Quotations - Volume 2

Every effort has been made to attribute the source of each quotation properly. Anyone finding an error or who knows the source for any quotation marked "Unknown" or "Anonymous" please contact Fred O'Bryant.

1. America is a moralistic society. But the typical middle-class citizen, trained in little and surely untrained in ethics and philosophy, suffers moral confusion when confronting issues outside his or her personal orbit. All too often, our typical citizen operates with two levels of critical judgement: "I don't like it" and "I really don't like it," the latter being the hallmark of the moral or ethical concern. In a secularized society rapidly cutting its ties with tradition and still finding its new moral bearings, it is not surprising that Nebuchadnezzar is known as a measure of wine and Job mistaken for a relative of a California computer entrepreneur. The typical American is at sea without a compass when it comes to the ethical or moral issues of technology. — Joseph F. Coates

2. He has spent his life best who has enjoyed it most; God will take care that we do not enjoy it any more than is good for us. — Samuel Butler (1835-1902) in The Way of All Flesh

3. The clergyman is expected to be a kind of human Sunday. Things must not be done in him which are venial in the week-day classes. He is paid for this business of leading a stricter life than other people. It is his raison d'etre. If his parishioners feel that he does this, they approve of him, for they look upon him as their own contribution towards what they deem a holy life. This is why the clergyman is so often called a vicar he being the person whose vicarious goodness is to stand for that of those entrusted to his charge. — Samuel Butler (1835-1902) in The Way of All Flesh

4. All our lives long, every day and every hour, we are engaged in the process of accommodating our changed and unchanged selves to changed and unchanged surroundings; living, in fact, is nothing else than this process of accommodation; when we fail in it a little we are stupid, when we fail flagrantly we are mad, when we suspend it temporarily we sleep, when we give up the attempt altogether we die. In quiet, uneventful lives the changes internal and external are so small that there is little or no strain in the process of fusion and accommodation; in other lives there is great strain, but there is also great fusing and accommodating power; in others great strain with little accommodating power. A life will be successful or not according as the power of accommodation is equal or unequal to the strain of fusing and adjusting internal and external changes. — Samuel Butler (1835-1902) in The Way of All Flesh

5. When people get it into their heads that they are being specially favored by the Almighty, they had better as a general rule mind their p's and q's, and when they think they see the devil's drift with more special clearness, let them remember that he has had much more experience than they have, and is probably meditating mischief. — Samuel Butler (1835-1902) in The Way of All Flesh

6. A man's friendships are, like his will, invalidated by marriage but they are also no less invalidated by the marriage of his friends. — Samuel Butler (1835-1902) in The Way of All Flesh

7. I reckon being ill as one of the great pleasures of life, provided one is not too ill and is not obliged to work till one is better. — Samuel Butler (1835-1902) in The Way of All Flesh

8. I know no exception to the rule that it is cheaper to buy milk than to own a cow. — Samuel Butler (1835-1902) in The Way of All Flesh

9. If everybody's responsible, nobody is. — Paul Greenberg

10. I suspect that it is not without significance that the word remembering can be formed as re-membering. By its very nature, the act of remembering is to offer a thing of patches, to try to put together again a once seamless garment of events totally and immediately experienced but now tattered by time. — Herbert O'Driscoll

11. Adapt your style, if you wish, to admit the color of slang or freshness of neologism, but hang tough on clarity, precision, structure, grace. — William Safire (1929-2009)

12. The world will always destroy you. And the world will make you ridiculous while it does so. — Walter Jon Williams (1953- )

13. It is better to learn what is probable about important matters than to be certain about trivial ones. — Ian Stevenson (1918-2007)

14. We live in an age in which one's title is a symbol of one's empowerment. — Shirley T. Echelman

15. You can be sorry, and you can be forgiven, but you can't call back the futures that your bad decisions lost. — Orson Scott Card (1951- )

16. After World War II nothing much happened except the most convulsive scientific, social and cultural upheaval in history. — Harold C. Schonberg (1915-2003)

17. Science is nothing but trained and organized commonsense. — Thomas H. Huxley (1825-1895)

18. One has no more right to consume happiness without producing it than to consume wealth without producing it. — George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950)

19. If it should turn out that the whole of physical reality can be described by a finite set of equations, I would be disappointed. I would feel that the Creator had been uncharacteristically lacking in imagination. — Freeman Dyson (1923- )

20. Real business entails adding value to things by adding knowledge to them, but America is steadily forgetting this. That terrifies me. America no longer makes things, it only takes pleasure in making profits from moving money around. — Akio Morita (1921-1999)

21. Even if you wanted to, staying fat, dumb, and happy is becoming increasingly difficult. — Brian O'Reilly in Fortune Magazine, Sept. 25, 1989

22. THE LORD SETS MY PACE
    (A Japanese Version of the 23rd Psalm)

    The Lord is my pace setter, I shall not rush. He makes me stop for quiet intervals. He provides me with images of stillness, which restore my serenity. He leads me in the way of efficiency through calmness of mind and his guidance is peace. Even though I have a great many things to accomplish each day, I will not fret, for his presence is here. His timelessness, his all-importance will keep me in balance. He prepares refreshment and renewal in the midst of my activity by anointing my mind with his oils of tranquility. My cup of joyous energy overflows. Truly, harmony and effectiveness shall be the fruits of my hours, for I shall walk in the pace of my Lord and dwell in his house forever. — Ascribed to Toki Miyashina (1969)

23. Do all your work as if you had a thousand years to live, and as you would if you knew you must die tomorrow. — Mother Ann Lee (1736-1784)

24. Too much freedom undercuts freedom. — William Raspberry (1935- )

25. If you seek a truth hard enough, you're going to learn things. — Robert Ballard (1942- )

26. You expect the world to be so simple, and it is... just not in the way you want it to be. — Lucius Shepard (1947- ) from The Father of Stones

27. At any given decision point, our futures spread before us like a handful of rainbows. Each rainbow carries its own network of paths. Once we've made the decision, the paths narrow, until often, there is only one. — Kristine Kathryn Rusch (1960- ) from Fast Cars

28. The problem with people is that they're only human. — Bill Watterson (1958- ) from Calvin and Hobbes

29. Life is made up of marble and mud... What is called poetic insight is the gift of discerning, in this sphere of strangely mingled elements, the beauty and the majesty which are compelled to assume a garb so sordid. — Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804-1864)

30. As a general rule, Providence seldom vouchsafes to mortals any more than just that degree of encouragement which suffices to keep them at a reasonably full exertion of their powers. — Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804-1864)

31. A stale article, if you dip it in a good, warm, sunny smile, will go off better than a fresh one that you've scowled upon. — Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804-1864)

32. What other dungeon is so dark as one's own heart? What jailor so inexorable as one's self! — Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804-1864)

33. A man's bewilderment is the measure of his wisdom. — Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804-1864)

34. Moonlight, and the sentiment in man's heart responsive to it, are the greatest of renovators and reformers. — Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804-1864)

35. The world looked strange, wild, evil, hostile in my past life, so lonesome and dreary, my future, a shapeless gloom, which I must mould into gloomy shapes! But you crossed the threshold; and hope, warmth, and joy came in with you! The black moment became at once a blissful one. — Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804-1864)

36. It is a truth (and it would be a very sad one, but for the higher hopes which it suggests) that no great mistake, whether acted or endured, in our mortal sphere, is ever really set right. — Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804-1864)

37. A master can tell you what he expects of you. A teacher, though, awakens your own expectations. — Patricia Neal (1944- )

38. If dogs could talk, it would take a lot of fun out of owning one. — Andrew A. Rooney (1919- )

39. Torture numbers, and they'll confess to anything. — Gregg Easterbrook (1953- )

40. Each of us is the accumulation of our memories. — Alan Loy McGinnis (1933-2005)

41. Television news is like a lightning flash. It makes a loud noise, lights up everything around it, leaves everything else in darkness and then is suddenly gone. — Hodding Carter (1935- )

42. Life expectancy would grow by leaps and bounds if green vegetables smelled as good as bacon. — Doug Larson (1926- )

43. The only thing that's more discouraging than waiting two months for a dental appointment is getting one the next day. — Doug Larson (1926- )

44. Bilingual education can only have one major goal: achievement of competency in reading, writing, hearing and speaking the English language. Parents understand this. Many immigrant families want no part of today's misdirected bilingual education programs, which try to teach their children in their native language. They put their children into English-speaking classrooms so that they can become fluent in English as quickly as possible. This is not to leave their cultural heritage behind or because they are ashamed of their background. But they recognize that their ability to compete and thrive in America will be greatly enhanced by learning English. The most succinct and telling statement I have heard on the subject came from Ernesto Ortiz, a foreman on a south-Texas ranch, who said: "My children learn Spanish in school so they can grow up to be busboys and waiters. I teach them English at home so they can grow up to be doctors and lawyers." — John Silber (1926- )

45. Have you found, or is it peculiar to me, that it is much easier to pray for others than for oneself? Doubtless because every return to one's own situation involves action; or to speak more plainly, obedience. That appears to me more and more the whole business of life, the only road to love and peace the cross and the crown in one. — C. S. Lewis (1898-1963)

46. What indeed can we imagine Heaven to be but unimpeded obedience. I think this in one of the causes of our love of inanimate nature, that in it we see things which unswervingly carry out the will of their Creator, and are therefore wholly beautiful; and though this kind of obedience is infinitely lower than ours, yet the degree is so much more perfect. — C. S. Lewis (1898-1963)

47. The great thing, if one can, is to stop regarding all the unpleasant things as interruptions of one's "own" or "real" life—the life God is sending one day by day; what one calls one's "real life" is a phantom of one's imagination. This is what I see at moments of insight: but it's hard to remember it all the time. — C. S. Lewis (1898-1963)

48. To forgive a single, horrible offense is easier in some ways than forgiving over and over again... If one expects mercy from God, one must continually offer mercy to others. There is no hint of exceptions and God means what he says. — C. S. Lewis (1898-1963)

49. I am suffering incessant temptations to uncharitable thoughts at present; one of those black moods in which nearly all one's friends seem to be selfish or even false. And how terrible that there should be even a kind of pleasure in thinking evil. — C. S. Lewis (1898-1963)

50. I have been feeling very much lately that cheerful insecurity is what our Lord asks of us. — C. S. Lewis (1898-1963)

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51. Why should one read authors one doesn't like because they happen to be alive at the same time as oneself? One might as well read everyone who had the same job or the same color hair, or the same income, or the same chest measurements, as far as I can see. — C. S. Lewis (1898-1963)

52. Frequently, success is what people settle for when they can't think of something noble enough to be worth failing at. — Laurence Shames (1951- )

53. Adventure is somebody else doing something dangerous a long way off. — Gregory Benford (1941- )

54. Crying is all right in its way while it lasts. But you have to stop sooner or later and then you still have to decide what to do. — C. S. Lewis (1898-1963)

55. Experience is a wonderful thing. It enables you to recognize a mistake when you make it again. — Franklin P. Jones (1908-1980)

56. It's a dog eat dog world, and I'm a vegetarian. — Tom Gearty

57. The future is that period of time in which our affairs prosper, our friends are true, and happiness is assured. — Ambrose Bierce (1842-1914)

58. Some people are very busy... but they don't have a job. — Tonya S. Roberts

59. You can be sure of one thing about small computers: few things are ever as simple and easy as you expect them to be. — Jerry Pournelle (1933- )

60. A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of. — Ogden Nash (1902-1971)

61. A truly intimate relationship is one in which we can be who we are, which means being open about ourselves. — Harriet G. Lerner (1944- )

62. When you finally go back to your old hometown, you find it wasn't the old home you missed but your childhood. — Sam Ewing (1949- )

63. Most people ask for happiness on condition. Happiness can be felt only if you don't set any conditions. — Arthur Rubenstein (1887-1982)

64. Experience is what you get when you don't get what you want. — Dan Stanford

65. Most of our so-called reasoning consists in finding arguments for going on believing as we already do. — James Harvey Robinson (1863-1936)

66. Life isn't having it made; it's getting it made. Each necessary task requires an effort of will, and with each act something in you grows and is strengthened. — William Kirkland, quoting his father

67. Someone told me years ago that when God smiled down on him and patted him on the head, he felt enlightened. Lucky him, I thought: when God pats me on the head, I get a terrible headache. — Suzanne Bombard

68. Words are the clothes that thoughts wear. — Ronald Geller

69. A man, after he has brushed off the dust and chips of his life, will have left only the hard, clean questions: Was it good or evil? Have I done well or ill? — John Steinbeck (1902-1968)

70. If anything goes bad, I did it. If anything goes semi-good, then we did it. If anything goes real good, then you did it. That's all it takes to get people to win football games for you. — Paul "Bear" Bryant (1913-1983)

71. Problems are only opportunities with thorns on them. — Hugh Miller (1802-1856)

72. What isn't tried won't work. — Claude McDonald (1852-1915)

73. The Universe is full of magical things patiently waiting for our wits to grow sharper. — Eden Phillpotts (1862-1960)

74. I'd rather be a failure at something I enjoy than be a success at something I hate. — George Burns (1896-1996)

75. Having it all doesn't necessarily mean having it all at once. — Stephanie Luetkehans

76. We apply contradictory thinking to the private and public sectors. The private sector has recognized that the consumer will pay more for quality. Yet we balk at the idea of paying higher taxes to improve quality in the public sector. Private companies develop advertising campaigns to persuade you to pay a little extra for better quality. No such effort is made for the public sector. On the contrary, candidates run for our highest office with an opposite message: that we will spend less on education, on libraries. Spending less in the public sector makes heroes of candidates who would never advocate the same policy for the success of the industries in which they once served. — Fred Ciporen, Library Journal, 10/1/90

77. When we are very young, we are possessors of a splendid gift: a mind that knows no limits. — Phillips Petroleum Company ad

78. Why waste time learning when ignorance is instantaneous? — Bill Watterson (1958- ) from Calvin and Hobbes

79. Pain is inevitable but misery is optional. — Tim Hansel

80. We're not running a business here. We're running a businesslike public service. — Anthony M. Frank (1931- ) on libraries

81. The heart is like a little bird, looking for a nest. — Michael Swanwick (1950- )

82. It is perilous to make a chasm in human affections. — Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804-1864)

83. An influence beyond our control lays its strong hand on every deed which we do, and weaves its consequences into an iron tissue of necessity. — Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804-1864)

84. The creative adult is the child who has survived. — Ursala K. LeGuin (1929- )

85. Am I not to know? To know what would have happened? No. Nobody is ever told that. But anyone can find out what will happen. — C. S. Lewis (1898-1963)

86. If you do one good deed, your reward usually is to be set to do another and harder and better one. — C. S. Lewis (1898-1963)

87. Length of days with an evil heart is only length of misery. All get what they want: they do not always like it. — C. S. Lewis (1898-1963)

88. Sleeping or waking, we hear not the airy footsteps of the strange things that almost happen. — Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804-1864)

89. Thus did I with —— as with most other things in my earlier days, dipping her image into my mind and coloring it of a thousand fantastic hues, before I could see her as she really was. — Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804-1864) from The Village Uncle

90. I think what's terribly important is reputation as distinct from fame. — Gary Trudeau (1948- )

91. I am young and I am old... I am contented, and not contented. I am alone amidst company... I hope to make 100 ladies happy, yet one would be enough... An accomplished, sensible companion, good nature in abundance, to forgive all follies... Are there such to be had? — Charles Willson Peale (1741-1827)

92. You need to be fair to everybody but that does not mean that you treat everybody the same. — George Welsh (1933- )

93. Common sense is not all that common. — Bertrand Russell (1872-1970)

94. CONSULTANT: Someone paid to restate the obvious. — Jeff Angus (Paraphrased)

95. In some obscure tribal recess of our nature there survives an instinct that impels us to make sure that every initiation be painful, memorable, and leave its mark. — Primo Levi (1919-1987)

96. More is learned from one's errors than from one's successes. — Primo Levi (1919-1987)

97. YOU CAN NEVER NOT LEAD. Everything you do, and everything you don't do, has an effect. You lead by acts of commission, and you lead by acts of omission. You are always leading and influencing. — Kenneth & Linda Schatz

98. Whatever you can do, or dream you can do, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it. Begin it now. — Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832)

99. It is hard to be evangelical about moderation. — R. Curtis Morris, Jr.

100. These are the words of the Lord: Stop at the cross-roads; look for the ancient paths; ask, "Where is the way that leads to what is good?" Then take that way, and you will find rest for yourself. — The Bible, Jeremiah 6:16

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101. I try to take one day at a time, but sometimes several days attack me at once. — Ashleigh Brilliant (1933- )

102. The past remembers better than it lived. — Jackie Gleason (1916-1987)

103. Inside everyone is more or less the same forever, but you rarely get a glimpse of it, nor do others. Once in awhile it may come out in your work. — Virgil Thomson (1896-1989)

104. Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord my soul to keep, and if I die, the Lord I thank to take and keep my memory bank! — Computer's Prayer, from Tom Batiuk (1947- ) in Funky Winkerbean

105. The dominant species on the planet [earth] is afflicted with overdeveloped imaginations and underdeveloped intelligence. — John Emsley

106. You can only give what you have. If you don't love yourself, you can't love other people. — Elizabeth Kubler-Ross (1926-2004)

107. The young think things come easy, as if by right, that the world shapes itself to the bidding of their will. One by one, generation by generation, they learn how small a part of truth that is, how the world shapes them far more than they it. — Harry Turtledove (1949- )

108. Good service is simple, but it's not easy. It's not easy because it requires commitment and a willingness to take responsibility, a willingness to do more than the expected. — Security Benefit Group

109. Goals move you forward. Having no goals moves you backward. — Sybil Ferguson

110. Eventually in life you reach a point where the effort expended to ask a question outweighs the pleasure derived from struggling to find its answer. — Fred O'Bryant (1949- )

111. [One must] take the time to make the sometimes painful distinction between prosperity and progress. — William W. Sorrels

112. There is no level of poor performance that cannot be achieved by people given sufficient lack of management and leadership. — David Feldman

113. The essence of war is violence, and moderation in war is imbecility. — John Arbuthnot "Jacky" Fisher, Admiral Lord Fisher (1841-1920)

114. My favorite party is still one with minimal entertainment, no loud noise, soft drinks and munchies and maybe beer, and most of all a chance for conversation. Alas, there are all too few of that kind. — Jerry Pournelle (1933- )

115. HOUSE RULES

     If you open it, close it.
     If you turn it on, turn it off.
     If you break it, repair it.
     If you can't fix it, report it.
     If you unlock it, lock it.
     If you borrow it, return it.
     If you use it, don't abuse it.
     If you make a mess, clean it up.
     If you move it, put it back.
     If you don't know how to operate it, leave it alone.
     If it belongs to someone else, get permission to use it.
     If it doesn't concern you, don't mess with it. — Haband Office Supply Company

116. We are drowning in information but starved for knowledge. — John Naisbitt (1929- )

117. Climate is what you expect, but weather is what you get. — Joe Rao

118. What you have to do [in teaching] is tell the students they can do it, then demand that they do learn, and never accept anything less than their best. — Jaime Escalante (1930- )

119. The human mind is the only instrument which gets sharper the more you use it. — Lawrence J. Kamm

120. Don't insult a man who's trying to enlighten himself. — Janet Kagan (1946-2008) in The Loch Moose Monster

121. It is important to know what one longs for, and to know it clearly; in the area of desire, one should not err. — Mary Gordon (1949- ) in The Company of Women

122. The essence of science is an open mind (if not a fully ventilated one). — Alexander K. Dewdney (1941- )

123. People expect their priest to have the skill in sermon composition of Knox, the oratorical power of Churchill, the personal charm of a film star, the tact of royalty, the hide of a hippo, the administrative ability of Lord Nuffield, the wisdom of Socrates and the patience of Job. Some people must often be disappointed. — Quoted by Rev. Canon Geoffrey Gray

124. A modern society that outlaws the death penalty does not send a message of reverence for life, but a message of moral confusion. When we outlaw the death penalty, we tell the murderer that, no matter what he may do to innocent people in our custody and care, women, children, old people, his most treasured possession, his life, is secure. We guarantee it in advance. Just as a nation that declares that nothing will make it go to war finds itself at the mercy of warlike regimes, so a society that will not put the worst of its criminals to death will find itself at the mercy of criminals who have no qualms about putting innocent people to death. — Patrick J. Buchanan (1938- )

125. While I was growing up in Alabama, we always said, "Thank God for Mississippi!" meaning that no matter how low Alabama ranked nationally in education and per-capita income, Mississippi would surely be just a little lower. The irony is that so much of what shaped my youth indeed, shaped American culture in this century came from Mississippi. I had driven through the town of Meridian countless times without stopping at the museum built in honor of the "Father of Country Music", Jimmie Rodgers, and I had passed within miles of the birthplaces of Robert Johnson, Skip James, Muddy Waters and a dozen other legendary bluesmen. William Faulkner, Tennessee Williams and Eudora Welty all came from "the most illiterate" 47,689 square miles in America. As the poet Michael Swindle has said, Mississippi is to America what Ireland was to the British Empire: "Woefully behind the norm in virtually everything held in value by civilized standards, and producing more genius per capita than Athens under Pericles." — Allen Barra

126. Carrying a grudge is a loser's game. It is the ultimate frustration because it leaves you with more pain than you had in the first place. Recall the pain of being wronged, the hurt of being stung, cheated, demeaned. Doesn't the memory of it fuel the fire of fury again? Do you feel that hurt each time your memory lights on the people who did you wrong? Your own memory becomes a videotape within your soul that plays unending reruns of your old rendezvous with pain. Is this fair to yourself, this wretched justice of not forgiving? The only way to heal the pain that will not heal itself is to forgive the person who hurt you. Forgiving heals your memory as you change your memory's vision. When you release the wrongdoer from the wrong, you cut a malignant tumor out of your inner life. You set a prisoner free: yourself. — Lewis B. Smedes (1921-2002) from Forgive and Forget

127. You must always give people room to surprise you. If you don't, they'll probably act like the boring people you expect them to be. You must give God room to surprise you too! — Laura Benet (1884-1979)

128. God takes care of us and He expects us to take care of one another. — Laura Benet (1884-1979)

129. Do you want to be a writer or a celebrity? They're very different things. — Laura Benet (1884-1979)

130. What God asks of us is to be craftsmen, investing our talents, returning to the same tasks day after day, always trying a little harder. In our work and in our lives. — Laura Benet (1884-1979)

131. Sitting is an art that isn't getting passed along. People these days feel as though they have to be doing something. That sort of thing looks like doing nothing. A recharging battery doesn't look as if it's doing anything either. Sitting restores your soul. If you want to enjoy a truly full life, don't just do something, sit there. — Leroy Powell in Out of My Head

132. Magic after all [is] like the bottles on the shelves of a dubious-neighborhood liquor store—it [is] available in different proofs and labels, and at different prices, for anyone who cares to walk in. — James P. Blaylock (1950- ) & Tim Powers (1952- ) from The Better Boy

133. Whoever has the choice also has the misery. — German Maxim

134. A man who has to be punctually at a certain place at five o'clock has the whole afternoon ruined for him already. — Lin Yutang (1895-1976)

135. Wit has truth in it; wisecracking is simply calisthenics with words. — Dorothy Parker (1893-1967)

136. Marriage should be a duet—when one sings, the other claps. — Joe Murray (1961- )

137. The book has been man's greatest triumph. Seated in my library, I live in a time machine. In an instant I can be transmitted to any era, any part of the world, even to outer space. — Louis L'Amour (1908-1988)

138. Affection is the humblest love—it gives itself no airs. It lives with humble, private things: soft slippers, old clothes, old jokes, the thump of a sleepy dog's tail on the kitchen floor. The glory of affection is that it can unite those who are not "made for one another", people who, if not put down by fate in the same household or community, would have nothing to do with one another. Affection broadens our minds; of all natural loves it teaches us first to notice, then to endure, then to smile at, then to enjoy, and finally to appreciate, the people who "happen to be there". — C. S. Lewis (1898-1963) from The Four Loves

139. As important as your obligation as a doctor, a lawyer or a business leader will be, you are a human being first, and those human connections with spouses, with children, with friends are the most important investments you will ever make. At the end of you life, you will never regret not having passed one more test, winning one more verdict, closing one more deal. You will regret time not spent with a husband, a child, a friend or a parent. — Barbara Bush (1925- )

140. Everything I have learned, everything that has truly enhanced and enlightened my existence, has been through affliction and not through happiness. — Malcolm Muggeridge (1903-1990) from A Twentieth Century Testimony

141. Nothing befuddles judgement as much as success, and nothing clears the mind more than failure. — Paul Craig Roberts (1939- )

142. If you want to "get in touch with your feelings," fine, talk to yourself. We all do. But if you want to communicate with another thinking human being, get in touch with your thoughts. Put them in order, give them a purpose, use them to persuade, to instruct, to discover, to seduce. The secret way to do this is to write them down, and then cut out the confusing parts. — William Safire (1929-2009) from On Language

143. The finest hours of life are those spent not among large groups, but in conversation with just a few people, in reading great books, in listening to great music, wandering in a forest of giant sequoia, unraveling nature's secrets in a laboratory. The men who have had the most to give to their fellow men are those who have enriched their minds and hearts in solitude. It is a poor education that does not fit a man to be alone with himself. — Joel Hildebrand (1881-1983)

144. No matter what you're like whether you're rich or poor, insecure or outgoing, brilliant or average, attractive or plain some people like you and others couldn't care less. Nobody gets accepted by everyone. But far more people will be attracted to you if you accept yourself. — David D. Burns, from Intimate Connections

145. Over the years I have learned that what is important in a dress is the woman who is wearing it. — Yves Saint Laurent (1936-2008)

146. Responsibility can be delegated but never abdicated. — Herbert S. White (1927- )

147. In the absence of money there is always money for what is important enough to do. — Herbert S. White (1927- )

148. Although children may dream of other worlds, every adult has had childhood stolen from them. — Ian R. Macleod (1956- ) from The Giving Mouth

149. Ask the majority of Americans whether they support libraries, schools, housing, and health care and they will say, "Yes." However, ask if they are in favor of taxes, they will say, "No." This is because they no longer make a connection between the two. When you prevent the connection from being made, the result is social disintegration. The society starts falling apart. — Fred Ciporen, from Library Journal, 3/1/91

150. A committee can make a decision that is dumber than any of its members. — David B. Coblitz

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151. All the things that God would have us do are hard for us to do—remember that and hence, he oftener commands us than endeavors to persuade. And if we obey God, we must disobey ourselves; and it is in this disobeying ourselves, wherein the hardness of obeying God consists. — Herman Melville (1819-1891) from Moby Dick

152. How it is I know not; but there is no place like a bed for confidential disclosures between friends. — Herman Melville (1819-1891) from Moby Dick

153. Truly, to enjoy bodily warmth, some small part of you must be cold, for there is no quality in this world that is not what it is merely by contrast. — Herman Melville (1819-1891) from Moby Dick

154. One of the biggest problems with growing old is having all your friends die. Of course, so do your enemies. — Quoted by Esther Reedy

155. We should not pretend to understand the world only by the intellect. The judgement of the intellect is only part of the truth. — Carl Jung (1875-1961) [Quoted by Melvin Morse]

156. Marriage is the only union that cannot be organized. Both sides think they are management. — William J. Abley

157. Nothing gives a used car more miles per gallon than the salesman. — Billy Boswell

158. The great comfort of turning 49 is the realization that you are now too old to die young. — Paul Dickson (1938?- )

159. In every restaurant, the hardness of the butter pats increases in direct proportion to the softness of the bread being served. — Harriet Markman

160. Dividing 100 percent responsibility between two people gives each of them ten percent. — Aksel Hoff

161. The more decrepit the vehicle, the more maniacal the driver. — Rev. Christian F. Just

162. The deeper the carpet you're called upon, the deeper the trouble you're in. — Jim Kenworthy

163. Any country with "democratic" in the title isn't. — Jim Murray

164. The only people worth talking to in a bureaucracy are the ones who never deal with the public. — Marian H. Neudel

165. If you wish to glimpse inside a human soul and get to know a man, don't bother analyzing his ways of being silent, of talking, of weeping, or seeing how much he is moved by noble ideas; you'll get better results if you just watch him laugh. If he laughs well, he's a good man. — Fyodor Dostoyevsky (1821-1881)

166. Every new project, it has been said, goes through three phases: it will not work, it will cost too much and I thought it was a good idea all along. — Quoted by Phil Gold (1936- )

167. The real strength of an organization lies not at the top, but in the middle. — Marilyn Gell Mason

168. Young people often yearn for freedom and independence as a good in itself, unfettered by obligations and duty. This drive is a part of the process of growing up, of cutting the apron strings and preparing for adult life. Yet parents fail in their duty to their children if they let this tendency go unchecked and do not insist that children exercise their freedom in the context of responsibilities to parents and family, to friends and those in authority. For the adult world that a child so ardently desires to attain is also a world in which freedom is greatly modified by circumstances, by concrete obligations and limitations. Only in this real world of daily life, not in some ideal order, does human freedom exist. — Walter Ciszek, S.J. (1904-1984)

169. It is easy to fool yourself. It is possible to fool the people you work for. It is more difficult to fool the people you work with. But it is almost impossible to fool the people who work under you. — Harry B. Thayer (1858-1936)

170. Ah, May. It should be three months long. — Elisabeth Ogilvie (1917-2006) from The Silent Ones

171. Baloney is the unvarnished lie laid on so thick you hate it. Blarney is flattery laid on so thin you love it. — Bishop Fulton J. Sheen (1895-1979)

172. I've done the research, and I hate to tell you, but everybody dies—lovers, joggers, vegetarians and nonsmokers. I'm telling you this so that some of you who jog at 5 A.M. and eat vegetables will occasionally sleep late and have an ice-cream cone. — Bernie S. Siegel, M.D., from Peace, Love and Healing

173. It is characteristic of the Moral Snob to put a good deal of ornamental fretwork on his public facade and let the private places of his personality be slovenly. — Russell Lynes (1910-1991) from The New Snobbism

174. Health is simply the slowest possible rate at which one can die. — Graffiti

175. Life is a Test. It is only a test. If this were your actual life, you would be given better instructions. — Graffiti

176. It is very important when you're writing poetry to have something to say, otherwise you're just writing words. — John Quinn (1935- )

177. It is always a little difficult for me to laugh freely at the follies of mankind. If I look closely enough, I find I share them all. — Isaac Asimov (1920-1992) from In Memory Yet Green

178. You don't really change so much as you grow older. — Isaac Asimov (1920-1992) from In Memory Yet Green

179. I suppose we are born with an instinctive assumption of honesty that must be beaten out of us by life, more or less painfully. — Isaac Asimov (1920-1992) from In Memory Yet Green

180. It is important in life to recognize at the earliest possible moment what your field is not. It would be dreadful to waste a sizable portion of an at-best limited life assailing impregnable barriers when, in another direction, the door is open. — Isaac Asimov (1920-1992) from In Memory Yet Green

181. No one is deprived unless or until he thinks he is. — Isaac Asimov (1920-1992) from In Memory Yet Green

182. It is really depressing to think of the vast number of things I'm not very good at. — Isaac Asimov (1920-1992) from In Memory Yet Green

183. Writing humor is harder than digging ditches. — Isaac Asimov (1920-1992) from In Memory Yet Green

184. We never see the true state of our condition till it is illustrated to us by its contraries; nor know how to value what we enjoy, but by the want of it. — Daniel Defoe (c.1659-1731) from Robinson Crusoe

185. Fear of danger is 10,000 times more terrifying than danger itself... and we find the burden of anxiety greater by much than the evil which we are anxious about. — Daniel Defoe (c.1659-1731) from Robinson Crusoe

186. There's one sort of intelligence. It helps you get what you want. There's another: the kind that tells you what the right thing to want is. — Alexander Jablokov (1956- ) from The Breath of Suspension

187. We can, after all, learn much from lessons we did not sign up for. — Alexander Jablokov (1956- ) from The Breath of Suspension

188. A man is incomplete until he is married. After that, he is finished. — Zsa Zsa Gabor (1917- )

189. The hardest thing about aging is that one remains inwardly youthful. — Jean-Louis Servan-Schreiber (1937- ) from The Art of Time

190. To get time under control involves getting oneself under control. — Jean-Louis Servan-Schreiber (1937- ) from The Art of Time

191. What I fear most about stress is not that it kills, but that it prevents one from savoring life. — Jean-Louis Servan-Schreiber (1937- ) from The Art of Time

192. Most of our work we do on automatic pilot. This represents progress in an airplane but not in us. — Jean-Louis Servan-Schreiber (1937- ) from The Art of Time

193. The reason history repeats itself is because the first time around no one listens. — Quoted by Erik Wildenhof

194. Men always expect to meet beautiful women at the laundromat. This is a myth. — Unknown

195. If you can't convince them, confuse them. — Harry S. Truman (1884-1972)

196. A book is a mirror: if an ass peers into it, you can't expect an apostle to look out. — Georg Christoph Lichtenberg (1742-1799)

197. If it's free, it's advice; if you pay for it, it's counseling; if you can use either one, it's a miracle. — Jack Adams (1895-1968)

198. However richly inspired by love, marriage is a high-wire act that is usually attempted by two nervous wrecks who just go for it, reeling with bliss. The rest is work, faith and destiny which carries with it, as does everything from God, the possibility of plunging from great heights. — Richard Atcheson (1934-2006)

199. The mind travels faster than the pen; consequently, writing becomes a question of learning to make occasional wing shots, bringing down the bird of thought as it flashes by. A writer is a gunner, sometimes waiting in his blind for something to come in, sometimes roaming the countryside hoping to scare something up. — E. B. White (1899-1985)

200. Businessmen and women can be unabashedly proud of their companies. But the good of an entire society transcends that of any single corporation. The moral order of the world transcends any single nation-state. — John Akers (1934- )

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201. A woman whose smile is open and whose expression is glad has a kind of beauty no matter what she wears. — Anne Roiphe (1935- )

202. Let us rid ourselves of the assumption, common among believers and practically universal among non-believers, that God must be simple-minded. We readily grant that a great writer such as Joyce or Proust is infinitely subtle and resourceful in fashioning a novel; but we assume that in fashioning human history God will be heavy-handed and obvious. Accordingly, some believers conclude that they know exactly what God has in mind and, vested with high office, could provide him with some much needed help. Unbelievers conclude that they know what God would do if he existed, and that since those things are not being done, he does not exist. — Glenn Tinder

203. The world is so empty if one thinks only of mountains, rivers and cities; but to know someone who thinks and feels with us, and who, though distant is close in spirit, this makes the earth for us an inhabited garden. — Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832)

204. The use of rhetorical terms like democracy, freedom, and peace is as a general rule proportional to its absence. — Herbert S. White (1927- )

205. All the contributions that can be made by science must be seasoned by the kind of human sensitivity that can produce art. — Warren Chappell (1904-1991)

206. What we are actually experiencing is not an information explosion. It is an explosion of data. Data provide neither enlightenment nor knowledge. What we are really experiencing may be access to excess. The mere fact that there is more data available does not mean that people either want it or can use it meaningfully. — Patricia Glass Schuman, from Library Journal, 3/90

207. People only use technology on a regular basis if it is simple, unobtrusive, and satisfying. — Patricia Glass Schuman, from Library Journal, 3/90

208. Education is not just what you remember but what you know how to find on your own or through others you can identify as sources. — Herbert S. White (1927- ) from Library Journal, 1/92

209. Intimacy happens in moments. The mistake we make is in wanting it all the time. — JoAnn Magdoff

210. The most important ten minutes of your day are those you spend doing something to boost the people who work for you. — Donald Petersen (1926- )

211. No man is poor who has one friend. Three friends and you're filthy rich! — Frank Capra (1897-1991)

212. In the past, a man wondered if he could afford to marry; now he wonders if he can get along without a working wife. — from Good Reading

213. It's the special genius of Congress to seize an idea whose time has come and sit on it until its time has gone. — from the Clearwater, FL, Suncoast Beacon

214. A great demand today is that work should be interesting. This is a recent development in human history, and workers in field or factory over the centuries would have been greatly puzzled by it. — George Watson

215. The computer, if left to its own devices, is dangerously productive. — Stephen Roach

216. Friendship (like gravity) may be a weak force, but it is ultimately binding. — Don Webb (1960- ) from Billy Hauser

217. Retooling is an extravagance to be reserved for the occasion that demands it. — Thomas Kuhn (1922-1996) from The Structure of Scientific Revolutions

218. There is currently a firestorm raging in this country regarding the way we teach our kids history. The result: a call for a new multiculturalism that seeks to rewrite history. It is fatuous to seek to convey that every group around the world at every stage significantly contributed to the creation of America. For example, I regret to say there were no Jews on the Mayflower. But a fact is a fact. Many groups have contributed to the fabric that is America. However, the reality is the early settlers were Europeans, and Americans share a common heritage of cultural values, language and tradition that is based on our English and European roots. Should we be rewriting history just to make people feel good? That's not history; that's psychiatry. — Ed Koch (1924- )

219. The world is chock-full of interesting and curious things. The point of courtship and marriage is to secure someone with whom you wish to go hand in hand through this source of entertainment, each making discoveries, and then sharing some and merely reporting others. Anyone who tries to compete with the entire world, demanding to be someone's sole source of interest and attention, is asking to be classified as a bore. "Why don't you ever want to talk to me?" will probably never start a satisfactory marital conversation. "Guess what?" will probably never fail. — Judith Martin (1938- ) from Miss Manner's Guide for the Turn-of-the-Millennium

220. Change is such hard work. — Billy Crystal (1948- )

221. Hope is not the conviction that something will turn out well but the certainty that something makes sense, regardless of how it turns out. — Vaclav Havel (1936- ) from Disturbing the Peace

222. Many things are lost for want of asking. — English proverb

223. Forget past mistakes. Forget failures. Forget everything except what you're going to do now and do it. Today is your lucky day. — William Durant (1861-1947)

224. Outside of traffic, there is nothing that has held this country back as much as committees. — Will Rogers (1879-1935)

225. All human wisdom is summed up in two words: wait and hope. — Alexandre Dumas, père (1802-1870)

226. To give life to even an imaginary character is to become that character. — Lynn Johnston (1947- ) from A Look Inside 'For Better or For Worse'

227. We are born into a vast room whose walls consist of a thousand doors of possibility. Each door is flung open to the world outside, and the room is filled with light and noise. We close some of the doors deliberately, sometimes with fear, sometimes with calm certainty. Others seem to close by themselves, some so quietly that we do not even notice. — Terry Teachout (1956- ) from City Limits

228. If you want to create an intimate relationship, remember one simple rule: Be thankful for what you get and don't expect to get what the other person doesn't have. — Manis Friedman (1946- ) from Doesn't Anyone Blush Anymore?

229. People are drastically overconfident about their judgements of others. — Daniel T. Gilbert (1957- )

230. Librarians are the last licensed generalists in academe. — William Wisner

231. I do not fear computers, I fear the lack of them. — Isaac Asimov (1920-1992)

232. For every honest, inoffensive, harmless citizen there is a bureaucrat waiting to goof him up. — Mike Royko (1932-1997)

233. If we listened to our intellect, we'd never have a love affair. We'd never have a friendship. We'd never go into business, because we'd be cynical. Well, that's nonsense. You've got to jump off cliffs all the time and build your wings on the way down. — Ray Bradbury (1920- )

234. Whatever your life's work is, do it well. A man should do his job so well that the living, the dead and the unborn could do it no better. If it falls your lot to be a street sweeper, sweep streets like Michelangelo painted pictures, like Shakespeare wrote poetry, like Beethoven composed music. — Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929-1968)

235. When you love someone, you do not love him or her in exactly the same way, from moment to moment. It is an impossibility. And yet this is exactly what most of us demand. We have so little faith in the ebb and flow of life, of love, of relationships. We leap at the flow of the tide and resist in terror its ebb. We are afraid it will never return. We insist on permanency, on continuity, when the only continuity possible is in growth, in freedom, in the sense that dancers are free, barely touching as they pass but partners in the same pattern. The only real security in a relationship lies neither in looking back in nostalgia, nor forward in dread or anticipation, but living in the present relationship and accepting it as it is now. — Anne Morrow Lindbergh (1906-2001) from Gift from the Sea

236. I know I am somebody's friend if I think, Oh, isn't it wonderful that such and such a thing should be happening to so and so, and feel happy for him or her. Sharing and experiencing other people's joy is what friendship is about. Commiserating with their misfortunes is not enough. Any kindly person would do that. — Carlo Maria Giulini (1914-2005)

237. One of the keenest pleasures of civilized life is using a word exactly. — Peter Funk

238. You can't motivate a team or a group. You have to motivate an individual. — Red Auerbach (1917-2006)

239. Television, that once great idea, now serves mostly as an uplink for the sewer. — Cal Thomas (1942- )

240. Don't let anyone... organize your time for you. If you do, you'll be sure to find yourself up to your elbows in dishwater or sitting on two or three committees... Practice saying no, no, a thousand times no, at least twice a day, and you'll barely have enough time to garden. — Emily Whaley (1911-1998)

241. Chances are, if you and a rabbit want the same thing [from your garden], the rabbit will get it. — Hortense Miller (1908-2008)

242. What our pop culture does is to undermine everything and construct nothing. — Erwin Glikes (1938-1994)

243. The natural flights of the human mind are not from pleasure to pleasure, but from hope to hope. — Samuel Johnson (1709-1784)

244. Practice random kindness and senseless acts of beauty. — Anne Herbert (1952- )

245. One of the important things about marriage is to be accepted. Love is the basis of marriage, but there are many married people who have never felt accepted. Marriage is not a reformatory, and spouses need to reach out to each other without criticism or reservations. To live with a wife or a husband who does not accept you is a dark valley to walk through. — Charles L. Allen (1913-2005) from Victory in the Valleys of Life

246. I never varied from the managerial rule that the worst possible thing we could do would be to lie dead in the water with any problem. Solve it, solve it quickly, solve it right or wrong. If you solved it wrong, it would come back and slap you in the face and then you could solve it right. Doing nothing is a comfortable alternative because it is without immediate risk, but it is an absolutely fatal way to manage a business. — Thomas J. Watson, Jr. (1914-1993)

247. There is an Indian belief that everyone is a house of four rooms: a physical, a mental, an emotional and a spiritual room. Most of us tend to live in one room most of the time, but unless we go into every room every day, even if only to keep it aired, we are not complete. — Rumer Godden (1907-1998) from House of Four Rooms

248. The worst bankruptcy in the world is the person who has lost his enthusiasm. — H. W. Arnold, from Thoughts on the Business of Life

249. There is more to life than increasing its speed. — Mohandas K. Gandhi (1869-1948)

250. Sandwich every bit of criticism between two layers of praise. — Mary Kay Ash (1918-2001) from Mary Kay on People Management

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251. If you have made a decision based only on money, you have made a bad decision. — Walter C. Meloon (1893-1974)

252. Memory is a delicate symbiosis of pain and wonder. — Tony Daniel (1963- ) from The Careful Man Goes West

253. I was at peace lying there... my thoughts... the kind of thoughts I recalled having had as a child when it had not yet dawned on me that all my dreams would eventually be hammered flat and cut into steely dies so they could withstand the dreadful pressures of a dreamless world. — Lucius Shepard (1947- ) from Barnacle Bill the Spacer

254. You can live to be a hundred if you give up all the things that make you want to live to be a hundred. — Woody Allen (1935- ) from Interiors

255. Democracy is a system that gives people a chance to elect rascals of their own choosing. — Doug Larson (1926- )

256. We spend a good part of our lives trying desperately to convince ourselves as well as everybody else that we know more than we really do. — Charles Osgood (1933- ) from The Osgood Files

257. If you think education is expensive, try ignorance. — Derek Bok (1930- )

258. It's not only quiet people who don't say much. — Unknown

259. Never wrestle with a pig. You both get dirty and the pig enjoys it. — Attrib. George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950)

260. We will learn that computers, amazing as they are, still cannot come close to being as effective as human beings. A computer isn't creative on its own because it's programmed to behave in a predictable way. Creativity comes from looking for the unexpected and stepping outside your own experience. — Masaru Ibuka (1908-1997)

261. Too many Americans have twisted the sensible right to pursue happiness into the delusion that we are entitled to a guarantee of happiness. If we don't get exactly what we want, we assume someone must be violating our rights. We're no longer willing to write off some of life's disappointments to simple bad luck. — Susan Jacoby (1946- ) from When Rights Run Wild

262. Pondering was the highest vocation.... Pondering was a special kind of thinking. It was not done in the mind, that chilly place, but in the heart, where the real mystery of intelligence—intuitio—rather than thought lay catlike and feminine, ready to pounce. — Patricia Hampl (1946- ) from Virgin Time

263. It is not genius, nor glory, nor love that reflects the greatness of the human soul; it is kindness. — Henri-Dominique Lacordaire (1802-1861)

264. Do not mistake friendship for a license to tell the truth. More pain has been inflicted by indiscriminate truth-telling than by lies. Honesty too often means being hurtful and wounding someone. As long as you keep true counsel with yourself, it doesn't hurt if you dissemble with a friend. — David Brown, from The Rest of Your Life Is the Best of Your Life

265. Students with high IQs sometimes don't do as well as classmates with lower IQs. For them, learning comes too easily and they never find out how to buckle down. — Herbert Walberg (1937- )

266. We ain't what we want to be, and we ain't what we're gonna be, but we ain't what we wuz. — Old Mountain Proverb

267. What we call the beginning is often the end, and to make an end is to make a beginning. The end is where we start from. — T. S. Eliot (1888-1965)

268. Where is the Life we have lost in living? Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge? Where is the knowledge we have lost in information? — T. S. Eliot (1888-1965) from The Rock

269. We are in real danger of having constructed a society fundamentally dependent on science and technology in which hardly anybody understands science and technology. This is a clear prescription for disaster. — Carl Sagan (1934-1996)

270. The greatest tragedy in movie making is the loss of black and white films due to television's demand for color. Black and white films are dreamlike and permit the viewer to reach a deeper psychological and emotional level. Color is too realistic and emphasizes surfaces rather than depth. — Roger Ebert (1942- )

271. One of the deep secrets of Life is that all that is really worth the doing, is what we do for others. — Lewis Carroll [Charles Lutwidge Dodgson] (1832-1898)

272. Coincidence is often a little miracle in which God has decided to remain anonymous. — Unknown

273. Advice to persons about to write history - don't. — Lord Acton [John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton] (1834-1902)

274. One does not, by knowing all the physical laws as we know them today, immediately obtain an understanding of anything much. — Richard Feynman (1918-1988)

275. You can do the job, or you can keep up with what is going on. But for the long term, you cannot do both. — Peter Gelassi (On being photography curator at the Museum of Modern Art)

276. Nothing offsets a big fantasy like a little reality. — Lynn Johnston (1947- ) from For Better or For Worse

277. We weren't put here to be happy... Somewhere in the '60s or '70s we started expecting to be happy, and changed our lives, left town, left families, switched jobs, if we were not. And society strained and cracked in the storm. Why? We have lost the old knowledge that happiness is overrated, that, in a way, life is overrated. We have lost, somehow, a sense of mystery about us, our purpose, our meaning, our role. Our ancestors believed in two worlds, and understood this to be the "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short" one. We are among the first generations of man that actually expected to find happiness here on earth, and our search for it has caused such unhappiness. The reason: if you do not believe in another, higher world, if you believe that this is your only chance at happiness, then if the world does not give you a good measure of its riches, you despair. — Peggy Noonan (1950- )

278. You must be generous with others, but severe with yourself. — Kim Woo-Choong (1936- )

279. What a wee little part of a person's life are his acts and his words! His real life is led in his head, and is known to none but himself. All day long, the mill of his brain is grinding, and his thoughts, not those other things, are his history. These are his life, and they are not written, and cannot be written. Every day would make a whole book of 80,000 words, 365 books a year. Biographies are but the clothes and buttons of the man—the biography of the man himself cannot be written. — Mark Twain (1835-1910)

280. The world is well supplied with rude people spouting high moral positions about human rights, but it is noticeably lacking in those who worry about the human being waiting in line behind them at the automated-teller machine while they balance their checkbooks. — Owen Edwards (1933-2010)

281. I sometimes give myself admirable advice, but I am incapable of taking it. — Mary Wortley Montagu (1689-1762)

282. You may be disappointed if you fail, but you are doomed if you don't try. — Beverly Sills (1929-2007)

283. I am patient with stupidity but not with those who are proud of it. — Dame Edith Sitwell (1887-1964)

284. They come to revise the past. For of course, it's not true that what's done is done and can't be changed. The present is constantly shifting the weight and meaning of events that lead up to it. Time is what separates meaningless moments from those that link cause and effect, joining the girls they were and the women they became. They come back to reunions for the comfort of sharing common history, but also to seek consensus as to what the history was, since no one sees anyone else's story whole, at the time, or ever, and since no one can tell what the beginnings mean until she has an idea of how the story ends. — On class reunions, Beth Gutcheon

285. Any guy who has hair on his head is overdressed. — Joe Garagiola (1926- )

286. You don't have to hurry up for bad news. Bad news would wait for you. — Nanci Kincaid, from A Sturdy Pair of Shoes That Fit Good

287. There is a fine line between memory and fiction... The most satisfying stories, I think, are those that skillfully blend memory and imagination in ways that surprise even the writer. — Nanci Kincaid

288. The old ways were not easier, but sometimes they meant more. — Robert Morgan

289. Be thankful for dirty dishes; they have a tale to tell. While others are starving, we're eating very well. — from 50 Years on the Roundabout - What's Cooking at Du Pont

290. Death is nothing at all. It does not count. I have only slipped away into the next room. Nothing has happened. Everything remains exactly as it was. I am I, and you are you, and the old life that we lived so fondly together is untouched, unchanged. Whatever we were to each other, that we are still. Call me by the old familiar name. Speak of me in the easy way which you always used. Put no difference into your tone. Wear no forced air of solemnity or sorrow. Laugh as we always laughed at the little jokes that we enjoyed together. Play, smile, think of me, pray for me. Let my name be ever the household word that it always was. Let it be spoken without an effort, without the ghost of a shadow upon it. Life means all that it ever meant. It is the same as it ever was. There is absolute and unbroken continuity. What is this death but a negligible accident? Why should I be out of mind because I am out of sight? I am but waiting for you, for an interval, somewhere very near, just round the corner. All is well. — Sir Henry Scott-Holland (1847-1918)

291. Success, for some people, depends on becoming well-known; for others, it depends on never being found out. — Ashleigh Brilliant (1933- )

292. Your workers are quite likely to give you what you deserve. Have great expectations from them and they may surprise you. — Walt Buescher (1914- )

293. I suspect the most basic of all motivation comes from pride, pride in work being done. — Walt Buescher (1914- )

294. Any fool can read the rule book. It takes a manager to know when to make exceptions to the rule book. — H. A. Gratner

295. We no longer inherit the Earth from our parents, we borrow it from our children. — David Suzuki (1936- ) from Inventing the Future - Reflections on Science, Technology and Nature

296. The only big ideas I've ever had have come from daydreaming, but modern life keeps poeple from daydreaming. Every moment of the day your mind is being occupied, controlled, by someone else at school, at work, watching television. Getting away from all that is important. You need to just kick back in a chair and let your mind daydream. — Paul MacCready (1925-2007)

297. Let your children go if you want to keep them. — Malcolm S. Forbes (1919-1990)

298. Marriage is like a phonograph record. You get what you like on one side and take what you get on the other. — Ronnie Johnson, quoting his father

299. ....how much we sometimes need the magic and romance of moonlight—a light that is nothing like the harsh glare of the sun that it reflects. Moonlight softens our faults; all shabbiness dissolves into shadow. It erases the myriad details that crowd and rush us in the sunlight, leaving only sharp outlines and highlights and broad brushstrokes the fundamental shape of things. — Mary E. Potter, from When the Moon Follows Me

300. We journalists aren't very good at conveying to our readers, viewers and listeners that we live in a world of relative risks, and we're not good at putting those risks in context. Inadvertently, we often transmit accurate facts but misleading impressions. — Daniel Lynch, from The Real Risk of AIDS

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301. You learn far more from negative leadership than from positive leadership. Because you learn how not to do it. And, therefore, you learn how to do it. — Gen. H. Norman Schwarzkopf (1934- )

302. God bless democracy! I approve of it highly, but I suffer from it greatly. — Gen. George C. Marshall (1880-1959)

303. It is a profoundly erroneous truism, repeated by all copy-books and by eminent people when they are making speeches, that we should cultivate the habit of thinking of what we are doing. The precise opposite is the case. Civilization advances by extending the number of important operations which we can perform without thinking about them. Operations of thought are like cavalry charges in a battle—they are strictly limited in number, they require fresh horses, and must only be made at decisive moments. — Alfred North Whitehead (1861-1947)

304. I think the crucial thing in the writing career is to find what you want to do and how you fit in. What somebody else does is of no concern whatever except as an interesting variation. — James Michener (1907-1997)

305. Unless a man is totally captivated by the idea of womanhood, he'll never be much of a writer. I feel the same way about women writers. Never back away from the sexual theme. It is the overriding theme, the inescapable one. — James Michener (1907-1997)

306. November I'd spend in San Antonio walking along the river and soaking up sun and sangria in the sidewalk cafes. A hundred other cities could have made their riverbanks as joyful as this, but only San Antonio did it. — Charles Kuralt (1934-1997)

307. April, certainly, I'd spend in Chapel Hill, North Carolina... and April is North Carolina's glory, the month of daffodils and dogwood blossoms and soft breezes from the south. I'd go to Chapel Hill in April and imagine myself young again. — Charles Kuralt (1934-1997)

308. Fear may be the first serious enemy you have to face in our society. It is the most destructive emotional bogyman there is. Cold feet, panic, depression and violence are all symptoms of fear when it's out of control. But this feeling, ironically, can also trigger courage, alertness, objectivity. You must learn not to try to rid yourself of this basic human emotion, but to manipulate it for your own advantage. You cannot surrender to fear, but you can use it as a kind of fuel. Once you learn to control fear to make it work for you it will become one of your best friends. — José Torres (1936-2009)

309. There is nothing higher and stronger and more wholesome and useful for life in later years than some good memory, especially a memory connected with childhood, with home. If a man carries many such memories with him into life, he is safe to the end of his days, and if we have only one good memory left in our hearts, even that may sometime be the means of saving us. — Fyodor Dostoyevsky (1821-1881)

310. What magnifies your power of insight and action also magnifies your power of destruction. Misuse it, and you will destroy yourself, even if your intention was innocent. — Piers Anthony (1934- ) from A Picture of Jesus

311. You grow tired, at last, of your own limitations, sensing those faults of character and intelligence you are unable to change.... If you fail, do so without whimpering. And avoid disguising your whimpering beneath endless recapitulation and assessment. — Robert D. Sampson (1927-1992) from Dead Gods

312. People who care about each other enjoy doing things for one another. They don't consider it servitude. — Ann Landers (1918-2002)

313. Every time I think I've hit the bottom, somebody throws me a shovel. — Jim Davis (1945- ) from Garfield

314. My father's dividing line was that of color. Among his equals, never was a man more just and generous; but he considered the negro, through all possible gradations of color, as an intermediate link between man and animals, and graded all his ideas of justice or generosity on this hypothesis. I suppose, to be sure, if anybody had asked him, plump and fair, whether they had human immortal souls, he might have hemmed and hawed, and said yes. But my father was not a man much troubled with spiritualism; religious sentiment he had none, beyond a veneration for God, as decidedly the head of the upper classes. — Harriet Beecher Stowe (1811-1896) from Uncle Tom's Cabin

315. It appears that most autobiographical memories are true but inaccurate. What is remembered in particular probably does not reflect the way some event really happened... These errors, though, may be mediated by an accurate "self-portrait", because not just any "memory" is acceptable as one's own. The sense of familiarity created by an event is associated with a judgement that the event is true to what most likely occurred and consistent with what should have happened. — Craig R. Barclay

316. Memory is a great artist. For every man and for every woman it makes the recollection of his or her life a work of art and an unfaithful record. — André Maurois (1885-1967)

317. I have yet to see any problem, however complicated, which, when you looked at it in the right way, did not become still more complicated. — Poul Anderson (1926-2001)

318. The Lord gave us two ends—one to sit on and the other to think with. Success depends on which one we use the most. — Ann Landers (1918-2002)

319. Tourist: One who travels to see things that are different and then complains when they aren't the same. — from Dublin Opinion

320. Perhaps the most valuable result of all education is the ability to make yourself do the thing you have to do, when it ought to be done, whether you like it or not. It is the first lesson that ought to be learned, and however early a man's training begins, it is probably the last lesson that he learns thoroughly. — Thomas H. Huxley (1825-1895)

321. Sometimes we're so concerned about giving our children what we never had growing up, we neglect to give them what we did have growing up. — James Dobson (1936- )

322. Society corrupts the best of us. — Carl Sagan (1934-1996) from Broca's Brain

323. All inquiries carry with them some element of risk. There is no guarantee that the universe will conform to our predispositions. — Carl Sagan (1934-1996) from Broca's Brain

324. When we think well, we feel good. Understanding is a kind of ecstasy. — Carl Sagan (1934-1996) from Broca's Brain

325. People are rarely grateful for a demonstration of their credulity. — Carl Sagan (1934-1996) from Broca's Brain

326. It is a kindness neither to science nor religion to leave unchallenged inadequate arguments for the existence of God. Moreover, debates on such questions are good fun, and at the very least, hone the mind for useful work. — Carl Sagan (1934-1996) from Broca's Brain

327. No life is so enjoyable as that whose energies are devoted to following out the inborn impulses of one's nature. — Simon Newcomb (1835-1909) from remarks at the dedication of Yerkes Observatory

328. The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead: his eyes are closed. — Albert Einstein (1879-1955) from What I Believe

329. The Computer Person's Prayer

     Our program, who are in Memory, Hello be thy name. The Operating System come, thy commands be done, at the Printer as they are on the Screen. Give us this day our daily data, and forgive us our I/O Errors as we forgive those whose Logic Circuits are faulty. Lead us not into Frustration, and deliver us from Power Surges. For thine is the Algorithm, the Application, and the Solution, looping forever and ever. Return. — Attrib. John Barry

330. The human body experiences a powerful gravitational pull in the direction of hope. — Norman Cousins (1915-1990)

331. A library should not be a museum for dead books or a paper warehouse but a center of intellectual life in the community. — Robert Sommer (1929- ) from The Ecology of Privacy

332. Think—it ain't illegal yet! — Graffiti

333. A little inaccuracy sometimes saves tons of explanation. — Saki [H. H. Munro] (1870-1916)

334. In a world of increasing confusion and mediocrity, the challenge is great to uphold vision and excellence wherever they are found. The challenge is enormous and it is ours. — Beth LeMaster Simpson (1936- )

335. It does no harm just once in a while to acknowledge that the whole country isn't in flames, that there are people in the country besides politicians, entertainers and criminals. — Charles Kuralt (1934-1997)

336. While it takes courage to achieve greatness, it takes more courage to find fulfillment in being ordinary. For the joys that last have little relationship to achievement, to standing one step higher on the victory platform. What is the adventure in being ordinary? It is daring to love just for the pleasure of giving it away. It is venturing to give new life and to nurture it to maturity. It is working hard for the pure joy of being tired at the end of the day. It is caring and sharing and giving and loving, because we trust our ordinary lives in the hands of an extraordinary God. — Marilyn Thomsen

337. It took only 50 years for movies to go from silent to unspeakable. — Doug Larson (1926- )

338. I endeavor to be wise when I cannot be merry, easy when I cannot be glad, content with what cannot be mended and patient when there be no redress. — Elizabeth Montagu (1718-1800)

339. Books are not made for furniture, but there is nothing else that so beautifully furnishes a house. — Henry Ward Beecher (1813-1887)

340. Words of comfort, skillfully administered, are the oldest therapy known to man. — Louis Nizer (1902-1994)

341. Nothing lasts forever, not even your troubles. — Arnold H. Glasow (1905-1998)

342. The cure for loneliness is not more people, more company, but intimacy. — Gary Brooking

343. People tend to have their own way of doing things. But law, trying to make sure nothing ever goes wrong, doesn't respect the idiosyncrasy of human accomplishment. It sets forth the approved methods in black and white, and that's that. When law notices people doing it differently, it mashes them flat. ... Today we have a world in which people argue not about right and wrong, but about whether something was done the right way. ... Plato argued that good people do not need laws to tell them to act responsibly, while bad people will find a way around law. By pretending procedure will get rid of corruption, we have succeeded only in humiliating honest people and have provided a cover of darkness and complexity for the bad. ... The rules, procedures and rights smothering us are aspects of a legal technique that promises a permanent fix for human frailty. This legal experiment, we learn every time we encounter it, hasn't worked out. Modern law has not protected us from stupidity and caprice, but has made stupidity and caprice dominant features of society. — Philip K. Howard (1948- ) from The Death of Common Sense

344. It's more fun to arrive at a conclusion than to justify it. — Malcolm S. Forbes (1919-1990)

345. Mañana is often the busiest day of the week. — Spanish Proverb

346. The average tourist wants to go places where there are no tourists. — Sam Ewing (1920-2001)

347. What we remember is what touches our heart. A certain gesture. The play of light. The sound of gold. The very moment itself. — Tiffany Ad

348. What you hold in your thoughts is what you bring into the world. — High Star, Lakota Sioux Medicine Man

349. Eternity is two people and a ham. — Irma S. Rombauer (1877-1962) in Joy of Cooking

350. If it feels like everything is under control, you're not going fast enough. — Mario Andretti (1940- )

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351. At bottom, the nuclear waste "crisis" is a crisis of perception and fear, and no site study can remedy it. — Jeff Wheelwright (1947- )

352. Reason is just the endless paperwork of the mind. — Richard E. Cytowic (1952- )

353. Procrastination is the art of keeping up with yesterday. — Donald Robert Perry Marquis (1878-1937)

354. A reconciliation without an explanation that error lay on both sides is not a true reconciliation. — Hebrew Proverb

355. To do two things at once is to do neither. — Publius Syrus, 42 B.C.

356. The hero is known for achievements, the celebrity for well-knownness. The hero reveals the possibilities of human nature, the celebrity reveals the possibilities of the press and the media. Celebrities are people who make the news, but heroes are people who make history. Time makes heroes but dissolves celebrities. — Daniel J. Boorstin (1914-2004)

357. The shortest route to someone's affections—male or female—is to listen. — Tom Purdom (1936-) from Romance in Lunar G

358. If you have tried to do and failed, you are vastly better off than if you had tried to do nothing and succeeded. — Henry C. Link (1889-1952)

359. While one person hesitates because he feels inferior, another is busy making mistakes and becoming superior. — Henry C. Link (1889-1952)

360. Books are where things are explained to you; life is where things are not. — Julian Barnes (1946- ) from Flaubert's Parrot

361. Happiness doesn't depend on outward conditions. It depends on inner conditions. It isn't what you have or who you are or where you are or what you are doing that makes you happy or unhappy. It's what you think about it. — Dale Carnegie (1888-1955) from How to Win Friends and Influence People

362. Whoever you are, there is some younger person who thinks you are perfect. There is some work that will never be done if you don't do it. There is someone who would miss you if you were gone. There is a place that you alone can fill. — Jacob M. Braude from Braude's Source Book for Speakers & Writers

363. A good scientist is a person with original ideas. But a good engineer is a person with as few original ideas as possible. — Freeman Dyson (1923- )

364. America subsidizes dumb more than any nation on earth. Unfortunately, it's working. — Rowland Nethaway from A Risk-Free America is Unnatural—and Dumb

365. Keep the faculty of effort alive in you by a little gratuitous exercise every day. That is, be systematically ascetic or heroic in little unnecessary points, do every day or two something for no other reason than that you would rather not do it, so that when the hour of dire need draws nigh, it may find you not unnerved and untrained to stand the test. — William James (1842-1910) from How to Change One's Habits

366. Education is what survives when what has been learned has been forgotten. — B. F. Skinner (1904-1990)

367. Attitude is more important than the past, than education, than money, than circumstances, than what other people think or say or do. It is more important than appearance, giftedness or skill. It will make or break a company, a church, a home. — Charles R. Swindoll (1934- ) from Strengthening Your Grip

368. It's incredibly easy to get caught up in an activity trap, in the busyness of life, to work harder and harder at climbing the ladder of success only to discover it's leaning against the wrong wall. — Steven R. Covey (1932- ) from The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People

369. Everything else you grow out of, but you never recover from childhood. — Beryl Bainbridge (1932-2010)

370. The trouble with parenthood is that by the time you're experienced, you're unemployable. — Anonymous

371. There is no danger of developing eyestrain from looking on the bright side of things. — Attr. to Alexander Lockhart

372. For heights and depths no words can reach, music is the soul's own speech. — Attr. to Anita Robertson

373. I am strongly persuaded that after theology there is no art that can be placed on a level with music, for besides theology, music is the only art capable of affording peace and joy to the heart. — Martin Luther (1483-1546)

374. Time spent laughing is time spent with the gods. — Japanese Proverb

375. Let him that would move the world first move himself. — Socrates (469-399 BC)

376. Only love can be divided endlessly and still not diminish. — Anne Morrow Lindbergh (1906-2001)

377. He that would be a leader must be a bridge. — Welsh Proverb

378. It is far more impressive when others discover your good qualities without your help. — Judith S. Martin (1938- )

379. People who know the least always seem to know it the loudest. — Reg Smythe (1917-1998) in Andy Capp

380. The power of guns evokes no wisdom, nor has it ever accomplished lasting peace. — Paramahansa Yogananda (1893-1952) from The Divine Romance

381. Young men have strong desires, and whatever they desire they are prone to do. They have not yet been humbled by life or come to know the force of circumstances. They think they know everything and are positive about everything. — Aristotle (384-322 BC)

382. Great opportunities to help others seldom come, but small ones surround us every day. — Sally Koch

383. When something can be read without effort, great effort has gone into its writing. — Enrique Jardiel Poncela (1901-1952)

384. Consensus is the negation of leadership. — Margaret Thatcher (1925- )

385. Where you came from is gone, where you thought you were going to never was there, and where you are is no good unless you can get away from it. — Flannery O'Connor (1925-1964) from Wise Blood

386. Intelligence is like underwear. We all should have it but we shouldn't show it off. — James Dent (1928- )

387. Let us try to teach generosity and altruism, because we are born selfish. — Richard Dawkins (1941- ) from The Selfish Gene

388. Maturity is a high price to pay for growing up. — Tom Stoppard (1937- ) from Plays for Radio, 1964-91

389. Freedom, after all, is simply being able to live with the consequences of your decisions. — James X. Mullen (1941- ) from The Simple Art of Greatness

390. It is infinitely easier to criticize than to create. — John McCormick

391. Uneducated minds magnify differences. Educated minds see similarities. Liberal learning is coming to understand the ultimate oneness of things. — James H. Daughdrill, Jr. (1934- )

392. We are the sum of all the lives we once lived. We show the grown-up part, but inside we are still the laughing children, the shy teens, the dream-filled youths. There still exists, most real, the matrix of all we were or ever yearned to be. — Beth Ashley (1926- )

393. To acquire knowledge, one must study; but to acquire wisdom, one must observe. — Marilyn vos Savant (1946- )

394. Young people have an almost biological destiny to be hopeful. — Marshall Ganz (1943- )

395. A mind, like a home, is furnished by its owner, so if one's life is cold and bare he can blame none but himself. — Louis L'Amour (1908-1988) from Bendigo Shafter

396. I'm not into working out. My philosophy is "No pain, no pain." — Carol Leifer (1956- )

397. If you're in charge of a project, the key to success is getting everyone to want to help you... I point. I suggest. I gently nudge... in the direction I want them to go. — Gary Marshall

398. Any small object when dropped will hide under a larger object. — Unknown

399. Herblock's Law: If it's good, they will stop making it. — Herblock [Herbert Lawrence Block] (1909-2001)

400. Jury: Twelve people who determine which client has the better lawyer. — Robert Frost (1874-1963)

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401. Reality's the only obstacle to happiness. — Unknown

402. An intimate relationship does not banish loneliness. Only when we are comfortable with who we are and can function independently in a healthy way, can we truly function within a relationship. Two halves do not make a whole when it comes to a healthy relationship: it takes two wholes. — Patricia Fry

403. Success? Don't you know it is all about being able to extend love to people? Not in a big, capital-letter sense, but in the everyday. Little by little, task by task, gesture by gesture, word by word. — Ralph Fiennes (1962- )

404. The world of business has more bright people than effective people. I like people who are both, but if I had to choose between high intelligence and effective execution, I would take effective execution all the time. — Dick Brown

405. The only disability in life is a bad attitude. — Scott Hamilton (1958- )

406. Ideas are like wandering sons. They show up when you least expect them. — Bern Williams

407. We act as though comfort and luxury were the chief requirements in life, when all that we need to make us really happy is something to be enthusiastic about. — Charles Kingsley (1819-1875)

408. It's paradoxical that the idea of living a long life appeals to everyone, but the idea of getting old doesn't appeal to anyone. — Andy Rooney (1919- )

409. Love doesn't just sit there, like a stone, it has to be made, like bread; remade all the time, made new. — Ursula K. Le Guin (1929- ) from The Lathe of Heaven

410. A dog doesn't want much and is happy to get it. A cat doesn't know what it wants and wants more of it. — Richard Hexem (1941- )

411. Tucked away in our subconscious is an idyllic vision. We are traveling by train—out the windows, we drink in the passing scenes of children waving at a crossing, cattle grazing on a distant hillside, row upon row of corn and wheat, flatlands and valleys, mountains and rolling hillsides and city skylines. But uppermost in our minds is the final destination. On a certain day, we will pull into the station. Bands will be playing and flags waving. Once we get there, our dreams will come true and the pieces of our lives will fit together like a completed jigsaw puzzle. Restlessly we pace the aisles, damning the minutes—waiting, waiting, waiting for the station. "When we reach the station, that will be it!" we cry. "When I'm 18." "When I buy a new 450sl Mercedes Benz!" "When I put the last kid through college!" "When I have paid off the mortgage!" "When I get a promotion!" "When I reach retirement, I shall live happily ever after!" Sooner or later, we realize there is no station, no one place to arrive. The true joy of life is the trip. The station is only a dream. It constantly outdistances us. "Relish the moment" is a good motto, especially when coupled with Psalm 118:24: "This is the day which the Lord hath made; we will rejoice and be glad in it." It isn't the burdens of today that drive men mad. It is the regrets over yesterday and the fear of tomorrow. Regret and fear are twin thieves who rob us of today. So stop pacing the aisles and counting the miles. Instead, climb more mountains, eat more ice cream, go barefoot more often, swim more rivers, watch more sunsets, laugh more, cry less. Life must be lived as we go along. The station will come soon enough. — Robert J. Hastings (1924-1997)

412. The search for happiness is one of the chief sources of unhappiness. — Eric Hoffer (1902-1983)

413. Life goes on long after the thrill of living is gone. — John Cougar [John Mellencamp] (1951- )

414. The true gift you were given was things of the spirit. Don't ever cry over things that can't cry over you. — Quoted by Cheewa James

415. Enjoy the power and beauty of your youth. Oh, never mind. You will not understand the power and beauty of your youth until they've faded... You are not as fat as you imagine... Don't be reckless with other people's hearts. Don't put up with people who are reckless with yours... Remember compliments, forget insults... Keep old love letters. Throw away old bank statements... Whatever you do, don't congratulate yourself or berate yourself too much. Your choices are half chance, like everybody else's... Do not read beauty magazines. They will only make you feel ugly... Understand that friends come and go, but with a precious few you should hold on... Accept these certain truths: Prices will rise. Politicians will philander. You, too, will get old. And then you'll fantasize that when you were young, prices were reasonable, politicians were noble and children respected their elders. — Mary Schmich (1953- ) from Words to Live By - Tips from a Speech Never Given

416. Don't do what you can't undo, until you've considered what you can't do once you've done it. — Robin Hobb (1952- ) from Assassin's Apprentice

417. Beauty is about perception, not about make-up. I think the beginning of all beauty is knowing and liking oneself. You can't put on make-up, or dress yourself, or do you hair with any sort of fun or joy if you're doing it from a position of correction. — Kevyn Aucoin (1962-2002)

418. Our life is what our thoughts make it. — Marcus Aurelius (121-180)

419. Even those with bad memories can remember to say thanks. — Noah benShea

420. If you had to identify, in one word, the reason why the human race has not achieved, and never will achieve, its full potential, that word would be meetings. — Dave Barry (1947- )

421. If there really is a God who created the entire universe with all of its glories, and He decides to deliver a message to humanity, He will not use, as His messenger, a person on cable TV with a bad hairstyle. — Dave Barry (1947- )

422. "There is no word for end-of-summer sadness," wrote E. B. White, "but the human spirit picks up the first of its approach." We see it in the slant of the sunlight, in the autumnal blue of Cape Cod Bay. We hear it in the drone of the cricket chorus from the salt meadows: "Six weeks till frost, six weeks till frost." Suddenly each day becomes precious, something to be hoarded like candy in a child's pocket. — Arthur Vanderbilt from Golden Days

423. Sister, there were people who went to sleep last night, poor and rich and white and black, but they will never wake again. And those dead folks would give anything at all for just five minutes of this weather or ten minutes of plowing. So you watch yourself about complaining. What you're supposed to do when you don't like a thing is change it. If you can't change it, change the way you think about it. — Maya Angelou (1928- ) quoting her grandmother Annie Henderson, from Wouldn't Take Nothing for My Journey Now

424. Maybe all one can do is hope to end up with the right regrets. — Arthur Miller (1915-2005)

425. While we'd all like to have more than we have, we all need less than we think we need. We tend to confuse our wants with our needs. — Noah benShea

426. A problem avoided is a crisis invented. — Henry Kissenger (1923- )

427. One of these days is none of these days. — English Proverb

428. To be happy with a man you must understand him a lot and love him a little. To be happy with a woman you must love her a lot and not try to understand her at all. — Helen Rowland (1875-1950)

429. The secret to success on the job is to work as though you were working for yourself. Your company provides you with the work area, equipment and other benefits, but basically you know what has to get done and the best way to do it, so it's up to you to run your own show. — Lair Ribeiro from Success Is No Accident

430. Memory is better than a video, because it's free and it doesn't work very well. — David Owen in Atlantic Monthly

431. No one can maintain more than three priorities. If you have a job you care about, that's a priority. If you have a family, that's a priority. Which leaves one more. Most people understand this intuitively. But they keep overcommitting themselves and overcomplicating their lives. So my advice is simple: figure out what your priorities are, and say no to everything else. — Elaine St. James

432. Any of us who want to improve our vision only have to go in search of what we don't want to see. — Noah benShea

433. After climbing a great hill, one only finds that there are many more hills to climb. I have taken a moment here to rest, to steal a view of the glorious vista that surrounds me, to look back on the distance I have come. But I can rest only for a moment, for with freedom comes responsibilities, and I dare not linger, for my long walk is not yet ended. — Nelson Mandela (1918- )

434. Opportunity dates men of action but marries men of patience. — Noah benShea

435. A great many people think they are thinking when they are merely rearranging their prejudices. — William James (1842-1910)

436. If you want to make God laugh, tell him your plans. — Tom Batiuk (1947- ) in Funky Winkerbean Comic Strip from a Yiddish Proverb

437. Looking back, my life seems like one long obstacle race, with me as the chief obstacle. — Jack Paar (1918-2004)

438. People who want to share their religious view with you almost never want you to share yours with them. — Dave Barry (1947- )

439. Television is very intellectual. As soon as someone turns it on, I leave the room to go and read a book. — Groucho Marx (1890-1977)

440. If you decide you don't have to get A's, you can learn an enormous amount in college. — Isidor I. Rabi (1898-1988) quoted in A Festschrift for I. I. Rabi

441. Science is an adventure of the whole human race, to learn to live and perhaps love the universe in which they are. To be a part of it is to understand, to understand oneself, to begin to feel that there is a capacity within man far beyond what he felt he had, of an infinite extension of human possibilities. — Isidor I. Rabi (1898-1988) in Project Physics Course

442. God often sends us on errands and only later informs us of the errand. — Noah ben Shea

443. It always amazes me to think that every house on every street is full of so many stories; so many triumphs and tragedies, and all we see are yards and driveways. — Glenn Close (1947- )

444. Why not go out on a limb? Isn't that where the fruit is? — Frank Scully (1892-1964)

445. There are moments when everything goes well; don't be frightened, it won't last. — Jules Renard (1864-1910)

446. We do not know whether the things afflicting us are the secret beginning of our happiness or not. — Jorge Luis Borges (1899-1986)

447. What we anticipate seldom happens; what we least expect generally happens. — Benjamin Disraeli (1804-1881)

448. Owe no man anything. Avoid a debt as you would the pestilence. Dig potatoes, peddle tinware, break stones, do anything rather than run into debt. As you value good digestion, pleasant temper, peace and quiet, keep out of debt. It is a mill stone around the neck, breaks up the harmony of nature, brings premature wrinkles, takes the soul out of a man's laugh and the freedom from his step. — Unknown in The Commercial Appeal, Memphis, TN, April 10, 1853

449. Words spoken, you are a slave to; those not said, you are the master of. — Irish saying

450. Gandhi's Seven Sins: Wealth without work; Pleasure without conscience; Knowledge without character; Commerce without morality; Science without humanity; Worship without sacrifice; and Politics without principle. — Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (1869-1948)

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451. Court: the place where a witness swears to tell the truth but every time he tries, some lawyer objects. — Unknown

452. Americanism: A desire to be thin without dieting, to be rich without working, to be cultured without studying, and to be a good citizen without obeying the law. — Neal O'Hara

453. At age 20 we don't care what the world thinks of us; at age 30 we begin to worry what it thinks of us; at age 50 we find it wasn't thinking of us at all. — from Perfection News Review

454. If we tend to observe the habits of others as annoying what we're generally observing is our habit of being annoyed. — Noah benShea

455. Many of us looking for someone special in our life have never met the most special person in our lives. Ourselves. This doesn't mean we're more important than others. It does mean that we can't really be in a positive relationship with others until we've firmly established a relationship with our selves. There should be a rule that none of us can get engaged until after we've "gone steady" with ourselves. — Noah benShea

456. Being wealthy is very different from living a rich life. — Noah benShea

457. What we can predict isn't always what we can explain. What we can explain doesn't necessarily mean we can explain why. — Noah benShea

458. Be patient with all that is unresolved in your heart. And try to love the questions themselves. Do not seek for the answers that cannot be given. For you wouldn't be able to live with them. And the point is to live everything, live the questions now, and perhaps without knowing it, you will live along some day into the answers. — Rainer Maria Rilke (1875-1926)

459. Sexiness wears thin after a while and beauty fades, but to be married to a man who makes you laugh every day, ah, now that's a real treat. — Joanne Woodward (1930- )

460. Competition brings out the best in products and the worst in people. — David Sarnoff (1891-1971)

461. Nothing has turned out as we expected! It never does. Life's under no obligation to give us what we expect. We take what we get and are thankful it's no worse than it is. — Margaret Mitchell (1900-1949) in Gone With the Wind

462. Isn't it funny — when the other fellow takes a long time to do something, he's slow. But when I take a long time to do something, I'm thorough. When the other fellow doesn't do it, he's too lazy. But when I don't do it, I'm too busy. When the other fellow goes ahead and does something without being told, he's overstepping his bounds. But when I go ahead and do something without being told, that's initiative! When the other fellow states his side of the question strongly, he's bullheaded. But when I state a side of the question strongly, I'm being firm. When the other fellow overlooks a few of the rules of etiquette, he's rude. But when I skip a few of the rules, I'm original. When the other fellow does something that pleases the boss, he's polishing brass. But when I do something that pleases the boss, that's cooperation. When the other fellow gets ahead, he sure had the lucky breaks. But when I manage to get ahead, man! My hard work did that! Funny is it not — or is it? — Anonymous

463. Americans will put up with anything provided it doesn't block traffic. — Dan Rather (1931- )

464. The person who is afraid to risk failure seldom has to face success. — John Wooden (1910-2010)

465. Even for the fortunate, life is lived forwards and understood backwards. — Noah benShea

466. Man is usually trying to make something for himself rather than something of himself. — Jascha Heifetz (1901-1987)

467. Every act of conscious learning requires the willingness to suffer an injury to one's self-esteem. That is why young children, before they are aware of their own self-importance, learn so easily; and why older persons, especially if vain or important, cannot learn at all. — Thomas Szasz (1920- )

468. Poem for the Living

     When I am dead,
     Cry for me a little.
     Think of me sometimes,
     But not too much.
     It is not good for you
     Or your wife or your husband
     Or your children
     To allow your thoughts to dwell
     Too long on the dead.
     Think of me now and again
     As I was in life
     At some moment which it is pleasant to recall,
     But not for long.
     Leave me in peace
     As I shall leave you, too, in peace.
     While you live,
     Let your thoughts be with the living.

     Theodora Kroeber (1897-1979)

469. Keep thy eyes wide open before marriage, and half-shut afterwards. — Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790)

470. There is a time to wink as well as to see. — Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790)

471. Whoever undertakes to set himself up as a judge of Truth and Knowledge is shipwrecked by the laughter of the gods. — Albert Einstein (1879-1955)

472. Not everything that counts can be counted, and not everything that can be counted counts. — Supposedly a sign hanging in Albert Einstein's office at Princeton but probably by William Bruce Cameron in Informal Sociology

473. Coincidence is God's way of remaining anonymous. — Unknown; sometimes attributed to Albert Einstein (1879-1955)

474. There is no pity for a man who moans about living in one town and does not move to another. — The Talmud

475. Even those of us who are good at math can forget to count our blessings. — Noah benShea

476. The heart has its reasons which reason does not know. — Blaise Pascal (1623-1662)

477. When I was a boy, I was told that anybody could become President. Now I'm beginning to believe it. — Clarence Darrow (1857-1938)

478. Your assumptions are your windows on the world. Scrub them off every once in a while, or the light won't come in. — Alan Alda (1936- )

479. Advice is like snow; the softer it falls, the longer it dwells upon, and the deeper it sinks into, the mind. — Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834)

480. Times are bad. Children no longer obey their parents, and everyone is writing a book. — Marcus Tullius Cicero (106-43 BC)

481. A sense of duty is useful in work but offensive in personal relations. — Bertrand Russell (1872-1970)

482. Chance is perhaps the pseudonym of God when he does not wish to sign his work. — Anatole France (1844-1924)

483. When a train goes through a tunnel and it gets dark, you don't throw away the ticket and jump off. You sit still and trust the engineer. — Corrie Ten Boom (1892-1983)

484. Time engraves our faces with all the tears we have not shed. — Natalie Clifford Barney (1876-1972)

485. There is no rule more invariable than that we are paid for our suspicions by finding what we suspect. — Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862)

486. Better than a thousand days of diligent study is one day with a great teacher. — Japanese proverb

487. Buying books would be a good thing if one could also buy the time to read them in: but as a rule the purchase of books is mistaken for the appropriation of their contents. — Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860)

488. I have never met a man so ignorant that I couldn't learn something from him. — Galileo Galilei (1564-1642)

489. So difficult it is to show the various meanings and imperfections of words when we have nothing else but words to do it with. — John Locke (1632-1704)

490. There is no agony like bearing an untold story inside of you. — Maya Angelou (1928- )

491. To love is to receive a glimpse of heaven. — Karen Sunde (1942- )

492. What a heavy oar the pen is, and what a strong current ideas are to row in! — Gustave Flaubert (1821-1880)

493. Sometimes the only thing worse than a bad mirror is a good one. — Noah benShea

494. Time is the longest distance between two points. — Tennessee Williams (1911-1983)

495. Life does not cease to be funny when people die any more than it ceases to be serious when people laugh. — George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950)

496. In preparing for battle I have always found that plans are useless, but planning is indispensable. — Dwight D. Eisenhower (1890-1969)

497. Experience is not what happens to you; it is what you do with what happens to you. — Aldous Huxley (1894-1963)

498. One's age should be tranquil, as childhood should be playful. Hard work at either extremity of life seems out of place. At midday the sun may burn, and men labor under it; but the morning and evening should be alike calm and cheerful. — Thomas Arnold (1795-1842)

499. Poetry should please by a fine excess and not by singularity. It should strike the reader as a wording of his own highest thoughts, and appear almost as a remembrance. — John Keats (1795-1821)

500. Authority without wisdom is like a heavy axe without an edge, fitter to bruise than polish. — Anne Bradstreet (c.1612-1672)