Quotations are the fundamental distillation of a writer’s life and thinking as recorded in words and phrases for posterity. Through them the reader is afforded the unique opportunity to share in the thoughts, the life and the experiences of the writer. In a special way, they offer the reader a window into the mind of the author and hopefully an inducement to read further and learn more about the author and the story he relates.


On a wider scale, they are, as William Feather wrote, “the wisdom of the wise and the experience of the ages preserved into perpetuity“, and as such they are available for the enrichment and enhancement of humanity, regardless of age, sex, race, educational or economic status. They are indeed, as the Talmud states, “food for the famished”.

The collection of quotations presented in this blog, have been chosen by me because of their special impact upon me. They have been published so that you too, may experience the joy I have had over the years reading them and getting to know the authors.


I trust that you will come to know the feeling of deep satisfaction possible from reading them, searching out the author and meditating upon their meaning and their impact on your life.

Wednesday, April 30, 2008

SACRIFICE

Greater love hath no man than this; that a man lay down his life for his friends. John 13:15

The key to faith, is what we are willing to Sacrifice to obtain it. ….. Elder Cloward

Good manners are made up of petty Sacrifices. …….. Ralph Waldo Emerson

You can have anything in life,
if you will Sacrifice everything else for it. ……James Matthew Barrie

The true courage of civilized nations
is readiness for Sacrifice in the service of the state. …..…George Hegel

He who would accomplish little must Sacrifice little;
He who would achieve much must Sacrifice much;
He who would attain highly, must Sacrifice greatly. …..James Allen

burns a picture to obtain the ashes. …..Chinese Proverb

In this world it is not what we take up,
but what we Sacrifice, that makes us rich. ……. Henry W. Beecher

Sunday, April 27, 2008

TRUTH

04/27/08
This above all; to thine own self be True, and it must follow, as the night the day, thou canst not be false to any man. …… William Shakespeare

In this time of universal deceit, telling the Truth is a revolutionary act. …..George Orwell

A Truth spoken before its time is dangerous. …….Author Unknown.

There’s a world of difference between Truth and Facts;
Facts can obscure Truth. …… Maya Angelou.

Truth is generally the best vindication against slander. …….Abraham Lincoln

If you tell the Truth you don’t have to remember anything. ……..Mark Twain

Truth comes as conqueror only to those
who have lost the art of receiving it as friend. ……. Rabindranath Tagore

The search for Truth implies a duty;
One must not conceal any part of what one has recognized to be.
……Albert Einstien

NEIGHBOR

You shall love your Neighbor as yourself. …..Matthew 22:39

Far better a Neighbor near you, than a brother far off. … …Proverbs 27:10
(submitted by Elias Fares)

You can fool the devil, but you can’t fool the Neighbors. ……Francis Bacon

When strangers start acting like Neighbors;
….Communities are reinvigorated. ……Ralph Nader

Don’t throw stones at your Neighbors;
Especially, if your own windows are glass. …..Benjamin Franklin

Few of us could bear to have ourselves as Neighbors. ……Mignon McLaughlin

Great Spirit, grant that I may not criticize my Neighbor;
Until I have walked a mile in his moccasins. …… American Indian Prayer.

A man is called selfish not for pursuing his own good,
but for neglecting his Neighbor's. …….Richard Whately

Thursday, April 24, 2008

NATURE

Nature abhors a Vacuum. ……Author Unknown

Nature is the art of God. ……..Thomas Browne

Adopt the pace of Nature: her secret is Patience. …….Ralph Waldo Emerson

Nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished. …….Lao Tzu

Look deep into Nature, and then you will understand everything better. …..Albert Einstein

Nature uses only the longest threads to weave her patterns,
so that each small piece of her fabric reveals the organization of the entire tapestry. …..Richard Feynmon

Nature is an infinite sphere of which the center is everywhere,
and the circumference nowhere. …..Pascall

We do not see Nature with our eyes,
but with our understandings and our hearts. …..William Hazlitt

Monday, April 21, 2008

FAILURE

Failure is an event, never a person. …….William D. Brown,

Failure is the condiment that gives Success its flavor. .…Truman Capote

There are two kinds of Failure;
Those who thought but never did,
and those who did but never thought. ......Lawrence E. Peters.

He who risks and fails can be forgiven.
He who never risks and never fails,
is a failure in his whole being. ………Paul Tillich

Failure is only the opportunity to begin again,
This time, more intelligently. ……..Henry Ford

The men who try to do something and fail are infinitely better
than those who try to do nothing and succeed. …..Lloyd Jones

Rather Fail with honor than succeed by Fraud. ...Sophocles

It does not matter how many times you fall,
What matters above all, is the first time you do not get up,
For then and only then , you will have Failed . .......Edward A. Moses

Failure is success, if we learnt from it. ......Malcolm S. Forbes

No man is a failure who has friends. …….Clarence, “It’s a Wonderful Life”

Understand that failure is not the opposite of Success,
It's part of Success. …..Ariana Huffington

It is fine to celebrate success, but
It is more important to heed the lessons of failure ….Bill Gates

You may be disappointed if you Fail;
But you are doomed if you don't. ......Beverly Sills

Thursday, April 17, 2008

BRAVERY

Bravery never goes out of fashion. ……William Makepeace Thakery

The brave man is not he who does not feel afraid,
but he who conquers that fear. …….Nelson Mandella

It is more Brave to live, than to Die. …… Lord Edward Lytton

Physical bravery is an animal instinct;
Moral bravery is a much higher and truer courage. …..Wendell Phillips

History admires the Wise, but favors the Brave. ……Edmund Morris

Bravery is believing in yourself, and that, Nobody can teach you. ……El Cordobes

Friday, April 11, 2008

CHANGE

God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change;
The courage to change the things I can;
And the wisdom to know the difference. …….Reinhold Niebuhr

You must be the Change you wish to see in the world. ……Mohandas Gandhi

He who rejects Change is the architect of decay ……..Harold Wilson

Change always comes bearing gifts. …….Price Pritchett

If nothing ever changed, there'd be no butterflies. …….Author Unknown

Things do not change; We change. …….Henry David Thoreau

Everything changes; Nothing remains without Change …….Buddha

Change your thoughts and you change your World. …….Norman Vincent Peele

There is nothing permanent except Change. …….Heraclitus

When you Change the way you look at things,
The things you look at, will Change. ……Wayne Dyer

They must often Change;
Who would be constant in happiness and wisdom. …..Confucius

The man who never Changes his mind;
Is like standing water and breeds reptiles of the mind. ……William Blake

Survival of a species does not depend on strength or Intelligence;
But to the one most responsive to Change. …….Charles Darwin

If you want to truly understand something, try Changing it. …..Kurt Lewin

Change alone, is eternal, perpetual and immortal. ….Arthur Schopenhauer

Without Change, something sleeps inside us; and seldom awakens. ….Frank Herbert

Any Change, even a change for the better,
is always accompanied by drawbacks and discomforts. ……Arnold Bennett

He who is the Glory of Israel does not lie or Change his mind;
for he is not a man, that he should Change his mind. …….1 Samuel 15:29

Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time.
We are the ones we've been waiting for; We are the Change that we seek.
……Barack Obama
Change, like sunshine, can be a friend or a foe;
It can be a blessing or a curse; a dawn or a dusk. …..William A. Ward

I thought poetry could Change everything;
Now I think that poetry changes only the poet. ……Mahwood Darwish

They say time Changes everything;
But you actually have to Change them yourself. …….. Andy Warhol

Become a student of Change:
It is the only thing that remains constant. …….Anthony J. D’Angelo

It is not the strongest of the species that survive;
Nor the most intelligent,
But the most responsive to Change. …….Charles Darwin

To Change; and to change for the better,
are two different things. …….German Proverb

True life is lived when tiny Changes occur. ……Leo Tolstoy

Change starts when someone sees the next step. …….William Drayton

Be the change you want to see in the world. ……..Mohandas Gandhi

Everyone thinks of Changing the world,
but no one thinks of Changing himself. ……Leo Tolstoy

Progress is impossible without Change;
And those who cannot change their minds,
Cannot change anything. ……George Bernard Shaw.

We must carefully examine Change so that we are able to discard
those aspects of change which would be detrimental to our way of life,
and, at the same time, take advantage of those aspects of change
which will enhance and improve our quality of life. …….Alex Campbell

JELOUSY

Jealousy is the jaundice of the soul. ….. John Dryden

There is no greater glory than love,
nor any greater punishment than jealousy. …Lope de Vega

It is not love that is blind, but jealousy. ……..Lawrence Durrell,

Jealousy injures us with the dagger of self-doubt. …..Leslie Grimutter

And oft, my Jealousy shapes faults that are not. ……William Shakespeare

The Jealous bring down the curse they fear upon their own heads. ……..Dorothy Dix

Of all the passions, Jealousy is that which exacts the hardest service and pays the bitterest wages. …… Charles Caleb Colton

The jealous are troublesome to others, but a torment to themselves. ……William Penn

Jealousy is the tie that binds, and binds, and binds. ……..Helen Rowland

Monday, April 7, 2008

HOPE

While there's Life, there's Hope .......Cicero

Once you choose Hope, anything’s possible. ……. .Christopher Reeve

Hope is Faith holding out its hand in the dark. …….George Iles

Hope is like a road in the country.
It was never a road until many people walked on it,
then the road comes into existence. ......Lin Yu Tang

The miserable have no other medicine, only Hope. ……….William Shakespeare

He that lives upon Hope will die fasting. ………Benjamin Franklin

When you take Hope from the heart of man;
You make him a Beast of Prey .....Ouida

Learn from yesterday,
Live for today,
Hope for tomorrow. …Albert Einstein

There is no Hope unmingled with Fear,
and no Fear unmingled with Hope. ………Baruch Spinoza


To travel Hopefully is a better thing than to arrive. ……Robert Louis Stevenson

He who does not Hope to win, has already lost. …..Jose Joaquin Olmedo

Hope is the last thing that dies in man. ……Francois de la Rochefoucauld

Hope is nature’s veil for hiding truth’s nakedness. …..Alfred Nobel

He who has health, has Hope;
And he who has Hope has everything. ……Arabian Proverb

To eat bread without Hope is still slowly to starve to death. ….Pearl S. Buck

Hope never abandons you;
..You abandon it. ….George Weinburg

What strength do I have, that I should still Hope?
What prospects, that I should be patient? ……Job 6:8

Hope is a waking Dream …..Aristotle

We suffer from an incurable malady: Hope. ……Mahmoud Darwish

When the world says, “Give up”;
Hope whispers, “Try it one more time” ……Author Unknown

A prime function of a leader is to keep Hope alive. …… John William Gardner

Hope is not the conviction that something will turn out well;
But the certainty that something makes sense, regardless of how it turns out.
…….Vaclav Havel

Hope is the companion of power and the mother of success;
For who so hopes has within him the gift of miracles. ……Samuel Smiles

Sunday, April 6, 2008

LOYALTY

I will follow thee to the last gasp, with truth and loyalty. …….. William Shakespeare

Loyalty means nothing unless it has at its heart, the absolute principle of self-sacrifice.
……Woodrow Wilson

An ounce of loyalty is worth a pound of cleverness. …….Morton C. Blackwell

Lack of Loyalty is one of the major causes of failure in every walk of life. ……..Napoleon Hill

Loyalty is the sister of Justice …….Horace

Loyalty is the pledge of truth to oneself and others. ……Ada Velez-Boardley

Loyalty is a fine quality, but in excess it fills political graveyards. ……..Neil Kinnock

Thursday, April 3, 2008

MEMORIES

Memories are the treasures locked deep within the storehouse of our souls;
To keep our hearts warm when we are lonely. …….Becky Aligada

Take care of all your Memories, for you cannot relive them. ......Bob Dylan

We must always have old Memories and young hopes. ........Arsene Houssave

The richness of life lies in Memories we have forgotten ……Cesare Pavese

Our Memories are the only paradise, from which we can never be expelled. …….Jean Paul Richter

It's surprising how much Memory is built around things unnoticed at the time. ……..Barbara Kingsolver

Anyone who limits her vision to Memories of yesterday is already dead. ……..Lillie Langtry

Wednesday, April 2, 2008

LOVE

There is no remedy for love but to love more. ……Henry David Thoreau

The hunger for love is much more difficult to remove than the hunger for bread. ….Mother Teresa

One word frees us of all the weight and pain of life, that word is love. ……Sophocles

Love would never be a promise of a rose garden, unless it is showered with light of faith, water of sincerity and air of passion. ……Author Unknown

Love is the master key that opens the gates of happiness. ……..Oliver Wendell Holmes

Love is, above all, the gift of oneself. …….Jean Anouilh

Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength; Loving someone deeply gives you courage. ……… Lao Tzu

Love is a canvas furnished by nature and embroidered by imagination. …….. Voltaire

Love still remains when you lose everything else, especially life. …..Anastasi

I have found the paradox that if I love until it hurts;
then there is no hurt, but only more Love. …….Mother Teresa

Love is the only sane and satisfactory answer to the problem of human existence. …..Eric Fromm

Love is an act of endless forgiveness. …….Peter Ustinov

Love is, above all, the gift of oneself. …….Jean Anouilh

Love does not consist of gazing at each other, but in looking together in the same direction. ……Antoine de Saint-Exupery

Love is like a Butterfly;
Hold it to tight, it will be crushed,
Hold it too loose, it will fly away. Author Unknown

Love is always open arms. If you close your arms about love, you will find that you are left holding only yourself. ……..Leo Buscaglia.

Only in love are unity and duality not in conflict. ……..Rabindranath Tagore

The Joys of Love are but a moment long; The Pain of Love endures the whole life long. ……Martini il Tedesco (“Plaisir D’Amour”)

Tuesday, April 1, 2008

FRIENDSHIP

A friendship founded on business is better than a business founded on friendship. …….John D. Rockefeller
In the End, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends. …….Martin Luther King, Jr.

Friendship... is not something you learn in school.
But if you haven't learned the meaning of friendship,
you really haven't learned anything. ……Muhammad Ali

Friendships are fragile things, and require as much handling
as any other fragile and precious thing. ……., Randolph Bourne

Friendships are discovered rather than made. ……….Harriet Beecher Stowe

The path of social advancement is,
and must be, strewn with broken friendships. ……. H. G. Wells


A Friend does not point a finger, he holds out his hands. …….Edward A. Moses

A Real Friend is like an angel who warms you with her presence;
-And remembers you in her prayers. ……Henry David Thoreau

I thank you, God, in Heaven, for Friends. …..Margaret Sangster

Friendship is precious, not only in the shade,
But also, in the sunshine of life. …..Thomas Jefferson

Friendship is love, with understanding. …..Ancient Proverb

Do not protect yourself with a fence,
But rather with your Friends. ……Czech Proverb

When the character of a man unclear,
Look at his Friends. …….Japanese Proverb

We are advertised by our loving Friends. …….William Shakespeare

We secure our Friends not by accepting favors,
-But by doing them. ……Thucydides

You can make a thousand enemies a day;
But a true Friend will take you a thousand years to make. ……Elias Fares


Friends are like flowers in the garden of life. ……Author Unknown

Don’t walk behind me, I may not lead.
Don’t walk ahead of me, I may not follow.
Just walk beside me and be my Friend. ……Albert Camus

What is a Friend?
A single soul dwelling in two bodies! ……Aristotle

A True Friend is the greatest of all blessings;
And that which we take least care of all to acquire. ….Francois be la Rochefoucauld

Friends are like companions on a journey;
who ought to aid each other to Persevere in the road to a happier life. …..Pythagoras

A Friend loves at all times. …..Proverbs 17:17

Friendship is always a sweet responsibility, never an opportunity. …….Khalil Gibran

Be a Friend to thyself, and others will too. ……Thomas Fuller

Friendship improves happiness and abates misery;
By doubling of our joy and dividing of our grief. ……Marcus Tullius Cicero

Friendship is the only cure for hatred;
The only guarantee of peace. …….Buddha

One of the most beautiful qualities of true Friendship,
Is to understand and be understood …….Seneca

LOGIC

Hypothetical Questions get hypothetical answers. …….Joan Baez

A mind all Logic is like a knife, all blade;
It makes the hand bleed, that uses it. ……..Rabindranath Tagore

Logic is neither a science nor an art, but a dodge. …….Benjamin Jowett

Logic is like the sword. Those who appeal to it, shall perish by it…….Samuel Butler.

Logic, like whiskey, loses its beneficial effect,
when taken in too large quantities. …....Lord Dunsany

Logics will get you from A to B,
Imagination will take you everywhere. ..…Albert Einstein