Eighty percent of success is showing up.
Woody Allen (b. 1935) American comedian, writer, director [b. Allan Steward Konigsberg]
Comment
Originally attributed to Allen by collaborator Marshall Brickman in Susan Brady, "He's Woody Allen's Not-So-Silent Partner," New York Times (21 Aug 1977) as "Showing up is 80 percent of life." On inquiry, Allen confirmed that he'd said the quotation above in a letter to William Safire (1989). More information here.
Quotations about:
engagement
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Proselytism is solemn nonsense, it makes no sense. We need to get to know each other, listen to each other and improve our knowledge of the world around us. Sometimes after a meeting I want to arrange another one because new ideas are born and I discover new needs. This is important: to get to know people, listen, expand the circle of ideas. The world is crisscrossed by roads that come closer together and move apart, but the important thing is that they lead towards the Good.
Francis I (b. 1936) Argentinian Catholic Pope (2013- ) [b. Jorge Mario Bergoglio]
“How the Church will change,” interview with Eugenio Scalfari, La Repubblica (1 Oct 2013) [tr. K. Wallace]
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We should have a glorious conflagration if all who cannot put fire into their works would only consent to put their works into the fire.
Charles Caleb "C. C." Colton (1780-1832) English cleric, writer, aphorist
Lacon: Or, Many Things in Few Words, Vol. 1, Preface (1820)
(Source)
Yet many men, being slaves to appetite and sleep, have passed through life untaught and untrained, like mere wayfarers. In these men we see, contrary to Nature’s intent, the body a source of pleasure, the soul a burden.
[Sed multi mortales dediti ventri atque somno, indocti incultique vitam sicuti peregrinantes transegere.]
Sallust (c. 86-35 BC) Roman historian and politician [Gaius Sallustius Crispus]
Bellum Catilinae [The War of Catiline; The Conspiracy of Catiline], ch. 2, sent. 8 [tr. Rolfe (1931)]
(Source)
Original Latin. Alt. trans.:
"Yet we see in the mass of life numbers addicted to sloth and the gratifications of appetite; men uneducated and uninformed, who have passed their time like incurious travellers, of whom it may be said, the organs of bodily sensation were their delight, and their minds were no better than a burden." [tr. Murphy (1807)]
"Yet many there are in the world who, abandoned to sloth and sensuality, without learning or politeness, pass their lives much like travellers; and who, in opposition to the design of nature, place their whole happiness in animal pleasure, looking on their minds as a heavy burden." [tr. Rose (1831)]
"But many men abandoned to their belly and sleep, untaught and uneducated, have spent their days like strangers, whose body in truth, contrary to nature, has been their happiness, their soul a burden." [Source (1841)]
"Yet many human beings, resigned to sensuality and indolence, uninstructed and unimproved, have passed through life like travelers in a strange country; to whom, certainly, contrary to the intention of nature, the body was a gratification, and the mind a burden." [tr. Watson (1867)]
"Many, however, the slaves of gluttony and sloth, without learning or cultivation, have passed through life as though it were a journey in a foreign land, and thus, in defiance of nature, have actually found their body a pleasure and their real vital powers a burden." [tr. Pollard (1882)]
"But many mortals, devoted to their stomachs and to sleep, have passed through life untaught and uncouth, like foreign travellers; and of course, contracy to nature, their bodies were a source of pleasure to them, their minds a burden." [tr. Woodman (2007)]
Books are good enough in their own way, but they are a mighty bloodless substitute for life.
Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-1894) Scottish essayist, novelist, poet
“An Apology for Idlers” (1881)
Society, my dear, is like salt water, good to swim in but hard to swallow.
Arthur Stringer (1874-1950) Canadian-American novelist, screenwriter, poet
The Silver Poppy, ch. 8, epigraph (1903)
(Source)
Good judgment in our dealings with others consists not in seeing through deceptions and evil intentions but in being able to waken the decency dormant in every person.
Eric Hoffer (1902-1983) American writer, philosopher, longshoreman
The Passionate State of Mind, Aphorism 141 (1955)
(Source)
Religions are kept alive by heresies, which are really sudden explosions of faith. Dead religions do not produce them.
Gerald Brenan (1894-1987) British writer and Hispanist [Edward FitzGerald Brenan]
Thoughts in a Dry Season (1978)
The hand of the people has given the mortal blow to a conspiracy, which, in other countries would have called for an appeal to armies; and has proved that government to be the strongest of which every man feels himself a part.
Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) American political philosopher, polymath, statesman, US President (1801-09)
Letter to H. D. Tiffin (2 Feb 1807)
(Source)
A crowd is not company; and faces are but a gallery of pictures; and talk but a tinkling cymbal, where there is no love.
Francis Bacon (1561-1626) English philosopher, scientist, author, statesman
“Of Friendship,” Essays, No. 27 (1625)
(Source)
The tactical result of an engagement forms the base for new strategic decisions because victory or defeat in a battle changes the situation to such a degree that no human acumen is able to see beyond the first battle. In this sense one should understand Napoleon’s saying: “I have never had a plan of operations.” Therefore no plan of operations extends with any certainty beyond the first contact with the main hostile force.
Helmuth von Moltke (1800-1891) Prussian soldier
“On Strategy” (1871)
Translated in Daniel J. Hughes, Harry Bell, Moltke on the Art of War: Selected Writings (1993).
Paraphrases / variants:
- "No plan survives contact with the enemy."
- "No battle plan ever survives contact with the enemy."
In good conversation, parties don’t speak to the words, but to the meanings of each other.
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) American essayist, lecturer, poet
“Social Aims,” lecture, Boston (1864-12-04), Letters and Social Aims (1875)
If a man be gracious and courteous to strangers, it shows he is a citizen of the world, and that his heart is no island cut off from other lands, but a continent that joins to them.
Francis Bacon (1561-1626) English philosopher, scientist, author, statesman
“Of Goodness, and Goodness of Nature,” Essays, No. 13 (1625)
(Source)
The Stoics could only advise the wise man to hold aloof from politics, keeping the unwritten law in his heart. But when Christ said: “Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and unto God the things that are God’s,” those words, spoken on His last visit to the Temple, three days before His death, gave to the civil power, under the protection of conscience, a sacredness it had never enjoyed, and bounds it had never acknowledged; and they were the repudiation of absolutism and the inauguration of freedom.
John Dalberg, Lord Acton (1834-1902) British historian
“The History of Freedom in Antiquity,” address to the Bridgenorth Institute (28 Feb 1877)
So then, I am simply in favor of intellectual hospitality — that is all. You come to me with a new idea. I invite you into the house. Let us see what you have. Let us talk it over. If I do not like your thought, I will bid it a polite “good day.” If I do like it, I will say: “Sit down; stay with me, and become a part of the intellectual wealth of my world.” That is all.
Robert Green Ingersoll (1833-1899) American lawyer, agnostic, orator
“The Limits of Toleration,” debate at the Nineteenth Century Club, New York (8 May 1888)
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When people put their ballots in the boxes, they are, by that act, inoculated against the feeling that the government is not theirs. They then accept, in some measure, that its errors are their errors, its aberrations their aberrations, that any revolt will be against them. It’s a remarkably shrewd and rather conservative arrangement when one thinks of it.
John Kenneth Galbraith (1908-2006) Canadian-American economist, diplomat, author
The Age of Uncertainty, ch. 12 (1977)
(Source)
So let us begin anew — remembering on both sides that civility is not a sign of weakness, and sincerity is always subject to proof. Let us never negotiate out of fear. But let us never fear to negotiate.
As a matter of fact, have you never noticed that most conversations are simply monologues delivered in the presence of a witness?
Margaret Millar (1915-1994) American-Canadian mystery and suspense writer
The Weak-Eyed Bat (1942)
(Source)
Often misattributed to Mark Twain, usually as "Most conversations are simply monologues delivered in the presence of witnesses."
More information on this quote's origins: Most Conversations Are Simply Monologues Delivered in the Presence of a Witness – Quote Investigator®
It is absurd to divide people into good and bad. People are either charming or tedious.
Oscar Wilde (1854-1900) Irish poet, wit, dramatist
Lady Windemere’s Fan, Act 1 [Lord Darlington] (1892)
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Good communication is stimulating as black coffee, and just as hard to sleep after.
Anne Morrow Lindbergh (1906-2001) American writer, pilot
Gift From the Sea, ch. 6 “Argonauta” (1955)
(Source)
Often misquoted as "is as stimulating" or "is just as stimulating as."
People living deeply have no fear of death.
But men must know, that in this theatre of man’s life it is reserved only for God and angels to be lookers on.
Francis Bacon (1561-1626) English philosopher, scientist, author, statesman
De Augmentis Scientiarum [Advancement of Learning], Book 2, ch. 20, sec. 8 (1605)