December 2011 Quotations

"Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will."
~~ Frederick Douglass [1818-95]

"Action will remove the doubts that theory cannot solve."
~~ Tehyi Hsieh [1884-1972]

"One person speaking up makes more noise than a thousand people who remain silent."
~~ Thom Hartnett

"Only one letter divides the comic from the cosmic."
~~ Vladimir Nabokov [1899-1977]

"Can anybody remember when the times were not hard and money not scarce?"
~~ Ralph Waldo Emerson [1803-82]

"We often take for granted the very things that most deserve our gratitude."
~~ novelist Cynthia Ozick

"Life doesn't run away from nobody. Life runs at people."
~~ boxing champion Joe Frazier [1944-2011]

"The ultimate result of shielding men from the effects of folly is to fill the world with fools."
~~ Herbert Spencer [1820-1903]

"It is a miserable thing to live in suspense; it is the life of a spider."
~~ Jonathan Swift [1667-1745]

"When morality comes up against profit, it is seldom that profit loses."
~~ Shirley Chisolm [1924-2005]

"The past is strapped to our backs. We do not have to see it; we can always feel it."
~~ journalist Mignon McLaughlin [1913-83]

"Being a celebrity is probably the closest to being a beautiful woman as you can get."
~~ Kevin Costner

"Our government is in our education."
~~ H.G. Wells [1866-1946]

"If we are to reach real peace in this world, we shall have to begin with the children."
~~ Mahatma Gandhi [1869-1948]

"It is easier to build strong children than to repair broken men."
~~ Frederick Douglass [1818-95]

"Your silence will not protect you."
~~ Audre Lorde [1934-92]

“In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act.”
~~ George Orwell [1903-50]

"Patriotism is supporting your country all of the time and your government when it deserves it."
~~ Mark Twain [1835-1910]

"True peace is not merely the absence of tension: it is the presence of justice."
~~ Martin Luther King, Jr. [1929-68]

"As individual fingers we can be broken, but together we make a mighty fist."
~~ Native American leader Sitting Bull [1831?-1890]

"Make cornbread, not war."
~~ Charleston, South Carolina chef Sean Brock

"If people actually knew what was happening, they would be really pissed off. They should be."
~~ activist Barbara A. Brenner

"Old age is not a disease, it is a triumph."
~~ Maggie Kuhn [1905-95], founder of the GrayPanthers

QUIDQUID LATINE DICTUM SIT, ALTUM VIDETUR
("Anything said in Latin sounds profound")

DIEM DULCEM HABES ("Have a nice day")

"Virtue is necessary for the good life but not sufficient for the good life."
~~ Aristotle [384-322 B.C.E.]
"Money is necessary for the good life but not sufficient for the good life."
~~ mis-attributed to Aristotle

"We are moving from a world created by privilege to a world created by community ... Global themes are emerging in response to cascading ecological crises and human suffering."
~~ eco-activist Paul Hawken

"The best way to be boring is to leave nothing out."
~~ Voltaire [1694-1778]

"It is better to live rich than to die rich."
~~ Dr. Samuel Johnson [1709-84]

"There's no such thing as bad weather, only inappropriate clothing."
~~ explorer Sir Ranulph Fiennes

"He who fights for his rights can lose; he who does not fight has lost already."
~~ German labor slogan

"The freedom of Mankind does not lie in the fact that [we] can do what we want, but that we do not have to do that which we do not want."
~~ per Jean-Jacques Rousseau [1712-78]

"You are master of your words, but, once spoken, they control you."
~~ author uncertain

"Life is a four-letter word."
~~ Lenny Bruce [1925-66]

{each set of posted quotations are then posted at the Working Minds website, alphabetical by author}