There are some things which cannot
be learned quickly, and time, which is all we have,
must be paid heavily for their acquiring.
They are the very simplest things,
and because it takes a man’s life to know them
the little new that each man gets from life
is very costly and the only heritage he has to leave.
- Ernest Hemingway
(From A. E. Hotchner, Papa Hemingway, Random House, NY, 1966)

If we concentrate our attention on trying to solve a problem of geometry, and if at the end of an hour we are no nearer to doing so than at the beginning, we have nevertheless been making progress each minute of that hour in another more mysterious dimension. Without knowing or feeling it, this apparent barren affort has brought more light into the soul.
- Simone Weil

We see things not as they are, but as we are.
- The Talmud

In any moment of decision the best thing you can do is the right thing, the next best thing is the wrong thing, and the worst thing you can do is nothing.
- Theodore Roosevelt

Those born with a talent which is meant to be used find their greatest joy in using it.
- Johann von Goethe

The scientist does not study nature because it is useful;
he studies it because he delights in it,
and he delights in it because it is beautiful.
If nature were not beautiful,
it would not be worth knowing,
and if nature were not worth knowing,
life would not be worth living.
- Henri Poincaré

A noble man compares and estimates himself by an idea which is higher than himself; and a mean man, by one lower than himself. The one produces aspiration; the other ambition, which is the way in which a vulgar man aspires.
- Joseph Conrad

The opposite of a correct statement is a false statement. But the opposite of a profound truth may well be another profound truth.
- Niels Bohr

What some people mistake for the high cost of living is really the cost of high living.
- Doug Larson

Philosophy is a battle against the bewitchment of our intelligence by means of language.
- Ludwig Wittgenstein

Life is a foreign language; all men mispronounce it.
- Christopher Morley

Believe that none of the effort you put into coming closer to God is ever wasted – even if in the end you don’t achieve what you are striving for.
- Rebbe Nachman of Breslov

Too many people spend money they haven’t earned to buy things they don’t want to impress people they don’t like.
- Will Rogers

To exist is to change, to change is to mature, to mature is to go on creating oneself endlessly.
- Henri Bergson

What we have done for ourselves alone dies with us; what we have done for others and the world remains and is immortal.
- Albert Pike

Perhaps all the dragons of our lives are princesses who are only waiting to see us once beautiful and brave.
- Rainer Maria Rilke

The ultimate test of a man’s conscience may be his willingness to sacrifice something today for future generations whose words of thanks will not be heard.
- Gaylord Nelson

Most men pursue pleasure with such breathless haste that they hurry past it.
- Soren Kierkegaard

Finish each day and be done with it.
You have done what you could;
some blunders and absurdities have crept in;
forget them as soon as you can.
Tomorrow is a new day;
you shall begin it serenely and with too high a spirit
to be encumbered with your old nonsense.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

We cannot hold a torch to light another person’s path without brightening our own.
- Ben Sweetland

Marriage is an alliance entered into by a man who can’t sleep with the window shut and a woman who can’t sleep with the window open.
- George Bernard Shaw

If you think education is expensive, try ignorance.
- Derek Bok

Most folks are about as happy as they make up their minds to be.
- Abraham Lincoln

When you come to the end of all the light you know,
and it’s time to step into the darkness of the unknown,
faith is knowing that one of two things shall happen:
Either you will be given something solid to stand on
or you will be taught to fly.
- Edward Teller

Our dilemma is that we hate change and love it at the same time; what we really want is for things to remain the same but get better.
- Sydney J. Harris

Whatever you can do, or dream you can do, begin it. Boldness has genius and power and magic in it.
- Johann Goethe
(John Anster’s translation of Faust)

It is impossible to enjoy idling thoroughly unless one has plenty of work to do.
- Jerome K. Jerome

Every society honors its live conformists and its dead troublemakers.
- Mignon McLaughlin

You can easily judge the character of a man by how he treats those who can do nothing for him.
- James D. Miles

In our thinking...we attribute to this concept of the bodily object a significance, which is to high degree independent of the sense impression which originally gives rise to it. This is what we mean when we attribute to the bodily object ”a real existence.” ...By means of such concepts and mental relations between them, we are able to orient ourselves in the labyrinth of sense impressions. These notions and relations...appear to us as stronger and more unalterable than the individual sense experience itself, the character of which as anything other than the result of an illusion or hallucination is never completely guaranteed.
-Albert Einstein

The quality of a man’s life is in direct proportion to his commitment to excellence, regardless of his chosen field of endeavor.
- Vince Lombardi

Praise and blame, gain and loss, pleasure and sorrow come and go like the wind. To be happy, rest like a giant tree in the midst of them all.
- Buddha

May the road rise up to meet you. May the wind be always at your back. The rain falls soft upon your fields. And until we meet again, May God hold you in the Palm of His hand.
- An Irish blessing for journey

If you yourself are at peace, then there is at least some peace in the world.
- Thomas Merton

To be without some of the things you want is an indispensable part of happiness.
- Bertrand Russell

If a dog barks his head off in the forest and no human hears him, is he still a bad dog?
- Anonymous

The right time to show your good character is when you are pestered by somebody weaker than you.
- Buddha

The world of knowledge takes a crazy turn
When teachers themselves are taught to learn.
- Bertolt Brecht (1898-1956), German playwright, poet.

I am always doing things I can’t do, that’s how I get to do them.
- Pablo Picasso

This above all: to thine own self be true. And it must follow, as the night the day, Thou canst not then be false to any man.
- William Shakespeare

If the world is cold make it your business to build fires.
- Horace Traubel

Self-discipline is when your conscience tells you to do something and you don’t talk back.
- W.K. Hope

Think you can, think you can’t; either way, you’ll be right.
- Henry Ford

I have found that if you love life, life will love you back.
- Arthur Rubenstein

Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man’s character, give him power.
- Abraham Lincoln

Your work is to discover your work and then, with all your heart, to give yourself to it.
- Buddha

Strive to realize a state of inward happiness, independent of circumstances.
- J.P. Greaves

It’s important the people should know what you stand for.
It’s equally important that they know what you won’t stand for.
- Mary H. Waldrip

I am a great believer in luck. The harder I work the more of it I seem to have.
- Coleman Cox

We have no more right to consume happiness without producing it than to consume wealth without producing it.
- George Bernard Shaw

Anxiety does not empty tomorrow of its sorrows,
but only empties today of its strength.
- Charles Spurgeon

Patience is also a form of action.
- Auguste Rodin

When one door of happiness closes, another opens; but often we look so long at the closed door that we do not see the one which has opened for us.
- Helen Keller

One day in retrospect the years of struggle will strike you as the most beautiful.
- Sigmund Freud

I keep six honest serving men
(They taught me all I know)
Their names are What and Why and When
And How and Where and Who
- Rudyard Kipling, in Just So Stories

Technology is dominated by two types of people: those who understand what they do not manage, and those who manage what they do not understand.
- Putt’s Law

For a list of all the ways technology has failed to improve the quality of life, please press three.
- Alice Kahn

The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new discoveries, is not ’Eureka!’ (I found it!) but ’That’s funny ...’
- Isaac Asimov

We must not forget that when radium was discovered no one knew that it would prove useful in hospitals. The work was one of pure science. And this is a proof that scientific work must not be considered from the point of view of the direct usefulness of it. It must be done for itself, for the beauty of science, and then there is always the chance that a scientific discovery may become like the radium a benefit for humanity.
- Marie Curie

I believe that a scientist looking at nonscientific problems is just as dumb as the next guy.
- Richard Feynman

To be what we are, and to become what we are capable of becoming, is the only end in life.
- Baruch Spinoza

The greatest use of life is to spend it for something that will outlast it.
- William James

What the world really needs is more love and less paperwork.
- Pearl Bailey

You cannot do a kindness too soon, for you never know how soon it will be too late.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

Success is not the key to happiness. Happiness is the key to success. If you love what you are doing, you will be successful.
- Albert Schweitzer

Someone’s sitting in the shade today because someone planted a tree a long time ago.
- Warren Buffet

Watch your thoughts; they become words.
Watch your words; they become actions.
Watch your actions, they become habits.
Watch your habits, they become character.
Watch your character; it becomes your destiny.
- Frank Outlaw

Creativity is God’s gift to you. What you do with it is your gift to God.
- Bob Moawad

Maturity is the ability to do a job whether or not you are supervised, to carry money without spending it, and to bear an injustice without wanting to get even.
- Ann Landers

A desire to be in charge of our own lives, a need for control, is born in each of us. It is essential to our mental health, and our success, that we take control.
- Robert F. Bennett

Ability is what you’re capable of doing. Motivation determines what you do. Attitude determines how well you do it.
- Lee Holz

In the long run men hit only what they aim at. Therefore, though they should fail immediately, they had better aim at something high.
- Henry David Thoreau

1. The day Microsoft makes something that doesn’t suck is probably the day they start making vacuum cleaners.
2. Unix is user friendly - it’s just picky about it’s friends.
3. Documentation is like sex: when it is good, it is very, very good. And when it is bad, it is better than nothing.
- - Dick Brandon

I cannot give you the formula for success, but I can give you the formula for failure - try to please everybody.
- Herbert Bayard Swope

We act as though comfort and luxury were the chief requirements of life, when all that we need to make us really happy is something to be enthusiastic about.
- Charles Kingsley

When I die, I want to die like my grandfather–who died peacefully in his sleep. Not screaming like all the passengers in his car.
- Author Unknown

If a woman has to choose between catching a fly ball and saving an infant’s life, she will choose to save the infant’s life without even considering if there’s a man on base.
- Dave Barry

If it’s a good idea, go ahead and do it. It is much easier to apologize than it is to get permission.
- Grace Murray Hopper

A rock pile ceases to be a rock pile the moment a single man contemplates it, bearing within him the image of a cathedral.
- Antoine de Saint-Exupery

Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.
- Thomas Edison

I have always believed that whatever good or bad fortune may come our way we can always give it meaning and transform it into something of value.
- Hermann Hesse

Truth, like gold, is to be obtained not by its growth, but by washing away from it all that is not gold.
- Leo Tolstoy

If you do not change direction, you may end up where you are heading.
- Lao Tzu

The best thing for being sad is to learn something. That is the only thing that never fails. You may grow old and trembling in your anatomies, you may lie awake at night listening to the disorder of your veins, you may miss your only love, you may see the world about you devastated by evil lunatics, or know your honor trampled in the sewers of baser minds. There is only one thing for it then to learn. Learn why the world wags and what wags it. That is the only thing which the mind can never exhaust, never alienate, never be tortured by, never fear or distrust, and never dream of regretting.
- T. H. White, in The Once and Future King

It is an important thing, in our never-ending pursuit of happiness, to stop and just be happy for a while.
- Mark Twain

Education is what survives when what has been learnt has been forgotten.
- B. F. Skinner

The advantage is that mathematics is a field in which one’s blunders tend to show very clearly and can be corrected or erased with a stroke of the pencil. It is a field which has often been compared with chess, but differs from the latter in that it is only one’s best moments that count and not one’s worst. A single inattention may lose a chess game, whereas a single successful approach to a problem, among many which have been relegated to the wastebasket, will make a mathematician’s reputation.
- Norbert Wiener, in Ex-Prodigy: My Childhood and Youth

Wir müssen wissen. Wir werden wissen.
- David Hilbert [Engraved on his tombstone in Göttingen]

What we hope ever to do with ease we may learn first to do with diligence.
- Samuel Johnson

Rigour is to the mathematician what morality is to men.
- Andre Weil

Science is a differential equation. Religion is a boundary condition.
- Alan Turing

The way is long if one follows precepts, but short... if one follows patterns.
- Lucius Annaeus Seneca

Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have found out the exact measure of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them.
- Frederick Douglass

Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known.
- Carl Sagan

Principles for the Development of a Complete Mind: Study the science of art. Study the art of science. Develop your senses - especially learn how to see. Realise that everything connects to everything else.
- Leonardo DaVinci

Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high
Where knowledge is free
Where the world has not been broken up into fragments
By narrow domestic walls
Where the words come out
From the depth of truth
Where the tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection
Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way into the dreary desert sand of dead habit
Where the mind is led forward by thee
In ever widening thought and action
Into that heaven of freedom, my father
Let my country awake.
- Rabindranath Tagore (from Gitanjali- a book of poems)

Everything is vague to a degree you do not realize till you have tried to make it precise.
- Bertrand Russell

The belief in an external world independent of the perceiving subject is the basis of all natural science. Since, however, sense perception only gives information of this external world or of ”physical reality” indirectly, we can only grasp the latter by speculative means. It follows from this that our notions of physical reality can never be final. We must always be ready to change these notions - that is to say, the axiomatic basis of physics - in order to do justice to perceived facts in the most perfect way logically.
-Albert Einstein

I love you when you bow in your mosque, kneel in your temple, pray in your church. For you and I are sons of one religion, and it is the spirit.
-Kahlil Gibran

The earth is but one country, and mankind its citizens.
- Baha’u’llah

For every complicated problem there is a solution that is simple, direct, understandable, and wrong.
- H. L. Mencken

If people do not believe that mathematics is simple, it is only because they do not realize how complicated life is.
- John Louis von Neumann

I have come here to chew bubblegum and kick ass... and I’m all out of bubblegum.
- Nada, in “They Live”, a 1988 film written and directed by John Carpenter.

Who is the Judge?
God is the Judge.
Why is the he God?
He decides who wins and loses, not my opponent.
Who is your opponent?
He does not exist.
Why does your opponent not exist?
He is a mere dissenting voice against the truth I speak.
- Nelson Tolson, in “The Great Debaters,” a 2007 film written by Suzan-Lori Parks and Robert Eisele

In mathematics we do not appeal to authority, but rather you are responsible for what you believe.
- Richard Hamming, American Math Monthly, vol 105 no 7.

I am always doing things I can’t do, that’s how I get to do them.
- Pablo Picasso, Spanish Cubist painter (1881 - 1973)

Inspiration does exist, but it must find you working.
- Pablo Picasso

There is no abstract art. You must always start with something. Afterward you can remove all traces of reality.
- Pablo Picasso, Spanish Cubist painter (1881 - 1973)

To the complaint, ’There are no people in these photographs,’ I respond, There are always two people: the photographer and the viewer.
- Ansel Adams US nature photographer (1902 - 1984)

Abstract art places a new world, which on the surface has nothing to do with ’reality,’ next to the ’real’ world.
- Wassily Kandinsky

The more abstract is form, the more clear and direct its appeal.
- Wassily Kandinsky

The artist must have something to say, for mastery over form is not his goal but rather the adapting of form to its inner meaning.
- Wassily Kandinsky

Of all the arts, abstract painting is the most difficult. It demands that you know how to draw well, that you have a heightened sensitivity for composition and for colors, and that you be a true poet. This last is essential.
- Wassily Kandinsky

I am always doing that which I can not do, in order that I may learn how to do it.
- Pablo Picasso Spanish Cubist painter (1881 - 1973)

Color is the keyboard, the eyes are the harmonies, the soul is the piano with many strings. The artist is the hand that plays, touching one key or another, to cause vibrations in the soul.
-Wassily Kandinsky

Let the first act of every morning be to make the following resolve for the day:

• I shall not fear anyone on Earth.
• I shall fear only God.
• I shall not bear ill will toward anyone.
• I shall not submit to injustice from anyone.
• I shall conquer untruth by truth. And in resisting untruth, I shall put up with all suffering.

- Mahatma Gandhi

Beware of dissipating your powers; strive constantly to concentrate them. Genius thinks it can do whatever it sees others doing, but is sure to repent of every ill-judged outlay.
- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

It is important to recognize the power of our emotions–and to take responsibility for them by creating a light and positive atmosphere around ourselves. This attitude of joy that we create helps alleviate states of hopelessness, loneliness, and despair. Our relationships with others thus naturally improve, and little by little the whole of society becomes more positive and balanced.
- Tarthang Tulku

One side will make you grow taller, and the other side will make you grow shorter.
- Lewis Carrol

How can you come to know yourself? Never by thinking, always by doing. Try to do your duty, and you’ll know right away what you amount to.
- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

When once your point of view is changed, the very thing which was so damning becomes a clue to the truth.
- Sherlock Holmes

Always and never are two words you should always remember never to use.
- Wendell Johnson

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.
- Albert Einstein

The highest activity a human being can attain is learning for understanding, because to understand is to be free.
- Baruch Spinoza

I call him free who is led solely by reason.
- Baruch Spinoza

Whatsoever is, is in God, and without God nothing can be, or be conceived.
- Baruch Spinoza

God is the indwelling and not the transient cause of all things.
- Baruch Spinoza

He who finds a thought that enables him to obtain a slightly deeper glimpse into the eternal secrets of nature has been given great grace.
- Albert Einstein

A University should be a place of light, of liberty, and of learning.
- Benjamin Disraeli

I have brought myself, by long meditation, to the conviction that a human being with a settled purpose must accomplish it, and that nothing can resist a will which will stake even existence upon its fulfillment.
- Benjamin Disraeli

Justice is truth in action.
- Benjamin Disraeli

Where knowledge ends, religion begins.
- Benjamin Disraeli

All I have seen teaches me to trust the creator for all I have not seen.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

Bad times have a scientific value. These are occasions a good learner would not miss.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

Character is higher than intellect. A great soul will be strong to live as well as think.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

Treat a man as he appears to be, and you make him worse. But treat a man as if he were what he potentially could be, and you make him what he should be.
- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Pure mathematics is, in its way, the poetry of logical ideas. One seeks the most general ideas of operation which will bring together in simple, logical and unified form the largest possible circle of formal relationships. In this effort toward logical beauty spiritual formulas are discovered necessary for the deeper penetration into the laws of nature.
- Albert Einstein

Pursue some path, however narrow and crooked, in which you can walk with love and reverence.
- Henry David Thoreau

If any man wish to write in a clear style, let him be first clear in his thoughts; and if any would write in a noble style, let him first possess a noble soul.
- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Mathematics knows no races or geographic boundaries; for mathematics, the cultural world is one country.
-David Hilbert

We are shaped by our thoughts; we become what we think. When the mind is pure, joy follows like a shadow that never leaves.
- Buddha

Platitude: an idea (a) that is admitted to be true by everyone, and (b) that is not true.
- H. L. Mencken

The secret of health for both mind and body is not to mourn for the past, worry about the future, or anticipate troubles, but to live in the present moment wisely and earnestly.
- Buddha

Only the curious will learn, only the resolute overcome the obstacles to learning. The Quest quotient has always excited me more than the intelligence quotient.
- Eugene S. Wilson

Pure mathematics is, in its way, the poetry of logical ideas. One seeks the most general ideas of operation which will bring together in simple, logical and unified form the largest possible circle of formal relationships. In this effort toward logical beauty spiritual formulas are discovered necessary for the deeper penetration into the laws of nature.
- Albert Einstein

In a controversy the instant we feel anger we have already ceased striving for the truth, and have begun striving for ourselves.
- Buddha

Human beings can attain a worty and harmonious life only if they are able to rid themselves, within the limits of human nature, of striving to fulfill wishes of the material kind.
- Albert Einstein

The true value of a human being is determined primarily by the measure and the sense in which he has attained to liberation from the self.
- Albert Einstein (“The World As I See It”)

You can’t wait for inspiration. You have to go after it with a club.
- Jack London

Peace comes from within. Do not seek it without.
- Buddha

Even if you are on the right track, you will get run over if you just sit there.
- Will Rogers

Turn your mind away from things which are not permanent.
- Buddha

You are now in control of your life. You see, the ego is never in control. The ego is controlled by wishes for comfort and convenience on the part of the body, by demands of the mind, and by outbursts of the emotions. But the higher nature controls the body and the mind and the emotions. I can say to my body, ”Lie down there on that cement floor and go to sleep,” and it obeys. I can say to my mind, ”Shut out everything else and concentrate on this job before you,” and it’s obedient. I can say to my emotions, ”Be still, even in the face of this terrible situation,” and they are still. It’s a different way of living. The philosopher Thoreau wrote: If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps he hears a different drummer. And now you are following a different drummer–the higher nature instead of the lower.
- Peace Pilgrim

It is even harder for the average ape to believe that he has descended from man.
- H.L. Mencken

A professor must have a theory as a dog must have fleas.
- H. L. Mencken

We shall not cease from exploration,
and the end of all our exploring
will be to arrive where we started,
and know the place for the first time.
- T. S. Eliot

What you are is what you have been.
What you’ll be is what you do now.
- Buddha

He who finds a thought that enables him to obtain a slightly deeper glimpse into the eternal secrets of nature has been given great grace.
- Albert Einstein

It is better to practice a little than to talk a lot.
- Muso Kokushi

Adopt the pace of nature; her secret is patience.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

Every person has a place to fill in the world and is important.
- Nathaniel Hawthorne

A society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade they know they shall never sit in.
- Greek Proverb

Humankind has not woven the web of life.
We are but one thread within it.
Whatever we do to the web we do to ourselves.
All things are bound together.
All things are connected.
- Chief Seattle.

We do not inherit the earth from our ancestors, we borrow it from our children.
- Native American Proverb

We cannot command Nature except by obeying her.
- Francis Bacon

Ars longa, vita brevis, occasio praeceps, experimentum periculosum, iudicium difficile (Life is short, [the] craft long, opportunity fleeting, experiment treacherous, judgment difficult.)
- Hippocrates (c. 400BC)

Excellence in any department can be attained only by the labor of a lifetime; it is not to be purchased at a lesser price.
- Samuel Johnson (1709-1784)

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.
- Albert Einstein

Does your mind wander when it wants to? Exercise discipline and control it, as a elephant keeper controls the elephant.
- Buddha

Each player must accept the cards life deals him or her: but once they are in hand, he or she alone must decide how to play the cards in order to win the game.
- Voltaire

We are what we think. All that we are arises with our thoughts. With our thoughts, we make the world.
- Buddha

the lyf so short, the craft so long to lerne
- Chaucer (1340-1400)

Every intellectual has a very special responsibility. He has the privilege and opportunity of studying. In return, he owes it to his fellow men (or ’to society’) to represent the results of his study as simply, clearly and modestly as he can. The worst thing that intellectuals can do – the cardinal sin – is to try to set themselves up as great prophets vis-a-vis their fellow men and to impress them with puzzling philosophies. Anyone who cannot speak simply and clearly should say nothing and continue to work until he can do so.
- Karl Popper

Activity conquers cold, but stillness conquers heat.
- Lao Tzu