Montesquieu In republican governments, men are all equal; equal they are also in despotic governments: in the former, because they are everything; in the latter, because they are nothing. +
Abraham Lincoln Do I not destroy my enemies when I make them my friends? +
Bertrand Russell All who are not lunatics are agreed about certain things. That it is better to be alive than dead, better to be adequately fed than starved, better to be free than a slave. Many people desire those things only for themselves and their friends; they are quite content that their enemies should suffer. These people can be refuted by science: mankind has become so much one family that we cannot insure our own prosperity except by insuring that of everyone else. If you wish to be happy yourself, you must resign yourself to seeing others also happy. +
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. +
Eleanor Roosevelt America is not a pile of goods, more luxury, more comforts, a better telephone system, a greater number of cars. America is a dream of greater justice and opportunity for the average man and, if we can not obtain it, all our other achievements amount to nothing. +
Jacques-Yves Cousteau Water and air, the two essential fluids on which all life depends, have become global garbage cans. +
Arthur Schopenhauer All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident. +
John F. Kennedy The great enemy of truth is very often not the lie--deliberate, contrived and dishonest--but the myth--persistent, persuasive and unrealistic. Too often we hold fast to the cliches of our forebears. We subject all facts to a prefabricated set of interpretations. We enjoy the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought. +
George Orwell War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength. +
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Nothing is worth more than this day. +
Plato False words are not only evil in themselves, but they infect the soul with evil. +
Confucious Everything has beauty, but not everyone sees it. +
Susan Sontag The photographer is an armed version of the solitary walker reconnoitering, stalking, cruising the urban inferno, the voyeuristic stroller who discovers the city as a landscape of voluptuous extremes. Adept of the joys of watching, connoisseur of empathy, the flâneur finds the world 'picturesque. +
Bias of Priene It is difficult to bear a change of fortune for the worse with magnanimity." +
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. +
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. +
Alvin Toffler Society needs people who take care of the elderly and who know how to be compassionate and honest," he said. "Society needs people who work in hospitals. Society needs all kinds of skills that are not just cognitive; they're emotional, they're affectional. You can't run the society on data and computers alone. +
Abraham Lincoln Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, give him power. +
Hegel It is easier to discover a deficiency in individuals, in states, and in Providence, than to see their real import and value. +
John Dewey Truth, in final analysis, is the statement of things “as they are,” not as they are in the inane and desolate void of isolation from human concern, but as they are in a shared and progressive experience….Truth, truthfulness, transparent and brave publicity of intercourse, are the source and the reward of friendship. Truth is having things in common. +
Oliver Wendell Holmes The mind, once expanded to the dimensions of larger ideas, never returns to its original size. +
Montesquieu Those Greek statesmen who lived under democratic government knew of no support for it other than virtue. Today, statesmen can tell us only of manufacturing, finances, wealth, and even luxury. +
Immanuel Kant Rules for happiness: something to do, someone to love, something to hope for. +
Cicero Six mistakes mankind keeps making century after century: Believing that personal gain is made by crushing others; Worrying about things that cannot be changed or corrected; Insisting that a thing is impossible because we cannot accomplish it; Refusing to set aside trivial preferences; Neglecting development and refinement of the mind; Attempting to compel others to believe and live as we do. +
Stephen Spielberg The past may dictate who we are, but we get to determine what we become. +
Bias of Priene Do not praise an undeserving man because of his riches. +
Friedrich A. Hayek All political theories assume, of course, that most individuals are very ignorant. Those who plead for liberty differ from the rest in that they include among the ignorant themselves as well as the wisest. +
Ralph Waldo Emerson What you do speaks so loudly that I cannot hear what you say. +
Adam Smith All for ourselves, and nothing for other people, seems, in every age of the world, to have been the vile maxim of the masters of mankind. +
Mark Twain Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear, not absence of fear. +
Arthur Schopenhauer Spanish proverb: honor and money are not to be found in the same purse. +
Leo Tolstoy Government is an association of men who do violence to the rest of us. +
Adam Smith Civil government, so far as it is instituted for the security of property, is in reality instituted for the defense of the rich against the poor, or of those who have some property against those who have none at all. +
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. +
Hesiod Plan harm for another and harm yourself most, The evil we hatch always comes home to roost. +
William Shakespeare Out, out brief candle, life is but a walking shadow...a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. +
Kurt Vonnegut Of all the words of mice and men, the saddest are, It might have been. +
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! +
Arthur Schopenhauer We will gradually become indifferent to what goes on in the minds of other people when we acquire a knowledge of the superficial nature of their thoughts, the narrowness of their views and of the number of their errors. Whoever attaches a lot of value to the opinions of others pays them too much honor. +
Albert Einstein Any fool can know. The point is to understand. +
Aristotle The wise man does not expose himself needlessly to danger, since there are few things for which he cares sufficiently; but he is willing, in great crises, to give even his life--knowing that under certain conditions it is not worth while to live. He is of a disposition to do men service, though he is ashamed to have a service done to him. To confer a kindness is a mark of superiority; to receive one is a mark of subordination... He does not take part in public displays... He is open in his dislikes and preferences; he talks and acts frankly, because of his contempt for men and things... He is never fired with admiration, since there is nothing great in his eyes. He cannot live in complaisance with others, except it be a friend; complaisance is the characteristic of a slave... He never feels malice, and always forgets and passes over injuries... He is not fond of talking... It is no concern of his that he should be praised, or that others should be blamed. He does not speak evil of others, even of his enemies, unless it be to themselves. His carriage is sedate, his voice deep, his speech measured; he is not given to hurry, for he is concerned about only a few things; he is not prone to vehemence, for he thinks nothing very important. A shrill voice and hasty steps come to a man through care... He bears the accidents of life with dignity and grace, making the best of his circumstances, like a skillful general who marshals his limited forces with the strategy of war... He is his own best friend, and takes delight in privacy whereas the man of no virtue or ability is his own worst enemy, and is afraid of solitude. +
Kilroy J. Oldster Life is a crapshoot. It is also brief. No generation is invulnerable to the formidable and grave powers of creation and obliteration that time renders. All people are subject to the vagrancies of time’s steady pulse and subordinated to brute chance engendered when pulling the levers of fate found in our risk-filled environment. We can tilt the odds in our favor of living happily to a ripe old age by displaying a high degree of awareness and exercising self-control. We must rightfully display pride in our lives by claiming responsibility for ourselves and by taking on every challenge without mental equivocation. I seek to conquer personal fears and employ honest effort, energy, endurance, and enthusiasm supplemented with booster shots of intellectual integrity to become my personal master. Self-mastery, self-discipline, conscientious study, uncompromising integrity, and ethical awareness form the foundation stones of all religions and these qualities anchor every person of high character. While no personal medicine wheel is without faults and frailties, a person who exhibits an annealed temperament constantly searches inward to improve him or herself while maintaining a vigilant eye upon fulfilling their caregiver responsibilities. +
Arthur Schopenhauer Virtue cannot be taught, no more than genius; indeed, concepts are as unfruitful for it as for art and of use only as tools. +
Bias of Priene The naïve men are easily fooled +
Adam Smith It was not by gold or by silver, but by labour, that all the wealth of the world was originally purchased; +
Friedrich A. Hayek planning and competition can be combined only by planning for competition but not by planning against competition. +
John Dewey A problem well put is half solved. +
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. +
Seneca In the meantime, cling tooth and nail to the following rule: not to give in to adversity, not to trust prosperity, and always take full note of fortune’s habit of behaving just as she pleases. +
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. +