There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there always has been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that “my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.”
- Isaac Asimov (Newsweek: “A Cult of Ignorance” January 21, 1980, p. 19)
Live a good life. If there are gods and they are just, then they will not care how devout you have been, but will welcome you based on the virtues you have lived by. If there are gods, but unjust, then you should not want to worship them. If there are no gods, then you will be gone, but will have lived a noble life that will live on in the memories of your loved ones.
- Marcus Aurelius
We are here on earth to do good for others. What the others are here for, I don’t know.
- W.H. Auden
The eye sees only what the mind is prepared to comprehend.
- Henri Bergson
If the world was perfect, it wouldn’t be.
- Yogi Berra
Democracy must be something more than two wolves and a sheep voting on what to have for dinner.
- James Bovard
Seize the moment. Remember all those women on the ‘Titanic’ who waved off the dessert cart.
- Erma Bombeck
Tragedy is when I cut my finger. Comedy is when you walk into an open sewer and die.
- Mel Brooks
Where are we going, and why am I in this hand basket?
- Bumper Sticker
You can tell what’s informing a society by what the tallest building is. When you approach a medieval town, the cathedral is the tallest thing in the place. When you approach an 18th Century town, it is the political palace. … And when you approach a modern city, the tallest places are the office buildings, the centers of economic life.
- Joseph Campbell, The Power of Myth
Compassion is not a relationship between the healer and the wounded. It’s a relationship between equals. Only when we know our own darkness well can we be present with the darkness of others. Compassion becomes real when we recognize our shared humanity.
- Pema Chodron, a notable American figure in Tibetan Buddhism
We accept the love we think we deserve.
- Stephen Chbosky
To be ignorant of what occurred before you were born is to remain always a child.
- Marcus T. Cicero
I have never killed a man, but I have read many obituaries with great pleasure.
- Clarence Darrow
If you want to build a ship, don’t herd people together to collect wood and don’t assign them tasks and work but rather, teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea.
- Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
Make it a habit to keep on the lookout for novel and interesting ideas that others have used successfully. Your idea has to be original only in its adaptation to the problem you’re working on.
- Thomas Edison
Genius? Nothing! Sticking to it is the genius! … I’ve failed my way to success.
- Thomas Edison
I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.
- Thomas A. Edison
Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I’m not sure about the former.
- Albert Einstein
If we knew what we were doing, it wouldn’t be called Research.
- Albert Einstein
If at first the idea is not absurd, then there is no hope for it.
- Albert Einstein
The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a faithful servant. We have created a society that honors the servant and has forgotten the gift.
- Albert Einstein
You can never solve a problem on the level on which it was created.
- Albert Einstein
Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.
- Albert Einstein
To laugh often and much; to win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children…to leave the world a better place…to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
He has never been known to use a word that might send a reader to the dictionary.
- William Faulkner (about Ernest Hemingway)
God is a verb.
- Buckminster Fuller
There is nothing in a caterpillar that tells you it’s going to be a butterfly.
- Buckminster Fuller
When I am working on a problem I never think about beauty. I only think about how to solve the problem. But when I have finished, if the solution is not beautiful, I know it is wrong.
- Buckminster Fuller (1895-1983)
There are people in the world so hungry that God cannot appear to them except in the form of bread.
- Mahatma Gandhi (1869-1948)
There is a vitality, a life force, a quickening that is translated through you into action, and because there is only one of you in all time, this expression is unique. If you block it, it will never exist through any other medium and be lost. The world will not have it. It is not your business to determine how good it is; nor how valuable it is; nor how it compares with other expressions. It is your business to keep it yours, clearly and directly, to keep the channel open.
You do not even have to believe in yourself or your work. You have to keep open and aware directly of the urges that motivate you.
- Martha Graham, as quoted by Agnes DeMille
He is simply a shiver looking for a spine to run up.
- Paul Keating (on John Howard, his political opponent as Australia’s Prime Minister)
I long to accomplish great and noble tasks, but it is my chief duty to accomplish humble tasks as though they were great and noble.
- Helen Keller
Humility rests upon the disclosure of the consummate wonder of God, upon finding that only God counts, that all our own self-originated intentions are works of straw.
- Thomas R. Kelly
Tolerance implies no lack of commitment to one’s own beliefs. Rather it condemns the oppression or persecution of others.
- John F. Kennedy, Letter and Statements to the National Conference of Christians and Jews Conference, October 26, 1960
If a man is called to be a street sweeper, he should sweep streets even as Michelangelo painted, or Beethoven composed music, or Shakespeare wrote poetry. He should sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will pause to say, here lived a great street sweeper who did his job well.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
He uses statistics as a drunken man uses lamp-posts… for support rather than illumination.
- Andrew Lang (1844-1912)
As I would not be a slave, so I would not be a master. This expresses my idea of democracy.
- Abraham Lincoln
I’ve had a perfectly wonderful evening. But this wasn’t it.
- Groucho Marx
Heterosexuality is not normal, it’s just common.
- Dorothy Parker
If you have made mistakes, there is always another chance for you. You may have a fresh start any moment you choose for this thing we call ‘failure’ is not the falling down but the staying down.
- Mary Pickford
He who commits injustice is made ever more wretched than he who suffers it.
- Plato
Nie mój cyrk, nie moje małpy (Pronunciation: Nyee mootserrk, nyee moyeh mawpeh; Translated: Not my circus, not my monkey!)
- Polish proverb
Courage does not always roar. Sometimes courage is the quiet voice at the end of the day saying, “I’ll try again tomorrow.”
- Mary Anne Radmacher
I’m not a member of any organized political party, I’m a Democrat!
- Will Rogers (1879-1935)
Beautiful young people are accidents of nature, but beautiful old people are works of art.
- Eleanor Roosevelt
This country will not be a good place for any of us to live in unless we make it a good place for all of us to live in.
- Theodore Roosevelt
Nothing is more curious than the almost savage hostility that humor excites in those who lack it.
- George Saintsbury
I learned long ago never to wrestle with a pig. You get dirty and besides, the pig likes it.
- George Bernard Shaw
The longer I live the more I see that I am never wrong about anything, and that all the pains that I have so humbly taken to verify my notions have only wasted my time.
- George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950)
God, whose love and joy are present everywhere, can’t come to visit you unless you aren’t there.
- Angelus Silesius
THE TRUTH WILL SET YOU FREE. But first it will piss you off.
- Gloria Steinem
The human race has one effective weapon—and that is laughter.
- Mark Twain
Always do right- this will gratify some and astonish the rest.
- Mark Twain
You ought never to knock your little sister down with a club. It is better to use a cat, which is soft. In doing this you must be careful to take the cat by the tail in such a manner that she cannot scratch you.
- Mark Twain
The government is merely a servant—merely a temporary servant; it cannot be its prerogative to determine what is right and what is wrong, and decide who is a patriot and who isn’t. Its function is to obey orders, not originate them.
- Mark Twain
I didn’t attend the funeral, but I sent a nice letter saying I approved of it.
- Mark Twain
New Year’s Day – Now is the accepted time to make your regular annual good resolutions. Next week you can begin paving hell with them as usual.
- Mark Twain
Appreciation is a wonderful thing: it makes what is excellent in others belong to us as well.
- Voltaire
Human history becomes more and more a race between education and catastrophe.
- H. G. Wells
If only we’d stop trying to be happy we’d have a pretty good time.
- Edith Wharton
Re-examine all you have been told… Dismiss what insults your soul.
- Walt Whitman
I am not young enough to know everything.
- Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)
He has no enemies, but is intensely disliked by his friends.
- Oscar Wilde
Some cause happiness wherever they go; others, whenever they go.
- Oscar Wilde
You do what you can for as long as you can, and when you finally can’t, you do the next best thing. You back up but you don’t give up.
- Chuck Yeager
Communicating Authentically 
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