thought
Behind every great civilization is a vision.
- Christopher Dawson
Were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers or newspapers without government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the later.
- Thomas Jefferson
The daily newspaper is the prayer of the modern man.
- Hegel
In a crisis the middle class mind tries to assume a lofty detachment from the deep issues of the day.
- Max Lerner
Sensible men are all of the same religion, but they’d never tell.
- Benjamin Disraeli
The more backwards a country, the more powerful is the influence of religious superstition and the more likely the people are to worship idols and animals.
- Kume Kunitake
The people must have a religion, and the religion must be in the hands of the government.
- Napoleon
Religion conciliates, magic constrains.
- James George Fraser
The Reformation spoke the language of nationalism.
- Namier
The world is moving to the left.
- Lyndon B. Johnson
Every generation cherishes illusions which baffle its successors.
- William Manchester
We are all marked to some extent by the stamp of our generation.
- Anthony Eden
The pupil is mature when he has learned enough from others to learn for himself.
- Wilhelm von Humboldt
There are three things worthwhile in the world. Justice, beauty, and truth. Perhaps none can be defined.
- Will Durant
The keywords of Chinese thought are order, pattern, and organism.
- Joseph Needham
In great things, it is enough to have tried.
- Erasmus
One does not need to be successful to carry on.
- William the Silent
Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might; for there is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom, in the grave, whither thou goest.
- Ecclesiastes
Death is nothing, but to live defeated is to die everyday.
- Napoleon
If we have any greatness in us, it comes to light, not in one flamboyant hour, but in the ledger of daily work.
- Beryl Markham
The thing to fight hard against is the carelessness that comes from familiarity with the job.
- Washington Roebling
Nothing lasts forever. The most unforeseen circumstances will swamp you and baffle the wisest calculations. Only vitality and plenty of it helps you.
- Washington Roebling
He who’s not busy being born is busy dying.
- Bob Dylan
The best way to answer difficult questions is to find the people who know the answers and interview them.
- Bill Browder
No one was ever great by imitation.
- Samuel Johnson
Only a fool learns from their own mistakes. The wise learn from the mistakes of others.
- Otto van Bismark
We will not make the same old mistakes. We will make our own.
- Henry Kissinger
If you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen.
- Harry Truman
It is all the same whether one has good ideas oneself or is prepared to listen to someone else who is offering good advice.
- Artabanus
Ideas come to us out of order.
- Simon Flexner
One must wait until the evening to see how splendid the day has been.
- Sophocles
In order to be sure one must be unsure.
- Edmund Morgan
To teach is to learn twice.
- Joseph Joubert
The path is made in the walking of it.
- Zhuangzi
The harder you work, the luckier you get.
- Gary Player
One must always be doing something to realize truth.
- Wang Yangming
The squeaking wheel gets the grease.
- Ladybird Johnson
The one who moves a mountain begins by carrying away small stones.
- Confucius
You don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows.
- Bob Dylan
How did the great rivers get their kingship over the hundred lesser streams? Through the merit of being lower.
- Taoist proverb
It’s a lovely day for the race. The human race.
- Samuel Samuel
When the well is dry, we know the worth of water.
- Benjamin Franklin
Fortune spins her wheel bringing up her cups, some full, some empty.
- La Celestina
He who has access to the fountain does not go to the water jar.
- Leonardo Da Vinci
A drop of water hollows a stone not by force but by continually dripping.
- Roman proverb
Human life is an anvil on which souls are formed by the blows of fate.
- Dostoevsky
Life is not so important as the duties of life.
- John Randolph
A man with one watch knows the time. A man with two is never sure.
- Proverb
The eye seldom sees what the mind does not anticipate.
- Robertson Davies
What we anticipate seldom occurs, what we least expected generally happens.
- Benjamin Disraeli
Knowing the right questions may be more important than thinking you know the answers.
- Morris Ernst
It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so.
- Mark Twain
The best way to predict the future is to invent it.
- Alan Kay
Change is the key. One can wear out a particular part of mind by continually using it and tiring it. The tired parts of the mind can be rested and strengthened not merely by rest, but by using other parts.
- Winston Churchill
Oh what a tangled web we weave when first we practice to deceive.
- Alex Murdaugh