Quotations

Aesop to Confucius

Darwin to Jung

Keller to Petrach

Rosetti to Silesius

Tagore to Y-T'ang




There is always someone worse off than yourself

Aesop (Fl. C. 550 B.C.)
Greek legendary figure and writer of fables

A little thing in hand is worth more than a great thing in prospect.

Aesop (Fl. C. 550 B.C.)
Greek legendary figure and writer of fables

In part, art completes what nature cannot elaborate; and in part, it imitates nature.

Aristotle (384-322 B.C)
Greek philosopher

The function of the judge is to restore equality

Aristotle (384-322 B.C)
Greek philosopher

At his best man is the noblest of all animals; separated from law and justice, he is the worst.

Aristotle (384-322 B.C)
Greek philosopher

Dignity does not consist in possessing honors, but in deserving it.

Aristotle (384-322 B.C.)
Greek philosopher

It is the worst form of inequality is to try to make unequal things equal

Aristotle (384-322 B.C.)
Greek philosopher

God considers not the action, but the spirit of the action.

Peter Abelard (1079-1142)
French theologian and philosopher

Books are the legacies that a great genius leaves to mankind, which are delivered down from generation to generation as presents to the posterity of those who are not yet born.

Joseph Addison (1672-1719)
English essayist

Who loves a garden still his eden keeps, perennial pleasures, plants and wholesome harvest reaps.

Amos Bronson Alcott (1799-1888)
American teacher and philosopher

They blame the man who is silent, they blame the man who speaks too much, and they blame the man who speaks too little.

Antisthenes (C. 445-C. 365 B.C.)
Athenian cynic philosopher and disciple of Socrates

God is more truly imagined than expressed, and he exists more truly than is imagined.

Saint Augustine Of Hippo (354-430)
Christian theologian

God judged it better to bring good out of evil than to suffer no evil to exist.

Saint Augustine Of Hippo (354-430)
Christian theologian

God judged it better to bring good out of evil than to suffer no evil to exist.

Saint Augustine Of Hippo (354-430)
Christian theologian

He who has not believed will not experience, and he who has not experienced will not understand; for just as experiencing a thing is better than hearing about it, so knowledge that stems from experience outweighs knowledge derived through hearsay.

Saint Anselm (C. 1033-1109)
Italian Benedictine and founder of Scholasticism

Light, even though it passes through pollution, is not polluted.

Saint Augustine Of Hippo (354-430)
Christian theologian

Miracles are not contrary to nature but only contrary to what we know about nature.

Saint Augustine Of Hippo (354-430)
Christian theologian

No man has a right to lead such a life of contemplation as to forget in his own ease the service due to his neighbor; nor has any man a right to be so immersed in active life as to neglect the contemplation of God.

Saint Augustine Of Hippo (354-430)
Christian theologian

Since you cannot do good to all, you are to pay special regard to those who, by the accidents of time, or place, or circumstances, are brought into closer connection with you.

Saint Augustine Of Hippo (354-430)
Christian theologian

The honors of this world: what are they but puff, and emptiness, and peril of falling?

Saint Augustine Of Hippo (354-430)
Christian theologian

Though we can know that God is, we cannot know what God is.

Saint Augustine Of Hippo (354-430)
Christian theologian

Faith is to believe what we do not see; and the reward of this faith is to see what we believe.

Saint Augustine Of Hippo (354-430)
Christian theologian

To perceive is to suffer.

Aristotle (384-322 B.C.)
Greek philosopher

The things we have to learn before we can do them, we learn by doing.

Aristotle (384-322 B.C.)
Greek philosopher

Philosophy is the science that considers truth.

Aristotle (384-322 B.C.)
Greek philosopher

Philosophy is the science that considers truth.

Aristotle (384-322 B.C.)
Greek philosopher

When superficially studied philosophy excites doubt; when thoroughly explored, it dispels it.

Francis Bacon (1561-1626)
English Writer

A judge is one more learned than witty, more reverend than plausible, and more advised than confident.
Above all things, integrity is their portion and proper virtue.

Francis Bacon (1561-1626)
English Writer

A little philosophy inclines a man's mind to atheism; but depth in philosophy brings men's minds about to religion.

Francis Bacon (1561-1626)
English Writer

Conscience is thoroughly well bred and soon leaves off talking to those who do not wish to hear it.

Samuel Butler (1612-1680)
English poet and satirist

God is the author, men are only the players.
These grand pieces which are played upon earth have been composed in heaven.

Honore De Balzac (1799-1850)
French writer

As a goldsmith, taking a piece of gold transforms it into another newer and more beautiful form, even so this self, casting off this body and dissolving its ignorance, makes for itself another newer and more beautiful form

Brhadaranyaka IV:43-4
Vedic Scriptures

God wants to come to his world, but he wants to come to it through man.
This is the mystery of our existence, the superhuman chance of mankind.

Martin Buber (1878-1965)
German-Jewish philosopher and biblical translator

If there is a God, whence come evils? But whence comes good, if there is none?

Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius (C.480-524)
Roman scholar, Neoplatonic philosopher and statesman

If we would build on a sure foundation in friendship, we must love our friends for their sake rather than for our own.

Charlotte Bronte (1816-1855)
English writer

No coward soul is mine,
No trembler in the world's storm-troubled sphere;
I see heaven's glories shine
And faith shines equal, arming me from fear.

Emily Bronte (1818-1848)
English writer

O world, as God has made it! All is beauty.

Robert Browning (1812-1889)
English poet of the Victorian Age

Proud people breed sad sorrows for themselves.

Emily Bronte (1818-1848)
English writer

God's gifts put man's best dreams to shame.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806-1861)
English poet

There is knowledge and knowledge: knowledge that rests in the bare speculation of things, and knowledge that is accompanied with the grace of faith and love, which puts a man upon doing even the will of God from the heart.

John Bunyan (1628-1688)
English writer

The tree which moves some to tears of joy is in the eyes of others only a green thing which stands in the way.

William Blake (1757-1827)
English Poet, Painter and Mystic

To see a world in a grain of sand,
And heaven in a wild flower;
Hold infinity in the palm of your hand
And eternity in an hour.

William Blake (1757-1827)
English Poet, Painter and Mystic

'Tis solitude should teach us how to die;
It hath no flatterers; vanity can give
No hollow aid; alone; man with his God must strive.

Lord George Noel Gordon Byron (1788-1824)
English poet

Never in this world can hatred be stilled by hatred; it will be stilled only by non-hatred.
This is the law Eternal.

Buddha (563-483? B.C.)
Founder of Buddhism

What is to reach the heart must come from above; if it does not come from thence, it will be nothing but notes, body without spirit.

Ludwig Van Beethoven (1770-1827)
German composer, pianist and conductor

I have not a single friend, I must live alone.
But well I know that God is nearer to me than to other artists;
I associate with Him without fear; I have always recognized and understood Him and have no fear for my music - it can meet no evil fate.

Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827)
German composer, pianist and conductor

I will take Fate by the throat; it shall not wholly overcome me.

Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827)
German composer, pianist and conductor

Poetry is the most precious jewel of a nation.

Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827)
German composer, pianist and conductor

On Abraham Lincoln - It is the great boon of such men that they reunite what God has joined together and man has put asunder.
In him was the greatness of real goodness and the goodness of real greatness.

Phillips Brooks (1835-1893)
American writer

On Abraham Lincoln - It is the great boon of such men that they reunite what God has joined together and man has put asunder.
In him was the greatness of real goodness and the goodness of real greatness.

Phillips Brooks (1835-1893)
American writer

The ideas I stand for are not mine. I borrowed them from Socrates.
I swiped them from Chesterfield.
I stole them from Jesus.
And I put them in a book.
If you don't like their rules, whose would you use?

Dale Carnegie (1888-1955)
American writer and lecturer

Wise men learn more from fools than fools from wise men.

Marcus Porcius Cato (234-149 B.C.
Roman Statesman and writer of prose

We cannot control the evil tongues of others; but a good life enables us to disregard them.

Marcus Porcius Cato (234-149 B.C.
Roman Statesman and writer of prose

All ambitions are lawful except those which climb upward on the misery of others.

Joseph Conrad (1857-1924)
Polish-born English writer

The artist appeals to that part of our being which is not dependent on wisdom; to that in us which is a gift and not an acquisition,
He speaks to our capacity for delight and wonder, to the sense of mystery surrounding our lives; to our sense of pity and beauty, and pain.

Joseph Conrad (1857-1924)
Polish-born English writer

On Dante - His greatness has concentrated itself into fiery emphasis and depth.
He is world-great not because he is world-wide, but because he is world-deep.

Thomas Carlyle (1795-1881)
Scottish essayist, historian and philosopher

All that mankind has done, thought, or been is lying in magic preservation in the pages of books

Thomas Carlyle (1795-1881)
Scottish essayist, historian and philosopher

When the oak is felled, the whole forest echoes with its fall, but a hundred acorns are sown in silence by an unnoticed breeze.

Thomas Carlyle (1795-1881)
Scottish essayist, historian and philosopher

Creativity is the basic attribute of God, identical with his uniqueness.

Hermann Cohen (1842-1918)
German-Jewish neo-Kantian philosopher

If seed in the black earth can turn into such beautiful roses, what might not the heart of man become in its long journey toward the stars?

G. K. Chesterton (1874-1936)
English Novelist

Reason is itself a matter of faith.
It is an act of faith to assert that our thoughts have any relation to reality at all.
G. K. Chesterton (1874-1936)
English Novelist

To be nobody but yourself - in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else -
means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight, and never stop fighting.
E.E. Cummings (1894-1962)
English writer and critic

Nature is but a name for an effect,
Whose cause is God
Wllliam Cowper (1731-1800)
English Poet

No person was ever honored for what he received; honor has been the reward for what he gave.
Calvin Coolidge (1872-1933)
Lawyer and 30th President of the United States

In nothing do men approach so nearly to the gods as doing good to men. Marcus Tullius Cicero (106-43 B.C.)
Roman lawyer, scholar, writer and statesman

Nor do I regret that I have lived, since I have so lived that I think I was not born in vain, and I quit life as if it were an inn, not a home.

Marcus Tullius Cicero (106-43 B.C.)
Roman lawyer, scholar, writer and statesman

Natural ability without education has more often raised a man to glory and virtue than education without natural ability.

Marcus Tullius Cicero (106-43 B.C.)
Roman lawyer, scholar, writer and statesman

The six mistakes of man:
1. The delusion that personal gain is made by crushing others.
2. The tendency to worry about things that cannot be changed or corrected.
3. Insisting that a thing is impossible because he cannot accomplish it.
4. Refusing to set aside trivial preferences.
5. Neglecting development and refinement of the mind, and not acquiring the habit of reading and study.
6. Attempting to compel others to believe and live as he does.

Cicero (106-43 B.C.)
Roman lawyer,scholar, writer and statesman

The pearl of justice is found in the heart of mercy.

Catherine Of Siena (1347-1380)
Dominican mystic and patron saint of Italy

Nothing in life is to be feared. It is only to be understood.

Marie Curie (1867-1934)
Polish-born French physicist

We existed before the foundation of the world; because we were destined to be in him, we preexisted in the sight of God.

Clement Of Alexandria (C. 150-C. 215)
Christian apologist and theologian

What you do not want others to do to you, do not do to others.

Confucius (C. 551-479 B.C.)
Chinese philosopher

It is not truth that makes man great, but man who makes truth great.

Confucius (c. 551-479 B.C.)
Chinese philosopher

By three methods may we learn wisdom: first, by reflection, which is noblest; second, by imitation, which is easiest; and third, by experience, which is the bitterest.

Confucius (551-479 BC)
Chinese Philosopher

If there be righteousness in the heart, there will be beauty in the character.
If there be beauty in the character, there will be harmony in the home.
If there be harmony in the home, there will be order in the nation.
If there be order in the nation, there will be peace in the world.

Confucius (551-479 BC)
Chinese Philosopher

As the water shapes itself to the vessel that contains it, so a wise man adapts himself to circumstance.

Confucius (C. 551-479 B.C)
Chinese philosopher