Mamacita says: I used to file my quotations away in alphabetical order, until I realized that a good quotation isn’t really fileable that way. A good quotation contains too many variables, some obvious, but even more that are so subtle we aren’t even sure what they are.
The subtle variables are why the good quotations have such an effect on us.
1. I do not love him because he is good, but because he is my little child. — Tagore
2. One of the best things about a very little child is that he never thanks you for doing things for him – he is so sure you want to. — Maurice Horspool
3. In the little world in which children have their existence, whosoever brings them up, there is nothing so finely perceived and so finely felt, as injustice. – Dickens
4. The “C” students run the world. — Harry Truman
5. We most always change, renew, rejuvenate ourselves; otherwise we harden. — Goethe
6. Consistency is only a paste jewel that cheap men cherish. — William Allen White
7. Through the survival of their children, hay parents are able to think calmly, and with a very practical affection, of a world in which they are to have no direct share. — Walter Pater
8. One laugh of a child will make the holiest day more sacred still. — Ingersoll
9. If at some period in the course of civilization we seriously find that our science and our religion are antagonistic, then there must be something wrong either with our science or with our religion. — Havelock Ellis
10. People who complain that they don’t get all they deserve should congratulate themselves. — Unknown
11. It takes as much courage to have tried and failed as it does to have tried and succeeded. — Anne Morrow Lindburgh
12. Making the simple complicated is commonplace; making the complicated simple, awesomely simple – that’s creativity. — Charles Mingus
13. Chance is the pseudonym of God when He did not want to sign. — Anatole France
14. This is an age in which one cannot find common sense without a search warrant. — George F. Will
15. There are many intelligent species in the universe. They are all owned by cats. — Anon.
16. There is nobody who totally lacks the courage to change — Rollo May
17. The whole difference between construction and creation is exactly this: that a thing constructed can only be loved after it is constructed; but a thing created is loved before it exists. — Gilbert Keith Chesterton
18. Creative minds have always been known to survive any kind of bad training. — Anna Freud
19. Only one man can do anything. One man interacting creatively with others can move the world. — John W. Gardner
20. Creativity is the art of taking a fresh clean look at old knowledge. — Unknown
21. Curiosity is a willing, a proud, an eager confession of ignorance. — Rubinstein
22. To comprehend is to forgive. — Henrietta A. Heathorn
23. Cynicism is intellectual dandyism. — George Merideth
24. If you want to see what your children can do, you must stop giving them things. — Norman Douglas
25. No change of circumstances can repair a defect of character. — Emerson
26. Loving a child doesn’t mean giving in to all his whims: to love him is to bring out the best in him, to teach him to love what is difficult. — Nadia Boulanger
27. When you blame others, you give up your power to change. — Anon.
28. If you haven’t any charity in your heart, you have the worst kind of heart trouble. — Bob Hope
27. Calculation never made a hero. — John Henry, Cardinal Newman
28. If you don’t control your mind, someone else will. — John Allston
29. Man is not the creature of circumstances. Circumstances are the creatures of men. — Disraeli
30. Everybody, sooner or later, sits down to a banquet of consequences. — R.L. Stevenson
31. An unhappy crew makes for a dangerous voyage. — Unknown
32. Character is a victory, not a gift. — Try Square
33. Old and young, we are all on our last cruise. — Robert Lewis Stevenson
34. Man loves company even if it is only that of a lighted candle. — Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
35. People have a custom of excusing the enormities of their conduct by talking of their passions, as if they were under the control of a blind necessity, and sinned because they could not help it. – Cumberland
36. On the human chessboard, all moves are possible. — Miriam Schiff
37. Conditions are never just right. People who delay action until all factors are favorable do nothing. — William Feather
38. He who leaves nothing to chance well do few things ill, but he will do very few things. — Lord Halifax
39. Every calling is great when greatly pursued. — Unknown
40. A fool must now and then be right by chance. — William Cowper
41. Those whose conduct gives room for talk are always the first to attack their neighbors. — Moliere
42. In America, nobody says you have to keep the circumstances somebody else gives you. — Amy Tan
43. Those who complain about the way the ball bounces are usually the ones who dropped it. — General Features Corp.
44. He who does not enjoy his own company is usually right. — Coco Chanel
45. We don’t need any more well-rounded people. We have too many now. A well-rounded person is like a ball: he rolls in the first direction he is pushed. We need more square people who won’t roll when they are pushed. — Eugene Wilson
46. Consistency is contrary to nature, contrary to life. The only completely consistent people are the dead. — Aldous Huxley
47. Courage is the power to let go of the familiar. — Raymond Linquist
48. Changes are not only possible and predictable, but to deny them is to be an accomplice to one’s own necessary vegetation. — Gail Sheehy
49. Do not wait for ideal circumstances, nor the best opportunities; they wil never come. — Janet E. Stuart
50. Avoid, as you would the plague, a clergyman who is also a man of business. – St. Jerome
51. A creditor is worse than a master, for a master owns only your person; a creditor owns your dignity, and can belabor that. — Victor Hugo
52. In the final choice a soldier’s pack is not so heavy as a prisoner’s chains. –Eisenhower
53. There is not in the universe a more ridiculous, nor a more contemptible animal, than a proud clergyman. — Henry Fielding
54. Character is like a tree and reputation is like its shadow. The shadow is what we think of it; the tree is the real thing. — Lincoln
55. Crime expands according to our willingness to put up with it. — Barry Farber
56. Cunning is the dark sanctuary of incapacity. — Lord Chesterfield
57. Criminal: a person with predatory instincts who has not sufficient capital to form a corporation. — Howard Scott
58. If you want others to be happy practice compassion. If you want to be happy, practice compassion. — Dalai Lama
59. It is not easy to be crafty and winsome at the same time, and few accomplish it after the age of six. — Unknown
60. One day posterity will remember this strange era, these strange times, when ordinary common honesty was called courage. — Yevheny Yevtushenko
61. Courage is almost a contradiction in terms. It means a strong desire to live, taking the form of a readiness to die. — G.K. Chesterton
62. Choice is what separates the artist from the common herd. — Mordaunt Shairp
63. Character, that sublime health which values one moment as another, and makes us great in all conditions. — Emerson
64. Every one of us has in him a continent of undiscovered character. Blessed is he who acts the Columbus to his own soul. — Unknown
65. Fame is a vapor, popularity an accident, riches take wing. Only one thing endures – character. — Horace Greeley
66. It is right to be contented with what we have, never with what we are. — Mackintosh
67. Copernicus did not publish his book until he was on his deathbed. He knew how dangerous it is to be right when the rest of the world is wrong. — Thomas B. Reed
68. Make no judgments where you have no compassion. — Anne McCaffrey
69. All men are alike in their lower natures; it is in their higher characters that they differ. — Bovee
70. The dead are always popular. I knowed a society wanst to vote a monyment to a man an’ refuse to help his family, all in wan night. — Finley Peter Dunne
71. Ah, the clock is always slow; it is later than you think. — Robert W. Service
72. We are inclined to believe those whom we do not know, because they have never deceived us. — Samuel Johnson
73. Only the suppressed word is dangerous. — Ludwig Boerne
74. Not everything that counts can be counted, and not everything that can be counted, counts. — Einstein
75. The great law of culture is: Let each become all that he was created capable of being. — Carlyle