John Maynard Keynes There is a danger of expecting the results of the future to be predicted from the past. +
Sophocles Without labor nothing prospers. +
Hannah Arendt What imperialists actually wanted was expansion of political power without the foundation of the body politic. Imperialist expansion had been touched off by a curious kind of economic crisis, the overproduction of capital and the emergence of "superfluous" money, the result of oversaving, which could no longer find productive investment within national borders. For the first time, investment of power did not pave the way for investment of money, since uncontrollable investments in distant countries threatened to transform large strata of society into gamblers, to change the whole capitalist economy from a system of production to a system of financial speculation, and to replace the profits of production with profits in commissions. The decade immediately before the imperialist era, the seventies of the last century, witnessed an unparalleled increase in swindles, financial scandals, and gambling in the stock market. +
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Nothing is worth more than this day. You cannot relive yesterday. Tomorrow is still beyond your reach. +
Adam Smith The prudent man always studies seriously and earnestly to understand whatever he professes to understand, and not merely to persuade other people that he understands it; and though his talents may not always be very brilliant, they are always perfectly genuine +
Blaise Pascal In a word, the Self has two qualities: it is unjust in itself since it makes itself the centre of everything; it is inconvenient to others since it would enslave them; for each self is the enemy, and would like to be the tyrant of all others. You take away its inconvenience, but not its injustice, and so you do not render it lovable to those who hate injustice; you render it lovable only to the unjust, who do not any longer find in it an enemy. And thus you remain unjust, and can please only the unjust +
Arthur C. Clarke Civilization and Religion are incompatible and Faith is believing what you know isn't true. +
Seneca Let us take pleasure in what we have received and make no comparison; no man will ever be happy if tortured by the greater happiness of another. +
Montesquieu If we only wanted to be happy, it would be easy; but we want to be happier than other people, which is almost always difficult, since we think them happier than they are. +
Arthur Schopenhauer Many undoubtedly owe their good fortune to the circumstance that they possess a pleasing smile with which they win hearts. Yet these hearts would do better to beware and to learn from Hamlet's tables that one may smile, and smile, and be a villain. +
Arthur Schopenhauer Exaggeration of every kind is as essential to journalism as it is to the dramatic art; for the object of journalism is to make events go as far as possible. Thus it is that all journalists are, in the very nature of their calling, alarmists; and this is their way of giving interest to what they write. +
Adam Smith It is not very unreasonable that the rich should contribute to the public expense, not only in proportion to their revenue, but something more than in that proportion. +
Charlotte Bront Take the matter as you find it ask no questions, utter no remonstrances; it is your best wisdom. You expected bread and you have got a stone: break your teeth on it, and don't shriek because the nerves are martyrised; do not doubt that your mental stomach - if you have such a thing - is strong as an ostrich's; the stone will digest. You held out your hand for an egg, and fate put into it a scorpion. Show no consternation; close your fingers firmly upon the gift; let it sting through your palm. Never mind; in time, after your hand and arm have swelled and quivered long with torture, the squeezed scorpion will die, and you will have learned the great lesson how to endure without a sob. +
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Divide and rule, the politician cries; Unite and lead, is watchword of the wise. +
H.L. Mencken Puritanism: The haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy. +
Cicero What then is freedom? The power to live as one wishes. +
John Locke In transgressing the law of nature, the offender declares himself to live by another rule than that of reason and common equity +
Leo Tolstoy We can know only that we know nothing. And that is the highest degree of human wisdom +
Seneca Those who forget the past, ignore the present, and fear for the future have a life that is very brief and filled with anxiety: when they come to face death, the wretches understand too late that for such a long time they have busied themselves in doing nothing. +
Kilroy J. Oldster It is easy to hate and it is difficult to love. Wisdom, compassion, and courage are essential ingredients for love. To love other people we must begin by forgiving them. If we do not bring forth the part of us that is capable of love and compassion, it will destroy us. +
Ambrose Bierce Speak when you are angry and you will make the best speech you will ever regret. +
Tacitus The more corrupt the state, the more it legislates. +
Sun Tzu Those who are skilled in combat do not become angered, those who are skilled at winning do not become afraid. Thus the wise win before they fight, while the ignorant fight to win. +
Seneca Reason shows us there is nothing either good or bad but thinking makes it so. +
Albert Einstein The world is a dangerous place to live, not because of the people who are evil, but because of the people who don't do anything about it. +
Arthur Schopenhauer Men best show their character in trifles, where they are not on their guard. It is in the simplest habits, that we often see the boundless egotism which pays no regard to the feelings of others and denies nothing to itself. +
Epicurus The wealth required by nature is limited and is easy to procure; but the wealth required by vain ideals extends to infinity. +
Stephen Hawking There should be no boundaries to human endeavor. We are all different. However bad life may seem, there is always something you can do, and succeed at. While there's life, there is hope. +
Arthur Conan Doyle Mediocrity knows nothing higher than itself; but talent instantly recognizes genius. +
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Nothing is more disgusting than the majority: because it consists of a few powerful predecessors, of rogues who adapt themselves, of weak who assimilate themselves, and the masses who imitate without knowing at all what they want. +
John Pilger The major western democracies are moving towards corporatism. Democracy has become a business plan, with a bottom line for every human activity, every dream, every decency, every hope. The main parliamentary parties are now devoted to the same economic policies socialism for the rich, capitalism for the poor and the same foreign policy of servility to endless war. This is not democracy. It is to politics what McDonalds is to food. +
Friedrich Nietzsche No one can build you the bridge on which you, and only you, must cross the river of life. There may be countless trails and bridges and demigods who would gladly carry you across; but only at the price of pawning and forgoing yourself. There is one path in the world that none can walk but you. Where does it lead? Don’t ask, walk! +
Plato The price good men pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men. +
Benjamin Franklin Whatever is begun in anger, ends in shame. +
John F. Kennedy To be courageous, these stories make clear, requires no exceptional qualifications, no magic formula, no special combination of time, place and circumstance. It is an opportunity that sooner or later is presented to us all. Politics merely furnishes one arena which imposes special tests of courage. In whatever arena of life one may meet the challenge of courage, whatever may be the sacrifices he faces if he follow his conscience - the loss of his friends, his fortune, his contentment, even the esteem of his fellow men - each man must decide for himself the course he will follow. The stories of past courage can define that ingredient - they can teach, they can offer hope, they provide inspiration. But they cannot supply courage itself. For this each man must look into his own soul. +
Elizabeth Barrett Browning How do I love thee? Let me count the ways. I love thee to the depth and breadth and height My soul can reach +
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Real obscurantism is not to hinder the spread of what is true, clear, and useful, but to bring into vogue what is false. +
Groucho Marx Learn from the mistakes of others. You can never live long enough to make them all yourself. +
Henry Hazlitt Today is already the tomorrow which the bad economist yesterday urged us to ignore. +
Friedrich Nietzsche Sometimes people don't want to hear the truth because they don't want their illusions destroyed. +
Anton Chekhov The illusion which exalts us is dearer to us than ten thousand truths. +
Edward R. Murrow Anyone who isn't confused really doesn't understand the situation. +
Abraham Lincoln When I do good, I feel good. When I do bad, I feel bad. That's my religion. +
Jean-Paul Sartre If you're lonely when you're alone, you're in bad company. +
Fyodor Dostoyevsky how easily the heart accustoms itself to comforts, and how difficult it is to tear one’s self away from luxuries which have become habitual and, little by little, indispensable. +
Bias of Priene It is difficult to bear a change of fortune for the worse with magnanimity." +
Adam Smith No society can surely be flourishing and happy, of which the far greater part of the members are poor and miserable. It is but equity, besides, that they who feed, clothe, and lodge the whole body of the people, should have such a share of the produce of their own labour as to be themselves tolerably well fed, clothed, and lodged. +
John Locke But what if he neglect the care of his soul? I answer: What if he neglect the care of his health or of his estate, which things are nearlier related to the government of the magistrate than the other? Will the magistrate provide by an express law that such a one shall not become poor or sick? Laws provide, as much as is possible, that the goods and health of subjects be not injured by the fraud and violence of others; they do not guard them from the negligence or ill-husbandry of the possessors themselves. No man can be forced to be rich or healthful whether he will or no. Nay, God Himself will not save men against their wills. +
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe A really great talent finds its happiness in execution. +
John Steinbeck And now that you don't have to be perfect, you can be good. +