Ralph Waldo Emerson The crowning fortune of a man is to be born to some pursuit which finds him employment and happiness, whether it be to make baskets, or broadswords, or canals, or statues, or songs. +
Baruch Spinoza I have laboured carefully, not to mock, lament, or execrate human actions, but to understand them. +
Vladimir Lenin America, like a few other nations, has become characteristic for the depth of the abyss that divide a handful of brutal millionaires who are stagnating in a mire of luxury, and millions of laboring starving men and women who are always staring want in the face. +
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe You only keep a watch on those who cause you suffering. If you want to remain unknown to the world, all that's needed is not to hurt anyone. +
Socrates Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle. +
John Steinbeck I believe a strong woman may be stronger than a man, particularly if she happens to have love in her heart. I guess a loving woman is indestructible. +
Arthur Schopenhauer Spanish proverb: honor and money are not to be found in the same purse. +
Napoleon Bonaparte Ability is of little account without opportunity. +
Abraham Lincoln Labor is prior to, and independent of, capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first existed. Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves much the higher consideration. +
Arthur Schopenhauer The power of religious dogma, when inculcated early, is such as to stifle conscience, compassion, and finally every feeling of humanity. +
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Nothing is worth more than this day. You cannot relive yesterday. Tomorrow is still beyond your reach. +
Montesquieu It is not the young people that degenerate; they are not spoiled till those of maturer age are already sunk into corruption. +
Frederick the Great He who defends everything, defends nothing. +
Friedrich A. Hayek It is because every individual knows little and, in particular, because we rarely know which of us knows best that we trust the independent and competitive efforts of many to induce the emergence of what we shall want when we see it. +
Plato Can I by justice or by crooked ways of deceit ascend a loftier tower which may he a fortress to me all my days? For what men say is that, if I am really just and am not also thought just profit there is none, but the pain and loss on the other hand are unmistakable. But if, though unjust, I acquire the reputation of justice, a heavenly life is promised to me. Since then, as philosophers prove, appearance tyrannizes over truth and is lord of happiness, to appearance I must devote myself. +
Immanuel Kant Seek not the favor of the multitude; it is seldom got by honest and lawful means. But seek the testimony of few; and number not voices, but weigh them. +
John F. Kennedy If a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich. +
Ronald Reagan Jefferson repeatedly said that the best government was the smallest government, that “governments are not the masters of the people, but the servants of the people governed. +
Cicero If you have no confidence in self, you are twice defeated in the race of life. With confidence, you have won even before you have started. +
Marcus Aurelius If someone can prove me wrong and show me my mistake in any thought or action, I shall gladly change. I seek the truth, which never harmed anyone: the harm is to persist in one's own self-deception and ignorance. +
Ralph Waldo Emerson The purpose of life is not to be happy. It is to be useful, to be honorable, to be compassionate, to have it make some difference that you have lived and lived well. +
Socrates Mankind is made of two kinds of people: wise people who know they're fools, and fools who think they are wise. +
Ralph Waldo Emerson What you do speaks so loudly that I cannot hear what you say. +
Bias of Priene It is difficult to bear a change of fortune for the worse with magnanimity." +
Jean-Jacques Rousseau A taste for ostentation is rarely associated in the same souls with a taste for honesty +
Hannah Arendt The most striking difference between ancient and modern sophists is that the ancients were satisfied with a passing victory of the argument at the expense of truth, whereas the moderns want a more lasting victory at the expense of reality +
Confucious Everything has beauty, but not everyone sees it. +
Aldous Huxley The surest way to work up a crusade in favor of some good cause is to promise people they will have a chance of maltreating someone. To be able to destroy with good conscience, to be able to behave badly and call your bad behavior 'righteous indignation' — this is the height of psychological luxury, the most delicious of moral treats. +
Cicero It is not by muscle, speed, or physical dexterity that great things are achieved, but by reflection, force of character, and judgment. +
Mark Twain Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you feel that you, too, can become great. +
Khalil Gibran One day you will ask me which is more important? My life or yours? I will say mine and you will walk away not knowing that you are my life. +
Immanuel Kant Rules for happiness: something to do, someone to love, something to hope for. +
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Nothing is worth more than this day. +
William Westmoreland When I took command in Vietnam, I gave great emphasis to food and medical care - and to the mail. William Westmoreland +
John Maynard Keynes The commonest virtues of the individual are often lacking in the spokesmen of nations; a statesman representing not himself but his country may prove, without incurring excessive blame—­as history often records—­vindictive, perfidious, and egotistic. +
Kurt Vonnegut Of all the words of mice and men, the saddest are, It might have been. +
Bias of Priene Do not praise an undeserving man because of his riches. +
Marcus Aurelius Anger cannot be dishonest. +
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 Schopenhauer In short, a large part of the powers of the human race is taken away from the production of what is necessary, in order to bring what is superfluous and unnecessary within the reach of a few. +
Carl von Clausewitz If the mind is to emerge unscathed from this relentless struggle with the unforeseen, two qualities are indispensable: first, an intellect that, even in the darkest hour, retains some glimmerings of the inner light which leads to truth; and second, the courage to follow this faint light wherever it may lead. +
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Where is the man who has the strength to be true, and to show himself as he is? +
Voltaire It is clear that the individual who persecutes a man, his brother, because he is not of the same opinion, is a monster. +
Friedrich A. Hayek It should be noted, moreover, that monopoly is frequently the product of factors other than the lower costs of greater size. It is attained through collusive agreement and promoted by public policies. When these agreements are invalidated and when these policies are reversed, competitive conditions can be restored. +
Baruch Spinoza Better that right counsels be known to enemies than that the evil secrets of tyrants should be concealed from the citizens. They who can treat secretly of the affairs of a nation have it absolutely under their authority; and as they plot against the enemy in time of war, so do they against the citizens in time of peace. +
Carl von Clausewitz peace is maintained by the equilibrium of forces, and will continue just as long as this equilibrium exists, and no longer. +
Søren Kierkegaard People demand freedom of speech as a compensation for the freedom of thought which they seldom use. +
Marlene Dietrich I do not think we have a "right" to happiness. If happiness happens, say thanks. +
Hegel It is easier to discover a deficiency in individuals, in states, and in Providence, than to see their real import and value. +
Arthur Schopenhauer The discovery of truth is prevented more effectively, not by the false appearance things present and which mislead into error, not directly by weakness of the reasoning powers, but by preconceived opinion, by prejudice. +