~~ G.E. Nordell
“'Madame President'. Say it with us now. It's gonna happen. Get used to it."
~~ comment on Washington Post website by 'Gabarus' on October 2
Selected Quotations of George Bernard Shaw [1856-1950]
"New opinions often appear first as jokes and fancies, then as blasphemies and treason, then as questions open to discussion, and finally as established truths."
"No diet will remove all the fat from your body because the brain is entirely fat. Without a brain, you might look good, but all you could do is run for public office."
"No man ever believes that the Bible means what it says: He is always convinced that it says what he means."
"No man who is occupied in doing a very difficult thing, and doing it very well, ever loses his self-respect."
"No question is so difficult to answer as that to which the answer is obvious."
"Nothing is worth doing unless the consequences may be serious."
"Martyrdom: The only way a man can become famous without ability."
"Men are wise in proportion, not to their experience, but to their capacity for experience."
"Men have to do some awfully mean things to keep up their respectability."
"Love is a gross exaggeration of the difference between one person and everybody else."
"Man can climb to the highest summits, but he cannot dwell there long."
"Man gives every reason for his conduct save one, every excuse for his crimes save one, every plea for his safety save one; and that one is his cowardice."
"Manners are more important than laws and upon them, to a great deal, the law depends."
"Marriage is an alliance entered into by a man who can't sleep with the window shut, and a woman who can't sleep with the window open."
"Power does not corrupt men; fools, however, if they get into a position of power, corrupt power."
"Statistics show that of those who contract the habit of eating, very few survive."
"Success does not consist in never making mistakes but in never making the same one a second time."
"Very few people can afford to be poor."
"A mind needs books as a sword needs a whetstone – if it is to keep its edge."
~~ George R.R. Martin
"All art is a kind of confession, more or less oblique. All artists, if they are to survive, are forced, at last, to tell the whole story, to vomit the anguish up."
~~ James Baldwin [1924-87]
"Man has a limited biological capacity for change. When this capacity is overwhelmed, the capacity is in future shock."
~~ futurist Alvin Toffler [1928-2016]
"Mathematics are well and good but nature keeps dragging us around by the nose."
~~ Albert Einstein [1879-1955] (quoted by A.P. French in 'Einstein: A Centenary Volume')
"There are no good people. You really don't want to fool yourself. A lot of the people we admire and respect – they're no good either. Stop living your life like it was possible to be a good person. There are only heroes. Only ordinary people who are dancing to an opportunity beyond themselves. No good people. Only people like you and me."
~~ philosopher Werner Erhard, in 1988
"Reading is a discount ticket to everywhere."
~~ Mary Schmich, columnist for the Chicago Tribune
“Anti-social behavior is a trait of intelligence in a world full of conformists."
~~ Nikola Tesla [1856-1943]
“Censorship is the child of fear and the father of ignorance.”
~~ author Laurie Halse Anderson, in "Speak" [1999]
"Wondering if you're happy is a great shortcut to being depressed."
~~ line from movie "20th Century Women" [2016]
“Sometimes the hardest thing in life is learning which bridge to cross and which to burn.”
~~ David Russell
"It's a rare book that wins the battle against drooping eyelids."
~~ Tracy Chevalier
"An artist is somebody who produces things that people don't need to have but that he – for some reason – thinks [that] it would be a good idea to give them."
~~ Andy Warhol [1928-87]
"Think for yourselves and let others enjoy the privilege to do so, too."
~~ Voltaire [1694-1778]
"Even funnier than watching the monkeys at the zoo is observing these humans on the loose."
~~ Kodo Sawaki Roshi [1880-1965]
"Do not seek the truth; only cease to cherish opinions."
~~ poem Hsin Hsin Ming [VIIth Century China]
"To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people just exist."
~~ Irish playwright & author Oscar Wilde [1854-1900]
"I am still learning."
~~ Michelangelo [1475-1564], at age 87
"Control oil and you control nations; control food and you control the people."
~~ Henry Kissinger
"If corporations are people, I demand to see Monsanto's birth certificate."
~~ Barbara Mathieson
"And the purpose of life, after all, is to live it, to taste experience to the utmost, to reach out eagerly and without fear for newer and richer experience."
~~ historian Blanche Wiesen Cook
"[Albert Einstein] lived his life as though there was no distinction between art and science."
~~ Barry Munitz, then-president of the J. Paul Getty Trust (2004)
“The secret of winning football games is working more as a team, less as individuals. I play not my eleven best, but my best eleven.”
~~ Knute Rockne [1888-1931], football coach at Notre Dame
"We have nothing to fear but fear itself, and the Bush-Rove-Cheney Machine is the no-bid contract supplier of fear."
~~ G.E. Nordell, in June 2006
"The right to agree with others is not a problem in any society; it is the right to disagree that is crucial."
~~ philosopher Ayn Rand [1905-82]
“Don’t let life discourage you; everyone who got where he is had to begin where he was.”
~~ Richard L. Evans [1906-71]
“If you want to make your dreams come true, the first thing you have to do is wake up.”
~~ trainer Joe McAuliffe
“Life is 10% what happens to us and 90% how we react to it.”
~~ Dennis P. Kimbro
“Enjoy the little things, for one day you may look back and realize [that] they were the big things.”
~~ blogger Robert Brault
"The greatest challenge of the day is: how to bring about a revolution of the heart, a revolution which has to start with each one of us."
~~ activist Dorothy Day [1897-1980]
“Yet a man may love a paradox, without losing either his wit or his honesty.”
~~ Ralph Waldo Emerson [1803-82]
“I’d rather chase the sun than wait for it.”
~~ Australian author Marcus Zusak
“Do you think because you are virtuous, that there shall be no more cakes and ale?”
~~ William Shakespeare [1564-1616], from stageplay "Twelfth Night" [circa 1600]
“What is my favorite quote? 'No.' – Rosa Parks'.“
~~ unnamed Cleveland, Ohio stage actor
"Our species is one, and each of the individuals who compose it are entitled to equal moral consideration."
~~ Michael Ignatieff of Canada
"Roads? Where we're going we don't need roads."
~~ British author H.G. Wells [1866-1946]
"That's still a pretty well kept secret, that hard work pays off. They don't tell it, they don't shout it, they kind of keep it a secret. But I can tell you, with me, it's absolutely proven."
~~ Ray Kroc, founder of McDonald's, Inc
"What you do makes a difference, and you have to decide what kind of difference do you want to make."
~~ Dame Jane Goodall
{each set of posted quotations are then posted at the Working Minds website, alphabetical by author}
