Famous Quotations by Dave Mckay (best short books to read TXT) 📕

British Prime Minister, 1937-1940

speech at Kettering, in The Times 4 July, 1938

 

 

They that live by the sword

will die by the sword.

 

The Bible, Matthew 26:52

 

 

All is fair in love and war.

 

John Lyly (1553-1606), English writer, Euphues (1578)

 

 

Where do wars come from?

They come from your greed.

When you cannot get what you want,

you fight and kill for it.

 

The Bible, James 4:1-2

 

 

When war starts,

Truth is the first to die.

 

Samuel Johnson (1709-1784), English writer and lexicographer

The Idler number 30 (11 November, 1785)

 

 

The fastest way to end a war

is to lose it.

 

George Orwell (1903-1950), Irish playwright,

Polemic May, 1946 ‘Second Thoughts on James Burnham’

 

 

They say that a book is important

if it is about men at war;

but it is not important if it is about

the feelings of women in their living rooms.

 

Virginia Woolf (1882-1941), English writer

 

 

I know not with what weapons

World War III will be fought, but World War IV

will be fought with sticks and stones.

 

Albert Einstein (1879-1955), German physicist

 

 

Some day they will give a war

and nobody will come.

 

Carl Sandburg (1878-1967), American writer,The People, Yes (1936),

 

 

Sleep before you fight.

It’s not too late tomorrow to be brave.

 

John Armstrong (1709-1779), Scottish doctor and poet,

The Art of Preserving Health

 

 

We should not talk out of fear,

but we should not fear to talk.

John F. Kennedy (1917-1963), 35th President of the United States,

Vital Speeches, 1 February, 1961

 

 

I think that people want peace so much

that one of these days

governments had better get out of the way

and let them have it.

 

Dwight Eisenhower (1890-1969), army general & 34th U.S. President

 

 

If everyone wanted peace instead of another

television, then there’d be peace.

 

John Lennon (1940-1980), English musician, singer, and songwriter

 

 

While you are talking peace with your lips, be

careful to have it even more fully in your heart.

 

Francis of Assisi (1181-1226), Italian Catholic preacher

 

 

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.

 

Mohandas Gandhi (1869-1948), pacifist & ideological leader of India

 

 

There was never a good war or a bad peace.

 

Benjamin Franklin (1705-1790), inventor, statesman, philosopher

 

 

War is the business of kings.

 

John Dryden (1631-1700), English writer, literary critic and translator

 

 

There is no need to go to India

or anywhere else to find peace.

You will find that right in your room.

 

Elisabeth Kubler-Ross (1926-2004), American psychiatrist

 

 

If you cannot find peace inside yourself,

you will never find it anywhere else.

 

Marvin Gaye (1939-1984), American singer and songwriter

 

 

'There is no rest,' says God,

'for evil people.'

 

The Bible, Isaiah 48:22

 

 

 

33. Happiness

 

 

The greatest happiness for the most people

is the bottom line for what is right,

and for making the rules of any country.

 

Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832), Commonplace Book

in J. Bowring (ed.), Works volume 10 (1843), page 142

 

 

The place to be happy is here.

The time to be happy is now.

The way to be happy

is to make others happy.

 

Ma Yogashakti Saraswati (1927- ), Indian yoga teacher

 

 

Ask yourself if you are happy,

and you will stop being happy.

 

John Stuart Mill (1806-1873), in his autobiography (1873), ch. 5

 

 

What can be added to the happiness

of a man who is in good health,

out of debt, and has a clear conscience?

 

Adam Smith (1723-1790), social philosopher

 

 

The secret to living the happiest life

is to live dangerously.

 

Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900), poet, philosopher, composer

Die Fröhliche Wissenschaft (1882), book 3, section 116

 

 

One swallow does not make a summer.

In the same way, one day of happiness

does not make a person fully happy.

 

Aristotle (384-322 B.C), philosopher & teacher of Alexander the Great

 

 

I never think of the future.

It comes soon enough.

 

Albert Einstein (1879-1955), Austrian physicist

 

 

Help your brother’s boat across, and look!

your own has reached the other side.

 

Hindu Proverb

 

 

Happiness is a perfume you cannot pour on

others without getting some on yourself.

 

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882), American writer and lecturer

 

 

To be stupid, selfish, and healthy

are needed for happiness,

but if one is not stupid, all is lost.

 

Gustave Flaubert (1821-1880), French writer

 

 

The happiness of your life

is built on the quality of your thoughts.

 

Marcus Aurelius Antoninus (121-180 AD), Roman emperor from 161 AD

 

 

When someone does something good, clap!

You will make two people happy.

 

Samuel Goldwyn (1879-1974), American film producer and executive

 

 

You are happiest

if you do not try to be happier.

 

John Milton (1608-1674), English poet, Paradise Lost (1667), book 5

 

 

One has no better thing to do under the sun

than to eat and to drink and to be happy.

 

Bible, Ecclesiastes 8:15

 

 

Happiness is losing all that you have... and after

a time... receiving it back again.

 

Anonymous

 

 

Yesterday is dead. Tomorrow hasn’t arrived yet.

I have just one day, today,

and I’m going to be happy in it.

 

Groucho Marx (1890-1977), American comedian and film star

 

 

Happiness always comes after pain.

 

Guillaume Apollinaire (1880-1918), French writer, Le Pont Mirabeau

 

 

Happiness makes up in height

what it does not have in length.

 

Robert Frost (1874-1963), American poet, title of a poem (1942),

 

 

People take different roads

looking for happiness.

Just because they’re not on your road

doesn’t mean they’re lost.

 

Jackson Brown, Jr., American author

 

 

Be happy while you’re living,

for you’re a long time dead.

 

Scottish proverb

 

 

For every minute you are angry

you lose sixty seconds of happiness.

 

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882), American writer and lecturer

 

 

 

34. Being Bitter or Forgiving?

 

 

The only person who cannot be helped

is that person who blames others.

 

Carl Rogers (1902-1987), American psychologist

 

 

To be wronged is nothing

unless you go on remembering it.

 

Confucius (551 BC- 459 BC), Chinese philosopher

 

 

Being bitter is like cancer.

It eats the one who has it.

 

Maya Angelou (1923- ), American author and poet

 

 

Hate does not stop in this world by hating,

but by not hating; this is an eternal truth.

 

Guatama Buddha (c. 563 BC - c. 483 BC), Indian spiritual leader

 

 

Hate destroys the one who hates

more than the one who is hated.

 

Anonymous

 

 

Those who hate you don’t win

unless you hate them.

And then you destroy yourself.

 

Richard M. Nixon (1913-1994), 37th President of the United States

 

 

You can’t shake hands with a closed fist.

 

Indira Gandhi (1917-1984), third Prime Minister of the Republic of India

 

 

Fighting fire with fire only gets you ashes!

 

Abigail van Buren (Pauline Phillips), (1918- ),

American advice columnist ("Dear Abby"), and Radio Show host

 

 

Anger is being crazy for a short time.

 

Horace (65-8 BC), Roman lyric poet, Epistles, book 1, number 2

 

 

If you hate a person,

you hate something in that person

that is part of yourself.

What is not a part of us

does not make us angry.

Hermann Hesse (1877-1962), German poet and painter Demian ch. 6

 

 

In time, we hate what we often fear.

 

William Shakespeare (1564-1616), English playwright,

Antony and Cleopatra act 1, scene 3

 

 

Two wrongs do not make one right.

 

B. Rush, a letter written in 1783

 

 

Good people give and forgive.

Bad people get and forget.

 

Swami Chinmayananda (1916-1993), Indian Hindu spiritual leader

 

 

He who asks for mercy, but shows none,

burns the bridges over which

he himself must later pass.

 

Thomas Adams (1871-1940), English pioneer of urban planning

 

 

Anger makes you smaller, while forgiveness

forces you to grow bigger than what you were.

 

Cherie Carter-Scott (1949- ), American self-help author

 

 

Forgiveness is our most important gift

to the healing of the world.

 

Marianne Williamson (1952- ), American author, and spiritual activist

 

 

Forgiving those who hurt us

is the key to inner peace.

 

G. Weatherly (1865-1940), a founder of American Sociological Society

 

 

If someone hits you on the right cheek,

turn to him the other also.

 

Jesus, Matthew 5:39

 

 

Give him enough rope and he will hang himself.

 

Emily Bronte (1818-1848), English author of Wuthering Heights

 

 

Everyone says forgiveness is a lovely idea,

until they have something to forgive.

 

C. S. Lewis (1898-1963), Irish writer, academic, & Christian apologist

 

 

Forgiveness is a funny thing.

It warms the heart and cools the burn.

 

William Arthur Ward (1921-1924), American writer of short sayings

 

 

Love is living. Hate is dying.

 

Swami Vivekananda (1863-1902), Hindu philosopher

 

 

It is kind to forgive, but stupid to forget.

 

Anonymous

 

 

Forgive your enemies,

but never forget their names.

 

John F. Kennedy (1917-1963), 35th President of the United States

 

 

 

35. Arguments

 

 

Most of our so-called reasoning

is made up of us finding arguments

for going on believing as we already do.

 

James Harvey Robinson (1863-1936), American historian

 

 

I learned long ago never to roll with a pig. You

get dirty, and besides, the pig likes it.

 

Cyrus Ching (1876-1967), Canadian industrialist and union mediator

 

 

The only argument available against an east wind

is to put on your coat.

 

James Russell Lowell (1819-1891), American poet, editor, and diplomat

 

 

Use soft words and hard arguments.

 

English proverb

 

 

I am not arguing with you;

I am telling you!

 

James McNeill Whistler (1834-1903), American artist,

The Gentle Art of Making Enemies (1890), page 51

 

 

When you are right, no one remembers;

when you are wrong, no one forgets.

 

Irish Saying

 

 

Stupid people feel

it makes them look better

if they can say others are not perfect.

 

Isaac D’Israeli (1766-1848), British writer and scholar,

and father of British Prime Minister, Benjamin Disraeli

 

 

A rat who chews at a cat’s tail

is asking for destruction.

 

Chinese Proverb

 

 

When you have an elephant by the back leg,

and he is trying to run away,

it’s best to let him run.

 

Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865), 1809-1865, 16th U.S. President

 

 

A good listener tries to understand

what the other person is saying.

In the end he may disagree sharply,

but because he disagrees, he wants to know

very clearly what it is he is disagreeing with.

 

Kenneth A. Wells, American author, Guide to Good Leadership (1956)

 

 

One does not need to understand things

to argue about them.

 

Pierre Beaumarchais (1732-1799), French watchmaker, arms dealer,

inventor, musician, diplomat, spy, publisher, financier, and revolutionary

 

 

 

36. Patience

 

 

He that has patience can have what he will.

 

Benjamin Franklin (1705-1790), inventor, statesman, philosopher

 

 

With love and patience, nothing is impossible.

 

Daisaku Ideda (1928- ), Japanese Buddhist lay leader

 

 

You must first have a lot of patience

to learn to have patience.

 

Stanislaw J. Lec (1909-1966), Polish poet, Unkempt Thoughts

 

 

Never discourage anyone who is getting better,

no matter how slowly.

 

Plato (429-347 BC), Greek mathematician and philosopher

 

 

The hurrier I go the behinder I get.

 

Lewis Carroll (1832-1898), American author, Alice in Wonderland

 

 

Never cut what you can untie.

 

Joseph Joubert (1754-1824), French moralist and essayist

 

 

Patience is the friend of wisdom.

 

St Augustine of Hippo (354-430), philosopher and theologian

 

 

Rome wasn't built in a day.

 

translated from French, Le Proverbe au Vilain (c. 1190)

 

 

 

37. Teaching and Learning

 

 

A teacher affects eternity.

 

Henry Adams (1838-1918), American writer, historian, and academic,

The Education of Henry Adams

 

 

I am patient with stupid people,

but not with those who are proud of it.

 

Edith Sitwell (1887-1964), English poet

 

 

Not to know is bad.

Not to wish to know is worse.

 

African proverb

 

 

People need to be helped to remember

more often than they need to be taught.

 

Samuel Johnson (1709-1784), English writer and lexicographer

 

 

It is easier to make a camel jump a channel

than to make a fool listen to reason.

 

Turkish Proverb

 

 

Teachers open the door, but you must go

through by yourself.

 

Chinese Proverb

 

 

A teacher is a second parent,

and a parent is a second teacher.

People learn when they teach too.

 

Seneca the Younger (c. 4 BC-65 AD), Roman philosopher, statesman,

and dramatist, Epistulae Morales no. 7

 

 

We loved the teaching

because we loved the teacher.

 

Daniel Defoe (1660-1731), Character of the late Dr. S. Annesley

 

 

I’d rather see a sermon

than hear one any day.

I’d rather one should walk with me

than just to tell the way.

The eye’s a better student

and more willing than the ear.

Good words can be confusing,

but a sample’s always clear.

 

Edgar A. Guest (1881-1959), English-American poet

 

 

Better to build schools for the boy

than prisons for the man.

 

Eliza Cook (1818-1889), A Song for the Ragged Schools (1853)

 

 

The stupidest person can ask more questions

than the smartest person can answer.

 

Charles Caleb Colton (c. 1780-1832), English cleric, Lacon (1820)

 

 

The ability to ask the right question

is more than half the battle

of finding the answer.

 

Thomas J. Watson (1874-1956), IBM Pres.

 

 

What the foolish person finishes up doing,

the wise person starts out doing.

 

Author unknown

 

 

One picture is worth a thousand words.

 

Frederick R. Barnard, Printer's Ink trade journal, December 8, 1921

 

 

One word to the wise is enough.

 

Plautus (c. 250-184 BC), Roman playwright, Persa line 729

 

 

In your thirst for knowledge,

be sure not to drown in all the information.

 

Anthony J. D’Angelo, self-help author, The College Blue Book

 

 

 

Information is power.

 

Eric Schmidt (1955- ), american engineer and chairman of Google,

University of Pennsylvania commencement address, 2009

 

 

So far as I can remember,

there is not one word in the Gospels

saying that it is good to be smart.

 

Bertrand Russell (1872-1970), Welsh philosopher and historian

 

 

 

Information is not knowledge,

Knowledge is not understanding,

Understanding is not wisdom.

 

Cliff Stoll & Gary Schubert, Nothing to Hide, (2000)

 

 

I do not know how others see me,

but to myself

I feel like a boy playing on the beach

– showing interest from time to time in a

smoother stone or a more beautiful shell,

when the big ocean of truth

is in front of me and I do not see it .

 

Isaac Newton (1642-1727), English mathematician, philosopher, astronomer,

physicist, and theologian, Joseph Spence Anecdotes (1966),

 

 

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.

 

Henry Ford (1863-1947), American automobile industrialist,

who pioneered assembly-line production

 

 

Whoever stops being a student

has never been a student.

 

George Iles (1852-1942), English writer

 

 

Real education should link us

with all other humans.

 

Nancy Astor (1879-1964), first British female MP

 

 

Education is when you read the small print.

Experience is what you get if you don’t.

 

Pete Seeger (1919- ), American folk singer, and songwriter

 

 

Education is what survives when

what has been learned has been forgotten.

 

B. F. Skinner (1904-1990), American psychologist, inventor, author,

philosopher, and poet, New Scientist, May 21, 1964

 

 

Listening is very cheap;

not listening could be very expensive!

 

Tom Brewer (1931- ), American baseball player

 

 

Live as if you were to die tomorrow.

Learn as if you were to live forever.

 

Mohandas Gandhi (1869-1948), pacifist & ideological leader of India

They know enough

who know how to learn.

 

Henry Adams (1838-1918), American writer, historian, and academic,

The Education of Henry Adams (1907), ch. 21

 

 

As long as I live, I will learn.

 

Sri Ramakrishna (1836-1886), Indian mystic

 

 

I was brought up to believe

that the only thing worth doing was

to add to the sum of true information in the world.

 

Margaret Mead (1901-1978), American cultural anthropologist

 

 

Wisdom is not tested in the schools.

Wisdom cannot be passed from one having it

to another not having it,

Wisdom is its own proof.

 

Walt Whitman (1819-1892), American poet, essayist and journalist

 

 

No one lights a candle

and puts it under a bowl.

 

Jesus, Matthew 5:15

 

 

Open a school, and close a prison.

 

Victor Hugo (1802-1885), French writer and statesman

 

People who can, do.

People who cannot, teach.

 

George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950), Man and Superman (1903)

 

 

Try not to let schooling

get in the way of your education.

 

Mark Twain (1835-1910), American author and humourist

 

 

Without education, we are in deadly danger

of taking educated people seriously.

 

G. K. Chesterton (1874-1936), English writer and Christian apologist

 

 

One day with a smart person

is equal to a whole life

with a stupid person.

 

Arabian proverb

Keep the old, but learn the new.

 

Chinese proverb

 

Knowledge is of two kinds.

We know a subject ourselves, or we know

where we can find information on it.

 

Samuel Johnson (1709-1784), English writer and lexicographer

 

 

 

38. Reading and Writing

 

 

The greatest university is a lot of books.

 

Thomas Carlyle (1795-1881), Scottish writer, historian, and teacher

 

 

Books are the quietest friends

and the most patient teachers.

 

Charles W. Eliot (1834-1926), American academic, The Happy Life

 

 

True power is held by the person

who owns the biggest book shelf,

not the biggest gun cabinet or the most money.

 

Anthony J. D’Angelo, American self-help author

 

 

A house without books

is a house without windows.

 

Thomas Mann (1875-1955), German writer and philanthropist

 

 

An empty book is like a baby’s soul,

in which