QUOTES
Below are some of my favorite quotes that continue to inspire me. I hope they make you think, smile or just ponder the wonderful world of words!
Abraham Lincoln (my maternal heritage)
“Let us have faith that right makes might, and in that faith let us to the end dare to do our duty as we understand it.” –Abraham Lincoln
“You can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time.” –Abraham Lincoln
“You cannot escape the responsibility of tomorrow by evading it today.” –Abraham Lincoln
“Most folks are about as happy as they make up their minds to be.” –Abraham Lincoln
“It often requires more courage to dare to do right than to fear to do wrong.” –Abraham Lincoln
“No man is good enough to govern another man without that other’s consent.” –Abraham Lincoln
“I don’t like that man. I must get to know him better.” –Abraham Lincoln
“Whenever I hear anyone arguing for slavery, I feel a strong impulse to see it tried on him personally.” –Abraham Lincoln
“Hypocrite: The man who murdered his parents, and then pleaded for mercy on the grounds that he was an orphan.” –Abraham Lincoln
“Whatever you are, be a good one.” –Abraham Lincoln
“America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves.” –Abraham Lincoln
“When I do good, I feel good. When I do bad, I feel bad. That’s my religion. –Abraham Lincoln
“Those who deny freedom to others, deserve it not for themselves; and, under a just God, can not long retain it. –Abraham Lincoln
“The severest justice may not always be the best policy.” –Abraham Lincoln
“Don’t interfere with anything in the Constitution. That must be maintained, for it is the only safeguard of our liberties. And not to Democrats alone do I make this appeal, but to all who love these great and true principles.” –Abraham Lincoln
Albert Einstein
“The world is a dangerous place to live, not because of the people who are evil, but because of the people who don’t do anything about it.” –Albert Einstein
“Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind.” –Albert Einstein
“I want to know God’s thoughts,….. the rest are details.” –Albert Einstein
“Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I’m not sure about the former.” –Albert Einstein
“If I had my life to live over again, I’d be a plumber.” –Albert Einstein
“Never regard study as a duty, but as the enviable opportunity to learn to know the liberating influence of beauty in the realm of the spirit for your own personal joy and to the profit of the community to which your later work belongs.” –Albert Einstein
“Not everything that counts can be counted, and not everything that can be counted counts.” –Albert Einstein
“Teaching should be such that what is offered is perceived as a valuable gift and not as a hard duty.” –Albert Einstein
“Try not to become a man of success but rather to become a man of value.” –Albert Einstein
“The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing. One cannot help but be in awe when he contemplates the mysteries of eternity, of life, of the marvelous structure of reality. It is enough if one tries merely to comprehend a little of this mystery every day. Never lose a holy curiosity.” –Albert Einstein
“One should guard against preaching to young people success in the customary form as the main aim in life. The most important motive for work in school and in life is pleasure in work, pleasure in its result, and the knowledge of the value of the result to the community. –Albert Einstein
“A hundred times every day I remind myself that my inner and outer life are based on the labors of other men, living and dead, and that I must exert myself in order to give in the same measure as I have received and am still receiving.” –Albert Einstein
Anonymous
“I have spread the mantle of my nation over the ocean, and will guard her forever. I am her heritage, and yours. I am the American Sailor.” –Anonymous
“Discretion is being able to raise your eyebrow instead of your voice.” –Anonymous
“Happiness is a choice that requires effort at times.” –Anonymous
“Freedom isn’t free.” –Anonymous
“To steal ideas from one person is plagiarism, to steal ideas from many is research.” –Anonymous
“The time to stop talking is when the other person nods his head affirmatively but says nothing.” –Anonymous
“Efficiency is intelligent laziness.” –Anonymous
“He who dies with the most toys is, nonetheless, still dead.” –Anonymous
“When I was a young man, I wanted to change the world. I found it was difficult to change the world, so I tried to change my nation. When I found I couldn’t change the nation, I began to focus on my town. I couldn’t change the town and as an older man, I tried to change my family. Now, as an old man, I realize the only thing I can change is myself, and suddenly I realize that if long ago I had changed myself, I could have made an impact on my family. My family and I could have made an impact on our town. Their impact could have changed the nation and I could indeed have changed the world.” –Anonymous
Ernest Hemmingway
“Once we have a war there is only one thing to do. It must be won. For defeat brings worse things than any that can ever happen in war.” –Ernest Hemmingway
Helen Keller
“The best and most beautiful things in life cannot be seen, not touched, but are felt in the heart.” –Helen Keller
“Believe. No pessimist ever discovered the secrets of the stars, or sailed to an uncharted land, or opened a new heaven to the human spirit.” –Helen Keller
“The marvelous richness of human experience would lose something of rewarding joy if there were no limitations to overcome. The hilltop hour would not be half so wonderful if there were no dark valleys to traverse.” –Helen Keller
“The most pathetic person in the world is someone who has sight but has no vision.” –Helen Keller
“True happiness… is not attained through self-gratification, but through fidelity to a worthy purpose.” –Helen Keller
“It is for us to pray not for tasks equal to our powers, but for powers equal to our tasks, to go forward with a great desire forever beating at the door of our hearts as we travel toward our distant goal.” –Helen Keller
Jesus Christ
“Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself. There is no commandment greater than these.” –Jesus Christ (Mark 12:30-31 NIV when asked what is the greatest commandment of all)
“My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.” –Jesus Christ
“What shall it profit a man if he gains the whole world but loses his soul.” –Jesus Christ
“Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” –Jesus Christ
“For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.” –Jesus Christ
“Let him who is without sin cast the first stone.” –Jesus Christ
“No one lights a lamp and puts it in a place where it will be hidden, or under a bowl. Instead he puts it on its stand, so that those who come in may see the light.” –Jesus Christ
“But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you; That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust.” –Jesus Christ
John Stewart Mill
“War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse. The person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself.” –John Stewart Mill
John F. Kennedy
“Any man who may be asked in this century what he did to make his life
worthwhile, I think can respond with a good deal of pride and satisfaction, ‘I served in the United States Navy,'” –John F. Kennedy
“A young man who does not have what it takes to perform military service is not likely to have what it takes to make a living.” –John F. Kennedy
“When written in Chinese, the word ‘crisis’ is composed of two characters. One represents danger and the other represents opportunity.” –John F. Kennedy
Leo Nikolaevich Tolstoy
“To sin is a human business, to justify sins is a devilish business.” –Leo Nikolaevich Tolstoy
Marcus Aurelius
“It is not death that a man should fear, but he should fear never beginning to live.” –Marcus Aurelius
“If you are distressed by anything external, the pain is not due to the thing itself, but to your estimate of it; and this you have the power to revoke at any moment.” –Marcus Aurelius
“How much more grievous are the consequences of anger than the causes of it.” –Marcus Aurelius
“Look back over the past, with its changing empires that rose and fell, and you can foresee the future, too.” –Marcus Aurelius
Mark Twain
“Kindness is the language which the deaf can hear and the blind can see.” –Mark Twain
“Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear, not absence of fear.” –Mark Twain
“It is curious that physical courage should be so common in the world and moral courage so rare.” –Mark Twain
“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.” ─Mark Twain
“Of all the animals, man is the only one that is cruel. He is the only one that inflicts pain for the pleasure of doing it.” –Mark Twain
“Don’t go around saying the world owes you a living. The world owes you nothing. It was here first.” –Mark Twain
“When I was a boy of 14, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be 21, I was astonished at how much the old man had learned in seven years.” –Mark Twain
“Facts are stubborn, but statistics are more pliable.” –Mark Twain
“Work and play are words used to describe the same thing under differing conditions.” –Mark Twain
“Do the right thing. It will gratify some people and astonish the rest.” –Mark Twain
“Giving up smoking is the easiest thing in the world. I know because I’ve done it thousands of times.” –Mark Twain
“I have never let my schooling interfere with my education.” –Mark Twain
“Everything has its limit – iron ore cannot be educated into gold.” –Mark Twain
“Don’t tell fish stories where the people know you; but particularly, don’t tell them where they know the fish.” –Mark Twain
Martin Luther King, Jr.
“Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.” –Martin Luther King, Jr.
“Life’s most persistent and urgent question is, ‘What are you doing for others?’”–Martin Luther King, Jr.
“The first question which the priest and the Levite asked was: ‘If I stop to help this man, what will happen to me?’ But… the good Samaritan reversed the question: ‘If I do not stop to help this man, what will happen to him?’”–Martin Luther King, Jr.
“We must develop and maintain the capacity to forgive. He who is devoid of the power to forgive is devoid of the power to love. There is some good in the worst of us and some evil in the best of us. When we discover this, we are less prone to hate our enemies.”–Martin Luther King, Jr.
“I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.”–Martin Luther King, Jr.
“Nothing in all the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.”–Martin Luther King, Jr.
“We may have all come on different ships, but we’re in the same boat now.”–Martin Luther King, Jr.
“Love is the only force capable of transforming an enemy into a friend.”–Martin Luther King, Jr.
“I have decided to stick with love. Hate is too great a burden to bear.”–Martin Luther King, Jr.
“Never forget that everything Hitler did in Germany was legal.”–Martin Luther King, Jr.
“The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.”–Martin Luther King, Jr.
“The function of education is to teach one to think intensively and to think critically. Intelligence plus character – that is the goal of true education.”–Martin Luther King, Jr.
Ronald Reagan
“Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn’t pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same, or one day we will spend our sunset years telling our children and our children’s children what it was once like in the United States where men were free.” –Ronald Reagan
Thucydides
“Be convinced that to be happy means to be free and that to be free means to be brave. Therefore do not take lightly the perils of war.” –Thucydides
Will Rogers
“There are three kinds of men. The one that learns by reading. The few who learn by observation. The rest of them have to pee on the electric fence for themselves.” –Will Rogers
“Advertising is the art of convincing people to spend money they don’t have for something they don’t need.” –Will Rogers
“Half our life is spent trying to find something to do with the time we have rushed through life trying to save.” –Will Rogers
“I am not a member of any organized political party. I am a Democrat.” –Will Rogers
“Lettin’ the cat outta the bag is a whole lot easier ‘n puttin’ it back in.” –Will Rogers
“Live in such a way that you would not be ashamed to sell your parrot to the town gossip.” –Will Rogers
“On account of being a democracy and run by the people, we are the only nation in the world that has to keep a government four years, no matter what it does.” –Will Rogers
“What the country needs is dirtier fingernails and cleaner minds.” –Will Rogers
William M. Stewart, Jr. (some of my words that people have seemed to like over the years)
“I have decided to never again give coincidence credit; I say, ‘That’s not odd … that’s God!’” –William M. Stewart, Jr.
“Thanks for being you!” –William M. Stewart, Jr.
“I am driven by a love within me, not of my own.” –William M. Stewart, Jr.
“The grass always seems to be greener on the other side, or at least until you get there and realize it’s just artificial turf!” –William M. Stewart, Jr.
“All things in this world happen for a reason; some things in this world happen for a purpose.” –William M. Stewart, Jr.
“Everything in this world happens for a reason, but the greatest and most noble of things, happen for a purpose!” –William M. Stewart, Jr.
“Truth has never been afraid of a new idea.” –William M. Stewart, Jr.
“The truth has never been afraid of an idea, for it is one that helps discover the other.” –William M. Stewart, Jr.
“Poor is the man who trips over his own two feet and proceeds to look around for others to blame.” –William M. Stewart, Jr.
“As a chaplain, I can’t honestly say I’ve never met an atheist in a foxhole, but those I did meet seemed to be a little more talkative with me than usual.” –William M. Stewart, Jr.
“Unfortunately, I am the Will Rogers of food; I never met a food I didn’t like.” –William M. Stewart, Jr.
“I don’t mind being called a pig, but being called a fat pig just cuts me clear down to the ham bone!” –William M. Stewart, Jr.
“A watched pot of water never boils; an unwatched pot of water boils over. My recommendation … just slowly sneak up on it!” –William M. Stewart, Jr.
“Don’t shoot your horse cause your dog bit ya!” –William M. Stewart, Jr.
“While throughout decades of military service I have been humbled by many awards received, and honestly disappointed by some I did not, I have come to realize that the greatest medals I will ever receive are those which I proudly wear from within.” –William M. Stewart, Jr.
“It seemed for such a long time my work hours had become 24/7, but I am now convinced they have somehow managed to become 25/8!” –William M. Stewart, Jr.
“They say you’re only as old as you feel, so I can’t be a day over a hundred!” –William M. Stewart, Jr.
“If there is anything I have learned well in this mortal life, it is that I cannot control others … that I must focus deeply on that ultimate endeavor of simply controlling myself.” –William M. Stewart, Jr.
“I know what I know, and little of what I don’t.” –William M. Stewart, Jr.
“No, that’s not what I said. I’m curious though…is that what you heard?” –William M. Stewart, Jr.
“Honestly, I oftentimes don’t know what I don’t know.” –William M. Stewart, Jr. (similar quote also claimed by others)
“The depth of any relationship is directly proportional to the intensity of life you go through together, while not giving up on one another.” –William M. Stewart, Jr.
“Rarely do we grow in our deepest character through easy times; it is through the most challenging that we either become truly great or truly broken.” –William M. Stewart, Jr.
“When we go through hard times and grow from them, I call them good, bad situations.” –William M. Stewart, Jr.
“I only know one thing absolutely for sure and that’s that I know nothing absolutely for sure.” –William M. Stewart, Jr.
“Other than God’s love for me, there’s only one thing that I absolutely know for sure, and that’s that I know nothing absolutely for sure.” –William M. Stewart, Jr.
“The unknown is probably the most difficult thing we deal with in the human psyche.” –William M. Stewart, Jr.
“The unknown, combined with fear, is probably the most difficult thing we ever deal with in the human psyche.” –William M. Stewart, Jr.
“Unless someone can prove to me otherwise, I think life is just pretty darn good!” –William M. Stewart, Jr.
“I know I’m not as good as I could be; I pray I am not as bad as I could be.” –William M. Stewart, Jr.
“It seems that today, people are trying very hard to change the truth so they won’t have to feel they are living a lie.” –William M. Stewart, Jr.
“I have found that it is rather difficult to think of better ways of how to fight a fire, while in one. Hard work can be similar.” –William M. Stewart, Jr.
“I am concerned about the religion of Christianity in any culture becoming a hollow egg shell that has been painted pretty. Proclaimed Christians can say what they want, but when Jesus spoke to people, it made them think, not just feel. It took both the heart and the mind with cognitive resonance to change lives forever … not for just an hour.” –William M. Stewart, Jr
“The truth always wins … not always immediately, but indeed … ultimately!” –William M. Stewart, Jr.
“So much more can be accomplished when using ‘us’ and ‘we’ rather than ‘I’ and ‘me’!” –William M. Stewart, Jr.
“I tried to not judge someone the other day by first walking a mile in his shoes. I don’t know if it helped, but my feet sure are sore and I’m gonna pick someone closer to my size next time!” –William M. Stewart, Jr.
“Everything in this world happens for a reason, but the greatest and most noble of things, happen for a purpose.” –William M. Stewart, Jr.
“Beware of the thief who steals your chickens, and then comes back around the holidays, or maybe even election time, and hands you a beautifully wrapped gift … of two dozen eggs!” –William M. Stewart, Jr.
“A seed planted in each season is different. Much of what has always been will still be, but much of what is different will make something new; what it can now produce, but also what it needs to survive.” –William M. Stewart, Jr.
William Tecumseh Sherman
“War is cruelty. There’s no use trying to reform it, the crueler it is the sooner it will be over.” –William Tecumseh Sherman
