Ideas & articles // Quotes
- My definition of a free society is a society where it is safe to be unpopular.
Adlai E. Stevenson Jr. US diplomat & Democratic politician (1900 - 1965), Speech in Detroit, 7 Oct. 1952
- We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give.
Winston Churchill, British politician and Prime Minister (1874 – 1965)
- Why can't somebody give us a list of things that everybody thinks and nobody says, and another list of things that everybody says and nobody thinks?
Oliver Wendell Holmes Snr, American poet, physician and essayist (1809 –1894)
- The Chinese use two brush strokes to write the word 'crisis.' One brush stroke stands for danger; the other for opportunity. In a crisis, be aware of the danger - but recognize the opportunity.
John F. Kennedy, 35th president of US (1917-1963)
- You are going to let the fear of poverty govern your life and your reward will be that you will eat, but you will not live.
George Bernard Shaw, Irish dramatist & socialist (1856 - 1950)
- Forgive your enemies, but never forget their names.
John F. Kennedy, 35th president of US (1917-1963)
- Hope is necessary in every condition.
Samuel Johnson, author and lexicographer (1709 - 1784))
- The great enemy of the truth is very often not the lie - deliberate, contrived and dishonest, but the myth, persistent, persuasive, and unrealistic. Belief in myths allows the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought.
John F. Kennedy, 35th president of US (1917-1963)
- When our decision makers seem to be able to do nothing but count, you can see in reaction a new longing for significance and complex truth – for poetry and for the sacred. People want rhythms and music rather than bald statistics. We don’t want data, we want enlightenment. We don’t want numbers, we want meaning. And most of all, we need to stop muddling them all up, to realise where the former stops being helpful in the endless search for the latter.
David Boyle, author and journalist (1958 -), from The Tyranny of Numbers
- People cannot discover new oceans until they lose sight of the shore.
Andre Gide, French novelist, critic (1869-1951)
- A discovery is said to be an accident meeting a prepared mind.
Albert Szent-Gyorgyi, Hungarian biochemist (1893 - 1986)
- Wanting to be someone you're not is a waste of the person you are.
Kurt Cobain, rock musician, guitarist, singer, & songwriter (1967 - 1994)
- When you get to the end of your rope, tie a knot and hang on.
Franklin D. Roosevelt, 32nd president of US (1882 - 1945) quoted Kansas City Star
- Let us make a special effort to stop communicating with each other, so we can have some conversation.
Anne Morrow Lindbergh, aviator (1906 - 2001)
- One person with a belief is equal to a force of 99 who have only interests.
John Stuart Mill, English economist & philosopher (1806 - 1873)
- There are no bad troops, only bad leaders.
Sir John Harvey-Jones, industrialist (1924-2008)
- It is the business of the future to be dangerous.
Alfred North Whitehead, English mathematician (1861-1947)
- We may be a small country but we're a great one, too. The country of Shakespeare, Churchill, the Beatles, Sean Connery, Harry Potter. David Beckham's right foot. David Beckham's left foot, come to that.
The Prime Minister, Love Actually, Richard Curtis (1956 -)
- Every one wanted to say so much that no one said anything in particular.
(Caption Courageous), Rudyard Kipling, author (1865 - 1936)
- True wisdom consists not in seeing what is immediately before our eyes, but in foreseeing what is to come.
Terence, Roman dramatist (185-129 BC)
- I always wanted to be somebody, but I should have been more specific.
Lily Tomlin, US comic actress (1939 - )
- Don't play for safety - it's the most dangerous thing in the world.
Horace Walpole, British author (1717-1797)
- Why can't somebody give us a list of things that everybody thinks and nobody says, and another list of things that everybody says and nobody thinks?
Oliver Wendell Holmes, US author and poet (1804 -1894)
- Thinking is the hardest work there is, which is the probable reason why so few engage in it.
Henry Ford, US automobile manufacturer (1863-1947)
- Remember the time of year
When the future appears
Like a blank piece of paper.
A clean calendar, a new chance
On thick white snow.
You vow fresh footprints
Then watch them go
With the winds' hearty gust.
Fill your glass, here's tae us. Promises
To be broken, made to last.
Copyright: Jackie Kay, poet (1961 - )
- For a list of all the ways technology has failed to improve the quality of life, please press three.
Alice Kahn, author
- The brain is a wonderful organ. It starts working when you get up in the morning, and doesn't stop until you get to the office.
Robert Frost, US poet (1874-1963)
- Some things have to be believed to be seen.
Ralph Hodgson, US poet (1871-1962)
- If the Creator had a purpose in equipping us with a neck, he surely meant us to stick it out.
Arthur Koestler, on Courage (1905 - 1983)
- The problems of this world cannot possibly be solved by sceptics or cynics, but only by men who can dream of things that never were.
John F Kennedy (1917 - 1963)
- Integrity has no elastic properties.
Lt. Gen. (Ret.) JW Kelly (Commitment dinner speech to the United States Air Force Academy Class, 9 August 2005)
- There are two modes of establishing our reputation: to be praised by honest men, and to be abused by rogues. It is best, however, to secure the former, because it will invariably be accompanied by the latter.
Charles Caleb Colton, English clergyman (1780 - 1832)
- Logic will get you from A to B. Imagination will take you everywhere.
Albert Einstein (1879 - 1955)
- Integrity without knowledge is weak and useless, and knowledge without integrity is dangerous and dreadful.
Samuel Johnson (1709 - 1784)
- If the world should blow itself up, the last audible voice would be that of an expert saying it can't be done.
Peter Ustinov English actor & author (1921 - 2004)
- Treat people as if they were what they ought to be, and you help them to become what they are capable of being.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749 - 1832)
- Bureaucracy defends the status quo long past the time when the quo has lost its status.
Laurence J. Peter (1919 - 1988)
- A coward is incapable of exhibiting love; it is the prerogative of the brave.
Mahatma Gandhi 1869-1948
- If you undervalue yourself, no-one's going to come along and raise your price.
David Williams, British management author, presenter (b.1950)
- Fewer things are harder to put up with than the annoyance of a good example.
Mark Twain, US author (1835-1910)
- Courage is the art of being the only one who knows you're scared to death.
Harold Wilson, British Prime Minister (1916-1995)
- Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity and I'm not sure about the former.
Albert Einstein (1879 - 1955)
- Vision is the art of seeing things invisible.
Jonathan Swift, Irish clergyman, satirist (1667-1745)
- Where all think alike, no-one thinks very much.
Walter Lippmann, US newspaper columnist, author (1889-1974)
- Pleasure in the job puts perfection in the work.
Aristotle -Greek critic philosopher, physicist, & zoologist (384 BC - 322 BC)
- Everybody gets so much information all day long that they lose their common sense.
Gertrude Stein, writer 1874-1946
- In order that people may be happy in their work, these three things are needed: they must be fit for it: they must not do too much of it: and they must have a sense of success in it.
John Ruskin, artist (1819-1900)
- So much of what we call management consists in making it difficult for people to work.
Peter Drucker
- If at first an idea is not absurd, then there is no hope for it.
Albert Einstein.
- The point of living and of being an optimist is to be foolish enough to believe that the best is yet to come.
Peter Ustinov.
- There is no failure except in no longer trying
Elbert Hubbard
- The world is divided into people who do things, and people who get the credit. Try, if you can, to belong to the first class. There's far less competition.
Dwight Morrow, 1935.
- What is a cynic? A man who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing.
Oscar Wilde, Lady Windermere's Fan.
- Man [has] always assumed that he was more intelligent than dolphins because he had achieved so much - the
wheel, New York, wars and so on - while all the dolphins had ever done was muck about in the water having a
good time.
But conversely, the dolphins had always believed that they were far more intelligent than man - for precisely the same reason.
Douglas Adams from The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy
- We the willing, led by the unknowing, are doing the impossible for the ungrateful. We have done so much, with so little, for so long, we are now qualified to do anything, with nothing.
The Metro Para pledge
- For myself I am an optimist - it does not seem to be much use being anything else.
Sir Winston Churchill (1874 - 1965), speech at the Lord Mayor's banquet, London , November 9, 1954
- Real integrity is doing the right thing, knowing that nobody's going to know whether you did it or not.
Oprah Winfrey , in Good Housekeeping
- Hell, there are no rules here--we're trying to accomplish something.
Thomas Alva Edison (1847-1931), American inventor, patented more than 1,000 inventions
- You cannot believe in honor until you have achieved it. Better keep yourself clean and bright: you are the window through which you must see the world.
Sir Walter Besant (1836-1901), English novelist
- Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm.
George Elliot
- If you don’t change your beliefs, your life will be like this forever. Is that good news?
Douglas Adams from The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
- A leader is a dealer in hope.
Napoleon I
- Information is only useful when it can be understood.
Muriel Cooper (graphic artist)
- Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler.
Albert Einstein.
- True altruism is only found in anthills and termite mounds.
Frank Settle
- History teaches us that men and nations behave wisely after they have exhausted all other possibilities.
Abba Eban
- We cannot really learn anything until we rid ourselves of complacency.
Mao Tse-tung
- As for the future, your task is not to foresee but to enable it.
Saint-Exupery The Wisdom of the Sands 1948
- Leadership, like jazz, is a public performance, dependent on so many things - the environment, the volunteers in the band, the need for everybody to perform as individuals and as a group, the absolute dependence of the leader on the members of the band.
De Pree, 1992
