Famous Quotes

Mark Twain
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A banker is a fellow who lends you his umbrella when the sun is shining, but
wants it back the minute it begins to rain.

Anger is an acid that can do more harm to the vessel in which it is stored than to
anything on which it is poured.

But who prays for Satan? Who, in eighteen centuries, has had the common
humanity to pray for the one sinner that needed it most?

Drag your thoughts away from your troubles... by the ears, by the heels, or any
other way you can manage it.

Good breeding consists in concealing how much we think of ourselves and how
little we think of the other person.

I have been complimented many times and they always embarrass me; I always
feel that they have not said enough.

An Englishman is a person who does things because they have been done
before. An American is a person who does things because they haven't been
done before.

Get your facts first, and then you can distort them as much as you please.

Habit is habit and not to be flung out of the window by any man, but coaxed
downstairs a step at a time.

I thoroughly disapprove of duels. If a man should challenge me, I would take him
kindly and forgivingly by the hand and lead him to a quiet place and kill him.

It is better to keep your mouth closed and let people think you are a fool than to
open it and remove all doubt.

Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always
do that, but the really great make you feel that you, too, can become great.

Most people are bothered by those passages of Scripture they do not
understand, but the passages that bother me are those I do understand.

The difference between the right word and the almost right word is the difference
between lightning and a lightning bug.

The universal brotherhood of man is our most precious possession.


There are people who strictly deprive themselves of each and every eatable,
drinkable, and smokable which has in any way acquired a shady reputation. They
pay this price for health. And health is all they get for it. How strange it is. It is like
paying out your whole fortune for a cow that has gone dry.

We have a criminal jury system which is superior to any in the world; and its
efficiency is only marred by the difficulty of finding twelve men every day who
don't know anything and can't read.

He had discovered a great law of human action, without knowing it - namely, that
in order to make a man or a boy covets a thing, it is only necessary to make the
thing difficult to obtain.

A lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes.

It is by the goodness of God that in our country we have those three unspeakably
precious things: freedom of speech, freedom of conscience, and the prudence
never to practice either of them.

There are times when one would like to hang the whole human race, and finish
the farce.

Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because Fiction is obliged to stick to
possibilities; Truth isn't.

When we remember we are all mad, the mysteries disappear and life stands
explained.

Words are only painted fire; a book is the fire itself.

You can't depend on your eyes when your imagination is out of focus.

Wrinkles should merely indicate where smiles have been.

The fact that man knows right from wrong proves his intellectual superiority to
other creatures; but the fact that he can do wrong proves his moral inferiority to
any creature that cannot.

Albert Einstein
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A hundred times every day I remind myself that my inner and outer life depend
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."

"A man may die, nations may rise and fall, but an idea lives on."

"A man should look for what is, and not for what he thinks should be."

"A man's ethical behavior should be based effectually on sympathy, education,
and social ties and needs; no religious basis is necessary. Man would indeed be
in a poor way if he had to be restrained by fear of punishment and hope of
reward after death."

"A perfection of means, and confusion of aims, seems to be our main problem."

"A person, who never made a mistake, never tried anything new."

"A question that sometimes drives me hazy: am I or are the others crazy?"

"A table, a chair, a bowl of fruit and a violin; what else does a man need to be
happy?"

"After a certain high level of technical skill is achieved, science and art tend to
coalesce in esthetics, plasticity, and form. The greatest scientists are always
artists as well."

"All of us who are concerned for peace and triumph of reason and justice must
be keenly aware how small an influence reason and honest good will exert upon
events in the political field."

"All our science, measured against reality, is primitive and childlike-and yet it is
the most precious thing we have."

"All religions, arts and sciences are branches of the same tree."

"All such action would cease if those powerful elemental forces were to cease
stirring within us."

"All that is valuable in human society depends upon the opportunity for
development accorded the individual."

"All these constructions and the laws connecting them can be arrived at by the
principle of looking for the mathematically simplest concepts and the link
between them."
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"All these primary impulses, not easily described in words, are the springs of
man's actions."

"An empty stomach is not a good political adviser."

"An oligarchy of private capital cannot be effectively checked even by a
democratically organized political society because under existing conditions,
private capitalists inevitably control, directly or indirectly, the main sources of
information."

"Anger dwells only in the bosom of fools."

"Any intelligent fool can make things bigger and more complex... It takes a touch
of genius - and a lot of courage to move in the opposite direction."

"Any man who can drive safely while kissing a pretty girl is simply not giving the
kiss the attention it deserves."

"Anyone who doesn't take truth seriously in small matters cannot be trusted in
large ones either."

"As far as I'm concerned, I prefer silent vice to ostentatious virtue."

"As far as the laws of mathematics refer to reality, they are not certain, and as far
as they are certain, they do not refer to reality."

"At any rate, I am convinced that He [God] does not play dice."

"At the same time, as social beings, we are moved in the relations with our fellow
beings by such feelings as sympathy, pride, hate, need for power, pity, and so
on."

"Before God we are all equally wise - and equally foolish."

"Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen."

"Concern for man and his fate must always form the chief interest of all technical
endeavors. Never forget this in the midst of your diagrams and equations."

"Confusion of goals and perfection of means seems, in my opinion, to
characterize our age."

"Degeneracy follows every autocratic system of violence, for violence inevitably
attracts moral inferiors. Time has proven that illustrious tyrants are succeeded by
scoundrels."
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"Do not worry about your difficulties in Mathematics. I can assure you mine are
still greater."

"Do you believe in immortality? No, and one life is enough for me"

"During the last century, and part of the one before, it was widely held that there
was an irreconcilable conflict between knowledge and belief."

"Each makes this cosmos and its construction the pivot of his emotional life, in
order to find in this way peace and security which he cannot find in the narrow
whirlpool of personal experience."

"Education is what remains after one has forgotten what one has learned in
school."

"Ethical axioms are found and tested not very differently from the axioms of
science. Truth is what stands the test of experience."

"Every kind of peaceful cooperation among men is primarily based on mutual
trust and only secondarily on institutions such as courts of justice and police."

"Everyone should be respected as an individual, but no one idolized."

"Everything is determined, the beginning as well as the end, by forces over which
we have no control. It is determined for insects as well as for the stars. Human
beings, vegetables or cosmic dust, we all dance to a mysterious tune, intoned in
the distance."

"Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not one bit simpler."

"Everything that can be counted does not necessarily count; everything that
counts cannot necessarily be counted."

"Everything that is really great and inspiring is created by the individual who can
labor in freedom."

"Few are those who see with their own eyes and feel with their own hearts."

"Few people are capable of expressing with equanimity opinions which differ
from the prejudices of their social environment. Most people are even incapable
of forming such opinions."

"Force always attracts men of low morality."


"Formal symbolic representation of qualitative entities is doomed to its rightful

place of minor significance in a world where flowers and beautiful women
abound."

"Generations to come will scarce believe that such a one as this walked the earth
in flesh and blood." (Referring to Mahatma Gandhi)

"God always takes the simplest way."

"God does not care about our mathematical difficulties. He integrates
empirically."

"God is clever, but not dishonest."

"God may be subtle, but he isn't plain mean."

"Gravitation is not responsible for people falling in love."

"Great spirits have always encountered opposition from mediocre minds. The
mediocre mind is incapable of understanding the man who refuses to bow blindly
to conventional prejudices and chooses instead to express his opinions
courageously and honestly."

"He who joyfully marches to music in rank and file has already earned my
contempt. He has been given a large brain by mistake, since for him the spinal
cord would suffice."

"Heroism on command, senseless violence, and all the loathsome nonsense that
goes by the name of patriotism - how passionately I hate them!"

"How I wish that somewhere there existed an island for those who are wise and
of goodwill! In such a place even I would be an ardent patriot."

"How strange is the lot of us mortals? Each of us is here for a brief sojourn; for
what purpose he knows not, though he senses it. But without deeper reflection
one knows from daily life that one exists for other people."

"Human beings must have action; and they will make it if they cannot find it."

"Humanity has every reason to place the proclaimers of high moral standards
and values above the discoverers of objective truth. What humanity own to
personalities like Buddha, Moses, and Jesus ranks for me higher than all the
achievements of the inquiring constructive mind."


"I am enough of an artist to draw freely upon my imagination. Imagination is more

important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the
world."

"I assert that the cosmic religious experience is the strongest and the noblest
driving force behind scientific research."

"I believe that a simple and unassuming manner of life is best for everyone, best
both for the body and the mind.

"I consider it important, indeed urgently necessary, for intellectual workers to get
together, both to protect their own economic status and, also, generally speaking,
to secure their influence in the political field."

"I do not believe in immortality of the individual, and I consider ethics to be an
exclusively human concern with no superhuman authority behind it."

"I do not believe in the God of theology who rewards good and punishes evil."

"I do not believe that civilization will be wiped out in a war fought with the atomic
bomb. Perhaps two-thirds of the people of the earth will be killed."

"I do not know with what weapons World War 3 will be fought, but World War 4
will be fought with sticks and stones."

"I have just got a new theory of eternity."

"I have little patience with scientists who take a board of wood, look for its
thinnest part, and drill a great number of holes where drilling is easy."

"I have never looked upon ease and happiness as ends in themselves - such an
ethical basis I call more proper for a herd of swine. The ideals which have lighted
me on my way and time after time given me new courage to face life cheerfully
have been Truth, Goodness, and Beauty."

"I know quite certainly that I myself have no special talent; curiosity, obsession
and dogged endurance, combined with self-criticism have brought me to my
ideas."

"I live in that solitude which is painful in youth, but delicious in the years of
maturity."


"I made one great mistake in my life-when I signed the letter to President
Roosevelt recommending that atom bombs be made but there was some
justification-the danger that the Germans would make them."

"I never think of the future - it comes soon enough."

"I think and think for months and years. Ninety-nine times, the conclusion is false.
The hundredth time I am right.

"I think that a particle must have a separate reality independent of the
measurements. That is an electron has spin, location and so forth even when it is
not being measured. I like to think that the moon is there even if I am not looking
at it."

"I used to go away for weeks in a state of confusion."

"I want to know all Gods thoughts; all the rest are just details."

"If A equal success, then the formula is A equals X plus Y and Z, with X being
work, Y play, and Z keeping your mouth shut."

"If A equals success, then the formula is: A = X + Y + Z, X is work. Y is play. Z is
keep your mouth shut."

"If A is success in life, then A equals x plus y plus z. Work is x; y is play; and z is
keeping your mouth shut."

"If I had only known, I would have been a locksmith."

"If most of us are ashamed of shabby clothes and shoddy furniture, let us be
more ashamed of shabby ideas and shoddy philosophies... It would be a sad
situation if the wrapper were better than the meat wrapped inside it."

"If my theory of relativity is proven correct, Germany will claim me as a German
and France will declare that I am a citizen of the world. Should my theory prove
untrue, France will say that I am a German and Germany will declare that I am a
Jew."

"If one were to take that goal out of its religious form and look merely at its purely
human side, one might state it perhaps thus: free and responsible development
of the individual, so that he may place his powers freely and gladly in the service
of all mankind."

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"If people are good only because they fear punishment, and hope for reward,
then we are a sorry lot indeed."

"If the facts don't fit the theory, change the facts."

"If we knew what it was we were doing, it would not be called research, would it?"

"If you are out to describe the truth, leave elegance to the tailor."

"In matters of truth and justice, there is no difference between large and small
problems, for issues concerning the treatment of people are all the same."

"In order to be an immaculate member of a flock of sheep, one must above all be
a sheep oneself."

"In that way imagination and intelligence enter into our existence in the part of
servants of the primary instincts."

"Information is not knowledge."

"Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different
results."

"Intellectuals solve problems, geniuses prevent them."

"Intellectuals solve problems; geniuses prevent them."

"Isn't it strange that I who have written only unpopular books should be such a
popular fellow?"

"It gives me great pleasure indeed to see the stubbornness of an incorrigible
nonconformist warmly acclaimed."

"It has become appallingly obvious that our technology has exceeded our
humanity."

"It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education"

"It is easier to denature plutonium than to denature the evil spirit of man."

"It is not so very important for a person to learn facts. For that he does not really
need a college. He can learn them from books. The value of an education is a
liberal arts college. It is not learning of many facts but the training of the mind to
think something that cannot be learned from textbooks."

"It is only to the individual that a soul is given."
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"It is strange to be known so universally and yet to be so lonely."

"It is the duty of every citizen according to his best capacities to give validity to
his convictions in political affairs."

"It is the supreme art of the teacher to awaken joy in creative expression and
knowledge."

"It is the theory that decides what can be observed."

"It should be possible to explain the laws of physics to a barmaid."

"It stands to the everlasting credit of science that by acting on the human mind it
has overcome man's insecurity before himself and before nature."

"It was the experience of mystery - even if mixed with fear - that engendered
religion."

"It's not that I'm so smart, it's just that I stay with problems longer."

"Joy in looking and comprehending is nature's most beautiful gift."

"Keep on sowing your seed, for you never know which will grow - perhaps it all
will."

"Knowledge of what is does not open the door directly to what should be."

"Laws alone cannot secure freedom of expression; in order that every man
presents his views without penalty there must be spirit of tolerance in the entire
population."

"Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow. The important thing is
not to stop questioning."

"Logic will get you from A to B. Imagination will take you everywhere."

"Long hair minimizes the need for barbers; socks can be done without; one
leather jacket solves the coat problem for many years; suspenders are
superfluous."

"Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better."

"Love is a better teacher than duty."

"Memory is deceptive because it is colored by today's events."
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"Morality is of the highest importance - but for us, not for God."

"Most of the fundamental ideas of science are essentially simple, and may, as a
rule, be expressed in a language comprehensible to everyone."

"Most people say that it is the intellect which makes a great scientist. They are
wrong: it is character."

"My religion consists of a humble admiration of the illimitable superior spirit who
reveals himself in the slight details we are able to perceive with our frail and
feeble mind."

"Nationalism is an infantile sickness. It is the measles of the human race."

"Never do anything against conscience even if the state demands it."

"Never lose a holy curiosity."

"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."

"No amount of experimentation can ever prove me right; a single experiment can
prove me wrong."

"No problem can be solved from the same level of consciousness that created it."

"Not until the creation and maintenance of decent conditions of life for all people
are recognized and accepted as a common obligation of all people and all
countries - not until then shall we, with a certain degree of justification, be able to
speak of humankind as civilized."

"Nothing is more destructive of respect for the government and the law of the
land than passing laws which cannot be enforced."

"Nothing that I can do will change the structure of the universe. But maybe, by
raising my voice I can help the greatest of all causes -- goodwill among men and
peace on earth."

"Occurrences in this domain are beyond the reach of exact prediction because of
the variety of factors in operation, not because of any lack of order in nature."

"On the other hand, the concept owes its meaning and its justification exclusively
to the totality of the sense impressions which we associate with it."
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"Once we accept our limits, we go beyond them."

"One may say the eternal mystery of the world is its comprehensibility."

"One must not attempt to justify them, but rather to sense their nature simply and
clearly."

"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."

"One strength of the communist system of the East is that it has some of the
character of a religion and inspires the emotions of a religion."

"Only a life lived for others is a life worthwhile."

"Only one who devotes himself to a cause with his whole strength and soul can
be a true master. For this reason mastery demands all of a person."

"Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure
about the former."

"Our task must be to free ourselves by widening our circle of compassion to
embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature and its beauty."

"Peace cannot be kept by force; it can only be achieved by understanding."

"People love chopping wood. In this activity one immediately sees results."

"Politics is a pendulum whose swings between anarchy and tyranny are fueled by
perpetually rejuvenated illusions."

"Politics is for the present, but an equation is for eternity."

"Possessions, outward success, publicity, luxury - to me these have always been
contemptible. I believe that a simple and unassuming manner of life is best for
every one, best both for the body and the mind."

"Pure mathematics is, in its way, the poetry of logical ideas."

"Put your hand on a hot stove for a minute, and it seems like an hour. Sit with a
pretty girl for an hour, and it seems like a minute. THAT'S relativity."

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"Quantum mechanics is very impressive. But an inner voice tells me that it is not
yet the real thing. The theory yields a lot, but it hardly brings us any closer to the
secret of the Old One. In any case I am convinced that He doesn't play dice"

"Reading, after a certain age, diverts the mind too much from its creative
pursuits. Any man who reads too much and uses his own brain too little falls into
lazy habits of thinking."

"Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one."

"Science is a wonderful thing if one does not have to earn one's living at it"

"Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind."

"Small is the number of people who see with their eyes and think with their
minds."

"Solitude is painful when one is young, but delightful when one is more mature."

"Sometimes one pays most for the things one gets for nothing."

"Strive not to be a success, but rather to be of value."

"Technological progress is like an axe in the hands of a pathological criminal"

"That deep emotional conviction of the presence of a superior reasoning power,
which is revealed in the incomprehensible universe, forms my idea of God."

"The attempt to combine wisdom and power has only rarely been successful and
then only for a short while."

"The devil has put a penalty on all things we enjoy in life. Either we suffer in
health or we suffer in soul or we get fat."

"The difference between stupidity and genius is that genius has its limits."

"The distinction between the past, present and future is only a stubbornly
persistent illusion."

"The distinctions separating the social classes are false; in the last analysis they
rest on force."

"The environment is everything that isn't me."

"The faster you go, the shorter you are."
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"The fear of death is the most unjustified of all fears, for there's no risk of
accident for someone who's dead."

"The foundation of morality should not be made dependent on myth nor tied to
any authority lest doubt about the myth or about the legitimacy of the authority
imperil the foundation of sound judgment and action."

"The gift of fantasy has meant more to me than my talent for absorbing positive
knowledge."

"The grand aim of all science is to cover the greatest number of empirical facts
by logical deduction from the smallest number of hypotheses or axioms."

"The hardest thing in the world to understand is the income tax."

"The high destiny of the individual is to serve rather than to rule."

"The ideals which have always shone before me and filled me with the joy of
living are goodness, beauty, and truth. To make a goal of comfort or happiness
has never appealed to me; a system of ethics built on this basis would be
sufficient only for a herd of cattle."

"The legs are the wheels of creativity."

"The mere formulation of a problem is far more essential than its solution, which
may be merely a matter of mathematical or experimental skills. To raise new
questions, new possibilities, to regard old problems from a new angle requires
creative imagination and marks real advances in science."

"The minority, the ruling class at present, has the schools and press, usually the
Church as well, under its thumb. This enables it to organize and sway the
emotions of the masses, and make its tool of them."

"The monotony and solitude of a quiet life stimulates the creative mind."

"The more success the quantum theory has, the sillier it looks"

"The most beautiful experience we can have is the mysterious. It is the
fundamental emotion which stands at the cradle of true art and true science."

"The most important human endeavor is the striving for morality in our actions.
Our inner balance and even our very existence depend on it. Only morality in our
actions can give beauty and dignity to life."

"The most incomprehensible thing about the world is that it is comprehensible."
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"The only reason for time is so that everything doesn't happen at once."

"The only source of knowledge is experience."

"The only thing that interferes with my learning is my education."

"The only way to escape the personal corruption of praise is to go on working."

"The opinion prevailed among advanced minds that it was time that belief should
be replaced increasingly by knowledge; belief that did not itself rest on
knowledge was superstition, and as such had to be opposed."

"The pioneers of a warless world are the young men (and women) who refuse
military service."

"The problems that exist in the world today cannot be solved by the level of
thinking that created them."

"The process of scientific discovery is, in effect, a continual flight from wonder."

"The pursuit of truth and beauty is a sphere of activity in which we are permitted
to remain children all our lives."

"The real problem is in the hearts and minds of men. It is not a problem of
physics but of ethics. It is easier to denature plutonium than to denature the evil
from the spirit of man."

"The release of atom power has changed everything except our way of thinking...
the solution to this problem lies in the heart of mankind. If only I had known, I
should have become a watchmaker."

"The release of atomic energy has not created a new problem. It has merely
made more urgent the necessity of solving an existing one."

"The religion of the future will be a cosmic religion, the religion based on
experience, which refuses dogmatic. If there's any religion that would cope the
scientific needs it will be Buddhism..."

"The road to perdition has ever been accompanied by lip service to an ideal."

"The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources."

"The strength of the Constitution lies entirely in the determination of each citizen
to defend it. Only if every single citizen feels duty bound to do his share in this
defense are the constitutional rights secure."
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"The true sign of intelligence is not knowledge but imagination."

"The unleashed power of the atom has changed everything save our modes of
thinking and we thus drift toward unparalleled catastrophe."

"The value of a man should be seen in what he gives and not in what he is able
to receive."

"The whole of science is nothing more than a refinement of everyday thinking."

"The wireless telegraph is not difficult to understand. The ordinary telegraph is
like a very long cat. You pull the tail in New York, and it meows in Los Angeles.
The wireless is the same, only without the cat."

"The words of language, as they are written or spoken, do not seem to play any
role in my mechanism of thought. The physical entities which seem to serve as
elements in thought are certain signs and more or less clear images."

"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."

"There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle.
The other is as though everything is a miracle."

"There comes a time when the mind takes a higher plane of knowledge but can
never prove how it got there."

"There is no logical way to the discovery of these elemental laws. There is only
the way of intuition, which is helped by a feeling for the order lying behind the
appearance."

"There was this huge world out there, independent of us human beings and
standing before us like a great, eternal riddle, at least partly accessible to our
inspection and thought. The contemplation of that world beckoned like a
liberation."

"They come into being not through demonstration but through revelation, through
the medium of powerful personalities."

"Thought is the organizing factor in man, intersected between the causal primary
instincts and the resulting actions."

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"To know what is impenetrable to us really exists, manifesting itself as the

highest wisdom and the most radiant beauty... this knowledge, this feeling is at
the center of true religiousness."

"To punish me for my contempt for authority, fate made me an authority myself."

"To put it boldly, it is the attempt at a posterior reconstruction of existence by the
process of conceptualization."

"To raise new questions, new possibilities, to regard old problems from a new
angle, requires creative imagination and marks real advance in science."

"To the Master's honor all must turn, each in its track, without a sound, forever
tracing Newton's ground."

"To understand the world one must not be worrying about one's self."

"Too many of us look upon Americans as dollar chasers. This is a cruel libel,
even if it is reiterated thoughtlessly by the Americans themselves."

"True art is characterized by an irresistible urge in the creative artist."

"True religion is real living; living with all one's soul, with all one's goodness and
righteousness."

"We are all ruled in what we do by impulses; and these impulses are so
organized that our actions in general serve for our self preservation and that of
the race."

"We have penetrated far less deeply into the regularities obtaining within the
realm of living things, but deeply enough nevertheless to sense at least the rule
of fixed necessity... what is still lacking here is a grasp of the connections of
profound generality, but not knowledge of order itself."

"We must be prepared to make heroic sacrifices for the cause of peace that we
make ungrudgingly for the cause of war. There is no task that is more important
or closer to my heart."

"We shall require a substantially new manner of thinking if mankind is to survive."

"We should take care not to make the intellect our god; it has, of course, powerful
muscles, but no personality."

"Weakness of attitude becomes weakness of character"
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"When I examine myself and my methods of thought, I come to the conclusion

that the gift of fantasy has meant more to me than any talent for abstract, positive
thinking."

"When the solution is simple, God is answering."

"When you are courting a nice girl an hour seems like a second. When you sit on
a red-hot cinder a second seems like an hour. That's relativity."

"When you look at yourself from a universal standpoint, something inside always
reminds or informs you that there are bigger and better things to worry about."

"Where the world ceases to be the scene of our personal hopes and wishes,
where we face it as free beings admiring, asking and observing, there we enter
the realm of Art and Science."

"Whoever undertakes to set himself up as a judge of Truth and Knowledge is
shipwrecked by the laughter of the gods."

"Why does this applied science, which saves work and makes life easier, bring
us so little happiness? The simple answer runs: Because we have not yet
learned to make sensible use of it."

"Without deep reflection one knows from daily life that one exists for other
people."

"Yes, we have to divide up our time like that, between our politics and our
equations. But to me our equations are far more important, for politics are only a
matter of present concern. A mathematical equation stands forever."

"You ask me if I keep a notebook to record my great ideas. I've only ever had
one."

"You cannot simultaneously prevent and prepare for war."

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Mahatma Gandhi
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"A "No" uttered from deepest conviction is better and greater than a "Yes" merely
uttered to please, or what is worse, to avoid trouble."

"A coward is incapable of exhibiting love; it is the prerogative of the brave.

"Where there is love there is life."

"A vow is fixed and unalterable determination to do a thing, when such a
determination is related to something noble which can only uplift the man who
makes the resolve."

"Personally, I hold that a man, who deliberately and intelligently takes a pledge
and then breaks it, forfeits his manhood."

"Your capacity to keep your vow will depend on the purity of your life."

"All crime is a kind of disease and should be treated as such."

"Always aim at complete harmony of thought and word and deed. Always aim at
purifying your thoughts and everything will be well."

"Among the many misdeeds of the British rule in India, history will look upon the
act of depriving a whole nation of arms as the blackest."

"An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind."

"As long as you derive inner help and comfort from anything, keep it."

"Be the change you want to see in the world."

"Cowards can never be moral."

"Fear has its use but cowardice has none."

"Culture of the mind must be subservient to the heart."

"First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win."

"No culture can live, if it attempts to be exclusive."

"Freedom is not worth having if it does not connote freedom to err. It passes my
comprehension how human beings, be they ever so experienced and able, can
delight in depriving other human beings of that precious right."

"Good government is no substitute for self-government."
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"Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in
harmony."

"Hate the sin and love the sinner."

"Honest differences are often a healthy sign of progress."

"I believe in equality for everyone, except reporters and photographers."

"I have also seen children successfully surmounting the effects of an evil
inheritance. That is due to purity being an inherent attribute of the soul. "

"I have endeavored to show that there is no real service of humanity in the
profession [of medicine] and that it is injurious to mankind."

"I offer you peace. I offer you love. I offer you friendship. I see your beauty. I hear
your need. I feel your feelings. My wisdom flows from the Highest Source. I
salute that Source in you. Let us work together for unity and love."

"I want freedom for the full expression on my personality."

"If I had no sense of humor, I would long ago have committed suicide."

"If you don't ask, you don't get."

"In the attitude of silence the soul finds the path in a clearer light, and what is
elusive and deceptive resolves itself into crystal clearness. Our life is a long and
arduous quest after Truth."

"In this age of the rule of brute force, it is almost impossible for anyone to believe
that any one else could possibly reject the law of the final supremacy of brute
force."

"Indolence is a delightful but distressing state; we must be doing something to be
happy."

"It is better to be violent, if there is violence in our hearts, than to put on the cloak
of nonviolence to cover impotence."

"It is the quality of our work which will please God and not the quantity.

"It is unwise to be too sure of one's own wisdom. It is healthy to be reminded that
the strongest might weaken and the wisest might err."

"Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever."
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"Not to have control over the senses is like sailing in a rudderless ship, bound to
break to pieces on coming in contact with the very first rock."

"One needs to be slow to form convictions, but once formed they must be
defended against the heaviest odds."

"Permanent good can never be the outcome of untruth and violence."

"Prayer is a confession of one's own unworthiness and weakness."

"Prayer is not an old woman's idle amusement. Properly understood and applied,
it is the most potent instrument of action."

"Prayer is not asking. It is a longing of the soul."

"Prayer is the key of the morning and the bolt of the evening."

"President means chief servant."

"Purity of mind and idleness are incompatible.

"Strength does not come from physical capacity. It comes from an indomitable
will."

"The history of the world is full of men who rose to leadership, by sheer force of
self-confidence, bravery and tenacity."

"The mice which helplessly find themselves between the cats' teeth acquire no
merit from their enforced sacrifice."

"The only tyrant I accept in this world is the still voice within."

"The things that will destroy us are: politics without principle; pleasure without
conscience; wealth without work; knowledge without character; business without
morality; science without humanity; and worship without sacrifice."

"The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong."

"There are people in the world so hungry, that God cannot appear to them except
in the form of bread."

"There is nothing that wastes the body like worry, and one who has any faith in
God should be ashamed to worry about anything whatsoever."

"Unity to be real must stand the severest strain without breaking."
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"Victory attained by violence is tantamount to a defeat, for it is momentary."

"What difference does it make to the dead, the orphans and the homeless,
whether the mad destruction is wrought under the name of totalitarianism or the
holy name of liberty or democracy?"

"Whatever you do will be insignificant, but it is very important that you do it."

"When I despair, I remember that all through history the way of truth and love has
always won. There have been tyrants and murderers and for a time they seem
invincible but in the end, they always fall - think of it, ALWAYS."

"Whenever you are confronted with an opponent. Conquer him with love"

"You must be the change you wish to see in the world."

"You must not lose faith in humanity. Humanity is an ocean; if a few drops of the
ocean are dirty, the ocean does not become dirty."

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Mother Teresa

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"Be faithful in small things because it is in them that your strength lies."

"Being unwanted, unloved, uncared for, forgotten by everybody, I think that is a
much greater hunger, a much greater poverty than the person who has nothing
to eat."

"Do not think that love, in order to be genuine, has to be extraordinary. What we
need is to love without getting tired."

"Do not wait for leaders; do it alone, person to person."

"Each one of them is Jesus in disguise."

"Everybody today seems to be in such a terrible rush, anxious for greater
developments and greater riches and so on, so that children have very little time
for their parents. Parents have very little time for each other and in the home
begins the disruption of peace of the world."

"Everytime you smile at someone, it is an action of love, a gift to that person, a
beautiful thing."

"God doesn't require us to succeed; he only requires that you try."

"Good works are links that form a chain of love."

"I am a little pencil in the hand of a writing God who is sending a love letter to the
world."

"I am not sure exactly what heaven will be like, but I don't know that when we die
and it comes time for God to judge us, he will NOT ask, How many good things
have you done in your life?, rather he will ask, How much LOVE did you put into
what you did?"

"I do not pray for success, I ask for faithfulness."

"I have found the paradox, that if you love until it hurts, there can be no more
hurt, only more love."

"I know God will not give me anything I can't handle. I just wish that He didn't
trust me so much."

"I prefer you to make mistakes in kindness than work miracles in unkindness."
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"I think I'm more difficult than critical."

"I try to give to the poor people for love what the rich could get for money. No, I
wouldn't touch a leper for a thousand pounds; yet I willingly cure him for the love
of God."

"I want you to be concerned about your next door neighbor. Do you know your
next door neighbor?"

"If we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten that we belong to each
other."

"If we want a love message to be heard, it has got to be sent out. To keep a lamp
burning, we have to keep putting oil in it."

"If you can't feed a hundred people, then feed just one."

"In this life we cannot do great things. We can only do small things with great
love"

"Intense love does not measure, it just gives."

"It is a kingly act to assist the fallen."

"It is poverty to decide that a child must die so that you may live as you wish."

"It is easy to love the people far away. It is not always easy to love those close to
us. It is easier to give a cup of rice to relieve hunger than to relieve the loneliness
and pain of someone unloved in our own home. Bring love into your home for this
is where our love for each other must start."

"It is not the magnitude of our actions but the amount of love that is put into them
that matters."

"Jesus said love one another. He didn't say love the whole world."

"Joy is prayer - Joy is strength - Joy is love - Joy is a net of love by which you
can catch souls."

"Kind words can be short and easy to speak, but their echoes are truly endless."

"Let no one ever come to you without leaving better and happier."
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"Let us make one point, that we meet each other with a smile, when it is difficult
to smile. Smile at each other, make time for each other in your family."

"Let us more and more insist on raising funds of love, of kindness, of
understanding, of peace. Money will come if we seek first the Kingdom of God the rest will be given."

"Let us not be satisfied with just giving money. Money is not enough, money can
be got, but they need your hearts to love them. So, spread your love everywhere
you go."

"Let us touch the dying, the poor, the lonely and the unwanted according to the
graces we have received and let us not be ashamed or slow to do the humble
work."

"Loneliness and the feeling of being unwanted is the most terrible poverty."

"Love begins by taking care of the closest ones - the ones at home."

"Love is a fruit in season at all times, and within reach of every hand."

"Many people mistake our work for our vocation. Our vocation is the love of
Jesus."

"One of the greatest diseases is to be nobody to anybody."

"Our life of poverty is as necessary as the work itself. Only in heaven will we see
how much we owe to the poor for helping us to love God better because of
them."

"Peace begins with a smile."

"People are unreasonable, illogical, and self-centered. Love them anyway."

"So many signatures for such a small heart."

"Spread love everywhere you go. Let no one ever come to you without leaving
happier."

"Sweetest Lord, make me appreciative of the dignity of my high vocation, and its
many responsibilities. Never permit me to disgrace it by giving way to coldness,
unkindness, or impatience."
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"The biggest disease today is not leprosy or tuberculosis, but rather the feeling of
being unwanted."

"The greatest destroyer of peace is abortion because if a mother can kill her own
child, what is left for me to kill you and you to kill me? There is nothing between."

"The hunger for love is much more difficult to remove than the hunger for bread."

"The miracle is not that we do this work, but that we are happy to do it."

"The success of love is in the loving - it is not in the result of loving. Of course it is
natural in love to want the best for the other person, but whether it turns out that
way or not does not determine the value of what we have done."

"There is always the danger that we may just do the work for the sake of the
work. This is where the respect and the love and the devotion come in - that we
do it to God, to Christ, and that's why we try to do it as beautifully as possible."

"There is more hunger in the world for love and appreciation than for bread."

"There must be a reason why some people can afford to live well. They must
have worked for it. I only feel angry when I see waste. When I see people
throwing away things that we could use."

"There should be less talk; a preaching point is not a meeting point. What do you
do then? Take a broom and clean someone's house. That says enough."

"We are all pencils in the hand of God."

"We need to find God, and he cannot be found in noise and restlessness. God is
the friend of silence. See how nature - trees, flowers, grass- grows in silence; see
the stars, the moon and the sun, how they move in silence... We need silence to
be able to touch souls."

"We ourselves feel that what we are doing is just a drop in the ocean. But the
ocean would be less because of that missing drop."

"We shall never know all the good that a simple smile can do."

"We think sometimes that poverty is only being hungry, naked and homeless.
The poverty of being unwanted, unloved and uncared for is the greatest poverty.
We must start in our own homes to remedy this kind of poverty."
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"We, the unwilling, led by the unknowing, are doing the impossible for the
ungrateful. We have done so much, for so long, with so little, we are now
qualified to do anything with nothing."

"Words which do not give the light of Christ increase the darkness."

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C S Lewis

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"A man can no more diminish God's glory by refusing to worship Him than a
lunatic can put out the sun by scribbling the word, 'darkness' on the walls of his
cell."

"A man who is eating or lying with his wife or preparing to go to sleep in humility,
thankfulness and temperance, is, by Christian standards, in an infinitely higher
state than one who is listening to Bach or reading Plato in a state of pride."

"Affection is responsible for nine-tenths of whatever solid and durable happiness
there is in our lives."

"Aim at heaven and you will get earth thrown in. Aim at earth and you get
neither."

"An explanation of cause is not a justification by reason."

"Can a mortal ask questions which God finds unanswerable? Quite easily, I
should think. All nonsense questions are unanswerable."

"Christianity, if false, is of no importance, and if true, of infinite importance. The
only thing it cannot be is moderately important.

"Don't say it was "delightful"; make us say "delightful" when we've read the
description. You see, all those words (horrifying, wonderful, hideous, exquisite)
are only like saying to your readers "Please will you do the job for me."

"Don't use words too big for the subject. Don't say "infinitely" when you mean
"very"; otherwise you'll have no word left when you want to talk about something
really infinite."

"Education without values, as useful as it is, seems rather to make man a
cleverer devil."

"Eros will have naked bodies; Friendship naked personalities."

"Even in literature and art, no man who bothers about originality will ever be
original: whereas if you simply try to tell the truth (without caring two pence how
often it has been told before) you will, nine times out of ten, become original
without ever having noticed it."

"Experience: that most brutal of teachers. But you learn, my God do you learn."

"Failures are finger posts on the road to achievement."

"First love is only a little foolishness and a lot of curiosity."
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"Friendship is born at that moment when one person says to another, "What! You
too? I thought I was the only one!""

"Friendship is unnecessary, like philosophy, like art... It has no survival value;
rather it is one of those things that give value to survival."

"God cannot give us happiness and peace apart from Himself, because it is not
there. There is no such thing."

"Has this world been so kind to you that you should leave with regret? There are
better things ahead than any we leave behind."

"How incessant and great are the ills with which a prolonged old age is replete."

"Humans are amphibians - half spirit and half animal. As spirits they belong to the
eternal world, but as animals they inhabit time."

"I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen: not only because I
see it, but because by it I see everything else."

"I gave in, and admitted that God was God."

"I sometimes wonder whether all pleasures are not substitutes for joy."

"If the whole universe has no meaning, we should never have found out that it
has no meaning: just as, if there were no light in the universe and therefore no
creatures with eyes, we should never know it was dark. Dark would be without
meaning."

"If we could know which of us, darling, would be the first to go, who would be first
to breast the swelling tide and step alone upon the other side - if we could know!

"If we cut up beasts simply because they cannot prevent us and because we are
backing our own side in the struggle for existence, it is only logical to cut up
imbeciles, criminals, enemies, or capitalists for the same reasons."

"If we really think that home is elsewhere and that this life is a "wandering to find
home," why should we not look forward to the arrival?"

"If you look for truth, you may find comfort in the end; if you look for comfort you
will not get either comfort or truth only soft soap and wishful thinking to begin,
and in the end, despair."

"If you read history you will find that the Christians who did most for the present
world were precisely those who thought most of the next. It is since Christians
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have largely ceased to think of the other world that they have become so
ineffective in this."

"It is hard to have patience with people who say "There is no death" or "Death
doesn't matter." There is death. And whatever is matters. And whatever happens
has consequences, and it and they are irrevocable and irreversible. You might as
well say that birth doesn't matter."

"It is only when you are asked to believe in Reason coming from non-reason that
you must cry Halt. Human minds. They do not come from nowhere."

"It may be hard for an egg to turn into a bird: it would be a jolly sight harder for it
to learn to fly while remaining an egg. We are like eggs at present. And you
cannot go on indefinitely being just an ordinary, decent egg. We must be hatched
or go bad."

"It's so much easier to pray for a bore than to go and see one."

"Let's pray that the human race never escapes from Earth to spread its iniquity
elsewhere."

"Literature adds to reality, it does not simply describe it. It enriches the necessary
competencies that daily life requires and provides; and in this respect, it irrigates
the deserts that our lives have already become."

"Long before history began we men have got together apart from the women and
done things. We had time."

"Miracles are a retelling in small letters of the very same story which is written
across the whole world in letters too large for some of us to see.

"Miracles do not, in fact, break the laws of nature."

"Mortal lovers must not try to remain at the first step; for lasting passion is the
dream of a harlot and from it we wake in despair.

"Much of the modern resistance to chastity comes from men's belief that they
"own" their bodies - those vast and perilous estates, pulsating with the energy
that made the worlds, in which they find themselves without their consent and
from which they are ejected at the pleasure of another!"

"No one ever told me that grief felt so like fear."

"Nothing that you have not given away will ever be really yours."
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"Of all tyrannies a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be
the most oppressive."

"Part of every misery is, so to speak, the misery's shadow or reflection: the fact
that you don't merely suffer but have to keep on thinking about the fact that you
suffer. I not only live each endless day in grief, but live each day thinking about
living each day in grief."

"Reason is the natural order of truth; but imagination is the organ of meaning."

"Some people feel guilty about their anxieties and regard them as a defect of
faith but they are afflictions, not sins. Like all afflictions, they are, if we can so
take them, our share in the passion of Christ."

"Telling us to obey instinct is like telling us to obey 'people.' People say different
things: so do instincts. Our instincts are at war... Each instinct, if you listen to it,
will claim to be gratified at the expense of the rest..."

"The future is something which everyone reaches at the rate of 60 minutes an
hour, whatever he does, whoever he is."

"The long, dull, monotonous years of middle-aged prosperity or middle-aged
adversity are excellent campaigning weather for the devil."

"The real Oxford is a close corporation of jolly, untidy, lazy, good-for-nothing
humorous old men, who have been electing their own successors ever since the
world began and who intend to go on with it. They'll squeeze under the
Revolution or leap over it when the time comes, don't you worry."

"The real problem is not why some pious, humble, believing people suffer, but
why some do not."

"The safest road to Hell is the gradual one -- the gentle slope, soft underfoot,
without sudden turnings, without milestones, without signposts."

"The task of the modern educator is not to cut down jungles, but to irrigate
deserts."

"There are two kinds of people: those who say to God, "Thy will be done," and
those to whom God says, "All right, then, have it your way.""

"Thirty was so strange for me. I've really had to come to terms with the fact that I
am now a walking and talking adult."
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"This is one of the miracles of love: It gives a power of seeing through its own
enchantments and yet not being disenchanted."

"We all want progress, but if you're on the wrong road, progress means doing an
about-turn and walking back to the right road; in that case, the man who turns
back soonest is the most progressive."

"We are what we believe we are."

"What saves a man is to take a step. Then another step."

"What seem our worst prayers may really be, in God's eyes, our best. Those, I
mean, which are least supported by devotional feeling. For these may come from
a deeper level than feeling. God sometimes seems to speak to us most intimately
when he catches us, as it were, off our guard."

"What we call Man's power over Nature turns out to be a power exercised by
some men over other men with Nature as its instrument."

"With the possible exception of the equator, everything begins somewhere."

"You are never too old to set another goal or to dream a new dream."

"You can't get a cup of tea big enough or a book long enough to suit me."

"You don't have a soul. You are a Soul. You have a body."

"You play the hand you're dealt. I think the game's worthwhile."

Nobody holds copyright to these. Sources of knowledge, inspiration, enlightenment,

universal fraternity and humanity are the property of all those that can think proactively
and act constructively to make a better world from the existing one. The above quotes
were collected from different online sources and are meant to enlighten the minds of
readers. Every sensible human being is part of a society which expects him or her to do
something for it for he or she is getting/got something or the other from it directly or
indirectly.
Peace of mind can be achieved when one does what is good and avoids doing anything
bad to others. Everybody need not be a great person to keep this world prosperous and
peaceful, but it is equally great enough if he/she does not do anything bad at least.
These famous quotes are aimed at enriching your thoughts and acts in a proper
direction. When we can be good human beings, we can be good at other things also.
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