August 2016 Quotations (52)

"Most of the things worth doing in the world had been declared impossible before they were done."
~~ Justice Louis D. Brandeis [1856-1941]

"Luck is a tag given by the mediocre to account for the accomplishments of genius."
~~ Robert A. Heinlein [1907-88], in "Puppet Masters" [1951]

"I was only saying to the Queen the other day how I hate name dropping."
~~ Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. [1909-2000]

"Anyone who votes for Donald Trump is dumber than he is."
~~ G.E. Nordell

"History does not merely touch on language, but takes place in it."
~~ philosopher Theodor W. Adorno [1903-69]

"The primary purpose of any of the fine arts is to arouse a purely emotional reaction in the beholder."
~~ Walt Disney [1901-66]

Albert Einstein was once asked how it felt to be the smartest man alive.
Einstein's reply was "I don't know, you'll have to ask Nikola Tesla."

"The spirit of liberty is the spirit which is not too sure that it is right."
~~ Judge Learned Hand [1872-1961]

"I cannot remember the books [that] I’ve read any more than the meals [that] I have eaten; even so, they have made me."
~~ Ralph Waldo Emerson [1803-82]

"One learns first of all in beach living the art of shedding; how little one can get along with, not how much."
~~ Anne Morrow Lindbergh [1906-2001]

"God doesn't think everything is funny."
~~ David Letterman

"Books are the plane and the train and the road. They are the destination and the journey. They are home."
~~ author Anna Quindlen

"I am a deeply superficial person."
~~ Andy Warhol [1928-87]

"There is no friend as loyal as a book."
~~ Ernest Hemingway [1899-1961]

"Ofttimes a very small man can cast a very large shadow."
~~ George R.R. Martin

"Once you learn to read, you will be forever free."
~~ Frederick Douglass [1818-95]

"A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on."
~~ Sir Winston Churchill [1874-1965]

"There never yet have been, nor are there now, too many good books."
~~ Martin Luther [1483-1546]

"Not all readers are leaders, but all leaders are readers."
~~ Harry S. Truman [1884-1972]

"Books are a uniquely portable magic."
~~ author Stephen King

"Life is like writing with a pen. You can cross out your past but you can't erase it."
~~ E.B. White [1899-1985]

"The chief internal enemies of any state are those public officials who betray the trust imposed upon them by the people."
~~ screenwriter Dalton Trumbo [1905-76]

"Sometimes I have believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast."
~~ character Alice as written by Lewis Carroll (Charles Lutwidge Dodgson) [1832-98]

"Science fiction encourages us to explore . . . all the futures, good and bad, that the human mind can envision."
~~ Marion Zimmer Bradley [1930-99]

“Coffee is a way of stealing time that should by rights belong to your older self.”
~~ Terry Pratchett [1948-2015]

“The price of apathy towards public affairs is to be ruled by evil men.”
~~ Greek philosopher Plato [427-347 BCE]

"I would rather be able to appreciate things [that] I cannot have than to have things [that] I am not able to appreciate."
~~ Elbert Hubbard [1856-1915]

“Let us never cease from thinking: What is this ‘civilisation’ in which we find ourselves? What are these ceremonies and why should we take part in them? What are these professions and why should we make money out of them?”
~~ British author Virginia Woolf [1882-1941], in her anti-war essay “Three Guineas” (1938)

"Some people live more in twenty years than others do in eighty. It's not the time that matters but the person."
~~ "Doctor Who"

"It does not do to leave a live dragon out of your calculations, if you live near him."
~~ J.R.R. Tolkien [1892-1973]

"Health care must be recognized as a right, not a privilege. Every man, woman and child in our country should be able to access the health care they need regardless of their income. The only long-term solution to America's health care crisis is a single-payer national health care program."
~~ Sen. Bernie Sanders (8/2016)

"Impossible is just a big word thrown around by small men who find it easier to live in the world [that] they've been given than to explore the power [that] they have to change it."
~~ boxing great Muhammad Ali [1942-2016]

"It doesn't matter how many times you fail. You only have to be right once, and then everyone can tell you that you are an overnight success."
~~ Mark Cuban

"Talent is a pursued interest. Anything that you're willing to practice, you can do."
~~ painter & TV host Bob Ross [1942-95]

"There are worse things than losing an election. The worst thing is to lose one's convictions and not tell the people the truth."
~~ American statesman Adlai E. Stevenson II [1900-65]

"Aging is not lost youth but a new stage of opportunity and strength."
~~ Betty Friedan [1921-2006]

"Lighthouses don't go running all over an island looking for boats to save; they just stand there shining."
~~ novelist Anne Lamott

"It's not whether you win or lose, but whether you win."
~~ tagline on 'Trump The Board Game', 2004

"If large numbers of people are interested in freedom of speech, there will be freedom of speech, even if the law forbids it."
~~ George Orwell [1903-50]

"One climbs a mountain, not to conquer it, but to be lifted away from the earth up to the sky."
~~ Russell Banks

"We must reject not only the stereotypes that others have of us, but also those that we have of ourselves."
~~ American politician Shirley Chisolm [1924-2005]

"So, if we lie to the government it's a felony. But if they lie to us it's politics."
~~ Bill Murray

"The political technology of the Industrial Age is no longer appropriate technology for the new civilization taking form around us. Our politics are obsolete."
~~ futurist Alvin Toffler [1928-2016]

"Everything [that] we hear is an opinion, not a fact. Everything [that] we see is a perspective, not the truth."
~~ Marcus Aurelius [121-180 C.E.]

"Without libraries, what do we have? We have no past and no future."
~~ Ray Bradbury [1920-2012]

"No amount of belief makes something a fact."
~~ James Randi

"I don't know what lies around the bend, but I'm going to believe [that] the best does."
~~ L.M. Montgomery [1874-1942], in "Anne of Green Gables" [1908]

"If you look the right way, you can see that the whole world is a garden."
~~ Frances Hodgson Burnett [1849-1924], in "The Secret Garden" [1911]

"Today you are you / That is truer than true / There is no one alive / Who is youer than you."
~~ Dr. Seuss, in "Happy Birthday To You!" [1959]

"Inside all of us is hope. Inside all of us is fear. Inside all of us is adventure. Inside all of us is . . . a Wild Thing."
~~ Maurice Sendak [1928-2012], in "Where The Wild Things Are" [1963]

"I am not afraid of storms, for I am learning to sail my ship."
~~ Louisa May Alcott [1832-88], in "Little Women" [1868]

"The deepest sin against the human mind is to believe things without evidence."
~~ Thomas Henry Huxley [1825-95]

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