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Great Words

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My quotation collection

Ability is of little account without opportunity
Napoleon Bonaparte
 
No amount of ability is of the slightest avail without honor. 
Andrew Carnegie
 
Natural ability without education has more often raised a man to glory and virtue than education without natural ability. 
Marcus T. Cicero
 
I was court-martial in my absence, and sentenced to death in my absence, so I said they could shoot me in my absence
Brendan F. Behan
 
All philosophy lies in two words, sustain and abstain. 
Epictetus
 
 

Only the educated are free.
~Epictetus
 
I have never let my schooling interfere with my education.
~Mark Twain
 
Rudeness is the weak man's imitation of strength.
~Eric Hoffer
 
Good judgment comes from experience, and experience comes from bad judgment.
~Barry LePatner
 
I don't know the key to success, but the key to failure is trying to please everybody.
~Bill Cosby
 
Every generation laughs at the old fashions, but follows religiously the new.
~Henry David Thoreau
 
There is no revenge so complete as forgiveness.
~Josh Billings
 
My definition of a free society is a society where it is safe to be unpopular.
~Adlai E. Stevenson Jr.
 
In the truest sense, freedom cannot be bestowed; it must be achieved.
~Franklin D. Roosevelt
 
One must be poor to know the luxury of giving.
~George Eliot
 
We make a living by what we get, we make a life by what we give.
~Sir Winston Churchill
 
It's a sign of mediocrity when you demonstrate gratitude with moderation.
~Roberto Benigni
 
Many persons have a wrong idea of what constitutes true happiness. It is not attained through self-gratification but through fidelity to a worthy purpose.
~Helen Keller
 
It is pretty hard to tell what does bring happiness; poverty and wealth have both failed.
~Kin Hubbard
 
It is better to be hated for what you are than to be loved for what you are not.
~Andre Gide
 
Nurture your mind with great thoughts; to believe in the heroic makes heroes.
~Benjamin Disraeli
 
Where is there dignity unless there is honesty?
~Cicero
 
If you tell the truth you don't have to remember anything.
~Mark Twain
 
An honor is not diminished for being shared.
~Lois McMaster Bujold
 
Honor does not have to be defended.
~Robert J. Sawyer
 
He who speaks without modesty will find it difficult to make his words good.
~Confucius
 
Be modest! It is the kind of pride least likely to offend.
~Jules Renard
 
Humor is the only test of gravity, and gravity of humor; for a subject which will not bear raillery is suspicious, and a jest which will not bear serious examination is false wit.
~Aristotle
 
If you want others to be happy, practice compassion. If you want to be happy, practice compassion.
~The Dalai Lama
 
The beginning of knowledge is the discovery of something we do not understand.
~Frank Herbert
 
Laugh at yourself first, before anyone else can.
~Elsa Maxwell
 
What luck for rulers that men do not think.
~Adolf Hitler
 
Learning is not compulsory... neither is survival.
~W. Edwards Deming
 
Truly, to tell lies is not honorable;
but when the truth entails tremendous ruin,
To speak dishonorably is pardonable.
~Sophocles
 
Not a shred of evidence exists in favor of the idea that life is serious.
~Brendan Gill
 
Life is something that everyone should try at least once.
~Henry J. Tillman

The supreme irony of life is that hardly anyone gets out of it alive.
~Robert Heinlein

No man ever listened himself out of a job.
~Calvin Coolidge

Pray that your loneliness may spur you into finding something to live for, great enough to die for.
~Dag Hammarskjold

The worst loneliness is not to be comfortable with yourself.
~Mark Twain

I'm a great believer in luck, and I find the harder I work the more I have of it.
~Thomas Jefferson

The chief value of money lies in the fact that one lives in a world in which it is overestimated.
~H. L. Mencken

Money can't buy friends, but it can get you a better class of enemy.
~Spike Milligan

A wise man will make more opportunities than he finds.
~Sir Francis Bacon

For myself I am an optimist - it does not seem to be much use being anything else.
~Sir Winston Churchill

Have no fear of perfection - you'll never reach it.
~Salvador Dali

The wise man carries his possessions within him.
~Bias

The sole advantage of power is that you can do more good.
~Baltasar Gracian

I have often regretted my speech, never my silence.
~Publilius Syrus

Try not to become a man of success but rather to become a man of value.
~Albert Einstein

Success is not the result of spontaneous combustion. You must set yourself on fire.
~Reggie Leach

Everyone has talent. What is rare is the courage to follow the talent to the dark place where it leads.
~Erica Jong

The best way to predict the future is to invent it.
~Alan Kay

Say not, 'I have found the truth,' but rather, 'I have found a truth.'
~Kahlil Gibran

It has been my experience that folks who have no vices have very few virtues.
~Abraham Lincoln

"A line is a dot that went for a walk."  ~ Paul Klee.

"Lord, grant that I may always desire more than I can accomplish." ~Michelangelo

"To create one's own world in any of the arts takes courage."
~ Georgia O'Keeffe

"Fill a space in a beautiful way" ~ Georgia O'Keeffe

"What good are computers? They can only give you answers."
 
~ Pablo Picasso

One must from time to time attempt things that are beyond one's capacity.
~ Auguste Renoir

Painting is silent poetry, and poetry is painting that speaks." 
~ Simonides (500 B. C.)

"An artist is not paid for his labor but for his vision."  
~ James McNeill Whistler

In an artist's life, death is perhaps not the most difficult thing.
Vincent Van Gogh

There is a battle that goes on between men and women. Many people call it love.
Edvard Munch

Life obliges me to do something, so I paint.
Rene Magritte

"I hope with all my heart that there will be painting in heaven." Jean-Baptiste Camille Corot

 



Shall I pour the light of grace from trembling fingertips?
Writ aloft such signs as brought forth from hell.
Drowned in beauty gained through ardent desire
Yet christened only with agony's deep yell.
 
For the light of love only sings in darkness
and divine ispiration dwells deep in the midst of death
and every thought that drips of holy origin
must another die unloved by the flesh.
 
Ere lonliness overcome the innocents
and creeping digits writhe in sinful melee
between the mass of lavish luxury and spartan delight
our lovers linger to enjoy time spent in delay.
 
But torpid writers sing in quiet unison thier sorrow
wrought from steel and iron cages seen only through the soul
no one will touch thier brightened shadows
for they only see what is left of the whole
 
They do not gain the sight of passion
so unencumbered by the sphere of art
trysting in madness they sleep sound as lambs
while our envy covers thier forms and sweet hearts.