July 2018 Quotations (59)

"I have long believed [that] the 2018 elections will almost certainly be the most consequential midterms of my lifetime."
~~ Dan Rather on twitter (@DanRather)

“If you are afraid to speak against tyranny, then you are already a slave.”
~~ John Bryant [1943-2009]

“The response to tyranny . . . must always be this: Dismantle it.”
~~ Barry Lopez

“Eliminate the clutter and all the things that are going on outside and focus on the things that you can control with how you sort of go about and take care of your business. … It’s the process of what it takes to be successful.”
~~ Nick Saban, football coach at University of Alabama

"Leadership is not about titles, positions, or flowcharts. It is about one life influencing another.”
~~ John C. Maxwell

"No right worth fighting for is ever earned without a fight. Selma, Stonewall, Seneca Falls - channel the struggle and spirit of those who came before you. Understand that this is your time now. And make it count for them, for those around you, for those whose lives are yet to come."
~~ actor George Takei on twitter

"I believe that, come summer, ice cream is considered one of the major food groups."
~~ outdoor writer John Clary Davies

"Expect the best, plan for the worst, and prepare to be surprised."
~~ motivational speaker Denis Waitley

"To sin by silence when they should protest makes cowards of men."
~~ Abraham Lincoln [1809-65]

“Liberty, when it begins to take root, is a plant of rapid growth.”
~~ George Washington [1732-99]

“Set your life on fire. Seek those who fan your flames.”
~~ Persian poet & mystic Rumi [1207-73]

"The two most common elements in the universe are hydrogen and stupidity."
~~ sci-fi author Harlan Ellison [1934-2018]

“Banning books gives us silence when we need speech. It closes our ears when we need to listen. It makes us blind when we need sight.”
~~ writer-director Stephen Chbosky

“You have to accept whatever comes, and the only important thing is that you meet it with the best you have to give.”
~~ Eleanor Roosevelt [1884-1962]

"The only reason I would take up jogging is so I could hear the sound of heavy breathing again."
~~ Erma Bombeck [1927-96]

"The greatest discovery of my generation is that human beings, by changing the inner attitudes of their minds, can change the outer aspects of their lives."
~~ philosopher and psychologist William James [1842-1910]

"If you do not have a good father, you should procure one."
~~ Friedrich Nietzsche [1844-1900]

"Under a government which imprisons unjustly, the true place for a just man is also a prison."
~~ Henry David Thoreau [1817-62]

"You can laugh about anything, but not with anyone."
~~ French comedian Pierre Desproges [1939-88]

"That men do not learn very much from the lessons of history is one of the most important of all the lessons that history has to teach."
~~ Aldous Huxley [1894-1963]

"The trouble with some women is that they get all excited about nothing – and then marry him."
~~ actress-singer Cher

"Stop calling it ‘meddling’. It’s actually information warfare."
~~ Dr. Brian Klaas of London, U.K.

"Most people associate reading with laying on the beach. They don't see that [reading is] crucial for democracy."
~~ author David Baldacci

“I’d like to have kids. I get those maternal feelings. Like when I’m laying on the couch and I can’t reach the remote control.”
~~ comedian Kathleen Madigan

“Once you have children, it forever changes the way you bore other people.”
~~ cartoonist Bruce Eric Kaplan {BEK}

"The universe is not complicated. There's just a lot of it."
~~ physicist Richard P. Feynman [1918-88]

"You can never go wrong by voting for a bill that fails, or against a bill that passes."
~~ politician Bob Dole

"To be born is to be wrecked on an island."
~~ British playwright J.M. Barrie [1860-1937]

"The only function of economic forecasting is to make astrology look respectable."
~~ John Kenneth Galbraith [1908-2006]

"The surest sign that intelligent life exists elsewhere in the universe is that it has never tried to contact us."
~~ cartoonist Bill Watterson

"I drink to make other people more interesting."
~~ Ernest Hemingway [1899-1961]

"Life itself is the proper binge."
~~ Julia Child [1912-2004]

"All men and women stand equal under the sky."
~~ Georgia O'Keeffe [1887-1986]

"Reading all the books that must be read is like going to the beach and drinking up the ocean."
~~ reporter Murali Krishnan

"To myself, I am the only child playing on the beach, while vast oceans of truth lie undiscovered before me."
~~ Sir Isaac Newton [1643-1727]

"For to be free is not merely to cast off one's chains, but to live in a way that respects and enhances the freedom of others."
~~ Nelson Mandela [1918-2013]

"Today's press conference in Helsinki was one of the most disgraceful performances by an American president in memory."
~~ Sen. John McCain of Arizona

"Those who play with the devil's toys will be brought by degrees to wield his sword."
~~ visionary R. Buckminster Fuller [1895-1983]

"Great things in business are never done by one person. They're done by a team of people."
~~ Steve Jobs [1955-2011]

"Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities."
~~ Voltaire [1694-1778]

"Illegal immigrants caught voting should be stripped of their citizenship."
~~ idiot Ben Carson, as Secretary of Housing and Urban Development

"If you love life, don't waste time, for time is what life is made up of."
~~ Bruce Lee [1940-73]

"America's problems have nothing to do with what happens in bedrooms, or whether women are allowed to end their pregnancies. Our problems have to do with what occurs in boardrooms, and whether corporations and wealthy individuals are allowed to undermine our democracy."
~~ Robert B. Reich

"It's not hoarding if it's books."
~~ The Great American Read on PBS

"When the speech condemns a free press, you are hearing the words of a tyrant."
~~ Thomas Jefferson [1743-1826]

"Sometimes the fastest way to start doing what works for you is to stop doing what doesn't work."
~~ Jeffrey Allen

"When the debate is lost, slander becomes the tool of the loser."
~~ Socrates [469-399 B.C.E.]

"Nothing external to me can have any power over me."
~~ Walt Whitman [1819-92]

"Anyone who doesn't take truth seriously in small matters cannot be trusted in large ones either."
~~ Albert Einstein [1879-1955]

"You will never reach your destination if you stop and throw stones at every dog that barks."
~~ Sir Winston Churchill [1874-1965]

"The best political, social, and spiritual work [that] we can do is to withdraw the projection of our own shadow onto others."
~~ Carl Gustav Jung [1875-1961]

"A boss has the title, a leader has the people."
~~ motivational speaker Simon Sinek

"Some people see things as they are and ask 'why?'. Some people dream of things that never were and ask 'why not?'. Some people have to go to work and don't have time for all that."
~~ George Carlin [1937-2008]

"The fascination of shooting as a sport depends almost wholly on whether you are at the right or wrong end of the gun."
~~ P.G. Wodehouse [1881-1975]

"Learn to Value yourself, which means: Fight for your happiness."
~~ philosopher Ayn Rand [1905-82]

"A mind that's afraid to toy with the ridiculous will never come up with the brilliantly original."
~~ sci-fi author David Brin

"What a strange machine man is! You fill him with bread, wine, fish, and radishes and out comes sighs, laughter, and dreams."
~~ Nikos Kazantzakis [1883-1957]

"They always say [that] time changes things, but you actually have to change them yourself."
~~ artist Andy Warhol [1928-87]

"Everybody has a plan until they get punched in the face."
~~ boxer Mike Tyson

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