Stretch To Succeed

Famous Quotes By Voltaire

Famous Quotes by Voltaire

All men are born with a nose and ten fingers, but no one was born with a knowledge of God.
All styles are good except the tiresome kind.
All the reasonings of men are not worth one sentiment of women.
An ideal form of government is democracy tempered with assassination.
Anyone who has the power to make you believe absurdities has the power to make you commit injustices.
Better is the enemy of good.
Business is the salt of life.
Common sense is not so common.
Divorce is probably of nearly the same date as marriage. I believe, however, that marriage is some weeks the more ancient.
Each player must accept the cards life deals him or her: but once they are in hand, he or she alone must decide how to play the cards in order to win the game.
Every man is guilty of all the good he did not do.
Faith consists in believing when it is beyond the power of reason to believe.
Fear follows crime and is its punishment.
Friendship is the marriage of the soul, and this marriage is liable to divorce.
God gave us the gift of life it is up to us to give ourselves the gift of living well.
God is a comedian, playing to an audience too afraid to laugh.
God is not on the side of the big battalions, but on the side of those who shoot best.
He is a hard man who is only just, and a sad one who is only wise.
He was a great patriot, a humanitarian, a loyal friend provided, of course, he really is dead.
He who has not the spirit of this age, has all the misery of it.
He who is not just is severe, he who is not wise is sad.
History is only the register of crimes and misfortunes.
History should be written as philosophy.
How pleasant it is for a father to sit at his child's board. It is like an aged man reclining under the shadow of an oak which he has planted.
I am very fond of truth, but not at all of martyrdom.
I do not agree with what you have to say, but I'll defend to the death your right to say it.
I hate women because they always know where things are.
I have never made but one prayer to God, a very short one: 'O Lord make my enemies ridiculous.' And God granted it.
If God created us in his own image, we have more than reciprocated.
If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent Him.
If there were no God, it would be necessary to invent him.
In general, the art of government consists of taking as much money as possible from one class of citizens to give to another.
In this country it is a good thing to kill an admiral from time to time to encourage the others.
Indeed, history is nothing more than a tableau of crimes and misfortunes.
Is there anyone so wise as to learn by the experience of others?
It is an infantile superstition of the human spirit that virginity would be thought a virtue and not the barrier that separates ignorance from knowledge.
It is forbidden to kill therefore all murderers are punished unless they kill in large numbers and to the sound of trumpets.
It is lamentable, that to be a good patriot one must become the enemy of the rest of mankind.
It is not known precisely where angels dwell whether in the air, the void, or the planets. It has not been God's pleasure that we should be informed of their abode.
It is not love that should be depicted as blind, but self-love.
It is not sufficient to see and to know the beauty of a work. We must feel and be affected by it.
It is said that the present is pregnant with the future.
It is vain for the coward to flee death follows close behind it is only by defying it that the brave escape.
Let us work without theorizing, tis the only way to make life endurable.
Life is thickly sown with thorns, and I know no other remedy than to pass quickly through them. The longer we dwell on our misfortunes, the greater is their power to harm us.
Love has features which pierce all hearts, he wears a bandage which conceals the faults of those beloved. He has wings, he comes quickly and flies away the same.
Love is a canvas furnished by nature and embroidered by imagination.
Men hate the individual whom they call avaricious only because nothing can be gained from him.
Men use thought only as authority for their injustice, and employ speech only to conceal their thoughts.
Nature has always had more force than education.
Never argue at the dinner table, for the one who is not hungry always gets the best of the argument.
Nothing can be more contrary to religion and the clergy than reason and common sense.
Nothing would be more tiresome than eating and drinking if God had not made them a pleasure as well as a necessity.
Of all religions, the Christian should of course inspire the most tolerance, but until now Christians have been the most intolerant of all men.
One great use of words is to hide our thoughts.
One merit of poetry few persons will deny: it says more and in fewer words than prose.
Perfection is attained by slow degrees it requires the hand of time.
Satire lies about literary men while they live and eulogy lies about them when they die.
Society therefore is an ancient as the world.
Stand upright, speak thy thoughts, declare The truth thou hast, that all may share Be bold, proclaim it everywhere: They only live who dare.
Superstition is to religion what astrology is to astronomy the mad daughter of a wise mother. These daughters have too long dominated the earth.
Tears are the silent language of grief.
The ancient Romans built their greatest masterpieces of architecture, their amphitheaters, for wild beasts to fight in.
The art of government is to make two-thirds of a nation pay all it possibly can pay for the benefit of the other third.
The art of medicine consists in amusing the patient while nature cures the disease.
The best government is a benevolent tyranny tempered by an occasional assassination.
The best is the enemy of the good.
The best way to be boring is to leave nothing out.
The ideal form of government is democracy tempered with assassination.
The infinitely little have a pride infinitely great.
The instruction we find in books is like fire. We fetch it from our neighbours, kindle it at home, communicate it to others, and it becomes the property of all.
The opportunity for doing mischief is found a hundred times a day, and of doing good once in a year.
The safest course is to do nothing against one's conscience. With this secret, we can enjoy life and have no fear from death.
The superfluous, a very necessary thing.
The truths of religion are never so well understood as by those who have lost the power of reason.
The very impossibility in which I find myself to prove that God is not, discovers to me his existence.
There are truths which are not for all men, nor for all times.
Time, which alone makes the reputation of men, ends by making their defects respectable.
To believe in God is impossible not to believe in Him is absurd.
To hold a pen is to be at war.
To the living we owe respect, but to the dead we owe only the truth.
Very learned women are to be found, in the same manner as female warriors but they are seldom or ever inventors.
We are all full of weakness and errors let us mutually pardon each other our follies - it is the first law of nature.
We are rarely proud when we are alone.
We must cultivate our own garden. When man was put in the garden of Eden he was put there so that he should work, which proves that man was not born to rest.
What a heavy burden is a name that has become too famous.
What is tolerance? It is the consequence of humanity. We are all formed of frailty and error let us pardon reciprocally each other's folly - that is the first law of nature.
What most persons consider as virtue, after the age of 40 is simply a loss of energy.
What then do you call your soul? What idea have you of it? You cannot of yourselves, without revelation, admit the existence within you of anything but a power unknown to you of feeling and thinking.
When it is a question of money, everybody is of the same religion.

Famous Quotes By Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

A really great talent finds its happiness in execution.
A useless life is an early death.
Age merely shows what children we remain.
All intelligent thoughts have already been thought what is necessary is only to try to think them again.
All the knowledge I possess everyone else can acquire, but my heart is all my own.
An unused life is an early death.
As soon as you trust yourself, you will know how to live.
Beauty is a manifestation of secret natural laws, which otherwise would have been hidden from us forever.
Beauty is everywhere a welcome guest.
Being brilliant is no great feat if you respect nothing.
Character develops itself in the stream of life.
Character, in great and little things, means carrying through what you feel able to do.
Death is a commingling of eternity with time in the death of a good man, eternity is seen looking through time.
Devote each day to the object then in time and every evening will find something done.
Doubt grows with knowledge.
Dream no small dreams for they have no power to move the hearts of men.
Error is acceptable as long as we are young but one must not drag it along into old age.
Every day we should hear at least one little song, read one good poem, see one exquisite picture, and, if possible, speak a few sensible words.
Few people have the imagination for reality.
First and last, what is demanded of genius is love of truth.
Girls we love for what they are young men for what they promise to be.
Go to foreign countries and you will get to know the good things one possesses at home.
Great thoughts and a pure heart, that is what we should ask from God.
Happiness is a ball after which we run wherever it rolls, and we push it with our feet when it stops.
He is happiest, be he king or peasant, who finds peace in his home.
He only earns his freedom and his life Who takes them every day by storm.
He who possesses art and science has religion he who does not possess them, needs religion.
I call architecture frozen music.
I do not know myself, and God forbid that I should.
I love those who yearn for the impossible.
If God had wanted me otherwise, He would have created me otherwise.
If I love you, what business is it of yours?
Ignorant men raise questions that wise men answered a thousand years ago.
In art the best is good enough.
In nature we never see anything isolated, but everything in connection with something else which is before it, beside it, under it and over it.
It is after all the greatest art to limit and isolate oneself.
It is not doing the thing we like to do, but liking the thing we have to do, that makes life blessed.
It is the strange fate of man, that even in the greatest of evils the fear of the worst continues to haunt him.
It seems to never occur to fools that merit and good fortune are closely united.
Just trust yourself, then you will know how to live.
Life belongs to the living, and he who lives must be prepared for changes.
Love and desire are the spirit's wings to great deeds.
Love can do much, but duty more.
Love does not dominate it cultivates.
Many people take no care of their money till they come nearly to the end of it, and others do just the same with their time.
Men show their character in nothing more clearly than what they think laughable.
Music is either sacred or secular. The sacred agrees with its dignity, and here has its greatest effect on life, an effect that remains the same through all ages and epochs. Secular music should be cheerful throughout.
Nature knows no pause in progress and development, and attaches her curse on all inaction.
No one would talk much in society if they knew how often they misunderstood others.
None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free.
Nothing is more fearful than imagination without taste.
On all the peaks lies peace.
One always has time enough, if one will apply it well.
One can be instructed in society, one is inspired only in solitude.
One cannot develop taste from what is of average quality but only from the very best.
One must ask children and birds how cherries and strawberries taste.
Only by joy and sorrow does a person know anything about themselves and their destiny. They learn what to do and what to avoid.
Personality is everything in art and poetry.
Piety is not a goal but a means to attain through the purest peace of mind the highest culture.
Science arose from poetry... when times change the two can meet again on a higher level as friends.
Self-knowledge comes from knowing other men.
Superstition is the poetry of life.
The artist alone sees spirits. But after he has told of their appearing to him, everybody sees them.
The best government is that which teaches us to govern ourselves.
The biggest problem with every art is by the use of appearance to create a loftier reality.
The Christian religion, though scattered and abroad will in the end gather itself together at the foot of the cross.
The credit of advancing science has always been due to individuals and never to the age.
The mediator of the inexpressible is the work of art.
The person born with a talent they are meant to use will find their greatest happiness in using it.
The soul that sees beauty may sometimes walk alone.
There is a courtesy of the heart it is allied to love. From its springs the purest courtesy in the outward behavior.
This is the highest wisdom that I own freedom and life are earned by those alone who conquer them each day anew.
Those who hope for no other life are dead even for this.
To rule is easy, to govern difficult.
To the person with a firm purpose all men and things are servants.
To witness two lovers is a spectacle for the gods.
Trust yourself, then you will know how to live.
We always have time enough, if we will but use it aright.
We cannot fashion our children after our desires, we must have them and love them as God has given them to us.
We can't form our children on our own concepts we must take them and love them as God gives them to us.
We know accurately only when we know little, with knowledge doubt increases.
What is important in life is life, and not the result of life.
What is uttered from the heart alone, Will win the hearts of others to your own.
Where is the man who has the strength to be true, and to show himself as he is?
Which government is the best? The one that teaches us to govern ourselves.
Wisdom is found only in truth.
Wood burns because it has the proper stuff in it and a man becomes famous because he has the proper stuff in him.

Famous Quotes By Mark Twain

A man who carries a cat by the tail learns something he can learn in no other way.
A man's character may be learned from the adjectives which he habitually uses in conversation.
A person with a new idea is a crank until the idea succeeds.
A round man cannot be expected to fit in a square hole right away. He must have time to modify his shape.
Age is an issue of mind over matter. If you don't mind, it doesn't matter.
All generalizations are false, including this one.
All you need is ignorance and confidence and the success is sure.
Anger is an acid that can do more harm to the vessel in which it is stored than to anything on which it is poured.
Be careful about reading health books. You may die of a misprint.
By trying we can easily endure adversity. Another man's, I mean.
Cauliflower is nothing but cabbage with a college education.
Clothes make the man. Naked people have little or no influence on society.
Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear, not absence of fear.
Do the thing you fear most and the death of fear is certain.
Don't go around saying the world owes you a living. The world owes you nothing. It was here first.
Don't let schooling interfere with your education.
Education consists mainly of what we have unlearned.
Everything human is pathetic. The secret source of humor itself is not joy but sorrow. There is no humor in heaven.
Few things are harder to put up with than the annoyance of a good example.
Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities. Truth isn't.
Forgiveness is the fragrance that the violet sheds on the heel that has crushed it.
Get your facts first, then you can distort them as you please.
Go to Heaven for the climate, Hell for the company.
God made the Idiot for practice, and then He made the School Board.
Golf is a good walk spoiled.
Good breeding consists in concealing how much we think of ourselves and how little we think of the other person.
Good friends, good books and a sleepy conscience: this is the ideal life.
Honesty is the best policy - when there is money in it.
Humor is mankind's greatest blessing.
Humor must not professedly teach and it must not professedly preach, but it must do both if it would live forever.
I am an old man and have known a great many troubles, but most of them never happened.
I can live for two months on a good compliment.
I didn't attend the funeral, but I sent a nice letter saying I approved of it.
I have made it a rule never to smoke more that one cigar at a time.
I have never let my schooling interfere with my education.
I must have a prodigious quantity of mind it takes me as much as a week sometimes to make it up.
I never let schooling interfere with my education.
If it's your job to eat a frog, it's best to do it first thing in the morning. And If it's your job to eat two frogs, it's best to eat the biggest one first.
If you tell the truth, you don't have to remember anything.
In the first place, God made idiots. That was for practice. Then he made school boards.
It is by the goodness of God that in our country we have those three unspeakably precious things: freedom of speech, freedom of conscience, and the prudence never to practice either of them.
It is curious that physical courage should be so common in the world and moral courage so rare.
It is not best that we should all think alike it is a difference of opinion that makes horse races.
It usually takes me more than three weeks to prepare a good impromptu speech.
It's good sportsmanship to not pick up lost golf balls while they are still rolling.
It's no wonder that truth is stranger than fiction. Fiction has to make sense.
I've never let my school interfere with my education.
Laws control the lesser man... Right conduct controls the greater one.
Life would be infinitely happier if we could only be born at the age of eighty and gradually approach eighteen.
Lord save us all from a hope tree that has lost the faculty of putting out blossoms.
Loyalty to the country always. Loyalty to the government when it deserves it.
Man - a creature made at the end of the week's work when God was tired.
Man was made at the end of the week's work when God was tired.
My books are like water those of the great geniuses are wine. (Fortunately) everybody drinks water.
My mother had a great deal of trouble with me, but I think she enjoyed it.
Only one thing is impossible for God: To find any sense in any copyright law on the planet.
Part of the secret of a success in life is to eat what you like and let the food fight it out inside.
Patriot: the person who can holler the loudest without knowing what he is hollering about.
Patriotism is supporting your country all the time, and your government when it deserves it.
Principles have no real force except when one is well-fed.
Prophesy is a good line of business, but it is full of risks.
Prosperity is the best protector of principle.
Soap and education are not as sudden as a massacre, but they are more deadly in the long run.
Sometimes too much to drink is barely enough.
Substitute 'damn' every time you're inclined to write 'very' your editor will delete it and the writing will be just as it should be.
Suppose you were an idiot, and suppose you were a member of Congress but I repeat myself.
The best way to cheer yourself up is to try to cheer somebody else up.
The Christian's Bible is a drug store. Its contents remain the same, but the medical practice changes.
The fear of death follows from the fear of life. A man who lives fully is prepared to die at any time.
The finest clothing made is a person's own skin, but, of course, society demands something more than this.
The lack of money is the root of all evil.
The man who does not read good books has no advantage over the man who cannot read them.
The only way to keep your health is to eat what you don't want, drink what you don't like, and do what you'd rather not.
The reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated.
The secret of getting ahead is getting started.
The secret source of humor is not joy but sorrow there is no humor in Heaven.
The very ink with which history is written is merely fluid prejudice.
There are people who can do all fine and heroic things but one - keep from telling their happiness to the unhappy.
There are several good protections against temptation, but the surest is cowardice.
Thunder is good, thunder is impressive but it is lightning that does the work.
To be good is noble but to show others how to be good is nobler and no trouble.
To succeed in life, you need two things: ignorance and confidence.
Truth is mighty and will prevail. There is nothing wrong with this, except that it ain't so.
Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities Truth isn't.
Truth is the most valuable thing we have. Let us economize it.
We have the best government that money can buy.
What a good thing Adam had. When he said a good thing he knew nobody had said it before.
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.
When angry, count to four when very angry, swear.
When in doubt tell the truth.
When people do not respect us we are sharply offended yet in his private heart no man much respects himself.
When we remember we are all mad, the mysteries disappear and life stands explained.
When you fish for love, bait with your heart, not your brain.
Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect.
Why shouldn't truth be stranger than fiction? Fiction, after all, has to make sense.
Wit is the sudden marriage of ideas which before their union were not perceived to have any relation.
Work consists of whatever a body is obliged to do. Play consists of whatever a body is not obliged to do.
Work is a necessary evil to be avoided.
Wrinkles should merely indicate where smiles have been.
You can't depend on your eyes when your imagination is out of focus.

Famous Quotes By Francois de La Rochefoucauld

A great many men's gratitude is nothing but a secret desire to hook in more valuable kindnesses hereafter.
A true friend is the greatest of all blessings, and that which we take the least care of all to acquire.
A work can become modern only if it is first postmodern. Postmodernism thus understood is not modernism at its end but in the nascent state, and this state is constant.
Absence diminishes mediocre passions and increases great ones, as the wind extinguishes candles and fans fires.
As great minds have the faculty of saying a great deal in a few words, so lesser minds have a talent of talking much, and saying nothing.
As it is the characteristic of great wits to say much in few words, so small wits seem to have the gift of speaking much and saying nothing.
Being a blockhead is sometimes the best security against being cheated by a man of wit.
Few people have the wisdom to prefer the criticism that would do them good, to the praise that deceives them.
Few things are impracticable in themselves and it is for want of application, rather than of means, that men fail to succeed.
Flattery is a kind of bad money, to which our vanity gives us currency.
Good advice is something a man gives when he is too old to set a bad example.
Gratitude is merely the secret hope of further favors.
Great souls are not those who have fewer passions and more virtues than others, but only those who have greater designs.
Heat of blood makes young people change their inclinations often, and habit makes old ones keep to theirs a great while.
Hope, deceiving as it is, serves at least to lead us to the end of our lives by an agreeable route.
However glorious an action in itself, it ought not to pass for great if it be not the effect of wisdom and intention.
However greatly we distrust the sincerity of those we converse with, yet still we think they tell more truth to us than to anyone else.
However rare true love may be, it is less so than true friendship.
If we are to judge of love by its consequences, it more nearly resembles hatred than friendship.
If we have not peace within ourselves, it is in vain to seek it from outward sources.
If we resist our passions, it is more due to their weakness than our strength.
In friendship as well as love, ignorance very often contributes more to our happiness than knowledge.
In most of mankind gratitude is merely a secret hope of further favors.
In the misfortunes of our best friends we always find something not altogether displeasing to us.
It is a great act of cleverness to be able to conceal one's being clever.
It is easier to know men in general, than men in particular.
It is from a weakness and smallness of mind that men are opinionated and we are very loath to believe what we are not able to comprehend.
It is great folly to wish to be wise all alone.
It is not enough to have great qualities We should also have the management of them.
It is not in the power of even the most crafty dissimulation to conceal love long, where it really is, nor to counterfeit it long where it is not.
It is with an old love as it is with old age a man lives to all the miseries, but is dead to all the pleasures.
It is with true love as it is with ghosts everyone talks about it, but few have seen it.
Jealousy contains more of self-love than of love.
Jealousy is bred in doubts. When those doubts change into certainties, then the passion either ceases or turns absolute madness.
Jealousy lives upon doubts. It becomes madness or ceases entirely as soon as we pass from doubt to certainty.
Love can no more continue without a constant motion than fire can and when once you take hope and fear away, you take from it its very life and being.
Many men are contemptuous of riches few can give them away.
Men give away nothing so liberally as their advice.
Men often pass from love to ambition, but they seldom come back again from ambition to love.
Most people know no other way of judging men's worth but by the vogue they are in, or the fortunes they have met with.
Nature seems at each man's birth to have marked out the bounds of his virtues and vices, and to have determined how good or how wicked that man shall be capable of being.
Neither the sun nor death can be looked at with a steady eye.
No man deserves to be praised for his goodness, who has it not in his power to be wicked. Goodness without that power is generally nothing more than sloth, or an impotence of will.
No men are oftener wrong than those that can least bear to be so.
Nothing is so contagious as example and we never do any great good or evil which does not produce its like.
Old age is a tyrant, who forbids, under pain of death, the pleasures of youth.
Old men are fond of giving good advice to console themselves for their inability to give bad examples.
On neither the sun, nor death, can a man look fixedly.
One can find women who have never had one love affair, but it is rare indeed to find any who have had only one.
One forgives to the degree that one loves.
One is never fortunate or as unfortunate as one imagines.
Only the contemptible fear contempt.
Our actions seem to have their lucky and unlucky stars, to which a great part of that blame and that commendation is due which is given to the actions themselves.
Our aversion to lying is commonly a secret ambition to make what we say considerable, and have every word received with a religious respect.
Passion makes idiots of the cleverest men, and makes the biggest idiots clever.
Perfect courage is to do without witnesses what one would be capable of doing with the world looking on.
Philosophy finds it an easy matter to vanquish past and future evils, but the present are commonly too hard for it.
Repentance is not so much remorse for what we have done as the fear of the consequences.
Some counterfeits reproduce so very well the truth that it would be a flaw of judgment not to be deceived by them.
Taste may change, but inclination never.
The defects of the mind, like those of the face, grow worse with age.
The generality of virtuous women are like hidden treasures, they are safe only because nobody has sought after them.
The happiness and misery of men depend no less on temper than fortune.
There are a great many men valued in society who have nothing to recommend them but serviceable vices.
There are but very few men clever enough to know all the mischief they do.
There are few virtuous women who are not bored with their trade.
There is a kind of elevation which does not depend on fortune it is a certain air which distinguishes us, and seems to destine us for great things it is a price which we imperceptibly set upon ourselves.
There is no better proof of a man's being truly good than his desiring to be constantly under the observation of good men.
There is no disguise which can hide love for long where it exists, or simulate it where it does not.
There is nothing men are so generous of as advice.
There is only one kind of love, but there are a thousand imitations.
They that apply themselves to trifling matters commonly become incapable of great ones.
Those that have had great passions esteem themselves for the rest of their lives fortunate and unfortunate in being cured of them.
Those who are incapable of committing great crimes do not readily suspect them in others.
Though men are apt to flatter and exalt themselves with their great achievements, yet these are, in truth, very often owing not so much to design as chance.
Though nature be ever so generous, yet can she not make a hero alone. Fortune must contribute her part too and till both concur, the work cannot be perfected.
To know how to hide one's ability is great skill.
Too great haste to repay an obligation is a kind of ingratitude.
True love is like ghosts, which everyone talks about and few have seen.
We all have enough strength to endure the misfortunes of others.
We always love those who admire us, but we do not always love those whom we admire.
We are all strong enough to bear other men's misfortunes.
We are nearer loving those who hate us than those who love us more than we wish.
We are so used to dissembling with others that in time we come to deceive and dissemble with ourselves.
We come altogether fresh and raw into the several stages of life, and often find ourselves without experience, despite our years.
We give advice, but we cannot give the wisdom to profit by it.
We have no patience with other people's vanity because it is offensive to our own.
We may seem great in an employment below our worth, but we very often look little in one that is too big for us.
We may sooner be brought to love them that hate us, than them that love us more than we would have them do.
We only acknowledge small faults in order to make it appear that we are free from great ones.
We pardon to the extent that we love.
We seldom find any person of good sense, except those who share our opinions.
We should often blush for our very best actions, if the world did but see all the motives upon which they were done.
We should often feel ashamed of our best actions if the world could see all the motives which produced them.
What makes the pain we feel from shame and jealousy so cutting is that vanity can give us no assistance in bearing them.
What seems to be generosity is often no more than disguised ambition, which overlooks a small interest in order to secure a great one.
When we disclaim praise, it is only showing our desire to be praised a second time.
Women's virtue is frequently nothing but a regard to their own quiet and a tenderness for their reputation.
You can find women who have never had an affair, but it is hard to find a woman who has had just one.

Famous Quotes By John F. Kennedy

A nation that is afraid to let its people judge the truth and falsehood in an open market is a nation that is afraid of its people.
A nation which has forgotten the quality of courage which in the past has been brought to public life is not as likely to insist upon or regard that quality in its chosen leaders today - and in fact we have forgotten.
All free men, wherever they may live, are citizens of Berlin. And therefore, as a free man, I take pride in the words 'Ich bin ein Berliner!'
Change is the law of life. And those who look only to the past or present are certain to miss the future.
Communism has never come to power in a country that was not disrupted by war or corruption, or both.
Conformity is the jailer of freedom and the enemy of growth.
Do not pray for easy lives. Pray to be stronger men.
Efforts and courage are not enough without purpose and direction.
For time and the world do not stand still. Change is the law of life. And those who look only to the past or the present are certain to miss the future.
Forgive your enemies, but never forget their names.
Geography has made us neighbors. History has made us friends. Economics has made us partners, and necessity has made us allies. Those whom God has so joined together, let no man put asunder.
History is a relentless master. It has no present, only the past rushing into the future. To try to hold fast is to be swept aside.
I am sorry to say that there is too much point to the wisecrack that life is extinct on other planets because their scientists were more advanced than ours.
I don't think the intelligence reports are all that hot. Some days I get more out of the New York Times.
I hope that no American will waste his franchise and throw away his vote by voting either for me or against me solely on account of my religious affiliation. It is not relevant.
I look forward to a great future for America - a future in which our country will match its military strength with our moral restraint, its wealth with our wisdom, its power with our purpose.
I think this is the most extraordinary collection of talent, of human knowledge, that has ever been gathered at the White House - with the possible exception of when Thomas Jefferson dined alone.
If a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich.
If anyone is crazy enough to want to kill a president of the United States, he can do it. All he must be prepared to do is give his life for the president's.
If art is to nourish the roots of our culture, society must set the artist free to follow his vision wherever it takes him.
If we cannot now end our differences, at least we can help make the world safe for diversity.
I'm always rather nervous about how you talk about women who are active in politics, whether they want to be talked about as women or as politicians.
In a very real sense, it will not be one man going to the moon it will be an entire nation. For all of us must work to put him there.
In the long history of the world, only a few generations have been granted the role of defending freedom in its hour of maximum danger. I do not shrink from this responsibility - I welcome it.
It is an unfortunate fact that we can secure peace only by preparing for war.
It might be said now that I have the best of both worlds. A Harvard education and a Yale degree.
Leadership and learning are indispensable to each other.
Let both sides seek to invoke the wonders of science instead of its terrors. Together let us explore the stars, conquer the deserts, eradicate disease, tap the ocean depths, and encourage the arts and commerce.
Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe to assure the survival and the success of liberty.
Let the word go forth from this time and place, to friend and foe alike, that the torch has been passed to a new generation of Americans - born in this century, tempered by war, disciplined by a hard and bitter peace.
Let us never negotiate out of fear. But let us never fear to negotiate.
Let us not seek the Republican answer or the Democratic answer, but the right answer. Let us not seek to fix the blame for the past. Let us accept our own responsibility for the future.
Mankind must put an end to war before war puts an end to mankind.
Mothers all want their sons to grow up to be president, but they don't want them to become politicians in the process.
My brother Bob doesn't want to be in government - he promised Dad he'd go straight.
My fellow Americans, ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country.
Now we have a problem in making our power credible, and Vietnam is the place.
Once you say you're going to settle for second, that's what happens to you in life.
Our growing softness, our increasing lack of physical fitness, is a menace to our security.
Our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this planet. We all breathe the same air. We all cherish our children's future. And we are all mortal.
Our progress as a nation can be no swifter than our progress in education. The human mind is our fundamental resource.
Peace is a daily, a weekly, a monthly process, gradually changing opinions, slowly eroding old barriers, quietly building new structures.
Physical fitness is not only one of the most important keys to a healthy body, it is the basis of dynamic and creative intellectual activity.
Politics is like football if you see daylight, go through the hole.
The basic problems facing the world today are not susceptible to a military solution.
The best road to progress is freedom's road.
The cost of freedom is always high, but Americans have always paid it. And one path we shall never choose, and that is the path of surrender, or submission.
The courage of life is often a less dramatic spectacle than the courage of a final moment but it is no less a magnificent mixture of triumph and tragedy.
The goal of education is the advancement of knowledge and the dissemination of truth.
The great enemy of the truth is very often not the lie, deliberate, contrived and dishonest, but the myth, persistent, persuasive and unrealistic.
The greater our knowledge increases the more our ignorance unfolds.
The path we have chosen for the present is full of hazards, as all paths are. The cost of freedom is always high, but Americans have always paid it. And one path we shall never choose, and that is the path of surrender, or submission.
The pay is good and I can walk to work.
The problems of the world cannot possibly be solved by skeptics or cynics whose horizons are limited by the obvious realities. We need men who can dream of things that never were.
The tax on capital gains directly affects investment decisions, the mobility and flow of risk capital... the ease or difficulty experienced by new ventures in obtaining capital, and thereby the strength and potential for growth in the economy.
The time to repair the roof is when the sun is shining.
The very word 'secrecy' is repugnant in a free and open society and we are as a people inherently and historically opposed to secret societies, to secret oaths, and to secret proceedings.
The world is very different now. For man holds in his mortal hands the power to abolish all forms of human poverty, and all forms of human life.
The world knows that America will never start a war. This generation of Americans has had enough of war and hate... we want to build a world of peace where the weak are secure and the strong are just.
There are many people in the world who really don't understand-or say they don't-what is the great issue between the free world and the Communist world. Let them come to Berlin!
There is always inequality in life. Some men are killed in a war and some men are wounded and some men never leave the country. Life is unfair.
Things do not happen. Things are made to happen.
Those who dare to fail miserably can achieve greatly.
Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.
To state the facts frankly is not to despair the future nor indict the past. The prudent heir takes careful inventory of his legacies and gives a faithful accounting to those whom he owes an obligation of trust.
Unconditional war can no longer lead to unconditional victory. It can no longer serve to settle disputes... can no longer be of concern to great powers alone.
War will exist until that distant day when the conscientious objector enjoys the same reputation and prestige that the warrior does today.
We believe that if men have the talent to invent new machines that put men out of work, they have the talent to put those men back to work.
We cannot expect that all nations will adopt like systems, for conformity is the jailer of freedom and the enemy of growth.
We have the power to make this the best generation of mankind in the history of the world or to make it the last.
We must use time as a tool, not as a couch.
We prefer world law in the age of self-determination to world war in the age of mass extermination.
We would like to live as we once lived, but history will not permit it.
When power leads man toward arrogance, poetry reminds him of his limitations. When power narrows the area of man's concern, poetry reminds him of the richness and diversity of existence. When power corrupts, poetry cleanses.
When written in Chinese, the word 'crisis' is composed of two characters. One represents danger and the other represents opportunity.

Famous Quotes By Benjamin Franklin

A good conscience is a continual Christmas.
A great empire, like a great cake, is most easily diminished at the edges.
A house is not a home unless it contains food and fire for the mind as well as the body.
A life of leisure and a life of laziness are two things. There will be sleeping enough in the grave.
A place for everything, everything in its place.
All who think cannot but see there is a sanction like that of religion which binds us in partnership in the serious work of the world.
An investment in knowledge pays the best interest.
Anger is never without a reason, but seldom with a good one.
Applause waits on success.
At twenty years of age the will reigns at thirty, the wit and at forty, the judgment.
Be at war with your vices, at peace with your neighbors, and let every new year find you a better man.
Be slow in choosing a friend, slower in changing.
Beauty and folly are old companions.
Being ignorant is not so much a shame, as being unwilling to learn.
Beware of little expenses. A small leak will sink a great ship.
Beware the hobby that eats.
By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail.
Content makes poor men rich discontent makes rich men poor.
Diligence is the mother of good luck.
Do good to your friends to keep them, to your enemies to win them.
Do not fear mistakes. You will know failure. Continue to reach out.
Dost thou love life? Then do not squander time, for that is the stuff life is made of.
Each year one vicious habit discarded, in time might make the worst of us good.
Employ thy time well, if thou meanest to gain leisure.
Even peace may be purchased at too high a price.
Experience keeps a dear school, but fools will learn in no other.
Fatigue is the best pillow.
For having lived long, I have experienced many instances of being obliged, by better information or fuller consideration, to change opinions, even on important subjects, which I once thought right but found to be otherwise.
Genius without education is like silver in the mine.
God helps those who help themselves.
God works wonders now and then Behold a lawyer, an honest man.
Half a truth is often a great lie.
He that can have patience can have what he will.
He that is good for making excuses is seldom good for anything else.
He that is of the opinion money will do everything may well be suspected of doing everything for money.
He that lives upon hope will die fasting.
He that raises a large family does, indeed, while he lives to observe them, stand a broader mark for sorrow but then he stands a broader mark for pleasure too.
He that would live in peace and at ease must not speak all he knows or all he sees.
He who falls in love with himself will have no rivals.
Honesty is the best policy.
How few there are who have courage enough to own their faults, or resolution enough to mend them.
Human felicity is produced not as much by great pieces of good fortune that seldom happen as by little advantages that occur every day.
Hunger is the best pickle.
I conceive that the great part of the miseries of mankind are brought upon them by false estimates they have made of the value of things.
I look upon death to be as necessary to our constitution as sleep. We shall rise refreshed in the morning.
I saw few die of hunger of eating, a hundred thousand.
I should have no objection to go over the same life from its beginning to the end: requesting only the advantage authors have, of correcting in a second edition the faults of the first.
I wake up every morning at nine and grab for the morning paper. Then I look at the obituary page. If my name is not on it, I get up.
If time be of all things the most precious, wasting time must be the greatest prodigality.
If you would be loved, love, and be loveable.
If you would know the value of money, go and try to borrow some.
In general, mankind, since the improvement of cookery, eats twice as much as nature requires.
In the affairs of this world, men are saved not by faith, but by the want of it.
In this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes.
It is a grand mistake to think of being great without goodness and I pronounce it as certain that there was never a truly great man that was not at the same time truly virtuous.
It is the working man who is the happy man. It is the idle man who is the miserable man.
It takes many good deeds to build a good reputation, and only one bad one to lose it.
Keep your eyes wide open before marriage, half shut afterwards.
Laws too gentle are seldom obeyed too severe, seldom executed.
Leisure is the time for doing something useful. This leisure the diligent person will obtain the lazy one never.
Life's Tragedy is that we get old to soon and wise too late.
Lost time is never found again.
Many foxes grow gray but few grow good.
Marriage is the most natural state of man, and... the state in which you will find solid happiness.
Money has never made man happy, nor will it, there is nothing in its nature to produce happiness. The more of it one has the more one wants.
Necessity never made a good bargain.
Nine men in ten are would be suicides.
Observe all men, thyself most.
Rebellion against tyrants is obedience to God.
Remember that credit is money.
Speak ill of no man, but speak all the good you know of everybody.
Take time for all things: great haste makes great waste.
Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn.
The art of acting consists in keeping people from coughing.
The Constitution only gives people the right to pursue happiness. You have to catch it yourself.
The doors of wisdom are never shut.
The doorstep to the temple of wisdom is a knowledge of our own ignorance.
The eye of the master will do more work than both his hands.
The first mistake in public business is the going into it.
The U. S. Constitution doesn't guarantee happiness, only the pursuit of it. You have to catch up with it yourself.
The use of money is all the advantage there is in having it.
The way to see by Faith is to shut the Eye of Reason.
There are three faithful friends - an old wife, an old dog, and ready money.
There is no kind of dishonesty into which otherwise good people more easily and frequently fall than that of defrauding the government.
There never was a truly great man that was not at the same time truly virtuous.
There was never a good war, or a bad peace.
Those disputing, contradicting, and confuting people are generally unfortunate in their affairs. They get victory, sometimes, but they never get good will, which would be of more use to them.
Time is money.
To Follow by faith alone is to follow blindly.
To lengthen thy life, lessen thy meals.
We are all born ignorant, but one must work hard to remain stupid.
Well done is better than well said.
Whatever is begun in anger ends in shame.
When men and woman die, as poets sung, his heart's the last part moves, her last, the tongue.
Where there's marriage without love, there will be love without marriage.
Wine is constant proof that God loves us and loves to see us happy.
Wise men don't need advice. Fools won't take it.
Without continual growth and progress, such words as improvement, achievement, and success have no meaning.
Work as if you were to live a hundred years. Pray as if you were to die tomorrow.
You may delay, but time will not.
Your net worth to the world is usually determined by what remains after your bad habits are subtracted from your good ones.

Famous Quotes By Oscar Wilde

A dreamer is one who can only find his way by moonlight, and his punishment is that he sees the dawn before the rest of the world.
A little sincerity is a dangerous thing, and a great deal of it is absolutely fatal.
A man can be happy with any woman, as long as he does not love her.
A man's face is his autobiography. A woman's face is her work of fiction.
A poet can survive everything but a misprint.
A work of art is the unique result of a unique temperament.
All art is quite useless.
All bad poetry springs from genuine feeling.
All women become like their mothers. That is their tragedy. No man does. That's his.
Always forgive your enemies - nothing annoys them so much.
Ambition is the last refuge of the failure.
An excellent man he has no enemies and none of his friends like him.
Anybody can be good in the country. There are no temptations there.
Arguments are extremely vulgar, for everyone in good society holds exactly the same opinion.
Art is the most intense mode of individualism that the world has known.
As long as war is regarded as wicked, it will always have its fascination. When it is looked upon as vulgar, it will cease to be popular.
Between men and women there is no friendship possible. There is passion, enmity, worship, love, but no friendship.
Biography lends to death a new terror.
Children begin by loving their parents after a time they judge them rarely, if ever, do they forgive them.
Death and vulgarity are the only two facts in the nineteenth century that one cannot explain away.
Deceiving others. That is what the world calls a romance.
Do you really think it is weakness that yields to temptation? I tell you that there are terrible temptations which it requires strength, strength and courage to yield to.
Education is an admirable thing, but it is well to remember from time to time that nothing that is worth knowing can be taught.
Every saint has a past and every sinner has a future.
Everybody who is incapable of learning has taken to teaching.
Experience is one thing you can't get for nothing.
Experience is simply the name we give our mistakes.
Fathers should be neither seen nor heard. That is the only proper basis for family life.
Hatred is blind, as well as love.
He has no enemies, but is intensely disliked by his friends.
How can a woman be expected to be happy with a man who insists on treating her as if she were a perfectly normal human being.
How marriage ruins a man! It is as demoralizing as cigarettes, and far more expensive.
I always pass on good advice. It is the only thing to do with it. It is never of any use to oneself.
I choose my friends for their good looks, my acquaintances for their good characters, and my enemies for their intellects. A man cannot be too careful in the choice of his enemies.
I have the simplest tastes. I am always satisfied with the best.
I never travel without my diary. One should always have something sensational to read in the train.
I put all my genius into my life I put only my talent into my works.
I regard the theatre as the greatest of all art forms, the most immediate way in which a human being can share with another the sense of what it is to be a human being.
I see when men love women. They give them but a little of their lives. But women when they love give everything.
I sometimes think that God in creating man somewhat overestimated his ability.
I suppose society is wonderfully delightful. To be in it is merely a bore. But to be out of it is simply a tragedy.
I think that God, in creating man, somewhat overestimated his ability.
I want my food dead. Not sick, not dying, dead.
If one could only teach the English how to talk, and the Irish how to listen, society here would be quite civilized.
If one plays good music, people don't listen and if one plays bad music people don't talk.
If there was less sympathy in the world, there would be less trouble in the world.
If you are not too long, I will wait here for you all my life.
If you pretend to be good, the world takes you very seriously. If you pretend to be bad, it doesn't. Such is the astounding stupidity of optimism.
In married life three is company and two none.
In modern life nothing produces such an effect as a good platitude. It makes the whole world kin.
It is a very sad thing that nowadays there is so little useless information.
It is absurd to divide people into good and bad. People are either charming or tedious.
It is better to be beautiful than to be good. But... it is better to be good than to be ugly.
It is only an auctioneer who can equally and impartially admire all schools of art.
It is only by not paying one's bills that one can hope to live in the memory of the commercial classes.
It is through art, and through art only, that we can realise our perfection.
Keep love in your heart. A life without it is like a sunless garden when the flowers are dead.
Laughter is not at all a bad beginning for a friendship, and it is far the best ending for one.
Life imitates art far more than art imitates Life.
Life is far too important a thing ever to talk seriously about.
Life is never fair, and perhaps it is a good thing for most of us that it is not.
Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth.
Men always want to be a woman's first love - women like to be a man's last romance.
Men marry because they are tired women, because they are curious both are disappointed.
Morality is simply the attitude we adopt towards people whom we personally dislike.
No great artist ever sees things as they really are. If he did, he would cease to be an artist.
No woman should ever be quite accurate about her age. It looks so calculating.
Now that the House of Commons is trying to become useful, it does a great deal of harm.
One can survive everything, nowadays, except death, and live down everything except a good reputation.
One should always be in love. That is the reason one should never marry.
One's real life is so often the life that one does not lead.
Patriotism is the virtue of the vicious.
Romance should never begin with sentiment. It should begin with science and end with a settlement.
Society exists only as a mental concept in the real world there are only individuals.
Some cause happiness wherever they go others whenever they go.
Success is a science if you have the conditions, you get the result.
The good ended happily, and the bad unhappily. That is what fiction means.
The imagination imitates. It is the critical spirit that creates.
The moment you think you understand a great work of art, it's dead for you.
The one charm about marriage is that it makes a life of deception absolutely necessary for both parties.
The only thing to do with good advice is to pass it on. It is never of any use to oneself.
The public is wonderfully tolerant. It forgives everything except genius.
The salesman knows nothing of what he is selling save that he is charging a great deal too much for it.
The truth is rarely pure and never simple.
The typewriting machine, when played with expression, is no more annoying than the piano when played by a sister or near relation.
The world has grown suspicious of anything that looks like a happily married life.
There are only two tragedies in life: one is not getting what one wants, and the other is getting it.
There is always something ridiculous about the emotions of people whom one has ceased to love.
There is nothing in the world like the devotion of a married woman. It is a thing no married man knows anything about.
There is only one class in the community that thinks more about money than the rich, and that is the poor. The poor can think of nothing else.
There is only one thing in life worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about.
There is something terribly morbid in the modern sympathy with pain. One should sympathise with the colour, the beauty, the joy of life. The less said about life's sores the better.
This suspense is terrible. I hope it will last.
Those whom the gods love grow young.
To expect the unexpected shows a thoroughly modern intellect.
To love oneself is the beginning of a lifelong romance.
True friends stab you in the front.
What we have to do, what at any rate it is our duty to do, is to revive the old art of Lying.
When a man has once loved a woman he will do anything for her except continue to love her.
When good Americans die they go to Paris.
When I was young I thought that money was the most important thing in life now that I am old I know that it is.
Who, being loved, is poor?
Women are made to be loved, not understood.
Women are never disarmed by compliments. Men always are. That is the difference between the sexes.
Women love us for our defects. If we have enough of them, they will forgive us everything, even our gigantic intellects.
Work is the curse of the drinking classes.

Famous Quotes By Barack Obama

A good compromise, a good piece of legislation, is like a good sentence or a good piece of music. Everybody can recognize it. They say, 'Huh. It works. It makes sense.'
After a century of striving, after a year of debate, after a historic vote, health care reform is no longer an unmet promise. It is the law of the land.
And I will do everything that I can as long as I am President of the United States to remind the American people that we are one nation under God, and we may call that God different names but we remain one nation.
As a nuclear power - as the only nuclear power to have used a nuclear weapon - the United States has a moral responsibility to act.
As I've said, there were patriots who supported this war, and patriots who opposed it. And all of us are united in appreciation for our servicemen and women, and our hopes for Iraqis' future.
But do I think that our actions in anyway violate the War Powers Resolution, the answer is no.
But if you - if what - the reports are true, what they're saying is, is that as a consequence of us getting 30 million additional people health care, at the margins that's going to increase our costs, we knew that.
But what we can do, as flawed as we are, is still see God in other people, and do our best to help them find their own grace. That's what I strive to do, that's what I pray to do every day.
Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time. We are the ones we've been waiting for. We are the change that we seek.
Cutting the deficit by gutting our investments in innovation and education is like lightening an overloaded airplane by removing its engine. It may make you feel like you're flying high at first, but it won't take long before you feel the impact.
Focusing your life solely on making a buck shows a certain poverty of ambition. It asks too little of yourself. Because it's only when you hitch your wagon to something larger than yourself that you realize your true potential.
Here at this site, Solyndra expects to make enough solar panels each year to generate 500 megawatts of electricity. And over the lifetime of this expanded facility, that could be like replacing as many as eight coal-fired power plants.
I can make a firm pledge, under my plan, no family making less than $250,000 a year will see any form of tax increase. Not your income tax, not your payroll tax, not your capital gains taxes, not any of your taxes.
I cannot swallow whole the view of Lincoln as the Great Emancipator.
I don't care whether you're driving a hybrid or an SUV. If you're headed for a cliff, you have to change direction. That's what the American people called for in November, and that's what we intend to deliver.
I don't oppose all wars. What I am opposed to is a dumb war. What I am opposed to is a rash war.
I don't think marriage is a civil right, but I think that being able to transfer property is a civil right.
I have Muslim members of my family. I have lived in Muslim countries.
I know that campaigns can seem small, and even silly. Trivial things become big distractions. Serious issues become sound bites. And the truth gets buried under an avalanche of money and advertising. If you're sick of hearing me approve this message,
I mean, I do think at a certain point you've made enough money.
I miss Saturday morning, rolling out of bed, not shaving, getting into my car with my girls, driving to the supermarket, squeezing the fruit, getting my car washed, taking walks.
I opposed the Defense of Marriage Act in 1996. It should be repealed and I will vote for its repeal on the Senate floor. I will also oppose any proposal to amend the U.S. Constitution to ban gays and lesbians from marrying.
I think there are a whole host of things that are civil rights, and then there are other things - such as traditional marriage - that, I think, express a community's concern and regard for a particular institution.
I think when you spread the wealth around it's good for everybody.
If the critics are right that I've made all my decisions based on polls, then I must not be very good at reading them.
If the people cannot trust their government to do the job for which it exists - to protect them and to promote their common welfare - all else is lost.
In America, there's a failure to appreciate Europe's leading role in the world.
In fact, the best thing we could do on taxes for all Americans is to simplify the individual tax code. This will be a tough job, but members of both parties have expressed an interest in doing this, and I am prepared to join them.
In the end, that's what this election is about. Do we participate in a politics of cynicism or a politics of hope?
It took a lot of blood, sweat and tears to get to where we are today, but we have just begun. Today we begin in earnest the work of making sure that the world we leave our children is just a little bit better than the one we inhabit today.
It was not a religion that attacked us that September day. It was al-Qaeda. We will not sacrifice the liberties we cherish or hunker down behind walls of suspicion and mistrust.
It's not surprising, then, they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.
John Kerry believes in an America where hard work is rewarded.
Let me be absolutely clear. Israel is a strong friend of Israel's. It will be a strong friend of Israel's under a McCain administration. It will be a strong friend of Israel's under an Obama administration. So that policy is not going to change.
Money is not the only answer, but it makes a difference.
My parents shared not only an improbable love, they shared an abiding faith in the possibilities of this nation. They would give me an African name, Barack, or blessed, believing that in a tolerant America your name is no barrier to success.
Now we're in the midst of not just advocating for change, not just calling for change - we're doing the grinding, sometimes frustrating work of delivering change - inch by inch, day by day.
Operations in Iraq and Afghanistan and the war on terrorism have reduced the pace of military transformation and have revealed our lack of preparation for defensive and stability operations. This Administration has overextended our military.
Our combat mission is ending, but our commitment to Iraq's future is not.
Part of the reason that our politics seems so tough right now and facts and science and argument does not seem to be winning the day all the time is because we're hardwired not to always think clearly when we're scared. And the country's scared.
People of Berlin - people of the world - this is our moment. This is our time.
So while I will never minimize the costs involved in military action, I am convinced that a failure to act in Libya would have carried a far greater price for America.
Take off your bedroom slippers. Put on your marching shoes,' he said, his voice rising as applause and cheers mounted. 'Shake it off. Stop complainin'. Stop grumblin'. Stop cryin'. We are going to press on. We have work to do.
The Bush Administration's failure to be consistently involved in helping Israel achieve peace with the Palestinians has been both wrong for our friendship with Israel, as well as badly damaging to our standing in the Arab world.
The future rewards those who press on. I don't have time to feel sorry for myself. I don't have time to complain. I'm going to press on.
The United States is not, and never will be, at war with Islam.
There are patriots who opposed the war in Iraq and there are patriots who supported the war in Iraq. We are one people, all of us pledging allegiance to the stars and stripes, all of us defending the United States of America.
To avoid being mistaken for a sellout, I chose my friends carefully. The more politically active black students. The foreign students. The Chicanos. The Marxist professors and structural feminists and punk-rock performance poets.
We all knew this. We all knew that it would take more time than any of us want to dig ourselves out of this hole created by this economic crisis.
We are not at war against Islam.
We can choose a future where we export more products and outsource fewer jobs. After a decade that was defined by what we bought and borrowed, we're getting back to basics, and doing what America has always done best: We're making things again.
We can't drive our SUVs and eat as much as we want and keep our homes on 72 degrees at all times... and then just expect that other countries are going to say OK. That's not leadership. That's not going to happen.
We have an obligation and a responsibility to be investing in our students and our schools. We must make sure that people who have the grades, the desire and the will, but not the money, can still get the best education possible.
We need earmark reform, and when I'm President, I will go line by line to make sure that we are not spending money unwisely.
We need to internalize this idea of excellence. Not many folks spend a lot of time trying to be excellent.
We're not going to baby sit a civil war.
We've protected thousands of people in Libya we have not seen a single U.S. casualty there's no risks of additional escalation. This operation is limited in time and in scope.
What I worry about would be that you essentially have two chambers, the House and the Senate, but you have simply, majoritarian, absolute power on either side. And that's just not what the founders intended.
You know, my faith is one that admits some doubt.

Famous Quotes By Aristotle

A friend to all is a friend to none.
A great city is not to be confounded with a populous one.
A sense is what has the power of receiving into itself the sensible forms of things without the matter, in the way in which a piece of wax takes on the impress of a signet-ring without the iron or gold.
All human actions have one or more of these seven causes: chance, nature, compulsions, habit, reason, passion, desire.
All men by nature desire knowledge.
Anybody can become angry - that is easy, but to be angry with the right person and to the right degree and at the right time and for the right purpose, and in the right way - that is not within everybody's power and is not easy.
At his best, man is the noblest of all animals separated from law and justice he is the worst.
Bad men are full of repentance.
Bashfulness is an ornament to youth, but a reproach to old age.
But if nothing but soul, or in soul mind, is qualified to count, it is impossible for there to be time unless there is soul, but only that of which time is an attribute, i.e. if change can exist without soul.
Change in all things is sweet.
Courage is a mean with regard to fear and confidence.
Courage is the first of human qualities because it is the quality which guarantees the others.
Democracy arises out of the notion that those who are equal in any respect are equal in all respects because men are equally free, they claim to be absolutely equal.
Democracy is when the indigent, and not the men of property, are the rulers.
Different men seek after happiness in different ways and by different means, and so make for themselves different modes of life and forms of government.
Education is an ornament in prosperity and a refuge in adversity.
Education is the best provision for old age.
Every art and every inquiry, and similarly every action and choice, is thought to aim at some good and for this reason the good has rightly been declared to be that at which all things aim.
Excellence is an art won by training and habituation. We do not act rightly because we have virtue or excellence, but we rather have those because we have acted rightly. We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit.
Excellence, then, is a state concerned with choice, lying in a mean, relative to us, this being determined by reason and in the way in which the man of practical wisdom would determine it.
Fear is pain arising from the anticipation of evil.
For as the eyes of bats are to the blaze of day, so is the reason in our soul to the things which are by nature most evident of all.
For one swallow does not make a summer, nor does one day and so too one day, or a short time, does not make a man blessed and happy.
For though we love both the truth and our friends, piety requires us to honor the truth first.
Friendship is a single soul dwelling in two bodies.
Friendship is essentially a partnership.
Good habits formed at youth make all the difference.
Happiness depends upon ourselves.
He who can be, and therefore is, another's, and he who participates in reason enough to apprehend, but not to have, is a slave by nature.
He who hath many friends hath none.
He who is to be a good ruler must have first been ruled.
He who is unable to live in society, or who has no need because he is sufficient for himself, must be either a beast or a god.
Hence poetry is something more philosophic and of graver import than history, since its statements are rather of the nature of universals, whereas those of history are singulars.
Homer has taught all other poets the art of telling lies skillfully.
Hope is a waking dream.
Hope is the dream of a waking man.
I have gained this from philosophy: that I do without being commanded what others do only from fear of the law.
If liberty and equality, as is thought by some, are chiefly to be found in democracy, they will be best attained when all persons alike share in government to the utmost.
If one way be better than another, that you may be sure is nature's way.
In a democracy the poor will have more power than the rich, because there are more of them, and the will of the majority is supreme.
In all things of nature there is something of the marvelous.
In poverty and other misfortunes of life, true friends are a sure refuge. The young they keep out of mischief to the old they are a comfort and aid in their weakness, and those in the prime of life they incite to noble deeds.
It is best to rise from life as from a banquet, neither thirsty nor drunken.
It is clearly better that property should be private, but the use of it common and the special business of the legislator is to create in men this benevolent disposition.
It is Homer who has chiefly taught other poets the art of telling lies skillfully.
It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.
It is unbecoming for young men to utter maxims.
Jealousy is both reasonable and belongs to reasonable men, while envy is base and belongs to the base, for the one makes himself get good things by jealousy, while the other does not allow his neighbour to have them through envy.
Love is composed of a single soul inhabiting two bodies.
Man is by nature a political animal.
Men acquire a particular quality by constantly acting in a particular way.
Men are swayed more by fear than by reverence.
Men create gods after their own image, not only with regard to their form but with regard to their mode of life.
Mothers are fonder than fathers of their children because they are more certain they are their own.
My best friend is the man who in wishing me well wishes it for my sake.
Nature does nothing in vain.
Perfect friendship is the friendship of men who are good, and alike in excellence for these wish well alike to each other qua good, and they are good in themselves.
Personal beauty is a greater recommendation than any letter of reference.
Piety requires us to honor truth above our friends.
Plato is dear to me, but dearer still is truth.
Pleasure in the job puts perfection in the work.
Poetry is finer and more philosophical than history for poetry expresses the universal, and history only the particular.
Politicians also have no leisure, because they are always aiming at something beyond political life itself, power and glory, or happiness.
Quality is not an act, it is a habit.
Suffering becomes beautiful when anyone bears great calamities with cheerfulness, not through insensibility but through greatness of mind.
The aim of art is to represent not the outward appearance of things, but their inward significance.
The best friend is the man who in wishing me well wishes it for my sake.
The energy of the mind is the essence of life.
The generality of men are naturally apt to be swayed by fear rather than reverence, and to refrain from evil rather because of the punishment that it brings than because of its own foulness.
The ideal man bears the accidents of life with dignity and grace, making the best of circumstances.
The least initial deviation from the truth is multiplied later a thousandfold.
The moral virtues, then, are produced in us neither by nature nor against nature. Nature, indeed, prepares in us the ground for their reception, but their complete formation is the product of habit.
The one exclusive sign of thorough knowledge is the power of teaching.
The roots of education are bitter, but the fruit is sweet.
The secret to humor is surprise.
The state comes into existence for the sake of life and continues to exist for the sake of good life.
The ultimate value of life depends upon awareness and the power of contemplation rather than upon mere survival.
The virtue of justice consists in moderation, as regulated by wisdom.
The wise man does not expose himself needlessly to danger, since there are few things for which he cares sufficiently but he is willing, in great crises, to give even his life - knowing that under certain conditions it is not worthwhile to live.
There is no great genius without a mixture of madness.
Therefore, the good of man must be the end of the science of politics.
Those who educate children well are more to be honored than they who produce them for these only gave them life, those the art of living well.
Those who excel in virtue have the best right of all to rebel, but then they are of all men the least inclined to do so.
Thou wilt find rest from vain fancies if thou doest every act in life as though it were thy last.
To run away from trouble is a form of cowardice and, while it is true that the suicide braves death, he does it not for some noble object but to escape some ill.
We make war that we may live in peace.
We praise a man who feels angry on the right grounds and against the right persons and also in the right manner at the right moment and for the right length of time.
What is a friend? A single soul dwelling in two bodies.
What it lies in our power to do, it lies in our power not to do.
Whosoever is delighted in solitude is either a wild beast or a god.
Wishing to be friends is quick work, but friendship is a slow ripening fruit.
Wit is educated insolence.
You will never do anything in this world without courage. It is the greatest quality of the mind next to honor.
Youth is easily deceived because it is quick to hope.

Famous Quotes By Plato

A good decision is based on knowledge and not on numbers.
A hero is born among a hundred, a wise man is found among a thousand, but an accomplished one might not be found even among a hundred thousand men.
All men are by nature equal, made all of the same earth by one Workman and however we deceive ourselves, as dear unto God is the poor peasant as the mighty prince.
And what, Socrates, is the food of the soul? Surely, I said, knowledge is the food of the soul.
Any man may easily do harm, but not every man can do good to another.
Apply yourself both now and in the next life. Without effort, you cannot be prosperous. Though the land be good, You cannot have an abundant crop without cultivation.
At the touch of love everyone becomes a poet.
Attention to health is life's greatest hindrance.
Better a little which is well done, than a great deal imperfectly.
Courage is a kind of salvation.
Courage is knowing what not to fear.
Cunning... is but the low mimic of wisdom.
Death is not the worst that can happen to men.
Democracy... is a charming form of government, full of variety and disorder and dispensing a sort of equality to equals and unequals alike.
Entire ignorance is not so terrible or extreme an evil, and is far from being the greatest of all too much cleverness and too much learning, accompanied with ill bringing-up, are far more fatal.
Excess generally causes reaction, and produces a change in the opposite direction, whether it be in the seasons, or in individuals, or in governments.
For good nurture and education implant good constitutions.
For the introduction of a new kind of music must be shunned as imperiling the whole state since styles of music are never disturbed without affecting the most important political institutions.
Good actions give strength to ourselves and inspire good actions in others.
Good people do not need laws to tell them to act responsibly, while bad people will find a way around the laws.
He who is not a good servant will not be a good master.
He who is of calm and happy nature will hardly feel the pressure of age, but to him who is of an opposite disposition youth and age are equally a burden.
He who steals a little steals with the same wish as he who steals much, but with less power.
Human behavior flows from three main sources: desire, emotion, and knowledge.
I exhort you also to take part in the great combat, which is the combat of life, and greater than every other earthly conflict.
I never did anything worth doing by accident, nor did any of my inventions come by accident they came by work.
I would fain grow old learning many things.
If a man neglects education, he walks lame to the end of his life.
Ignorance of all things is an evil neither terrible nor excessive, nor yet the greatest of all but great cleverness and much learning, if they be accompanied by a bad training, are a much greater misfortune.
Injustice is censured because the censures are afraid of suffering, and not from any fear which they have of doing injustice.
It is a common saying, and in everybody's mouth, that life is but a sojourn.
Justice in the life and conduct of the State is possible only as first it resides in the hearts and souls of the citizens.
Justice means minding one's own business and not meddling with other men's concerns.
Know one knows whether death, which people fear to be the greatest evil, may not be the greatest good.
Knowledge becomes evil if the aim be not virtuous.
Knowledge is true opinion.
Knowledge which is acquired under compulsion obtains no hold on the mind.
Knowledge without justice ought to be called cunning rather than wisdom.
Let parents bequeath to their children not riches, but the spirit of reverence.
Life must be lived as play.
Love is a serious mental disease.
Love is the joy of the good, the wonder of the wise, the amazement of the Gods.
Music is a moral law. It gives soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination, and charm and gaiety to life and to everything.
Music is the movement of sound to reach the soul for the education of its virtue.
Must not all things at the last be swallowed up in death?
No evil can happen to a good man, either in life or after death.
No man should bring children into the world who is unwilling to persevere to the end in their nature and education.
No one is a friend to his friend who does not love in return.
Nothing can be more absurd than the practice that prevails in our country of men and women not following the same pursuits with all their strengths and with one mind, for thus, the state instead of being whole is reduced to half.
Nothing in the affairs of men is worthy of great anxiety.
One man cannot practice many arts with success.
One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors.
Only the dead have seen the end of war.
Opinion is the medium between knowledge and ignorance.
Our object in the construction of the state is the greatest happiness of the whole, and not that of any one class.
Philosophy is the highest music.
Poetry is nearer to vital truth than history.
Poets utter great and wise things which they do not themselves understand.
Rhetoric is the art of ruling the minds of men.
Science is nothing but perception.
States are as the men, they grow out of human characters.
The beginning is the most important part of the work.
The blame is his who chooses: God is blameless.
The direction in which education starts a man will determine his future in life.
The good is the beautiful.
The greatest wealth is to live content with little.
The learning and knowledge that we have, is, at the most, but little compared with that of which we are ignorant.
The man who makes everything that leads to happiness depends upon himself, and not upon other men, has adopted the very best plan for living happily. This is the man of moderation, the man of manly character and of wisdom.
The measure of a man is what he does with power.
The most important part of education is proper training in the nursery.
The punishment which the wise suffer who refuse to take part in the government, is to live under the government of worse men.
The rulers of the state are the only persons who ought to have the privilege of lying, either at home or abroad they may be allowed to lie for the good of the state.
Then not only an old man, but also a drunkard, becomes a second time a child.
Then not only custom, but also nature affirms that to do is more disgraceful than to suffer injustice, and that justice is equality.
There are three classes of men lovers of wisdom, lovers of honor, and lovers of gain.
There are two things a person should never be angry at, what they can help, and what they cannot.
There is no harm in repeating a good thing.
There must always remain something that is antagonistic to good.
There's a victory, and defeat the first and best of victories, the lowest and worst of defeats which each man gains or sustains at the hands not of another, but of himself.
They certainly give very strange names to diseases.
Thinking: the talking of the soul with itself.
Those who intend on becoming great should love neither themselves nor their own things, but only what is just, whether it happens to be done by themselves or others.
To love rightly is to love what is orderly and beautiful in an educated and disciplined way.
To prefer evil to good is not in human nature and when a man is compelled to choose one of two evils, no one will choose the greater when he might have the less.
Truth is the beginning of every good to the gods, and of every good to man.
Twice and thrice over, as they say, good is it to repeat and review what is good.
We are twice armed if we fight with faith.
We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark the real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light.
We do not learn and what we call learning is only a process of recollection.
We ought to fly away from earth to heaven as quickly as we can and to fly away is to become like God, as far as this is possible and to become like him is to become holy, just, and wise.
Wealth is well known to be a great comforter.
Whatever deceives men seems to produce a magical enchantment.
When men speak ill of thee, live so as nobody may believe them.
When the tyrant has disposed of foreign enemies by conquest or treaty, and there is nothing more to fear from them, then he is always stirring up some war or other, in order that the people may require a leader.
Wisdom alone is the science of other sciences.
Wise men speak because they have something to say Fools because they have to say something.

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