Quotes
From 16Guidelines
Contents |
How we think
"To say you don't know is the beginning of knowing."
- Chinese proverb
"Humility is not a peculiar habit of self-effacement, rather like having an inaudible voice. It is a selfless respect for reality."
- Iris Murdoch, UK
"The only true wisdom is in knowing that you know nothing."
- Socrates, Greece
"Could we change our attitude, we should not only see life differently, but life itself would come to be different."
- Katherine Mansfield
"...there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so."
- Shakespeare's Hamlet
"I had the blues because I had no shoes until upon the street I met a man who had no feet."
- Ancient Persian Saying
"The greatest discovery of my generation is that a human being can alter his life by altering his attitudes."
- William James
"A happy person is not a person in a certain set of circumstances, but rather a person with a certain set of attitudes."
- Hugh Downs
"A mind once stretched by a new idea never regains its original dimension."
- Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.
"Contentment is natural wealth; luxury is artificial poverty"
- Socrates, Greece
"When all the trees have been cut down,
when all the animals have been hunted,
when all the waters are polluted,
when all the air is unsafe to breathe,
only then will you discover you cannot eat money."
- Cree Prophecy, North America
"Aspire not to have more, but to be more."
- Archbishop Oscar Romero, El Salvador
"Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex and more violent. It takes a touch of genius – and a lot of courage – to : : move in the opposite direction"
- E. F. Schumacher, Germany
"I am neither especially clever nor especially gifted. I am only very, very curious."
- Albert Einstein
"Seeking happiness outside ourselves is like waiting for sunshine in a cave facing north."
- Tibetan saying
“If you neglect to protect your mind, you can neither close the door to suffering nor open the door to happiness.”
- Lama Thubten Zopa Rinpoche
"What we found is that the trained mind, or brain, is physically different from the untrained one....What we found is that the longtime practitioners [of meditation] showed brain activation on a scale we have never seen before"
- Richard Davidson
"Patience is the ability to count down before you blast off."
- Author Unknown
"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
"Our life is frittered away by detail- simplify, simplify!"
- Henry David Thoreau
"You can't shake hands with a clenched fist"
- Indira Gandhi, India
"Do you have patience to wait till your mud settles and the water is clear? Can you remain unmoving until the right action arises : : by itself?"
- Lao Tzu, China
"I would not look upon anger as something foreign to me that I have to fight...I have to deal with my anger with care, with love, : : with tenderness, with non-violence."
- Thich Nhat Hanh, Vietnam
"Every individual matters. Every individual has a role to play. Every individual makes a difference."
- Jane Goodall, UK
"Every being is a jar of delight. Be a connoisseur."
- Rumi
How we act
"Every action in our lives touches on some chord that will vibrate in eternity."
- Edwin Hubbel Chapin
"Beginning today, treat everyone you meet as if they were going to be dead by midnight. Extend to them all the care, kindness and understanding you can muster, and do it with no thought of any reward. Your life will never be the same again."
- Og Mandino
"Thousands of candles can be lighted from a single candle, and the life of the candle will not be shortened. Happiness never decreases by being shared."
- The Buddha
"If you haven't any charity in your heart, you have the worst kind of heart trouble."
- Bob Hope
"Act as if what you do makes a difference. It does."
- William James
"If you want others to be happy, practice compassion. If you want to be happy, practice compassion."
- His Holiness the Dalai Lama
"One who knows how to show and to accept kindness will be a friend better than any possession."
- Sophocles
"You cannot do a kindness too soon, for you never know how soon it will be too late."
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
"Human kindness has never weakened the stamina or softened the fiber of a free people. A nation does not have to be cruel to be tough."
- Franklin D. Roosevelt
"Always, Sir, set a high value on spontaneous kindness. He whose inclination prompts him to cultivate your friendship of his own accord will love you more than one whom you have been at pains to attach to you."
- Dr Johnson
"What wisdom can you find that is greater than kindness?"
- Jean Jaques Rousseau
"I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel."
- Maya Angelou, USA
"One kind word can warm three winter months."
- Japanese proverb
"If you haven't any charity in your heart, you have the worst kind of heart trouble."
- Bob Hope, USA
"Money is a good servant but a poor master."
- Traditional saying
"To build a world of justice, we must be just."
- Dag Hammerskold, Norway
"In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act."
- George Orwell
"All that is not given is lost."
- Father Pierre Cheyrac (also considered an Indian Proverb)
"Who is the happy Warrior? Who is he
that every man in arms should wish to be?
It is the generous spirit, who, when brought
among the tasks of real life, hath wrought
upon the plan that pleased his childish thought.
Whose high endeavors are an inward light
that makes the path before him always bright.
Who, with a natural instinct to discern
what knowledge can perform, is diligent to learn."
- William Wordsworth
"You yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe, deserve your love and affection."
- The Buddha
"What really matters is what you do with what you have."
- H. G. Wells
"The actions of men are the best interpreters of their thoughts."
- John Locke
"The best measure of a man's honesty isn't his income tax return. It's the zero adjust on his bathroom scale."
- Arthur C. Clarke
"No legacy is so rich as honesty."
- William Shakespeare
"Honesty is the moral conscience of the great."
- Edwin Percy Whipple
"You have not lived today until you have done something for someone who can never repay you"
- John Bunyan, UK
"I expect to pass through this world but once; any good thing therefore that I can do, or any kindness that I can show to any fellow creature, let me do it now; let me not defer or neglect it, for I shall not pass this way again."
- Etienne de Grellet, France
"You make a living by what you get. You make a life by what you give."
- Winston Churchill, UK
"We should give as we would receive, cheerfully, quickly, and without hesitation; for there is no grace in a benefit that sticks to the fingers."
- Seneca, Ancient Rome
"Without being peace, we cannot do anything for peace. If we cannot smile, we cannot help other people to smile. If we are not peaceful, then we cannot contribute to the peace movement."
- Thich Nhat Hahn
"Certain people have a way of saying things that shake us at the core. Even when the words do not seem harsh or offensive, the impact is shattering. What we could be experiencing is the intent behind the words. When we intend to do good, we do. When we intend to do harm, it happens. What each of us must come to realize is that our intent always comes through. We cannot sugarcoat the feelings in our heart of hearts. The emotion is the energy that motivates. We cannot ignore what we really want to create. We should be honest and do it the way we feel it. What we owe to ourselves and everyone around is to examine the reasons of our true intent. My intent will be evident in the results.”
- Thurgood Marshall
"I am a firm believer in the people. If given the truth, they can be depended upon to meet any national crises. The great point is to bring them the real facts."
- Abraham Lincoln
"If we don't believe in free expression for people we despise, we don't believe in it at all."
- Noam Chomsky
"One would give generous alms if one had the eyes to see the beauty of a cupped receiving hand."
- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
"To be rich in admiration and free from envy, to rejoice greatly in the good of others, to love with such generosity of heart that your love is still a dear possession in absence or unkindness - these are the gifts which money cannot buy"
- Robert Louis Stevenson
"The wise man does not lay up his own treasures. The more he gives to others, the more he has for his own."
- Lao Tzu
"It does not take many words to speak the truth."
- Chief Joseph, Nez Perce First Nation
How we relate to others
"Gratitude is not only the greatest of virtues, but the parent of all others."
- Marcus Tullius Cicero, Ancient Rome
"The debt of gratitude that we owe our mother and father goes forwards, not backwards. What we owe our parents is the bill presented to us by our children."
- Nancy Friday, USA
"A person however learned and qualified in his life's work in whom gratitude is absent, is devoid of that beauty of character which makes personality fragrant."
- Hazrat Inayat Khan, India
"As we express our gratitude, we must never forget that the highest appreciation is not to utter words, but to live by them."
- John F Kennedy, USA
"Respect is love in plain clothes.”
- Frankie Byrne
"I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel."
- Maya Angelou
"No one respects a talent that is concealed.”
- Desiderus Erasmus
"Tolerance implies a respect for another person, not because he is wrong or even because he is right, but because he is human."
- John Cogley
"Only the brave know how to forgive."
- Laurence Sterne, Ireland
"O Lord, remember not only the men and women of good will, but all those of ill will. But do not remember all the suffering they have inflicted upon us. Remember the fruits we have brought thanks to this suffering – our comradeship, our loyalty, our humility, our courage, our generosity, this greatness of heart which has grown out of all this. And when they come to judgement, let all the fruits we have borne be their forgiveness."
- Found in Ravensbruck concentration camp in 1945
"To forgive is not just to be altruistic. It is the best form of self-interest."
- Desmond Tutu, South Africa
" A hundred times every day I remind myself that my inner and outer life are based on the labors of other men, living and dead."
- Albert Einstein
"He who does not have the courage to speak up for his rights cannot earn the respect of others."
- Rene G. Torres
"Always forgive your enemies — nothing annoys them so much."
- Oscar Wilde
"Never look down on anybody unless you're helping him up."
- Jesse Jackson
"Appreciation is a wonderful thing: it makes what is excellent in others belong to us as well."
- Voltaire, France
"The hero is one who kindles a great light in the world, who sets up blazing torches in the dark streets of life for men to see by."
- Felix Adler, USA
"There is no man so bad, but he secretly respects the good."
- Benjamin Franklin, USA
"Talk doesn't cook rice."
- Chinese Proverb
"If we are to respect others' religions as we would have them to respect our own, a friendly study of the world's religion is a sacred duty."
- Mahatma Gandhi
"We must love friends for their sake rather than for our own."
- Charlotte Bronte, UK
"It's the friends you can call up at 4 am that matter."
- Marlene Dietrich, Germany
"Thou shalt not be a victim. Thou shalt not be a perpetrator. Above all, thou shalt not be a bystander."
- Holocaust Museum, New York
"At times our own light goes out and is rekindled by a spark from another person. Each of us has cause to think with deep gratitude of those who have lighted the flame within us."
- Albert Schweitzer
"There are admirable potentialities in every human being. Believe in your strength and your truth. Learn to repeat endlessly to yourself. 'It all depends on me.'"
- Andre Gide
"The only people with whom you should try to get even are those who have helped you."
- John E. Southard
"It's the friends you can call up at 4 a.m. that matter."
- Marlene Dietrich
"Forgiveness does not change the past, but it does enlarge the future."
- Paul Boese
"Forgiveness is a funny thing. It warms the heart and cools the sting."
- William Arthur Ward
"To live the full life, one must have the courage to bear the responsibility of the needs of others."
- Aung San Suu Kyi
"Saying thank you is more than good manners. It is good spirituality."
- Alfred Painter
"Appreciation can make a day, even change a life. Your willingness to put it into words is all that is necessary."
- Margaret Cousins
"Let us rise up and be thankful, for if we didn't learn a lot today, at least we learned a little, and if we didn't learn a little, at least we didn't get sick, and if we got sick, at least we didn't die; so, let us all be thankful."
- The Buddha
"Gratitude is the fairest blossom which springs from the soul."
- Henry Ward Beecher
"Happiness cannot be traveled to, owned, earned, worn or consumed. Happiness is the spiritual experience of living every minute with love, grace and gratitude."
- Denis Waitley
"If the only prayer you said in your whole life was, 'thank you,' that would suffice."
- Meister Eckhart
"Loyalty means nothing unless it has at its heart the absolute principle of self-sacrifice."
- Woodrow Wilson
"Lack of loyalty is one of the major causes of failure in every walk of life"
- Napolean Hill
"Respect your efforts, respect yourself. Self-respect leads to self-discipline. When you have both firmly under your belt, that's real power.”
- Clint Eastwood
"Our loyalties are to the species and the planet. We speak for Earth. Our obligation to survive is owed not just to ourselves but also to that Cosmos, ancient and vast, from which we spring."
- Carl Sagan
How we find meaning
"It is one of the beautiful compensations of this life that no one can sincerely try to help another without helping himself."
- Ralph Waldo Emerson, USA
"Even a small star shines in the darkness."
- Finnish proverb
"How can I be useful, of what service can I be? There is something inside me – what can it be?"
- Vincent Van Gogh, France
"This is the true joy of life, the being used up for a purpose recognised by yourself as a mighty one; being a force of nature instead of a feverish, selfish, little clod of ailments and grievances, complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy. I am of the opinion that my life belongs to the community, and as long as I live, it is my privilege to do for it whatever I can. I want to be thoroughly used up when I die, for the harder I work the more I live. Life is no "brief candle" to me. It is a sort of splendid torch which I have got hold of for a moment, and I want to make it burn as brightly as possible before handing it on to future generations."
- George Bernard Shaw, UK
"Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma - which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition."
- Steve Jobs
"Hold faithfulness and sincerity as first principles"
- Confucious
"Here is the test to find whether your mission on earth is finished. If you're alive, it isn't."
- Richard Bach
"To have doubted one's own first principles is the mark of a civilized man."
- Oliver Wendell Holmes
"Rules are not necessarily sacred, principles are."
- Franklin D. Roosevelt
"There is no pillow so soft as a clear conscience."
- French Proverb
"Aspire not to have more, but to be more."
- Archbishop Oscar Romero, El Salvador
"To know what is right and not do it is the worst cowardice."
- Confucius
"A tree that can fill the span of a man's arms grows from a downy tip; a terrace nine storeys high rises from hodfuls of earth; a journey of a thousand miles starts from beneath one's feet."
- Lao Tzu, China
"I've often said, the only thing standing between me and greatness is me."
- Woody Allen, USA
"Vision is not enough; it must be combined with venture."
- Vaclav Havel, Czech Republic
"Live in such a way that you would not be ashamed to sell your parrot to the town gossip."
- Will Rogers
"I've often said, the only thing standing between me and greatness is me."
- Woody Allen
"Find your gift. Find your passion. Put them together and you will change the world."
- Craig Kielburger
"Persons with weight of character carry, like planets, their atmospheres along with them in their orbits."
- Thomas Hardy
"The true meaning of life is to plant trees, under whose shade you do not expect to sit."
- Nelson Henderson
"We cannot live in a world that is not our own, in a world that is interpreted for us by others. An interpreted world is not a home. Part of the terror is to take back our own listening, to use our own voice, to see our own light."
- Hildegard Von Bingen, mystic (1098-1179)
"I am prepared to die, but there is no cause for which I am prepared to kill."
- Mahatma Gandhi
"Only a life lived for others is a life worthwhile."
- Albert Einstein
"Service is the rent we pay to be living. It is the very purpose of life and not something you do in your spare time."
- Marian Wright Edelman
"How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world."
- Anne Frank
"He who wishes to secure the good of others, has already secured his own."
- Confucious
"Those who bring sunshine into the lives of others, cannot keep it from themselves."
- J.M.Barrie
"I don't know what your destiny will be, but one thing I do know: the only ones among you who will be really happy are those who have sought and found how to serve."
- Albert Schweitzer
"Nobody made a greater mistake than he who did nothing because he could do only a little."
- Edmund Burke
"Everybody can be great. Because anybody can serve. You don't have to have a college
degree to serve. You don't have to make your subject and your verb agree to serve....
You don't have to know the second theory of thermodynamics in physics to serve. You
only need a heart full of grace. A soul generated by love."
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
"A lot of people are waiting for Martin Luther King or Mahatma Gandhi to come back - but they are gone. We are it. It is up to us. It is up to you."
- Marian Wright Edelman
"The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others."
- Mahatma Gandhi
"Courage is what it takes to stand up and speak; courage is also what it takes to sit down and listen."
- Winston Churchill
"We must be willing to get rid of the life we’ve planned, so as to have the life that is waiting for us."
- Joseph Campbell
"If you understand and you are disturbed, then you are moved to action. That is exactly what happened to me."
- Wangari Maathai, Kenya
"Tisn't life that matters! Tis the courage you bring to it."
- Sir Hugh Walpole
"It’s in the courage writ small, repeated ten thousand times that we create ourselves."
- Josh Mitteldorf
"Blessings on your young courage,boy; that's the way to the stars."
- Virgil
"One isn't necessarily born with courage, but one is born with potential. Without courage, we cannot practice any other virtue with consistency. We can't be kind, true, merciful, generous, or honest."
- Maya Angelou
"The test of courage comes when we are in the minority. The test of tolerance comes when we are in the majority."
- Ralph W. Sockman
"Moral excellence comes about as a result of habit. We become just by doing just acts, temperate by doing temperate acts, brave by doing brave acts."
- Aristotle
"If you understand and you are disturbed, then you are moved to action. That's exactly what happened to me."
- Wangari Maathai, Kenya
"Courage is being scared to death, but saddling up anyway."
- John Wayne, USA
"We must be willing to let go of the life we have planned, so as to accept the life that is waiting for us."
- Joseph Campbell, USA
"Genius? Nothing! Sticking to it is the genius! I've failed my way to success."
- Thomas Edison, USA
"Courage is the price that life exacts for granting peace."
- Amelia Earhart, USA
