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Adams, John • Aristotle • Bacon, Francis • Bible • Bierce, Ambrose • Billings, Josh • Butcher, Jim • Chesterfield (Lord) • Chesterton, Gilbert Keith • Churchill, Winston • Cicero, Marcus Tullius • Einstein, Albert • Eisenhower, Dwight David • Emerson, Ralph Waldo • Franklin, Benjamin • Fuller, Thomas (1654) • Gaiman, Neil • Galbraith, John Kenneth • Gandhi, Mohandas • Hazlitt, William • Heinlein, Robert A. • Hoffer, Eric • Huxley, Aldous • Ingersoll, Robert Green • Jefferson, Thomas • Johnson, Lyndon • Johnson, Samuel • Kennedy, John F. • King, Martin Luther • La Rochefoucauld, Francois • Lewis, C.S. • Lincoln, Abraham • Mencken, H.L. • Orwell, George • Pratchett, Terry • Roosevelt, Eleanor • Roosevelt, Theodore • Russell, Bertrand • Seneca the Younger • Shakespeare, William • Shaw, George Bernard • Sophocles • Stevenson, Robert Louis • Twain, Mark • Wilde, Oscar- Only the 45 most quoted authors are shown above. Full author list.
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action age America beauty belief change character death democracy education ego error evil faith fear freedom future God government happiness history human nature humanity integrity leadership liberty life love morality perspective politics power pride progress reality religion science society success truth virtue war wealth wisdom writing- I've been adding topics since 2014, so not all quotes have been given one. Full topic list.
Popular Quotables
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- “The Triumph of Stupidity” (10 May 1933) (5,310)
- Nobel prize acceptance speech (10 Dec 1962) (4,927)
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Quotations about initiative
Note that not all quotations have been tagged, so the Search function may find additional quotations on this topic.
No sooner said than done — so acts your man of worth.
[Dictum factumque facit frux.]
Quintus Ennius (239-169 BC) Roman poet, writer
Fragment 315 [tr. Warmington]
(Source)
Quoted in Priscianus, Ars Prisciani, Book 6.
A life of reaction is a life of slavery, intellectually and spiritually. One must fight for a life of action, not reaction.
Rita Mae Brown (b. 1944) American author, playwright
(Attributed)
In case signals can neither be seen nor perfectly understood, no captain can do very wrong if he places his ship alongside that of an enemy.
Horatio Nelson (1758-1805) British admiral
Memorandum before the Battle of Trafalgar (9 Oct 1805)
(Source)
Action springs not from thought, but from a readiness for responsibility.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906-1945) German Lutheran pastor, theologian, martyr
Letter to Renate and Eberhard Bethge (1944)
(Source)
Alt. trans.: "It is not the thought but readiness to take responsibility that is the mainspring of action."
You cannot bring about prosperity by discouraging thrift.
You cannot help small men by tearing down big men.
You cannot strengthen the weak by weakening the strong.
You cannot lift the wage earner by pulling down the wage payer.
You cannot help the poor man by destroying the rich.
You cannot keep out of trouble by spending more than your income.
You cannot further the brotherhood of man by inciting class hatred.
You cannot establish security on borrowed money.
You cannot build character and courage by taking away men’s initiative and independence.
You cannot help men permanently by doing for them what they could and should do for themselves.William J. H. Boetcker (1873-1962) German-American religious leader, author, public speaker [William John Henry Boetcker]
“The Industrial Decalogue” (1916)
Often referred to as "The Ten Cannots," and also often misattributed to Abraham Lincoln.
To do exactly the opposite of something is also a form of imitation, namely an imitation of its opposite.
Georg C. Lichtenberg (1742-1799) German physicist, writer
Aphorisms, Notebook D, #96 [p. 604] (1773-75) [tr. Tester (2012)]
(Source)
Alternate translations:
- "To do just the opposite is also a form of imitation." [tr. Mautner and Hatfield]
- "To do the opposite of something is also a form of imitation, namely an imitation of its opposite." [tr. Hollingdale (1990)]
A person who has not done one half his day’s work by ten o’clock runs a chance of leaving the other half undone.
Emily Brontë (1818-1848) British novelist, poet [pseud. Ellis Bell]
Wuthering Heights, ch. 7 (1847) [Nelly]
(Source)
I prayed for freedom for twenty years, but received no answer until I prayed with my legs.
Frederick Douglass (1817-1895) American abolitionist, orator, writer
(Attributed)
Mentioned frequently as being part of his earlier speeches, but unsourced. Also found as "failed to see the slightest scintillation of an answer until I prayed with my legs."
Can anything be sadder than work left unfinished? Yes: work never begun.
Christina Rossetti (1830-1894) English poet
Time Flies: A Reading Diary, “January 5” (1886)
(Source)
I’ve always been in the right place at the right time. Of course, I steered myself there.
Bob Hope (1903-2003) American comedian, actor, humanitarian (b. Leslie Townes Hope)
In Merla Zellerbach, “Revealing Secrets of Their Success,” San Francisco Chronicle (11 Jul 1979)
A tower of nine storeys begins with a heap of earth.
The journey of a thousand li starts from where one stands.Lao-tzu (604?-531? BC) Chinese philosopher, poet [also Lao-tse, Laozi]
Tao-te Ching ch. 64 [tr. Wing-Tsit Chan]
Popularized in the west by John F. Kennedy, "A journey of a thousand miles must begin with a single step," announcing the atmospheric nuclear test ban treaty (26 Jul 1963).
I was too weak to defend, so I attacked.
Robert E. Lee (1807-1870) American military leader
(Attributed)
On his strategy at the Battle of Chancellorsville (1863).
A pound of pluck is worth a ton of luck.
James A. Garfield (1831-1881) US President (1881), lawyer, lay preacher, educator
“Elements of Success,” speech, Spencerian Business College, Washington, D.C. (29 Jul 1869)
(Source)
We are not powerless. We have tremendous potential for good or ill. How we choose to use that power is up to us; but first we must choose to use it. We’re told every day, “You can’t change the world.” But the world is changing every day. Only question is … who’s doing it? You or somebody else?
J. Michael (Joe) Straczynski (b. 1954) American screenwriter, producer, author [a/k/a "JMS"]
rec.arts.sf.tv.babylon5.moderated, “At The Midpoint (Spoilers for everything)” (7 Apr 1995)
(Source)
The man who can make up his mind quick, makes up other people’s minds for them. Decision is a sharp knife that cuts clear and straight and lays bare the fat and the lean; indecision is a dull one that hacks and tears and leaves ragged edges behind it.
George Horace Lorimer (1867-1937) American journalist, author, magazine editor
Letters from a Self-Made Merchant to His Son (1901)
