-
Charlotte Rampling: Just words
“If words don’t have vibration behind them, and a real feeling behind them, then they’re just words.”—Charlotte Rampling.
-
Hartley Shawcross: There comes a point
“There comes a point when a man must refuse to answer to his leader if he is also to answer to his own conscience.” —Hartley Shawcross.
-
Nicole Wallace: Life in politics
“A life in politics is for people who know themselves and know where their own line is between loyalty and honesty.”—Nicole Wallace.
-
Michael Watson: Getting flamed
“Getting flamed for asking dumb questions on a public mailing list is all part of growing up and being a man/woman.” — Michael Watson (in a discussion on whether answers on R-help should be more polite) R-help (December 2004).
-
Jakob Ludwig Felix Mendelssohn: Starting principle
“Ever since I began to compose, I have remained true to my starting principle: not to write a page because no matter what public, or what pretty girl wanted it to be thus or thus; but to write solely as I myself thought best, and as it gave me pleasure.”—Jakob Ludwig Felix Mendelssohn.
-
Abba Eban: Flat earth and Israel
“If Algeria introduced a resolution declaring that the earth was flat and that Israel had flattened it, it would pass by a vote of 164 to 13 with 26 abstentions.”—Abba Eban.
-
Cindy Gallop: Low tolerance
“I have a low tolerance for people who complain about things but never do anything to change them. This led me to conclude that the single largest pool of untapped natural resources in this world is human good intentions that are never translated into actions.”—Cindy Gallop.
-
Christian Bale: Embarrassing yourself endlessly
“But I learned that theres a certain character that can be built from embarrassing yourself endlessly. If you can sit happy with embarrassment, there’s not much else that can really get to ya.”—Christian Bale.
-
Anton Chekhov: Hundred senses
“Perhaps man has a hundred senses, and when he dies only the five senses that we know perish with him, and the other ninety-five remain alive.”—Anton Chekhov.
-
Colette: Destroy most of it
“Sit down and put down everything that comes into your head and then you’re a writer. But an author is one who can judge his own stuff’s worth, without pity, and destroy most of it.” —Colette.
-
Alan Alda: Assumptions
“Begin challenging your own assumptions. Your assumptions are your windows on the world. Scrub them off every once in awhile, or the light won’t come in.”—Alan Alda.
-
Keith Olbermann: Corporation
“The corporation is one of the great unheralded human inventions of destruction. It is a way to absolve from any personal liability a bunch of people. They form together in a massive ID and they do whatever they want.”—Keith Olbermann.
-
Angela Davis: Radical
“Radical simply means grasping things at the root.” —Angela Davis.
-
Vicki Baum: Finest arts of insincerity
“Marriage always demands the finest arts of insincerity possible between two human beings.”—Vicki Baum.
-
Simon Sinek: Better leaders
“True leaders do not work to do better than anyone else, they work to do better than themselves. And that’s what makes them better leaders.” —Simon Sinek.
-
Stendhal: Love for both of us
“If you don’t love me, it does not matter, anyway I can love for both of us.” —Stendhal (Marie-Henri Beyle).
-
Stendhal: Character
“One can acquire everything in solitude except character.”—Stendhal.
-
Simon Sinek: Failure and fear
“The only ones who fear failure are those who have never tasted it.” —Simon Sinek.
-
Francis Bacon: Friend of ours
“Death is a friend of ours and he that is not ready to entertain him is not at home.” —Francis Bacon.
-
Lord Byron: Nature more
“There is a pleasure in the pathless woods, There is a rapture on the lonely shore, There is society, where none intrudes, By the deep sea, and music in its roar: I love not man the less, but Nature more.”—Lord Byron.
-
Christian Dior: Woman’s perfume
“A woman’s perfume tells more about her than her handwriting.”—Christian Dior.
-
Simon Sinek: Large, unstable organizations
“When the incentives offered prioritize growth over stability, we successfully build large, unstable organizations.”—Simon Sinek.
-
Federico Fellini: All art is autobiographical
“All art is autobiographical; the pearl is the oyster’s autobiography.”—Federico Fellini.
-
Robert E Lee: Never do a wrong thing
“Never do a wrong thing to make a friend—or to keep one.”—Robert E Lee.
-
Oliver Hardy: Full of Laurel and Hardys
“The world is full of Laurel and Hardys. I saw them all the time as a boy at my mother’s hotel. There’s always the dumb, dumb guy, who never has anything bad happen to him, and the smart guy who’s even dumber than the dumb guy, only he doesn’t know it.”—Oliver Hardy.
-
Jill Tarter: Limited human standards
“Life has evolved to thrive in environments that are extreme only by our limited human standards: in the boiling battery acid of Yellowstone hot springs, in the cracks of permanent ice sheets, in the cooling waters of nuclear reactors, miles beneath the Earth’s crust, in pure salt crystals, and inside the rocks of the dry…
-
Gamal Abdel Nasser: Force
“What was taken by force, can only be restored by force.”—Gamal Abdel Nasser.
-
Simon Sinek: Personal growth
“The ultimate value of personal growth work is not to feel better about ourselves but to contribute to how those around us feel about themselves.” —Simon Sinek.
-
Marcus Antonius: Anger and grief
“Consider how much more you often suffer from your anger and grief, than from those very things for which you are angry and grieved.”—Marcus Antonius.
-
Geoffrey Canada: Tooth and nail
“Convincing people to give your way a try will work if you neutralize – and sometimes you have to cauterize – the ones who really are against change. They’re the kind of person who, if you tell them its raining outside, they’ll fight you tooth and nail.”—Geoffrey Canada.
-
Orlando Bloom: Balance
“Life is about balance, and we all have to make the effort in areas that we can to enable us to make a difference.”—Orlando Bloom.
-
Emile Lahoud: Democracy, good governance and modernity
“Democracy, good governance and modernity cannot be imported or imposed from outside a country.”—Emile Lahoud.
-
John Grimond: Desophistication
‘Most writers I know have tales to tell of being mangled by editors and mauled by fact-checkers, and naturally it is the flagrant instances they choose to single out – absurdities, outright distortions of meaning, glaring errors. But most of the damage done is a good deal less spectacular. It consists of small changes (usually…
-
Naomi Judd: Dead end street
“A dead end street is a good place to turn around.”—Naomi Judd.
-
George Orwell: Scrupulous writer
“A scrupulous writer in every sentence that he writes will ask himself at least four questions, thus: What am I trying to say? What words will express it? What image or idiom will make it clearer? Is this image fresh enough to have an effect? And he will probably ask himself two more: Could I…
-
Mark Twain: Torch-light procession
“At times he may indulge himself with a long one, but he will make sure there are no folds in it, no vaguenesses, no parenthetical interruptions of its view as a whole; when he has done with it, it won’t be a sea-serpent with half of its arches under the water; it will be a…
-
George Foreman: Never give up on yourself or others
“I know from experience that you should never give up on yourself or others, no matter what.”—George Foreman.
-
Arthur Baer: Good neighbour
“A good neighbour is a fellow who smiles at you over the back fence, but doesn’t climb over it.” —Arthur Baer.
-
Baltasar Gracian: Sleep on things beforehand
“It is better to sleep on things beforehand than lie awake about them afterwards.” —Baltasar Gracian.
-
Baltasar Gracian: Miserable from your very happiness
“Always leave something to wish for, otherwise you will be miserable from your very happiness.”—Baltasar Gracian.
-
James Harrington: Sense of religion
“Every man, either to his terror or consolation, has some sense of religion.”—James Harrington.
-
Simon Sinek: Imperfections
“We must find a purpose or cause to pursue otherwise all we have left are our imperfections to focus on.”—Simon Sinek.
-
Dyan Cannon: Unconditional love, patience and acceptance
“I found it when I came to understand that I had to practice unconditional love, patience, and acceptance first before I could expect that from any partner. I had to become the person that I wanted to fall in love with.” —Dyan Cannon.
-
Bjarne Stroustrup: Perfect programming language
“If someone claims to have the perfect programming language, he is either a fool or a salesman or both.” —Bjarne Stroustrup.
-
Mel Gibson: Conversation and chocolate
“After about 20 years of marriage, I think I’m finally starting to scratch the surface of what women want. And I think the answer lies somewhere between conversation and chocolate.” —Mel Gibson.
-
Isaac Asimov: Sense of morals
“Never let your sense of morals get in the way of doing what’s right.” —Isaac Asimov, scientist and writer.
-
Diane Lane: Anybody that smiles automatically
“I think that anybody that smiles automatically looks better.”—Diane Lane.
-
Bjarne Stroustrup: Human activities
“Design and programming are human activities; forget that and all is lost.”—Bjarne Stroustrup.
-
Bjarne Stroustrup: Fraud
“Proof by analogy is fraud.”—Bjarne Stroustrup.
