The mind is not a vessel to be filled. It is a fire to be lighted.
-Plutarch
“If you tried to do something and failed, you are vastly better off than if you tried to do nothing and succeeded.”
– Anonymous
“An optimist is someone who tells you to cheer up when things are going their way.”
– Anonymous
“If you do not make the decision, the decision will be made for you.”
– Anonymous
“Experience is a wonderful thing. It enables you to recognize a mistake when you make it.”
– Anonymous
“Learn from the mistakes of others – you can never live long enough to make them all yourself.”
– Anonymous
“A memorandum is written not to inform the reader but to protect the writer.”
– Dean Acheson
“It’s got to be done and done quickly, so let’s get it done.”
– General Henry “Hap” Arnold
“Genius, that power which dazzles mortal eyes, is oft but perseverance in disguise.”
– Henry Austin, “Perseverance Conquers All”
“A learned fool is one who has read everything and simply remembered it.”
– Josh Billings
“Living without change would be inconceivable and unbearable. At the same time few of us would care to go on living in the midst of ceaseless, chaotic, completely unpredictable change.”
– Hadley Cantril
“The work an unknown man has done is like a vein of water flowing hidden underground, secretly making the ground green.”
– Thomas Carlyle
“I do not believe in a fate that falls on men however they act; but I do believe in a fate that falls on them unless they act.”
– G.K. Chesterton
“Nothing can save England if she will not save herself. If we lose faith in ourselves, in our capacity to guide and govern, if we lose our will to live, then indeed our story is told.”
– Winston S. Churchill (1933)
“Any 20 year-old who isn’t a liberal doesn’t have a heart, and any 40 year-old who isn’t a conservative doesn’t have a brain.”
– Winston Churchill
“Any idiot can see something wrong. But can you see what is right?”
– Winston Churchill
“Always acknowledge a fault. This will throw those in authority off their guard and give you an opportunity to commit more.”
– Samuel L. Clemens (Mark Twain)
“Suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself…”
– Samuel L. Clemens (Mark Twain)
“It could probably be shown by facts and figures that there is no distinctly American criminal class except Congress.”
– Samuel L. Clemens (Mark Twain)
“The great trouble with baseball today is that most of the players are in the game for the money and that’s it, not for the love of it, the excitement of it, the thrill of it.”
– Ty Cobb
“It ain’t braggin’ if you can back it up.”
– Dizzy Dean
“What we need to do is learn to work in the system, by which I mean that everybody, every team, every platform, every division, every component is there not for individual competitive profit or recognition, but for contribution to the system as a whole on a win-win basis.”
– W. Edwards Deming
“Learning is not compulsory… neither is survival.”
– W. Edwards Deming
“Profit in business comes from repeat customers, customers that boast about your project or service, and that bring friends with them.”
– W. Edwards Deming
“A champion is someone who gets up when he can’t.”
– Jack Dempsey
“Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds.”
– Albert Einstein
“It has become appallingly clear that our technology has surpassed our humanity.”
– Albert Einstein
“Retirement kills more people than hard work ever did.”
– Malcolm S. Forbes
“I am looking for a lot of men who have an infinite capacity to not know what can’t be done.”
– Henry Ford
“The greatest thing in life is to keep your mind young.”
– Henry Ford
“There is one rule for industrialists and that is: make the best quality goods possible at the lowest cost possible, paying the highest wages possible.”
– Henry Ford
“Remember not only to say the right thing in the right place, but far more difficult still, to leave unsaid the wrong thing at the tempting moment.”
– Benjamin Franklin
“Without continual growth and progress, such words as improvement, achievement, and success have no meaning.”
– Benjamin Franklin
“A reputation once broken may possibly be repaired, but the world will always keep their eyes on the spot where the crack was.”
– Joseph Hall
“Ever since man began to till the soil and learned not to eat the seed grain but to plant it and wait for harvest, the postponement of gratification has been the basis of a higher standard of living and of civilization.”
– S.I. Hayakawa
“Some people, when they hear an echo, think they originated the sound.”
– Ernest Hemingway
“Take time to deliberate; but when the time for action arrives, stop thinking and go in.”
– President Andrew Jackson
“Hey, big mouth, how do you spell triple?”
– Shoeless Joe Jackson’s response to a heckler
“In a republican nation, whose citizens are to be led by reason and persuasion and not by force, the art of reasoning becomes of first importance”
– Thomas Jefferson
“Take everything you like seriously, except yourselves.”
– Rudyard Kipling
“Get the future organized – it’s too late for the present.”
– Werner Kirst
“No man is entitled to the blessings of freedom unless he be vigilant in its preservation.”
– General Douglas MacArthur
“It must be remembered that there is nothing more difficult to plan, more doubtful of success, nor more dangerous to manage than the creation of a new system. For the initiator has the enmity of all who would profit by the preservation of the old institution and merely lukewarm defenders in those who would gain by the new ones.”
– Machiavelli, “The Prince” (1513)
“Originality is the one thing which unoriginal minds cannot feel the use of.”
– John Stuart Mill, “On Liberty”
“People can be divided into three groups: those who make things happen, those who watch things happen, and those who wonder what happened.”
– John W. Newbern
“Don’t look back. Something might be gaining on you.”
– Satchel Paige
“A competent leader can get efficient service from poor troops, while on the contrary an incapable leader can demoralize the best of troops.”
– General John Joseph “Blackjack” Pershing
“I will not deny that there are men in the district better qualified than I to go to Congress, but gentlemen, these men are not in the race.”
– Sam Rayburn
“I’ve always believed that you can think positive just as well as you can think negative.”
– Sugar Ray Robinson
“Live in such a way that you would not be ashamed to sell your parrot to the town gossip.”
– Will Rogers
“I don’t make jokes. I just watch the government and report the facts.”
– Will Rogers
“There are two things that I want you to make up your minds to: first, that you are going to have a good time as long as you live – I have no use for the sour-faced man – and next, that you are going to do something worthwhile, that you are going to work hard and do the things you set out to do.”
– President Theodore Roosevelt
Talk to schoolchildren in Oyster Bay, Christmas-time 1898
“It is not the critic who counts, not the man who points out how the strong man stumbled, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better.
The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs and comes up short again and again; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best, knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he
fails, at least fails Daring Greatly so that his place shall never be with those timid souls who know neither victory or defeat.”
– President Theodore Roosevelt
“Quality is never an accident; it is always the result of intelligent effort.”
– John Ruskin
“In an illogical world, the logical person will appear to be illogical.”
– Spock, “Star Trek”
“Most ball games are lost, not won.”
– Casey Stengel
“Civilizations die from suicide, not by murder.”
– Arnold Toynbee
“The supreme accomplishment is to blur the line between work and play.”
– Arnold Toynbee
“Leadership is the ability to get men to do what they don’t want to do and like it.”
– Harry Truman
“It is dangerous to be right in matters on which the established authorities are wrong.”
– Voltaire
“We must never despair; our situation has been compromising before; and it changed for the better; so I trust it will again; If difficulties arise; we must put forth new exertion and proportion our efforts to the exigencies of the times.”
– President George Washington
“I’ve always followed my father’s advice: he told me, first to always keep my word and, second, to never insult anybody unintentionally. If I insult you, you can be goddamn sure I intend to. And, third, he told me not to go around looking for trouble.”
– John Wayne
“Whenever you find humor, you find pathos close by his side”
– Edwin P. Whipple
“Always forgive your enemies; nothing annoys them so much.”
– Oscar Wilde
“Never trust a computer you can’t throw out a window.”
– Steve Wozniak
“Early in life I had to choose between arrogance and hypocritical humility. I chose honest arrogance and have seen no occasion to change.”
– Frank Lloyd Wright
“The most dangerous phrase in the language is ‘We’ve always done it this way.’ ”
— Grace Murray Hopper
“Nothing is impossible;
there are ways that lead to everything,
and if we had sufficient will
we should always have sufficient means.
It is often merely for an excuse
that we say things are impossible.”
— François de la Rouchefouclauld
“I hated every moment of training, but I said, ‘Don’t quit. Suffer now and live the rest of your life as a champion.'” – Muhammad Ali
“He who isn’t busy being born is busy dieing.” – Bob Dylan
…and one that just made my list, courtesy of Mark: “Short words are best and the old words when short are best of all.” – Sir Winston Churchill
“I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.”
– Thomas Alva Edison (1847-1931)
“The better you get, the better you better get.” – David Allen
“You don’t get paid for the hour. You get paid for the value you bring to the hour.” –Jim Rohn