips, and yet they are understood; it is read on their brow and in their eyes; it is seen through their breast; they are transparent. - Jean de la Bruyere

Some secrets are fires so scorching, the only way to quench the burn is to tell someone. - Terri Guillemets

Tell your friend a lie. If he keeps it secret, then tell him the truth. - Proverb

The best way of keeping a secret is to pretend there isn't one. - Margaret Atwood

The best way to divulge a secret is to tell someone not to say anything about it. - Charles Fleischer

The first rule of life is to reveal nothing, to be exceptionally cautious in what you say, in whatever company you may find yourself. If you have a secret, you have only to whisper it to your dearest friend with the strictest injunction that it will go no further, and within half a day the story is all over town, and when you do make what would seem to be a perfectly sensible remark, you will find it reported in the most grotesque form, thus incurring no end of criticism to rebound upon you. - Elizabeth Aston

The man who can keep a secret may be wise, but he is not half as wise as the man with no secrets to keep. - Edgar Watson Howe

The moment a secret is revealed, it seems little. - Umberto Eco

The surest way to keep a secret is to make people believe they already know the answer. - Frank Herbert

They often say woman cannot keep a secret, but every woman in the world, like every man, has a hundred secrets in her own soul which she hides from even herself. The more respectable she is, the more certain it is the secrets exist. - Austin O’Malley

Those who cannot keep their own secrets ought not to be entrusted with the secrets of others. - William Scott Downey

To keep your own secrets is wisdom; but to expect others to keep them is folly. - William Scott Downey

To know that one has a secret is to know half the secret itself. - Henry Ward Beecher

Trust no one, tell your secrets to nobody and no one will ever betray you. - Bigvai Volcy

Trust not him with your secrets, who, when left alone in your room, turns over your papers. - Johann Kaspar Lavater

We are often jealous of our little secrets, though to another ear they generally convey neither profit nor entertainment. - Eden Phillpotts

When entrusted with a secret, keep it. - Unknown

Women, of whatever age, share secrets with each other more readily than they share them with men. - Susanne Alleyn

Rumours - Quotes

Rumors are like odors: the more pungent they are, the faster they spread. - Yun Ch’oe

Rumors are like wildfire; you are burned up before you know it. - Kenneth D. Mcllroy

Rumors are like wind in the belly – all noise and no nourishment. - Unknown

Rumors are not news; but they sometimes foreshadow news. - Ernest Hamlin Abbott

Rumors are often recycled. People rely on those narrative templates that have proved to be plausible and durable in the past. Rumors appear, are spread, and then disappear – ignored – until similar circumstances make the stories appropriate once again. - Gary Alan Fine & Bill Ellis

Rumors are seen as crimes committed by third parties. They are perfect crimes and leave not the slightest trace and require no weapons whatsoever – the defense is left without a leg to stand on. - Jean-Noel Kapferer

Rumors are the oldest form of mass media. - Jean-Noel Kapferer

Rumors are transmitted because they are surprising, funny, or shocking, and the teller wishes to entertain the listeners. Similar to the telling of a joke, the passing of a rumor provides entertainment and prestige. That is why urban legends last so long: they are savoured at the end of a meal, or in a bar while sipping on an after-dinner drink; they provide a certain momentary pleasure in consuming. - Gail de Vos

Rumors can shape the public opinion of a society by affecting and coordinating the individual beliefs of its members. - Zheng You Xia & LaiLei Huang

Rumors have wings. - Aeschylus

Rumors may appear to be random and sometimes malicious accounts of ongoing situations. Yet they serve an extremely important function. Rumors are a means of transmitting critical information about the nature of the disaster situation within the affected population. This information may be simplistic, incomplete, and even incorrect. Nevertheless, it gives disaster victims some guidance and structure in a highly unusual, uncertain situation. - Saundra K. Schneider

Rumours generally grow deformed as they travel. - Edward Counsel

Some people and some groups are predisposed to accept certain rumors, because those rumors are compatible with their self-interest, or with what they think they know to be true. - Cass R. Sunstein

Some rumors are entirely true. Others contain grains of truth; still others contain none at all. Plausible or implausible, truthful or false, rumors circulate because people are trying to get to the bottom of a matter. The acceptance or rejection of a given rumor in a given time or place depends on its ability to satisfy this need to understand. - Ksenija Bilbija

The attempt to control a rumor is like trying to package fog. - Allan J. Kimmel

The subject of a rumor is always the last to hear it. - Stefan Zweig

There exists no strict line between a rumor and information. The dividing line between information and a rumor is subjective and the result of one's own belief. People call something information when they consider it true and call it a rumor when they consider it false. - Mark Schindler

Those who feed on rumors are small, suspicious souls. - Charles R. Swindoll

Trying to dispel a rumor is like trying to unspread butter. - Lloyd Cary

Trying to squash a rumor is like trying to unring a bell. - Croft M Pentz

Where the public wants to understand but does not receive any official answers, there are rumors. Rumors are the black market of information. - Mark Schindler

You know what rumors are like – like a jar full of moths. Once they escape, they're all over the place. - Rhys Bowen

Pride - Quotes

Pride helps us; and pride is not a bad thing when it only urges us to hide our own hurts, not to hurt others. - George Eliot

Pride is a personal commitment. It is an attitude which separates excellence from mediocrity. - Unknown

Pride is an admission of weakness; it secretly fears all competition and dreads all rivals. - Fulton J. Sheen

Pride is as loud a beggar as want and a great deal more saucy. - Ben Franklin

Pride is at the bottom of a great many errors and corruptions, and even of many evil practices, which have a great show and appearance of humility. - Matthew Henry

Pride is pleasure arising from a man's thinking too highly of himself. - Baruch Spinoza

Pride is seldom delicate; it will please itself with very mean advantages. - Samuel Johnson

Pride is the mother of arrogance. - Toba Beta

Pride slays thanksgiving, but a humble mind is the soil out of which thanks naturally grow. A proud man is seldom a grateful man, for he never thinks he gets as much as he deserves. - Henry Ward Beecher

Proud people breed sad sorrows for themselves. - Emily Bronte

The infinitely little have a pride infinitely great. - Voltaire

There are two kinds of pride, both good and bad. ‘Good pride’ represents our dignity and self-respect. ‘Bad pride’ is the deadly sin of superiority that reeks of conceit and arrogance. - John C. Maxwell

There is a paradox in pride – it makes some men ridiculous, but prevents others from becoming so. - Charles Caleb Colton

Through pride we are ever deceiving ourselves. But deep down below the surface of the average conscience a still, small voice says to us, something is out of tune. - C.G. Jung

To know a man, observe how he wins his object, rather than how he loses it; for, when we fail, our pride supports us, when we succeed, it betrays us. - Charles Caleb Colton

Whatever makes us feel superior to other people, whatever tempts us to convey a sense of superiority, that is the gravity of our sinful nature, not grace. - Philip Yancey

When you are full of pride on the inside, it makes you stiff, stubborn, and creates strife with others. - John C. Maxwell

Power - Quotes

Power does not consist in striking with force or with frequency, but in striking true. - Honore de Balzac

Power has only one duty – to secure the social welfare of the People. - Benjamin Disraeli

Power is given only to those who dare to lower themselves and pick it up. Only one thing matters, one thing; to be able to dare! - Fyodor Dostoevsky

Power is just using energy in a wise way to get things done. Power has been misinterpreted to mean getting my way on the backs of other people. Getting whatever I want, forgetting that there are other beings and species and energies involved. - Elizabeth Lesser

Power is the ultimate aphrodisiac. - Henry Kissinger

Power seems to confer on its possessor a mantle of superiority, specialness, and sexual potency, which the envious person desperately wants because he feels himself on some level to be inferior, unimportant, and impotent. - Alexander Lowen

Power should act and not talk. - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Power tends to isolate those who hold too much of it. Eventually, they lose touch with reality ... and fall. - Frank Herbert

Power, like a desolating pestilence, pollutes whate'er it touches. - Percy Bysshe Shelley

Power, like vanity, is insatiable. Nothing short of omnipotence could satisfy it completely. - Bertrand Russell

The almost insoluble task is to let neither the power of others, nor our own powerlessness, stupefy us. - Theodor W. Adorno

The great fish swallow up the small; and he who is most strenuous for the rights of the people, when vested with power, is as eager after the prerogatives of government. - Abigail Adams

The most common way people give up their power is by thinking they don’t have any. - Alice Walker

The most important thing about power is to make sure you don't have to use it. - Edwin H. Land

The power of a thing or an act is in the meaning and the understanding. - Nicholas Black Elk

The steps of power are often steps on sand. - Edward Counsel

The supreme power tends to fall into the hands of men of the keenest intelligence and the most unscrupulous character. - James Frazer

The truly powerful exert their influence in ways unseen, unfelt. Some would say that a thing visible is a thing vulnerable. - Guillermo del Toro

The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. - James Madison

The worst thing that can be said of the most powerful, is that they can take your life; but the same thing can be said of the most weak. - Charles Caleb Colton

To claim power over what you do not understand is not wise, nor is the end of it likely to be good. - Ursula K. le Guin

To know the pains of power, we must go to those who have it; to know its pleasures, we must go to those who are seeking it: the pains of power are real, its pleasures imaginary. - Charles Caleb Colton

We all possess more power and greater possibilities than we realize, and visualizing is one of the greatest of these powers. - Genevieve Berhrend

Wealth was the short beer of existence. Power was champagne. - Stephen King

When your power comes from others, on approval, you are their slave. - Tobias Wolfe

Mind - Quotes

There never can be a man so lost as one who is lost in the vast and intricate corridors of his own lonely mind, where none may reach and none may save. - Isaac Asimov

Turn your mind to yourself, and try to find pleasure within yourself, and you will always find therein an infinite source of pleasure ready for your enjoyment. - K. Sri Dhammananda

The most disastrous times have produced the greatest minds. The purest metal comes of the most ardent furnace; the most brilliant lightning come of the darkest clouds. - Francois Rene Chateaubriand

The vivid force of his mind prevailed, and he fared forth far beyond the flaming ramparts of the heavens and traversed the boundless universe in thought and mind. - Lucretius

The world is in a very feverish state. The mind changes from like to dislike with the feverishness of the world. If we can learn to make the mind still, it will be the greatest help to the world. - Unknown

Your mind is a magnet. If you think of blessings you attract blessings; and if you think of problems you attract problems. Always cultivate good thoughts and always remain positive and optimistic. - Unknown

When our mind is calm, it reflects reality accurately, without distortion. Breathing, sitting, and walking with mindfulness calms disturbing mental formations such as anger, fear, and despair, allowing us to see reality more clearly. - Thich Nhat Hanh

Your mind is like a garden. Tend it well by filling it with positive, encouraging, and faith-building thoughts throughout the day. Disorder sets in when the garden is not tended to for some time; the same goes for our mind if we neglect it too long.- Unknown

To enjoy good health, to bring true happiness to one’s family, to bring peace to all, one must first discipline and control one’s own mind. If a man can control his mind he can find the way to Enlightenment, and all wisdom and virtue will naturally come to him. - Buddha

Life - Quotes

Life is a circle of happiness, sadness, hard times and good times. If you are going through hard times have faith that good times are on the way. - Unknown

Life is all memory except for the one present moment that goes by so quick you can hardly catch it going. - Tennessee Williams

Life is painting a picture, not doing a sum. - Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

Life is all about moving on, accepting changes, and looking forward to what makes you stronger and more complete. - Unknown

Life is not about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself. - Lolly Daskal

Life is about evolving. Don’t stay in a situation that’s not helping you grow mentally, spiritually, and emotionally. - Unknown

Life is not a competition, life is about helping and inspiring others so we can each reach our potential. - Kim Chase

Life is not about regrets, but preparations. - Tumisang

Life is one big experiment. - Unknown

Life is like the stock market. Some days you’re up. Some days you’re down. And some days you feel like something the bull left behind. - Paula Wall

Life is not a game of Solitaire; people depend on one another. When one does well, others are lifted. When one stumbles, others also are impacted. - Jon M. Huntsman

Life has no meaning. Each of us has meaning and we bring it to Life. It is a waste to be asking the question when you are the answer. - Joseph Campbell

More on Life Here, and the book The Mystery of Life - a collection of quotes on and pertaining to life.

Peace - Quotes

Peace is a journey of a thousand miles and it must be taken one step at a time. - Lyndon B. Johnson

Peace is more than the absence of war. Peace is accord. Harmony. - Laini Taylor

Peace is not merely a distant goal that we seek, but a means by which we arrive at that goal. - Martin Luther King, Jr.

Peace is present right here and now, in ourselves and in everything we do and see. Every breath we take, every step we take, can be filled with peace, joy, and serenity. The question is whether or not we are in touch with it. - Thich Nhat Hanh

Peace is stronger than war. - Edward Counsel

Peaceful is the one who is not concerned with having more or less. - Rumi

Real Peace is always unshakable… Bliss is unchanged by gain or loss. - Yogi Bhajan

Set peace of mind as your highest goal, and organize your life around it. - Brian Tracy

Short of changing human nature ... the only way to achieve a practical, liveable peace in a world of competing nations is to take the profit out of war. - Richard Nixon

Sweet is the rest and deep the bliss of him who has freed his heart from its lusts and hatreds and dark desires; and he who, without any shadow of bitterness or selfishness resting upon him, and looking out upon the world with boundless compassion and love, can breathe in his inmost heart, the blessing: Peace unto all living things. - James Allen

The belief that peace is desirable is rarely enough to achieve it. Peace requires responsibility. Peace entails sacrifice. - Barack Obama

The greatest honour history can bestow is the title of peacemaker. - Richard Nixon

The only way to create permanent peace is to convince the peoples of all nations that there is a better way than war to settle national differences. Obviously, this conviction cannot be engendered in a day, a month, or a decade. - Dewitt Morgan

The poor long for riches, the rich long for heaven, but the wise long for a state of tranquillity. - Swami Rama

The soul, at peace, reflects the peace without, forgetting grief as sunset skies forget the morning's transient shower. - Emma Lazarus

There is nothing so likely to produce peace as to be well prepared to meet an enemy. - George Washington

To control aggression without inflicting injury is the Art of Peace. - Moprihei Ueshiba

Unless we find repose within ourselves, it is vain to seek it elsewhere. - Hosea Balolou

War is only a cowardly escape from the problems of peace. - Thomas Mann

Without inner peace, outer peace is impossible. We all wish for world peace, but world peace will never be achieved unless we first establish peace within our own minds. - Geshe Kelsang Gyatso

You can’t have peace any longer than your neighbour pleases. - Dutch Proverb

You cannot find peace by avoiding life. - Virginia Woolf

Love - Quotes

Anyone can come into your life and say how much they love you. It takes someone really special to stay in your life and show how much they love you. - Unknown

In the flush of love’s light, we dare be brave. And suddenly we see that love costs all we are, and will ever be. Yet it is only love which sets us free. - Maya Angelou

Love lets you find those hidden places in another person, even the ones they didn’t know were there, even the ones they wouldn’t have thought to call beautiful themselves. - Hilary T. Smith

Love is not some complex, mystical abstraction. It is something accessible and human that we learn through our everyday experience, as often at times of failure as in moments of ecstasy. - Leo Buscaglia

Love is an untamed force. When we try to control it, it destroys us. When we try to imprison it, it enslaves us. When we try to understand it, it leaves us feeling lost and confused. - Paulo Coelho

Love many things, for therein lies the true strength, and whosoever loves much performs much, and can accomplish much, and what is done in love is done well. - Vincent van Gogh

Days will come when the magic of the senses shall fade. And when this enchantment has fled, then it first becomes evident whether we are truly worthy of love. - T. S. Arthur

If a man can be properly said to love something, it must be clear that he feels affection for it as a whole, and does not love part of it to the exclusion of the rest. - Plato

Remember this: Love is at the center of your life. The things that you do should be things that you love, and things that you love should be the things that you do. - Ray Bradbury

We all have the seeds of love in us. We can develop this wonderful source of energy, nurturing the unconditional love that does not expect anything in return. - Thich Nhat Hanh

More on Love Here, and the book The Light of Love

Life - Quotes

Life is not a having and a getting, but a being and a becoming. - Matthew Arnold

Life is not a mixture of matter and energy but energy in matter, bound in such a way that dissociation is impossible so long as the living process continues. - Alexander Lowen

Life is not the way it’s supposed to be. It’s the way it is. The way you cope with it is what makes the difference. - Unknown

Life is occupied in both perpetuating itself and in surpassing itself; if all it does is maintain itself, then living is only not dying. - Simone de Beauvoir

Life is one long process of getting tired. - Samuel Butler

Life is sweet. - English Proverb

Life is the great teacher. - James Joyce

Life is the jailer of the soul in this filthy prison, and its only deliverer is death. - Charles Caleb Colton

Life is wide, limitless. There is no border, no frontier. - Bruce Lee

Life is a long journey between human being and being human. Let’s take at least a step daily to cover the distance. - Unknown

Life is so much simpler when you stop explaining yourself to people and just do what works for you. - Unknown

Life is a rope that swings us through hope. Always believe that today is better than yesterday and tomorrow will be much better than today. - Unknown

More on Life Here, and the book The Mystery of Life - a collection of quotes on and pertaining to life.