Quotations

Quotations

SERVICE

"Ask not what your country can do for you: Ask what you can do for your country."  - John F. Kennedy, Inaugural Address, Jan. 20, 1961

"What shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?" - Bible, Mark 8:36

"The profit on a good action is to have done it." - Seneca, Letters to Lucilius (1st cen.), 81.20, trans. E. Phillips Barker

"Our deeds determine us, as much as we determine our deeds." - George Eliot, Adam Bede (1859), 20

"Men are all alike in their promises.  It is only in their deeds that they differ." - Moliere, The Miser (1668), I, trans. John Wood

"There is something better, if possible, that a man can give than his life.  That is his living spirit to a service that is not easy, to resist counsels that are hard to resist, to stand against purposes that are difficult to stand against." -

Woodrow Wilson, speech, May 30, 1919

KNOWLEDGE

"The fool doth think he is wise, but the wise man knows himself to be a fool." - Shakespeare, As You Like It (1599-1600), 5.1.34

"Knowledge is power." - Francis Backon, "De Haeresibus," Meditationes Sacrae (1597)

"Knowledge is the true organ of sight, not the eyes." - Panchatantra (c. 5th cen.), 2, trans. Franklin Edgerton

"What is it to be a philosopher?  Is it not to be prepared against events?" - Epictetus, Discourses (2nd cen.), 3.10, trans. Thomas W. Higginson

WORK

"Far and away the best prize that life offers is the chance to work hard at work worth doing." - Theodore Roosevelt, Labor Day Address, Syracuse, N.Y., 1903

"There is no meaning to life except the meaning man gives his life by the unfolding of his powers, by living productively." - Erich Fromm, Man for Himself (1947), 3 

A POSITIVE ATTITUDE

"Most folks are about as happy as they make up their minds to be." - Abraham Lincoln

"Do what you can with what you have where you are." - Theodore Roosevelt

"Carpe Diem!" (Seize the day!)

"Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm." - Emerson, "Circles," Essays: First Series (1841)

"That which does not kill me makes me stronger." - Nietzsche, "Maxims and Missiles," 8, Twilight of the Idols (1888), trans. Anthony M. Ludovici

"Yield not thy neck / To fortune's yoke, but let thy dauntless mind / Still ride in triumph over all mischance." - Shakespeare, 3 Henry VI (1590-1591), 3.3.16

"Happiness depends upon ourselves." - Aristotle, Nichomachean Ethics (4th cen. B.C.), 1.9, trans. J.A.K. Thomson

"There can be no progress if people have no faith in tomorrow." - John F. Kennedy, address, Inter-American Press Association, Miami Beach, Florida, Nov. 18, 1963

"They can do all because they think they can." - Vergil, Aeneid (30-19B.C.), 5.231, trans. T.H. Delabere-May

"There is no success without hardship." - Sophocles, Electra (c. 418-414 B.C.), trans. David Grene

"Who, except the gods, / can live time through forever without any pain?" - Aeschylus, Agamemnon (458 B.C.), trans. Richmond Lattimore

"A Wounded Deer - leaps highest." - Emily Dickinson, peom (c. 1862)

"Although the world is full of suffering, it is full also of the overcoming of it." - Helen Keller, Optimism (1903), I

BEGINNING

"A journey of a thousand miles must begin with a single step." - Chinese proverb

"It is better to begin in the evening than not at all." - English proverb

"If a man be self-controlled, truthful, wise, and resolute, is there aught that can stay out of the reach of such a man?" - Panchatantra (c. 5th cen.), 3, trans. Franklin Edgerton

OVERCOMING FEAR

"As a rule, what is out of sight disturbs men's minds more seriously than what they see." - Julius Caesar, Gallic War (58-52 B.C.), trans. H.J. Edwards

"He knows not his own strength that hath not met adversity." - Ben Jonson, "Explorata," Timber (1640)

"There is no man in this world without some manner of tribulation or anguish, though he be king or pope." - Thomas A Kempis, The Imitation of Christ (1426), 1. 22

"Fire is the test of gold; adversity, of strong men." - Seneca, On Providence (1st cen.), 5.9

"When written in Chinese, the word "crisis" is composed of two characters - one represents danger and the other represents opportunity." - John F. Kennedy, address, United Negro College Fund Convocation, Indianapolis, Indiana, April 12, 1959

"He that lies on the ground cannot fall." - Yiddish Proverbs (1949)

"It is folly to drown on dry land." - English proverb

COURAGE

"It is easy to be brave from a safe distance." - Aesop, "The Wolf and the Kid," Fables (6th cen. B.C.?), trans. Joseph Jacobs

"Courage is like love; it must have hope for nourishment." - Napoleon I, Maxims (1804-1815)

"Courage is the thing.  All goes if courage goes." - J.M. Barrie, Rectorial Address, St. Andrew's, May 3, 1922

"Courage is not a virtue or value among other personal values like love or fidelity.  It is the foundation that underlies and gives reality to all other virtues and personal values." - Rollo May, The Courage to Create (1975)

"Fortune favors the brave." - Terence, Phormio (161 B.C.), trans. William A. Oldfather

"To win without risk is to triumph without glory." - Corneille, Le Cid (1636), 2.2

POLITICS

"Political action is the highest responsibility of a citizen." - John F. Kennedy, campaign remarks, Pat Clancy dinner, Astor Hotel, New York City, Oct. 20, 1960

"The future lies with those wise political leaders who realize that the great public is interested more in government than in politics." - Franklin D. Roosevelt, speech, Washington, D.C., Jan. 8, 1940

"All politics is local." - Tip O'Neill, Man of the House (1987)

"Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely." - Lord Acton, letter to Mandell Creighton, April 5, 1887

"Your representative owes you, not his industry only, but his judgment; and he betrays instead of serving you if he sacrifices it to your opinion." - Edmund Burke, speech to the Electors of Bristol, Nov. 3, 1774

STRIVING FOR HIGHER GOALS

"What you are must always displease you, if you would attain to that which you are not." - St. Augustine, Sermons (5th cen.), 150

"Just as a cautious businessman avoids tying up all his capital in one concern, so, perhaps, worldly wisdom will advise us not to look for the whole of our satisfaction from a single aspiration." - Sigmund Freud, Civilization and Its Discontents (1930), 2, trans. James Strachey

"If you would hit the mark, you must aim a little above it;/ Every arrow that flies feels the attraction of earth." - Longfellow, "Elegiac Verse" (1881)

"He who bears in his heart a cathedral to be built is already victorious.  He who seeks to become sexton of a finished cathedral is already defeated." - Saint-Exupery, Flight to Arras (1942), 22, trans. Lewis Galantiere

"'Tis but a base, ignoble mind / That mounts no higher than a bird can soar." - Shakespeare, 2 Henry VI (1590-1591), 2.1

"We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars." - Oscar Wilde, Lady Windemere's Fan (1892), 3

"There is no object on earth which cannot be looked at from a cosmic point of view." - Dostoyevsky, "Critical Articles: Introduction," Polnoye Sobraniye Sochinyeni (Complete Collected Works, 1895), v. 9

"Either dance well or quit the ballroom." - Greek proverb

COURAGE

"It is easy to be brave from a safe distance." - Aesop, "The Wolf and the Kid," Fables (6th cen. B.C.?), trans. Joseph Jacobs

"Courage is like love; it must have hope for nourishment." - Napoleon I, Maxims (1804-1815)

"Courage is the thing.  All goes if courage goes." - J.M. Barrie, Rectorial Address, St. Andrew's, May 3, 1922

"Courage is not a virtue or value among other personal values like love or fidelity.  It is the foundation that underlies and gives reality to all other virtues and personal values." - Rollo May, The Courage to Create (1975)

"Fortune favors the brave." - Terence, Phormio (161 B.C.), trans. William A. Oldfather

"To win without risk is to triumph without glory." - Corneille, Le Cid (1636), 2.2

ECNOMICS (Milton Friedman)

"If you put the federal government in charge of the Sahara Desert, in 5 years there'd be a shortage of sand."

"I am in favor of cutting taxes under any circumstances and for any excuse, for any reason, whenever it's possible."

"The most important single central fact about a free market is that no exchange takes place unless both parties benefit."

"When everybody owns something, nobody owns it, and nobody has a direct interest in maintaining or improving its condition. That is why buildings in the Soviet Union -- like public housing in the United States -- look decrepit within a year or two of their construction..."

"There is all the difference in the world, however, between two kinds of assistance through government that seem superficially similar: first, 90 percent of us agreeing to impose taxes on ourselves in order to help the bottom 10 percent, and second, 80 percent voting to impose taxes on the top 10 percent to help the bottom 10 percent -- William Graham Sumner's famous example of B and C decided what D shall do for A. The first may be wise or unwise, an effective or ineffective way to help the disadvantaged -- but it is consistent with belief in both equality of opportunity and liberty. The second seeks equality of outcome and is entirely antithetical to liberty."

"When the United States was formed in 1776, it took 19 people on the farm to produce enough food for 20 people. So most of the people had to spend their time and efforts on growing food. Today, it's down to 1% or 2% to produce that food. Now just consider the vast amount of supposed unemployment that was produced by that. But there wasn't really any unemployment produced. What happened was that people who had formerly been tied up working in agriculture were freed by technological developments and improvements to do something else. That enabled us to have a better standard of living and a more extensive range of products."

"Nobody spends somebody else's money as carefully as he spends his own. Nobody uses somebody else's resources as carefully as he uses his own. So if you want efficiency and effectiveness, if you want knowledge to be properly utilized, you have to do it through the means of private property."

"Inflation is taxation without legislation."

"The great danger to the consumer is the monopoly -- whether private or governmental. His most effective protection is free competition at home and free trade throughout the world. The consumer is protected from being exploited by one seller by the existence of another seller from whom he can buy and who is eager to sell to him. Alternative sources of supply protect the consumer far more effectively than all the Ralph Naders of the world."

"(T)he supporters of tariffs treat it as self-evident that the creation of jobs is a desirable end, in and of itself, regardless of what the persons employed do. That is clearly wrong. If all we want are jobs, we can create any number -- for example, have people dig holes and then fill them up again, or perform other useless tasks. Work is sometimes its own reward. Mostly, however, it is the price we pay to get the things we want. Our real objective is not just jobs but productive jobs -- jobs that will mean more goods and services to consume."

GOVERNMENT

"It's important to realize that whenever you give power to politicians or bureaucrats, it will be used for what they want, not for what you want."-- Harry Browne

"Just because you do not take an interest in politics doesn't mean politics won't take an interest in you." -- Pericles, 430 B.C.

"Give government the weapons to fight your enemy and it will use them against you." -- Harry Browne

"Give a good man great powers and crooks grab his job." -- Rick Gaber

"Overload the police with victimless crimes and other minutiae and eventually only creeps and bullies remain cops." -- Rick Gaber

"Power draws the corrupted; absolute power would draw the absolutely corrupted." -- Colin Barth

"The more corrupt the state, the more numerous the laws." -- Tacitus, Roman senator and historian (A.D. c.56-c.115)

"The more prohibitions there are, the poorer the people will be. The more laws are promulgated, the more thieves and bandits there will be." -- Lao-tzu, The Tao Te Ching (believed written in China, 6th century BC).

"An oppressive government is much worse than a man-eating tiger." -- Kong Fu-Dzuh ("Confucious")