851 Quotations Found

If you would not be forgotten, as soon as you are dead and rotten, either write things worth reading, or do things worth the writing.

Author: Benjamin Franklin | Subjects: Life & Society, Personal Improvement, Wisdom

Only marry a man who adores you; never marry a work in progress.

Author: Unknown | Subjects: Advice, Love

It is easy to make waves, it is hard to make progress.

Author: Unknown | Subjects: Action | Accomplishment, Life & Society

It matters not so much where we are, but in what direction we are moving.

Author: Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. | Subjects: Action | Accomplishment, Life & Society

You, enlightened, self-sufficient, self-governed, endowed with gifts above your fellows, the world expects you to produce as well as to consume, to add to and not to subtract from its store of good, to build up and not tear down, to ennoble and not degrade. It commands you to take your place and to fight your fight in the name of honor and of chivalry, … [ Read more ]

Author: John Hibben | Subjects: Advice, Life & Society, Personal Improvement

You must either discover your duty or else create it and then swear allegiance to its high behests.

Author: John Hibben | Subjects: Advice, Life & Society

Maybe the lives of the meritocrats are so crammed because the stakes are so small. All this ambition and aspiration is looking for new tests to ace, new clubs to be president of, new services to perform, but finding that none of these challenges is the ultimate challenge, and none of the rewards is the ultimate reward.

Author: David Brooks | Subjects: Culture, Life & Society

Reality, for some people, is broader than it is for others, because they have looked more, lived more, read more, experienced more, and thought more.

Authors: M.D., Thomas A. Harris | Subjects: Life & Society, Perception | Observation

If we could read the secret history of our enemies we should find in each man’s life sorrow and suffering enough to disarm all hostility.

Author: Henry Wadsworth Longfellow | Subjects: Military | War | Peace, Relationships

What is “the American idea”? It is the fractious, maddening approach to the conduct of human affairs that values equality despite its elusiveness, that values democracy despite its debasement, that values pluralism despite its messiness, that values the institutions of civic culture despite their flaws, and that values public life as something higher and greater than the sum of all our private lives.

Source: “77 North Washington Street” by The Atlantic Monthly Editors | Source: The Atlantic | Subjects: America, Culture

A nation reveals itself not only by the men it produces but also by the men it honors, the men it remembers.

Author: John F. Kennedy | Subjects: Culture, International

As soon as the love relationship does not lead me to me, as soon as I in a love relationship do not lead another person to himself, this love, even if it seems to be the most secure and ecstatic attachment I have ever experienced, is not true love. For real love is dedicated to continual becoming.

Author: Leo Buscaglia | Subject: Love

Pain is inevitable in life. Endeavor always to be true to yourself—your true self—and all pain will be justified.

Author: JMB | Subjects: Life & Society, Pain & Suffering

Trust is the glue of life. It’s the most essential ingredient in effective communication. It’s the foundational principle that holds all relationships.

Author: Stephen Covey | Subjects: Communication, Insight, Life & Society, Personal Improvement, Psychology | Behavior, Trust

[I am] someone who represents a very complex country which insists on being simple-minded. And simplicity […] is taken to be a great American virtue, along with sincerity. […] And as long as you’re sincere in what you say, you haven’t got to know what you’re talking about. These are the American virtues—two of them anyway. One of the results of this is that immaturity … [ Read more ]

Author: James Baldwin | Subjects: America, Life & Society

A feeling once so beautiful should die with dignity.

Author: Matraca Berg | Subject: Love

The labor into which a heart has poured its whole love—where will it have its say, to excite and inspire, and when?

Author: Kawabata Yasunari | Subjects: Love, Miscellaneous

Intimacy is a game-free relationship, since goals are not ulterior. Intimacy is made possible in a situation where the absence of fear makes possible the fullness of perception, where beauty can be seen apart from the utility, where possessiveness is made unnecessary by the reality of possession.

Authors: M.D., Thomas A. Harris | Subjects: Love, Relationships

What folly to dread the thought of throwing away life at once, and yet have no regard to throwing it away by parcels and piecemeal.

Author: John Howe | Subjects: Life & Society, Perception | Observation

A society can be measured not by the knowledge that it acquires, but by the values it brings to bear on that knowledge.

Author: Susanna Waterman | Subjects: Culture, Life & Society, Sociology | Anthropology, Values