Absence diminishes
little passions and increases great ones, just as the wind blows out a candle
and fans a fire.
- Fran輟is de La Rouchefoucauld
I
never did anything worth doing by accident, nor did any of my inventions come by
accident.
- Thomas Edison
Everyone
is trying to accomplish something big, not realizing that life is made up of
little things.
- Frank A. Clark
You
may be disappointed if you fail but you are doomed if you don't try.
- Beverly Sills
Let our children grow tall and some taller than
others if they have it in them to do so.
- Margaret
Thatcher
Don't measure yourself by what you have
accomplished, but by what you should have accomplished with your ability.
- John Wooden
Don't
use your conscious past. Use your
creative imagination to create a past that belongs to your characters.
- Stella Adler
Ideas
are a dime a dozen. People who put
them into action are priceless.
Actions
speak louder than words.
Get
action. Do things; be sane, don't
fritter away your time . . . take a place wherever you are and be somebody; get
action.
- Theodore Roosevelt
Trust
only movement. Life happens at the
level of events not of words. Trust
movement.
- Alfred Adler
Action
is the basis of competition, execution, and achievement.
- Nicholas Pratt
Action
is the source of power.
- Nicholas Pratt
Act
quickly, think slowly.
- Greek proverb
Make
up your mind to act decidedly and take the consequences.
No good is ever done in this world by hesitation.
- Thomas Henry Huxley
Now
is the time to act; you can sort out the details later.
- Barclay Knapp
The
emotions are not always subject to reason . . . but they are always subject to
action. When thoughts do not
neutralize an undesirable emotion, action will.
- William James (1842-1910), philosopher and psychologist
If
you live in the river you should make friends with the crocodile.
- Indian proverb
You
must shift your sail with the wind.
- Italian proverb
If
the wind will not serve, take to the oars.
- Latin proverb
Every
adversity contains within it the seed of an equivalent or greater good.
- Princes of Serendip
When
one door of happiness closes another door opens; but often we look so long at
the closed door that we do not see the one that has been opened for us.
- Hellen Keller
Prosperity
is a great teacher; adversity is a greater one. Possession pampers the mind; privation trains and strengthens
it.
- William Hazlitt
Never
give up. Never, never, never, never give up.
- Winston Churchill
He
who has never failed somewhere, that man cannot be great.
- Herman Melville
Nothing
splendid has ever been achieved except by those who dared believe that something
inside them was superior to circumstance.
- Bruce Barton
The
measure of a man is the way he bears up under misfortune.
- Plutarch
The
beauty of the soul shines out when a man bears with composure one heavy
mischance after another, not because he does not feel them, but because he is a
man of high and heroic temper.
- Aristotle
Acceptance
of what has happened is the first step to overcoming the consequences of any
misfortune.
- William James
If
I were asked to give what I consider the single most useful bit of advice for
all humanity, it would be this: Expect trouble as an inevitable part of life,
and when it comes, hold your head high, look it squarely in the eye and say,
"I will be bigger than you. You
cannot defeat me." Then repeat
to yourself the most comforting of all words, "This too shall pass."
Maintaining self-respect in the face of a devastating experience is of
prime importance.
Discover
someone to help shoulder your misfortunes.
Then you will never be alone . . . neither fate, nor the crowd, so
readily attacks two.
- Baltasar Gracian
The
harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheaply,
we esteem too lightly; it is dearness only that gives everything its value. I
love the man that can smile in trouble, that can gather strength from distress
and grow brave by reflection.
- Thomas Paine
Difficulty
is an excuse history never accepts.
- Edward R. Murrow (1908-1965), broadcast journalist
Give
advice; if people don't listen, let adversity teach them.
- Ethiopian proverb
Difficulties
make you a jewel.
- Japanese proverb
Nobody
can give you wiser advice than yourself.
Advice
is what we ask for when we already know the answer but wish we didn't.
- Erica Jong
Seek
advice from those only whom you deem competent to give it, and then you need not
hesitate to follow it. Receive good
advice gracefully, asked or unasked.
- Charles Simmons
Write
down the advice of him who loves you, though you like it not at present.
- English proverb
Be
wary of the man who urges an action in which he himself incurs no risk.
- Joaquin Setanti
Neither
cast ye your pearls before swine.
- New Testament, Matthew 7:6
Don't
give cherries to a pig; don't give advice to a fool.
- Irish proverb
Life
is short and we never have enough time for gladdening the hearts of those who
travel the way with us.
O, be swift
to love! Make haste to be kind.
- Henri F. Amiel
If
you have a friend worth loving,
Love him. Yes, and let him know
That
you love him, ere life's evening
Tinge his brow with sunset glow.
Why
should good words ne'er be said
Of
a friend till he is dead?
- Daniel W. Hoyt
Talk
not of wasted affection! Affection
never was wasted. . . .
- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Don't
expect others to take as much interest in you as you do yourself. . . . No
person should be expected to distort the main lines of his life for the sake of
another individual. On occasion
there may exist such a strong affection that even the greatest sacrifices become
natural, but if they are not natural they should not be made, and no person
should be held blameworthy for not making them.
- Bertrand Russell
Every
man desires to live long, but no man wishes to be old.
- Jonathon Swift
Youth is not entirely a time of life; it is a
state of mind. Nobody grows old by
merely living a number of years. People
grow old by deserting their ideals. You
are as young as your faith, as old as your doubt; as young as your
self-confidence, as old as your fear; as young as your hope, as old as your
despair.
In the central place of
every heart, there is a recording chamber; so long as it receives messages of
beauty, hope, cheer, and courage, so long are you young.
- Douglas Mac Arthur (1880-1964), general, U.S. Army
Thomas
Carlyle was once talking to a young friend, and asked him what his aim in life
was. The young man replied that he
had none. "Get one, then, and
get it quick," said Carlyle,
sharply. "Make something your
specialty. Life is a very uncertain
affair. Knowing a little about five
hundred things won't do us much good. We
must be able to do something well, that our work will be needed and
valuable."
- Kate L. Gates
Make
no little plans; they have no magic to stir men's blood....Make big plans, aim
high in hope and work.
- Daniel H. Burnham
Aim
for the highest.
- Andrew Carnegie
Slight
not what's near, while aiming at what's far.
- Euripides, Rhesus
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.
- Mark Twain
First,
you must be ambitious, but you must not be so nakedly aggressive that your
fellow workers rise up and destroy you. Tout
soldat porte dans sa giberne le baton de marechal.
[Every soldier has a marshal's baton in his knapsack.]
Yes, but don't let it stick out.
- David M. Ogilvy
Children,
you must remember something. A man
without ambition is dead. A man
with ambition but no love is dead. A
man with ambition and love for his blessings here on earth is ever so alive.
Having been alive, it won't be so hard in the end to lie down and rest.
Do
well and you will have no need for ancestors.
- Voltaire
Rejoice,
O Sancho, in the humility of thy lineage and scorn not to say, thou camest of
labouring men, for when thou art not ashamed thyself, no body will seek to make
thee so. . . . If you follow virtue for your mean, and strive to do virtuous
deeds, you need not envy those that are born of Princes and great men, for blood
is inherited, but virtue is achieved.
- Don Quixote to Sancho Panza in Miguel de Cervantes' Don
Quixote
Anyone
can become angry葉hat is easy. But
to be angry with the right person, to the right degree, at the right time, for
the right purpose, and in the right way葉hat is not easy.
- Aristotle,
The Nichomachean Ethics
Never
forget what a man says to you when he is angry.
- Henry Ward Beecher
To
obtain a man's opinion of you, make him mad.
- Oliver Wendell Holmes
When
anger rises, think of the consequences.
- Confucius
Never
do anything when you are in a temper, for you will do everything wrong.
- Baltasar Gracian
Anger
is what arouses you to challenge a situation.
Aim to use it to improve things. Often,
with it, you can change things.
When
someone asks you a question you don't want to answer, smile and ask, "Why
do you want to know?"
Remember that silence is sometimes the best answer.
Do
not . . . hope wholly to reason away your troubles; do not feed them with
attention, and they will die imperceptibly away. Fix your thoughts upon your business, fill your intervals
with company, and sunshine will again break in upon your mind.
- Samuel Johnson
Don't
worry about your physical shortcomings (I am no Greek god).
Don't get too much sleep and don't tell anybody your troubles.
Appearances count: Get a sun
lamp to keep you looking as though you have just come back from somewhere
expensive; maintain an elegant address even if you have to live in the attic. .
. . Never niggle when short of cash. Borrow
big, but always repay promptly.
- Aristotle Onassis
Keep
up appearances; there lies the test;
The world will give the credit for the rest.
- Charles Churchill
We
are charmed by neatness of person; let not thy hair be out of order.
- Ovid
Beware
so long as you live, of judging people by appearances.
- La Fontaine
Be
not deceived with the first appearance of things, for show is not substance.
- English proverb
"Vestis
virum reddit." [The clothes make the man.]
- Marcus Fabius Quintilianus
Be
not swept off your feet by the vividness of the impression, but say,
"Impression, wait for me a little.
Let me see what you are and what you represent. Let me try you."
- Epictetus
It's
no use trying to sum people up. One
must follow hints, not exactly what is said, nor yet entirely what is done.
- Virginia Woolf
Whenever
you start measuring somebody, measure him right, child, measure him right.
Make sure you done taken into account what hills and valleys he came
through before he got to wherever he is.
- Mama, in the play A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry
Let
us take men as they are, not as they ought to be.
- Franz Schubert
Measure
men round the heart.
- English proverb
If
you want to judge a man, take a look at his enemies.
- Harry Golden
I usually make up my mind about a man in ten
seconds, and I rarely change it.
- Margaret
Thatcher
Audi
partem alterum. (Hear the other
side)
- Saint Augustine
Be
not too fond of argument. . . . Rather suggest what remarks may have occurred to
you on a subject than aim at dictating your opinions to others or at defending
yourself on all points. You will
learn more by agreeing in the main with others and entering into their trains of
thinking, than by contradicting and urging them to extremities.
For
corporations to be bedfellows with the arts is good business for both.
The architecture that houses a company is a more visible statement than
the president's in the annual report. Ditto
interiors, particularly of offices and sometimes, dramatically, in plants.
For solvent businesses, support of community cultural undertakings in
music, drama, and dance creates great goodwill.
Also, the existence of such activities is often important to the
executives and their families that companies want to keep or attract to keep.
- Malcom Forbes
He
who asks is a fool for five minutes, but he who does not ask remains a fool
forever.
- Chinese proverb
Ask, and it shall be given you;
Seek, and ye shall find;
Knock, and it shall be opened unto you;
For every one that asketh receiveth;
And he that seeketh findeth;
And to him that knocketh it shall be opened.
- Jesus of Nazareth
What
we seek we shall find; what we flee from flees from us; . . . and hence the high
caution, that, since we are sure of having what we wish, we beware to ask only
for high things.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
Go,
seeker, if you will, throughout the land. . . . Observe the whole of it, survey
it as you might survey
a field. . . . It's your oyster遥ours to open if you
will. . . . Just make yourself at home, refresh yourself, get the feel of
things, adjust your sights, and get the scale. . . . To every man his
chance葉o every man, regardless of his birth, his shining, golden
opportunity葉o every man the right to live, to work, to be himself, and to
become whatever thing his manhood and his vision can combine to make him葉his,
seeker, is the promise of America.
Know
how to ask. There is nothing more
difficult for some people, nor for others, easier.
- Baltasar Gracian
You
will not be discouraged if the world does not rush to you, demanding what you
have. . . . Neither will you quietly sit down to let the world wonder and then
seek you; but you will be aggressive; you will carry your truths to people and
cause them to see them so clearly that they must accept them.
- Edith Kincaid Butler
I
would like to amend the idea of being in the right place at the right time.
There are many people who were in the right place at the right time but
didn't know it. You have to recognize when the right place and the right time
fuse and take advantage of the opportunity.
There are plenty of opportunities out there.
You can't sit back and wait.
- Ellen Metcalf
If
you aspire to anything better than politics, expect no cooperation from men.
They will not further anything good. You
must prevail of your own force, as a plant springs and grows by its own
vitality.
- Henry David Thoreau
If
your daily life seems poor, do not blame it; blame yourself, tell yourself that
you are not poet enough to call fourth its riches.
- Rainer Maria Rilke
Any fact facing us is not as important as our
attitude toward it, for that determines our success or failure.
- Norman Vincent
Peale
The
greatest revolution of our generation is the discovery that human beings, by
changing the inner attitude of their minds, can change the outer aspects of
their lives.
- William James (1842-1910), psychologist, philosopher, and writer
Copyright 2002 by Pratt Systems. All rights reserved worldwide.