quotes.csv

You can't blame gravity for falling in love.
Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better.
Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.
Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow. The important thing is not to stop questioning.
Try not to become a man of success, but rather try to become a man of value.
Once we accept our limits, we go beyond them.
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.
The difference between stupidity and genius is that genius has its limits.
We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.
The true sign of intelligence is not knowledge but imagination.
Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former.
It has become appallingly obvious that our technology has exceeded our humanity.
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.
Education is what remains after one has forgotten what one has learned in school.
Everyone should be respected as an individual, but no one idolized.
The only source of knowledge is experience.
Whoever is careless with the truth in small matters cannot be trusted with important matters.
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.
Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance, you must keep moving.
Few are those who see with their own eyes and feel with their own hearts.
A person who never made a mistake never tried anything new.
Peace cannot be kept by force; it can only be achieved by understanding.
It is the supreme art of the teacher to awaken joy in creative expression and knowledge.
To raise new questions, new possibilities, to regard old problems from a new angle, requires creative imagination and marks real advance in science.
Logic will get you from A to B. Imagination will take you everywhere.
All that is valuable in human society depends upon the opportunity for development accorded the individual.
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.
The monotony and solitude of a quiet life stimulates the creative mind.
Weakness of attitude becomes weakness of character.
If we knew what it was we were doing, it would not be called research, would it?
The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing.
Love is a better teacher than duty.
It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education.
It's not that I'm so smart, it's just that I stay with problems longer.
Pure mathematics is, in its way, the poetry of logical ideas.
The environment is everything that isn't me.
Imagination is more important than knowledge.
Before God we are all equally wise - and equally foolish.
If you can't explain it simply, you don't understand it well enough.
The only thing that interferes with my learning is my education.
Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind.
Any man who can drive safely while kissing a pretty girl is simply not giving the kiss the attention it deserves.
Do not worry about your difficulties in Mathematics. I can assure you mine are still greater.
I think and think for months and years. Ninety-nine times, the conclusion is false. The hundredth time I am right.
Strive not to be a success, but rather to be of value.
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.
Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds.
If the facts don't fit the theory, change the facts.
Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen.
I have no special talent. I am only passionately curious.
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.
Anyone who doesn't take truth seriously in small matters cannot be trusted in large ones either.
I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.
Intellectuals solve problems, geniuses prevent them.
No amount of experimentation can ever prove me right; a single experiment can prove me wrong.
There are two ways to live: you can live as if nothing is a miracle; you can live as if everything is a miracle.
The only real valuable thing is intuition.
Coincidence is God's way of remaining anonymous.
Any man who reads too much and uses his own brain too little falls into lazy habits of thinking.
You can never solve a problem on the level on which it was created.
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.
To the Master's honor all must turn, each in its track, without a sound, forever tracing Newton's ground.
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.
The whole of science is nothing more than a refinement of everyday thinking.
Imagination is everything. It is the preview of life's coming attractions.
Most of the fundamental ideas of science are essentially simple, and may, as a rule, be expressed in a language comprehensible to everyone.
I am not only a pacifist but a militant pacifist. I am willing to fight for peace. Nothing will end war unless the people themselves refuse to go to war.
One may say the eternal mystery of the world is its comprehensibility.
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.
That deep emotional conviction of the presence of a superior reasoning power, which is revealed in the incomprehensible universe, forms my idea of God.
Human beings must have action; and they will make it if they cannot find it.
The value of a man should be seen in what he gives and not in what he is able to receive.
We shall require a substantially new manner of thinking if mankind is to survive.
Whoever undertakes to set himself up as a judge of Truth and Knowledge is shipwrecked by the laughter of the gods.
The most incomprehensible thing about the world is that it is comprehensible.
An empty stomach is not a good political adviser.
I very rarely think in words at all. A thought comes, and I may try to express it in words afterwards.
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.
Anger dwells only in the bosom of fools.
Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new.
Nationalism is an infantile disease. It is the measles of mankind.
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.
It is only to the individual that a soul is given.
It was the experience of mystery - even if mixed with fear - that engendered religion.
Joy in looking and comprehending is nature's most beautiful gift.
The faster you go, the shorter you are.
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.
A question that sometimes drives me hazy: am I or are the others crazy?
I believe that a simple and unassuming manner of life is best for everyone, best both for the body and the mind.
It is my conviction that killing under the cloak of war is nothing but an act of murder.
There comes a time when the mind takes a higher plane of knowledge but can never prove how it got there.
As far as I'm concerned, I prefer silent vice to ostentatious virtue.
Gravitation is not responsible for people falling in love.
I do not believe in the God of theology who rewards good and punishes evil.
Intellectual growth should commence at birth and cease only at death.
Let every man be respected as an individual and no man idolized.
Nothing is more destructive of respect for the government and the law of the land than passing laws which cannot be enforced.
The pursuit of truth and beauty is a sphere of activity in which we are permitted to remain children all our lives.
Without deep reflection one knows from daily life that one exists for other people.
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.
A man should look for what is, and not for what he thinks should be.
A table, a chair, a bowl of fruit and a violin; what else does a man need to be happy?
All religions, arts and sciences are branches of the same tree.
Force always attracts men of low morality.
Heroism on command, senseless violence, and all the loathsome nonsense that goes by the name of patriotism - how passionately I hate them!
I live in that solitude which is painful in youth, but delicious in the years of maturity.
If you are out to describe the truth, leave elegance to the tailor.
It gives me great pleasure indeed to see the stubbornness of an incorrigible nonconformist warmly acclaimed.
Never lose a holy curiosity.
No problem can be solved from the same level of consciousness that created it.
Only a life lived for others is a life worthwhile.
Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one.
Technological progress is like an axe in the hands of a pathological criminal.
The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and science.
We still do not know one thousandth of one percent of what nature has revealed to us.
He who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead; his eyes are closed.
Morality is of the highest importance - but for us, not for God.
The only reason for time is so that everything doesn't happen at once.
God does not play dice.
I shall never believe that God plays dice with the world.
If people are good only because they fear punishment, and hope for reward, then we are a sorry lot indeed.
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.
Knowledge of what is does not open the door directly to what should be.
Science is a wonderful thing if one does not have to earn one's living at it.
Solitude is painful when one is young, but delightful when one is more mature.
The fear of death is the most unjustified of all fears, for there's no risk of accident for someone who's dead.
The hardest thing to understand in the world is the income tax.
True religion is real living; living with all one's soul, with all one's goodness and righteousness.
We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.
I am a deeply religious nonbeliever - this is a somewhat new kind of religion.
I never think of the future - it comes soon enough.
If I were not a physicist, I would probably be a musician. I often think in music. I live my daydreams in music. I see my life in terms of music.
Most people say that it is the intellect which makes a great scientist. They are wrong: it is character.
The gift of fantasy has meant more to me than my talent for absorbing positive knowledge.
The road to perdition has ever been accompanied by lip service to an ideal.
When the solution is simple, God is answering.
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.
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.
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.
I cannot imagine a God who rewards and punishes the objects of his creation and is but a reflection of human frailty.
The attempt to combine wisdom and power has only rarely been successful and then only for a short while.
Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler.
I used to go away for weeks in a state of confusion.
Small is the number of people who see with their eyes and think with their minds.
I want to know all Gods thoughts; all the rest are just details.
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 distinction between the past, present and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion.
Information is not knowledge.
Confusion of goals and perfection of means seems, in my opinion, to characterize our age.
It should be possible to explain the laws of physics to a barmaid.
All these primary impulses, not easily described in words, are the springs of man's actions.
Memory is deceptive because it is colored by today's events.
Mozart's music is so pure and beautiful that I see it as a reflection of the inner beauty of the universe.
Never do anything against conscience even if the state demands it.
Politics is for the present, but an equation is for eternity.
You ask me if I keep a notebook to record my great ideas. I've only ever had one.
There could be no fairer destiny for any physical theory than that it should point the way to a more comprehensive theory in which it lives on as a limiting case.
God may be subtle, but he isn't plain mean.
The release of atomic energy has not created a new problem. It has merely made more urgent the necessity of solving an existing one.
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.
Sometimes one pays most for the things one gets for nothing.
We should take care not to make the intellect our god; it has, of course, powerful muscles, but no personality.
I want to go when I want. It is tasteless to prolong life artificially. I have done my share; it is time to go. I will do it elegantly.
You cannot simultaneously prevent and prepare for war.
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.
The unleashed power of the atom has changed everything save our modes of thinking and we thus drift toward unparalleled catastrophe.
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.
It is strange to be known so universally and yet to be so lonely.
Isn't it strange that I who have written only unpopular books should be such a popular fellow?
In order to be an immaculate member of a flock of sheep, one must above all be a sheep oneself.
The high destiny of the individual is to serve rather than to rule.
People love chopping wood. In this activity one immediately sees results.
I am enough of an artist to draw freely upon my imagination.
God always takes the simplest way.
I have just got a new theory of eternity.
True art is characterized by an irresistible urge in the creative artist.
We cannot despair of humanity, since we ourselves are human beings.
The man of science is a poor philosopher.
The process of scientific discovery is, in effect, a continual flight from wonder.
Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn.
Without continual growth and progress, such words as improvement, achievement, and success have no meaning.
We are all born ignorant, but one must work hard to remain stupid.
An investment in knowledge pays the best interest.
Lost time is never found again.
Early to bed and early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise.
It takes many good deeds to build a good reputation, and only one bad one to lose it.
They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.
Money has never made man happy, nor will it, there is nothing in its nature to produce happiness. The more of it one has the more one wants.
Anger is never without a reason, but seldom with a good one.
It is the working man who is the happy man. It is the idle man who is the miserable man.
By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail.
I am for doing good to the poor, but I differ in opinion about the means. I think the best way of doing good to the poor is not making them easy in poverty, but leading or driving them out of it.
The Constitution only gives people the right to pursue happiness. You have to catch it yourself.
Wine is constant proof that God loves us and loves to see us happy.
Life's tragedy is that we get old too soon and wise too late.
Well done is better than well said.
Beware of little expenses. A small leak will sink a great ship.
In this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes.
Either write something worth reading or do something worth writing.
Write injuries in dust, benefits in marble.
You may delay, but time will not.
Energy and persistence conquer all things.
Gain may be temporary and uncertain; but ever while you live, expense is constant and certain: and it is easier to build two chimneys than to keep one in fuel.
Do not fear mistakes. You will know failure. Continue to reach out.
A life of leisure and a life of laziness are two things. There will be sleeping enough in the grave.
Time is money.
We are more thoroughly an enlightened people, with respect to our political interests, than perhaps any other under heaven. Every man among us reads, and is so easy in his circumstances as to have leisure for conversations of improvement and for acquiring information.
There are three things extremely hard: steel, a diamond, and to know one's self.
If passion drives you, let reason hold the reins.
Never confuse motion with action.
Mine is better than ours.
Beauty and folly are old companions.
Content makes poor men rich; discontent makes rich men poor.
If all printers were determined not to print anything till they were sure it would offend nobody, there would be very little printed.
When in doubt, don't.
He that would live in peace and at ease must not speak all he knows or all he sees.
Whatever is begun in anger ends in shame.
God helps those who help themselves.
Work as if you were to live a hundred years. Pray as if you were to die tomorrow.
If you know how to spend less than you get, you have the philosopher's stone.
He that sows thorns should never go barefoot.
When befriended, remember it; when you befriend, forget it.
Buy what thou hast no need of and ere long thou shalt sell thy necessities.
If you would be loved, love, and be loveable.
Your net worth to the world is usually determined by what remains after your bad habits are subtracted from your good ones.
Any fool can criticize, condemn and complain - and most fools do.
Where liberty is, there is my country.
How few there are who have courage enough to own their faults, or resolution enough to mend them.
He that is good for making excuses is seldom good for anything else.
Dost thou love life? Then do not squander time, for that is the stuff life is made of.
One today is worth two tomorrows.
There never was a truly great man that was not at the same time truly virtuous.
Fatigue is the best pillow.
Laws too gentle are seldom obeyed; too severe, seldom executed.
Leisure is the time for doing something useful. This leisure the diligent person will obtain the lazy one never.
Savages we call them because their manners differ from ours.
I should have no objection to go over the same life from its beginning to the end: requesting only the advantage authors have, of correcting in a second edition the faults of the first.
It is easier to prevent bad habits than to break them.
When you're finished changing, you're finished.
Who is rich? He that rejoices in his portion.
He that raises a large family does, indeed, while he lives to observe them, stand a broader mark for sorrow; but then he stands a broader mark for pleasure too.
Diligence is the mother of good luck.
Each year one vicious habit discarded, in time might make the worst of us good.
He that is of the opinion money will do everything may well be suspected of doing everything for money.
The doorstep to the temple of wisdom is a knowledge of our own ignorance.
To succeed, jump as quickly at opportunities as you do at conclusions.
There are two ways of being happy: We must either diminish our wants or augment our means - either may do - the result is the same and it is for each man to decide for himself and to do that which happens to be easier.
Being ignorant is not so much a shame, as being unwilling to learn.
Even peace may be purchased at too high a price.
He that can have patience can have what he will.
Hide not your talents. They for use were made. What's a sundial in the shade?
Honesty is the best policy.
If time be of all things the most precious, wasting time must be the greatest prodigality.
If you would not be forgotten as soon as you are dead, either write something worth reading or do things worth writing.
Rebellion against tyrants is obedience to God.
Some people die at 25 and aren't buried until 75.
Take time for all things: great haste makes great waste.
Wise men don't need advice. Fools won't take it.
In my youth, I traveled much, and I observed in different countries, that the more public provisions were made for the poor, the less they provided for themselves, and of course became poorer. And, on the contrary, the less was done for them, the more they did for themselves, and became richer.
A good conscience is a continual Christmas.
Speak ill of no man, but speak all the good you know of everybody.
Tomorrow, every Fault is to be amended; but that Tomorrow never comes.
From a child I was fond of reading, and all the little money that came into my hands was ever laid out in books. Pleased with the 'Pilgrim's Progress,' my first collection was of John Bunyan's works in separate little volumes.
Those who govern, having much business on their hands, do not generally like to take the trouble of considering and carrying into execution new projects. The best public measures are therefore seldom adopted from previous wisdom, but forced by the occasion.
A house is not a home unless it contains food and fire for the mind as well as the body.
As we must account for every idle word, so must we account for every idle silence.
Be slow in choosing a friend, slower in changing.
Experience keeps a dear school, but fools will learn in no other.
To Follow by faith alone is to follow blindly.
Write your injuries in dust, your benefits in marble.
An egg today is better than a hen to-morrow.
Blessed is he that expects nothing, for he shall never be disappointed.
Remember not only to say the right thing in the right place, but far more difficult still, to leave unsaid the wrong thing at the tempting moment.
Tricks and treachery are the practice of fools, that don't have brains enough to be honest.
A penny saved is a penny earned.
Most people return small favors, acknowledge medium ones and repay greater ones - with ingratitude.
Never leave that till tomorrow which you can do today.
There are three faithful friends - an old wife, an old dog, and ready money.
Rather go to bed with out dinner than to rise in debt.
The absent are never without fault, nor the present without excuse.
If a man could have half of his wishes, he would double his troubles.
When men and woman die, as poets sung, his heart's the last part moves, her last, the tongue.
Wars are not paid for in wartime, the bill comes later.
All who think cannot but see there is a sanction like that of religion which binds us in partnership in the serious work of the world.
So convenient a thing it is to be a reasonable creature, since it enables one to find or make a reason for every thing one has a mind to do.
The doors of wisdom are never shut.
When will mankind be convinced and agree to settle their difficulties by arbitration?
Do good to your friends to keep them, to your enemies to win them.
I didn't fail the test, I just found 100 ways to do it wrong.
A great empire, like a great cake, is most easily diminished at the edges.
It is a grand mistake to think of being great without goodness and I pronounce it as certain that there was never a truly great man that was not at the same time truly virtuous.
Eat to please thyself, but dress to please others.
If you desire many things, many things will seem few.
A countryman between two lawyers is like a fish between two cats.
A man wrapped up in himself makes a very small bundle.
All mankind is divided into three classes: those that are immovable, those that are movable, and those that move.
Half a truth is often a great lie.
I have no private interest in the reception of my inventions by the world, having never made, nor proposed to make, the least profit by any of them.
He that displays too often his wife and his wallet is in danger of having both of them borrowed.
It is the eye of other people that ruin us. If I were blind I would want, neither fine clothes, fine houses or fine furniture.
The strictest law sometimes becomes the severest injustice.
At twenty years of age the will reigns; at thirty, the wit; and at forty, the judgment.
Having been poor is no shame, but being ashamed of it, is.
If you would have a faithful servant, and one that you like, serve yourself.
Wealth is not his that has it, but his that enjoys it.
Where there's marriage without love, there will be love without marriage.
Observe all men, thyself most.
He that has not got a wife is not yet a complete man.
Words may show a man's wit but actions his meaning.
Marriage is the most natural state of man, and... the state in which you will find solid happiness.
A place for everything, everything in its place.
Be at war with your vices, at peace with your neighbors, and let every new year find you a better man.
Don't throw stones at your neighbors if your own windows are glass.
I wake up every morning at nine and grab for the morning paper. Then I look at the obituary page. If my name is not on it, I get up.
Three can keep a secret, if two of them are dead.
Without freedom of thought, there can be no such thing as wisdom - and no such thing as public liberty without freedom of speech.
God grant that not only the love of liberty but a thorough knowledge of the rights of man may pervade all the nations of the earth, so that a philosopher may set his foot anywhere on its surface and say: 'This is my country.'
Guests, like fish, begin to smell after three days.
A learned blockhead is a greater blockhead than an ignorant one.
He that lives upon hope will die fasting.
If a man empties his purse into his head, no one can take it from him.
It is much easier to suppress a first desire than to satisfy those that follow.
God works wonders now and then; Behold a lawyer, an honest man.
Distrust and caution are the parents of security.
You can bear your own faults, and why not a fault in your wife?
I conceive that the great part of the miseries of mankind are brought upon them by false estimates they have made of the value of things.
Since thou are not sure of a minute, throw not away an hour.
He who falls in love with himself will have no rivals.
The first mistake in public business is the going into it.
Who is rich? He that is content. Who is that? Nobody.
For having lived long, I have experienced many instances of being obliged, by better information or fuller consideration, to change opinions, even on important subjects, which I once thought right but found to be otherwise.
Games lubricate the body and the mind.
Hunger is the best pickle.
It is only when the rich are sick that they fully feel the impotence of wealth.
The use of money is all the advantage there is in having it.
There is no kind of dishonesty into which otherwise good people more easily and frequently fall than that of defrauding the government.
Let all your things have their places; let each part of your business have its time.
The discontented man finds no easy chair.
I saw few die of hunger; of eating, a hundred thousand.
In general, mankind, since the improvement of cookery, eats twice as much as nature requires.
Many a man thinks he is buying pleasure, when he is really selling himself to it.
She laughs at everything you say. Why? Because she has fine teeth.
The way to see by Faith is to shut the Eye of Reason.
He that speaks much, is much mistaken.
The eye of the master will do more work than both his hands.
And whether you're an honest man, or whether you're a thief, depends on whose solicitor has given me my brief.
Applause waits on success.
He does not possess wealth; it possesses him.
He that rises late must trot all day.
He that's secure is not safe.
Hear reason, or she'll make you feel her.
If you would know the value of money, go and try to borrow some.
In the affairs of this world, men are saved not by faith, but by the want of it.
Many foxes grow gray but few grow good.
Never take a wife till thou hast a house (and a fire) to put her in.
Nine men in ten are would be suicides.
Remember that credit is money.
The art of acting consists in keeping people from coughing.
Those have a short Lent who owe money to be paid at Easter.
Those that won't be counseled can't be helped.
Where sense is wanting, everything is wanting.
Who is wise? He that learns from everyone. Who is powerful? He that governs his passions. Who is rich? He that is content. Who is that? Nobody.
Keep your eyes wide open before marriage, half shut afterwards.
If we do not hang together, we shall surely hang separately.
A false friend and a shadow attend only while the sun shines.
Genius without education is like silver in the mine.
For my own part, I wish the bald eagle had not been chosen the representative of our country. He is a bird of bad moral character. He does not get his living honestly.
The U. S. Constitution doesn't guarantee happiness, only the pursuit of it. You have to catch up with it yourself.
There was never a good war, or a bad peace.
He that composes himself is wiser than he that composes a book.
The worst wheel of the cart makes the most noise.
Trouble springs from idleness, and grievous toil from needless ease.
Those disputing, contradicting, and confuting people are generally unfortunate in their affairs. They get victory, sometimes, but they never get good will, which would be of more use to them.
He that won't be counseled can't be helped.
Human felicity is produced not as much by great pieces of good fortune that seldom happen as by little advantages that occur every day.
Many people die at twenty five and aren't buried until they are seventy five.
We must, indeed, all hang together or, most assuredly, we shall all hang separately.
All wars are follies, very expensive and very mischievous ones.
Admiration is the daughter of ignorance.
Beware the hobby that eats.
Employ thy time well, if thou meanest to gain leisure.
He that has done you a kindness will be more ready to do you another, than he whom you yourself have obliged.
I guess I don't so much mind being old, as I mind being fat and old.
I look upon death to be as necessary to our constitution as sleep. We shall rise refreshed in the morning.
Necessity never made a good bargain.
Our necessities never equal our wants.
To lengthen thy life, lessen thy meals.
Who had deceived thee so often as thyself?
He that waits upon fortune, is never sure of a dinner.
Industry need not wish.
There cannot be a stronger natural right than that of a man's making the best profit he can of the natural produce of his lands.
A child thinks 20 shillings and 20 years can scarce ever be spent.
Danger is sauce for prayers.
My elder brothers were all put apprentices to different trades. I was put to the grammar-school at eight years of age, my father intending to devote me, as the tithe of his sons, to the service of the Church.
As we enjoy great advantages from the inventions of others, we should be glad of an opportunity to serve others by any invention of ours, and this we should do freely and generously.
Creditors have better memories than debtors.
No nation was ever ruined by trade.
A penny saved is two pence clear.
In reality, there is, perhaps, no one of our natural passions so hard to subdue as pride.
Where there is a free government, and the people make their own laws by their representatives, I see no injustice in their obliging one another to take their own paper money.
I have never entered into any controversy in defense of my philosophical opinions; I leave them to take their chance in the world. If they are right, truth and experience will support them; if wrong, they ought to be refuted and rejected. Disputes are apt to sour one's temper and disturb one's quiet.
Trees love to toss and sway; they make such happy noises.
You must be absolutely honest and true in the depicting of a totem for meaning is attached to every line. You must be most particular about detail and proportion.
Oh, Spring! I want to go out and feel you and get inspiration. My old things seem dead. I want fresh contacts, more vital searching.
There is something bigger than fact: the underlying spirit, all it stands for, the mood, the vastness, the wildness.
You come into the world alone and you go out of the world alone yet it seems to me you are more alone while living than even going and coming.
It is wonderful to feel the grandness of Canada in the raw.
I think that one's art is a growth inside one. I do not think one can explain growth. It is silent and subtle. One does not keep digging up a plant to see how it grows.
The artist himself may not think he is religious, but if he is sincere his sincerity in itself is religion.
I sat staring, staring, staring - half lost, learning a new language or rather the same language in a different dialect. So still were the big woods where I sat, sound might not yet have been born.
Be careful that you do not write or paint anything that is not your own, that you don't know in your own soul.
You always feel when you look it straight in the eye that you could have put more into it, could have let yourself go and dug harder.
You will have to experiment and try things out for yourself and you will not be sure of what you are doing. That's all right, you are feeling your way into the thing.
The men resent a woman getting any honour in what they consider is essentially their field. Men painters mostly despise women painters. So I have decided to stop squirming, to throw any honour in with Canada and women.
Perfectly ordered disorder designed with a helter-skelter magnificence.
Twenty can't be expected to tolerate sixty in all things, and sixty gets bored stiff with twenty's eternal love affairs.
Coming together is a beginning; keeping together is progress; working together is success.
If everyone is moving forward together, then success takes care of itself.
Thinking is the hardest work there is, which is probably the reason why so few engage in it.
When everything seems to be going against you, remember that the airplane takes off against the wind, not with it.
My best friend is the one who brings out the best in me.
Don't find fault, find a remedy.
If you think you can do a thing or think you can't do a thing, you're right.
Life is a series of experiences, each one of which makes us bigger, even though sometimes it is hard to realize this. For the world was built to develop character, and we must learn that the setbacks and grieves which we endure help us in our marching onward.
Anyone who stops learning is old, whether at twenty or eighty. Anyone who keeps learning stays young. The greatest thing in life is to keep your mind young.
Quality means doing it right when no one is looking.
Even a mistake may turn out to be the one thing necessary to a worthwhile achievement.
Most people spend more time and energy going around problems than in trying to solve them.
I believe God is managing affairs and that He doesn't need any advice from me. With God in charge, I believe everything will work out for the best in the end. So what is there to worry about.
You can't build a reputation on what you are going to do.
One of the greatest discoveries a man makes, one of his great surprises, is to find he can do what he was afraid he couldn't do.
Capital punishment is as fundamentally wrong as a cure for crime as charity is wrong as a cure for poverty.
The man who will use his skill and constructive imagination to see how much he can give for a dollar, instead of how little he can give for a dollar, is bound to succeed.
It is not the employer who pays the wages. Employers only handle the money. It is the customer who pays the wages.
Obstacles are those frightful things you see when you take your eyes off your goal.
Failure is simply the opportunity to begin again, this time more intelligently.
A business that makes nothing but money is a poor business.
As we advance in life we learn the limits of our abilities.
History is more or less bunk.
There is one rule for the industrialist and that is: Make the best quality of goods possible at the lowest cost possible, paying the highest wages possible.
If there is any one secret of success, it lies in the ability to get the other person's point of view and see things from that person's angle as well as from your own.
A business absolutely devoted to service will have only one worry about profits. They will be embarrassingly large.
An idealist is a person who helps other people to be prosperous.
Money is like an arm or leg - use it or lose it.
There is no man living that can not do more than he thinks he can.
Time and money spent in helping men to do more for themselves is far better than mere giving.
Speculation is only a word covering the making of money out of the manipulation of prices, instead of supplying goods and services.
Wealth, like happiness, is never attained when sought after directly. It comes as a by-product of providing a useful service.
Enthusiasm is the yeast that makes your hopes shine to the stars. Enthusiasm is the sparkle in your eyes, the swing in your gait. The grip of your hand, the irresistible surge of will and energy to execute your ideas.
The only real security that a man can have in this world is a reserve of knowledge, experience and ability.
There is joy in work. There is no happiness except in the realization that we have accomplished something.
Competition is the keen cutting edge of business, always shaving away at costs.
Exercise is bunk. If you are healthy, you don't need it: if you are sick you should not take it.
If money is your hope for independence you will never have it. The only real security that a man will have in this world is a reserve of knowledge, experience, and ability.
Any colour - so long as it's black.
The competitor to be feared is one who never bothers about you at all, but goes on making his own business better all the time.
A bore is a person who opens his mouth and puts his feats in it.
What's right about America is that although we have a mess of problems, we have great capacity - intellect and resources - to do some thing about them.
A market is never saturated with a good product, but it is very quickly saturated with a bad one.
Before everything else, getting ready is the secret of success.
There are no big problems, there are just a lot of little problems.
Whether you believe you can do a thing or not, you are right.
The highest use of capital is not to make more money, but to make money do more for the betterment of life.
You can't learn in school what the world is going to do next year.
Nothing is particularly hard if you divide it into small jobs.
It has been my observation that most people get ahead during the time that others waste.
You will find men who want to be carried on the shoulders of others, who think that the world owes them a living. They don't seem to see that we must all lift together and pull together.
Business is never so healthy as when, like a chicken, it must do a certain amount of scratching around for what it gets.
It is well enough that people of the nation do not understand our banking and monetary system, for if they did, I believe there would be a revolution before tomorrow morning.
Whatever you have, you must either use or lose.
I do not believe a man can ever leave his business. He ought to think of it by day and dream of it by night.
We don't want tradition. We want to live in the present and the only history that is worth a tinker's dam is the history we make today.
I cannot discover that anyone knows enough to say definitely what is and what is not possible.
Whether you think that you can, or that you can't, you are usually right.
I am looking for a lot of men who have an infinite capacity to not know what can't be done.
Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony.
Where there is love there is life.
The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong.
Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever.
The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others.
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.
When I admire the wonders of a sunset or the beauty of the moon, my soul expands in the worship of the creator.
My life is my message.
Strength does not come from physical capacity. It comes from an indomitable will.
It is health that is real wealth and not pieces of gold and silver.
Non-violence is the greatest force at the disposal of mankind. It is mightier than the mightiest weapon of destruction devised by the ingenuity of man.
A nation's culture resides in the hearts and in the soul of its people.
You must be the change you wish to see in the world.
There is more to life than increasing its speed.
An eye for an eye only ends up making the whole world blind.
First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.
Power is of two kinds. One is obtained by the fear of punishment and the other by acts of love. Power based on love is a thousand times more effective and permanent then the one derived from fear of punishment.
There is a sufficiency in the world for man's need but not for man's greed.
A small body of determined spirits fired by an unquenchable faith in their mission can alter the course of history.
Nobody can hurt me without my permission.
Prayer is not asking. It is a longing of the soul. It is daily admission of one's weakness. It is better in prayer to have a heart without words than words without a heart.
Anger is the enemy of non-violence and pride is a monster that swallows it up.
It may be possible to gild pure gold, but who can make his mother more beautiful?
Anger and intolerance are the enemies of correct understanding.
I suppose leadership at one time meant muscles; but today it means getting along with people.
The good man is the friend of all living things.
Man's nature is not essentially evil. Brute nature has been known to yield to the influence of love. You must never despair of human nature.
Satisfaction lies in the effort, not in the attainment, full effort is full victory.
It is the quality of our work which will please God and not the quantity.
My religion is based on truth and non-violence. Truth is my God. Non-violence is the means of realising Him.
To believe in something, and not to live it, is dishonest.
A man who was completely innocent, offered himself as a sacrifice for the good of others, including his enemies, and became the ransom of the world. It was a perfect act.
In a gentle way, you can shake the world.
Poverty is the worst form of violence.
Let us all be brave enough to die the death of a martyr, but let no one lust for martyrdom.
Always aim at complete harmony of thought and word and deed. Always aim at purifying your thoughts and everything will be well.
When restraint and courtesy are added to strength, the latter becomes irresistible.
Action is no less necessary than thought to the instinctive tendencies of the human frame.
The moment there is suspicion about a person's motives, everything he does becomes tainted.
Whatever you do may seem insignificant to you, but it is most important that you do it.
I claim to be a simple individual liable to err like any other fellow mortal. I own, however, that I have humility enough to confess my errors and to retrace my steps.
It is easy enough to be friendly to one's friends. But to befriend the one who regards himself as your enemy is the quintessence of true religion. The other is mere business.
Non-violence and truth are inseparable and presuppose one another.
An ounce of practice is worth more than tons of preaching.
Action expresses priorities.
To deprive a man of his natural liberty and to deny to him the ordinary amenities of life is worse then starving the body; it is starvation of the soul, the dweller in the body.
A man is but the product of his thoughts what he thinks, he becomes.
Prayer is the key of the morning and the bolt of the evening.
Those who know how to think need no teachers.
Honest disagreement is often a good sign of progress.
There is a higher court than courts of justice and that is the court of conscience. It supercedes all other courts.
To give pleasure to a single heart by a single act is better than a thousand heads bowing in prayer.
Man falls from the pursuit of the ideal of plan living and high thinking the moment he wants to multiply his daily wants. Man's happiness really lies in contentment.
An error does not become truth by reason of multiplied propagation, nor does truth become error because nobody sees it.
Increase of material comforts, it may be generally laid down, does not in any way whatsoever conduce to moral growth.
Capital as such is not evil; it is its wrong use that is evil. Capital in some form or other will always be needed.
Fear has its use but cowardice has none.
Truth never damages a cause that is just.
We win justice quickest by rendering justice to the other party.
I do all the evil I can before I learn to shun it? Is it not enough to know the evil to shun it? If not, we should be sincere enough to admit that we love evil too well to give it up.
Religion is more than life. Remember that his own religion is the truest to every man even if it stands low in the scales of philosophical comparison.
But for my faith in God, I should have been a raving maniac.
It has always been a mystery to me how men can feel themselves honoured by the humiliation of their fellow beings.
Morality is the basis of things and truth is the substance of all morality.
I claim to be a simple individual liable to err like any other fellow mortal. I own, however, that I have humility enough in me to confess my errors and to retrace my steps.
A 'No' uttered from the deepest conviction is better than a 'Yes' merely uttered to please, or worse, to avoid trouble.
Faith is not something to grasp, it is a state to grow into.
If co-operation is a duty, I hold that non-co-operation also under certain conditions is equally a duty.
Non-violence requires a double faith, faith in God and also faith in man.
Spiritual relationship is far more precious than physical. Physical relationship divorced from spiritual is body without soul.
There are people in the world so hungry, that God cannot appear to them except in the form of bread.
As human beings, our greatness lies not so much in being able to remake the world - that is the myth of the atomic age - as in being able to remake ourselves.
I have nothing new to teach the world. Truth and Non-violence are as old as the hills. All I have done is to try experiments in both on as vast a scale as I could.
I think it is the height of ignorance to believe that the sexual act is an independent function necessary like sleeping or eating. Seeing, therefore, that I did not desire more children, I began to strive after self-control. There was endless difficulty in the task.
Each one has to find his peace from within. And peace to be real must be unaffected by outside circumstances.
Even if you are a minority of one, the truth is the truth.
Gentleness, self-sacrifice and generosity are the exclusive possession of no one race or religion.
I believe in equality for everyone, except reporters and photographers.
I reject any religious doctrine that does not appeal to reason and is in conflict with morality.
Infinite striving to be the best is man's duty; it is its own reward. Everything else is in God's hands.
Intolerance is itself a form of violence and an obstacle to the growth of a true democratic spirit.
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.
Justice that love gives is a surrender, justice that law gives is a punishment.
Man becomes great exactly in the degree in which he works for the welfare of his fellow-men.
Non-violence is not a garment to be put on and off at will. Its seat is in the heart, and it must be an inseparable part of our being.
Palestine belongs to the Arabs in the same sense that England belongs to the English or France to the French.
The real ornament of woman is her character, her purity.
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.
We may have our private opinions but why should they be a bar to the meeting of hearts?
I look only to the good qualities of men. Not being faultless myself, I won't presume to probe into the faults of others.
In prayer it is better to have a heart without words than words without a heart.
Let not the 12 million Negroes be ashamed of the fact that they are the grandchildren of slaves. There is dishonor in being slave-owners.
Non-cooperation with evil is as much a duty as is cooperation with good.
Truth stands, even if there be no public support. It is self-sustained.
You can chain me, you can torture me, you can even destroy this body, but you will never imprison my mind.
Among the many misdeeds of the British rule in India, history will look upon the act depriving a whole nation of arms as the blackest.
God, as Truth, has been for me a treasure beyond price. May He be so to every one of us.
I am a humble but very earnest seeker after truth.
I do not want to foresee the future. I am concerned with taking care of the present. God has given me no control over the moment following.
If patience is worth anything, it must endure to the end of time. And a living faith will last in the midst of the blackest storm.
Peace is its own reward.
Self-respect knows no considerations.
The difference between what we do and what we are capable of doing would suffice to solve most of the world's problems.
The only tyrant I accept in this world is the still voice within.
We may stumble and fall but shall rise again; it should be enough if we did not run away from the battle.
Service which is rendered without joy helps neither the servant nor the served. But all other pleasures and possessions pale into nothingness before service which is rendered in a spirit of joy.
A coward is incapable of exhibiting love; it is the prerogative of the brave.
Before the throne of the Almighty, man will be judged not by his acts but by his intentions. For God alone reads our hearts.
Confession of errors is like a broom which sweeps away the dirt and leaves the surface brighter and clearer. I feel stronger for confession.
The essence of all religions is one. Only their approaches are different.
Are creeds such simple things like the clothes which a man can change at will and put on at will? Creeds are such for which people live for ages and ages.
I will far rather see the race of man extinct than that we should become less than beasts by making the noblest of God's creation, woman, the object of our lust.
Ours is one continued struggle against degradation sought to be inflicted upon us by the European, who desire to degrade us to the level of the raw Kaffir, whose occupation is hunting and whose sole ambition is to collect a certain number of cattle to buy a wife with, and then pass his life in indolence and nakedness.
We may never be strong enough to be entirely nonviolent in thought, word and deed. But we must keep nonviolence as our goal and make strong progress towards it.
If we are to teach real peace in this world, and if we are to carry on a real war against war, we shall have to begin with the children.
Just as a man would not cherish living in a body other than his own, so do nations not like to live under other nations, however noble and great the latter may be.
God sometimes does try to the uttermost those whom he wishes to bless.
I am in the world feeling my way to light 'amid the encircling gloom.'
Man lives freely only by his readiness to die, if need be, at the hands of his brother, never by killing him.
Prayer is a confession of one's own unworthiness and weakness.
Violent means will give violent freedom. That would be a menace to the world and to India herself.
I would heartily welcome the union of East and West provided it is not based on brute force.
It is better to be violent, if there is violence in our hearts, than to put on the cloak of nonviolence to cover impotence.
Jesus is ideal and wonderful, but you Christians - you are not like him.
Measures must always in a progressive society be held superior to men, who are after all imperfect instruments, working for their fulfilment.
It is any day better to stand erect with a broken and bandaged head then to crawl on one's belly, in order to be able to save one's head.
My religion teaches me that whenever there is distress which one cannot remove, one must fast and pray.
That service is the noblest which is rendered for its own sake.
We should meet abuse by forbearance. Human nature is so constituted that if we take absolutely no notice of anger or abuse, the person indulging in it will soon weary of it and stop.
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 worshipped woman as the living embodiment of the spirit of service and sacrifice.
Non-violence is the article of faith.
Nonviolence is the first article of my faith. It is also the last article of my creed.
The law of sacrifice is uniform throughout the world. To be effective it demands the sacrifice of the bravest and the most spotless.
Morality which depends upon the helplessness of a man or woman has not much to recommend it. Morality is rooted in the purity of our hearts.
The human voice can never reach the distance that is covered by the still small voice of conscience.
The main purpose of life is to live rightly, think rightly, act rightly. The soul must languish when we give all our thought to the body.
A policy is a temporary creed liable to be changed, but while it holds good it has got to be pursued with apostolic zeal.
Freedom is not worth having if it does not connote freedom to err.
In matters of conscience, the law of the majority has no place.
God is, even though the whole world deny him. Truth stands, even if there be no public support. It is self-sustained.
Those who say religion has nothing to do with politics do not know what religion is.
Constant development is the law of life, and a man who always tries to maintain his dogmas in order to appear consistent drives himself into a false position.
A religion that takes no account of practical affairs and does not help to solve them is no religion.
Every formula of every religion has in this age of reason, to submit to the acid test of reason and universal assent.
Everyone who wills can hear the inner voice. It is within everyone.
Interdependence is and ought to be as much the ideal of man as self-sufficiency. Man is a social being.
Partition is bad. But whatever is past is past. We have only to look to the future.
One's own religion is after all a matter between oneself and one's Maker and no one else's.
What is true of the individual will be tomorrow true of the whole nation if individuals will but refuse to lose heart and hope.
A vow is a purely religious act which cannot be taken in a fit of passion. It can be taken only with a mind purified and composed and with God as witness.
All the religions of the world, while they may differ in other respects, unitedly proclaim that nothing lives in this world but Truth.
Man can never be a woman's equal in the spirit of selfless service with which nature has endowed her.
Man is supposed to be the maker of his destiny. It is only partly true. He can make his destiny, only in so far as he is allowed by the Great Power.
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?
All compromise is based on give and take, but there can be no give and take on fundamentals. Any compromise on mere fundamentals is a surrender. For it is all give and no take.
An unjust law is itself a species of violence. Arrest for its breach is more so.
I object to violence because when it appears to do good, the good is only temporary; the evil it does is permanent.
If I had no sense of humor, I would long ago have committed suicide.
The greatness of a nation can be judged by the way its animals are treated.
Each one prays to God according to his own light.
I claim that human mind or human society is not divided into watertight compartments called social, political and religious. All act and react upon one another.
There is an orderliness in the universe, there is an unalterable law governing everything and every being that exists or lives. It is no blind law; for no blind law can govern the conduct of living beings.
Purity of personal life is the one indispensable condition for building up a sound education.
Religion is a matter of the heart. No physical inconvenience can warrant abandonment of one's own religion.
Truth is by nature self-evident. As soon as you remove the cobwebs of ignorance that surround it, it shines clear.
Unwearied ceaseless effort is the price that must be paid for turning faith into a rich infallible experience.
Though we may know Him by a thousand names, He is one and the same to us all.
Culture of the mind must be subservient to the heart.
Fear of death makes us devoid both of valour and religion. For want of valour is want of religious faith.
The pursuit of truth does not permit violence on one's opponent.
Healthy discontent is the prelude to progress.
Prayer is not an old woman's idle amusement. Properly understood and applied, it is the most potent instrument of action.
I am prepared to die, but there is no cause for which I am prepared to kill.
Is it not enough to know the evil to shun it? If not, we should be sincere enough to admit that we love evil too well to give it up.
We do not need to proselytise either by our speech or by our writing. We can only do so really with our lives. Let our lives be open books for all to study.
If a man reaches the heart of his own religion, he has reached the heart of the others, too. There is only one God, and there are many paths to him.
God cannot be realized through the intellect. Intellect can lead one to a certain extent and no further. It is a matter of faith and experience derived from that faith.
Nearly everything you do is of no importance, but it is important that you do it.
A weak man is just by accident. A strong but non-violent man is unjust by accident.
I know, to banish anger altogether from one's breast is a difficult task. It cannot be achieved through pure personal effort. It can be done only by God's grace.
It is my own firm belief that the strength of the soul grows in proportion as you subdue the flesh.
The spirit of democracy is not a mechanical thing to be adjusted by abolition of forms. It requires change of heart.
What do I think of Western civilization? I think it would be a very good idea.
I believe that a man is the strongest soldier for daring to die unarmed.
No culture can live if it attempts to be exclusive.
Non-violence, which is the quality of the heart, cannot come by an appeal to the brain.
Sense perceptions can be and often are false and deceptive, however real they may appear to us. Where there is realization outside the senses, it is infallible. It is proved not by extraneous evidence but in the transformed conduct and character of those who have felt the real presence of God within.
For me every ruler is alien that defies public opinion.
Glory lies in the attempt to reach one's goal and not in reaching it.
I did once seriously think of embracing the Christian faith. The gentle figure of Christ, so full of forgiveness that he taught his followers not to retaliate when abused or struck, but to turn the other cheek - I thought it was a beautiful example of the perfect man.
Faith... must be enforced by reason... when faith becomes blind it dies.
Morality is contraband in war.
There is no principle worth the name if it is not wholly good.
Intolerance betrays want of faith in one's cause.
Commonsense is the realised sense of proportion.
Freedom is never dear at any price. It is the breath of life. What would a man not pay for living?
He is lost who is possessed by carnal desire.
I believe in the fundamental truth of all great religions of the world.
Moral authority is never retained by any attempt to hold on to it. It comes without seeking and is retained without effort.
Only he can take great resolves who has indomitable faith in God and has fear of God.
Rights that do not flow from duty well performed are not worth having.
Where love is, there God is also.
A principle is the expression of perfection, and as imperfect beings like us cannot practise perfection, we devise every moment limits of its compromise in practice.
Providence has its appointed hour for everything. We cannot command results, we can only strive.
I wear the national dress because it is the most natural and the most becoming for an Indian.
I took the vow of celibacy in 1906. I had not shared my thoughts with my wife until then, but only consulted her at the time of making the vow. She had no objection.
Let everyone try and find that as a result of daily prayer he adds something new to his life, something with which nothing can be compared.
Violent men have not been known in history to die to a man. They die up to a point.