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QUOTATIONS
BY TOPIC
change
| conflict | creativity
| crime |education | fame
| joy | leadership | logic
| love | meaning | money
| morality | starting
| sport | stress
BY PERSON
ballou
| beck | bonaparte | breslin
| brett | carnegie | charles
| chestnutt | cole | conrad
| corea | coyne | crowe
| cuban | darwin | descartes
| edison-I II | einstein-I
II | eliot | englebart
| exupery-I II | fitzgerald-I
II | fuller | gandhi
| gore | graham | grayson
| holmes | huxley | ibsen
| iggy-I II | james
| janzen | jarvik | jay-z
| keats | kempis-I II
| klosterman-I II
| knievel | lynd | manza
| marwell | marx | mcleod
| mill | mooneyham | morris-I
II | mozart | o'brien
| o'neill | palahniuk
| parker | phair | plautus
| prefontaine-I II
| rhee | ritter | rillke
| rousseau | rumsfeld
|shackleton | shakespeare
| sheehan | socrates
| spencer | stengel |
templeton | teresa |thompson
| tinley | twain-I II
III | valery | van
gogh | vonnegut | wallace
| warhol | whipple | white
| wilde | wirthlin | young-I
II III IV
V | zoroaster
CHANGE
- The battered
idealist. It's just my favorite character … To me, a hero is somebody
who is able to accept the environment of the world, deal with the stuff
that's thrown in their path … and somehow keep their heart. -Cameron
Crowe
- There are
two things to be considered with regard to any scheme. In the first
place, “is it good in itself?” In the second, “Can
it be easily put into practice?” -Jean Jacques Rousseau
- Problems
cannot be solved at the same level of awareness that created them. -Albert
Einstein
- Give up any
hypothesis, however much beloved … as soon as facts are shown
to be opposed to it. -Charles Darwin
- They say that
time changes things, but you actually have to change them yourself.
-Andy Warhol
- I arise in the morning torn between a desire to improve the world and
a desire to enjoy the world. This makes it hard to plan the day. - E.B.
White
- With the arrogance
of youth, I determined to do no less than to transform the world with
Beauty. If I have succeeded in some small way, if only in one small
corner of the world, amongst the men and women I love, then I shall
count myself blessed, and blessed, and blessed, and the work goes on.
-William Morris
- How many chairs
does it take to change a sociology department? Only one, but the department
has to really want to change. - Gary Marx
EDUCATION
- Keep away from
people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that,
but the really great make you feel that you, too, can become great.
-Mark Twain
- Time? What
time? Your problem isn’t managing time. Learn to manage your emotions
and you will be a success. –Gerald Marwell
- Do your homework
and know your business better than anyone. Otherwise, someone who knows
more and works harder will kick your ass. -Mark Cuban
- A balanced education
consists of knowledge in the mind, honesty in the heart, and strength
in the body ... a true human being is an educator not by words alone
but by being an example. –Jhoon Rhee
- The rate
at which a person can mature is directly proportional to the embarrassment
he can tolerate. -Douglas Engelbart
- The manuscript
is long, but the font is large. -Jeff Manza
CREATIVITY
- I was writing
the most boring, clever songs that had no real truth to them ... like
an "A" student with no guts. They were just kind of small,
annoying, clever, clever, clever, clever little songs. And to me, that's
like death … all craft, no gift. –Liz Phair
- It’s
bad to talk about one’s present work, for it spoils something
at the root of the creative act. It discharges the tension. -Norman
Mailer
- If you don't
live it, it won't come out of your horn. -Charlie Parker
- The excellence
of every art is its intensity, capable of making all disagreeables evaporate
from their being in close relationship with beauty and truth. -John
Keats
- You
don't have to keep the edge. The fuckin' edge is not kept, okay? The
edge comes and visits when the edge wants to, regardless of whether
you're sittin' on a fuckin' throne or a bed of nails. -Neil Young
- I
wrote that [Mr. Soul] on the floor in my little cabin. With a felt-tip
pen. On the floor on newspapers in the bathroom...writing on newspapers.
It's so easy and it looks so good. You write in black on top of it,
and it's hidden because of the black-and-white background. The words
can't come out and assert themselves that way. They lay in there, so
you're not intimidated by seein' them so clearly. -Neil Young
- I dream my
painting, and then I paint my dream. -Vincent van Gogh
- Thank him
for me, then shoot him and don't give him time to pray. -Mark Twain,
on his editor
- The nut of the
thing is that if what you make is hard like a diamond, you can put it
anywhere. You can put it up your *** and it will still be beautiful.
-Iggy Pop
- It's difficult
to think of rock artists who are great without being cool, since that's
precisely why we need them to exist. There have been countless bands
in rock history -- T.Rex, Jane's Addiction, the White Stripes, et al.
-- who I will always classify as "great," even though they're
really just spine-crushingly "cool." -Chuck Klosterman
- A designer
knows [s/]he has achieved perfection not when there is nothing left
to add, but when there is nothing left to take away. -Antoine de
Saint Exupery
- A
child-like man is not a man whose development has been arrested; on
the contrary, he is a man who has given himself a chance of continuing
to develop long after most adults have muffled themselves in the cocoon
of middle-aged habit and convention. -Aldous Huxley
STARTING A PROJECT
- It is a tremendous
act of violence to begin anything. I am not able to begin. I simply
skip what should be the beginning. -Rainer Rillke
- If you
want to build a ship, don't drum up the [wo]men to gather wood, divide
the work, and give orders. Instead, teach them to yearn for the vast
and endless sea. -Antoine de Saint Exupery
- Every day
we ought to review our purpose, saying to ourselves: This day let me
make a sound beginning, for what we have hitherto done is naught! -Thomas
Kempis
- There’s
time enough, but none to spare. -Charles Chestnutt
- Opportunity
is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks
like work. -Thomas Edison
- If a guy
hasn't got any gamble in him, he isn't worth a crap. -Evel Knievel
MORALITY AND HUMAN FRAILTY
- Most of us
follow our conscience as we follow a wheelbarrow. We push it in front
of us in the direction we want to go. -Billy Graham
- Acknowledgment
of our weakness is the first step toward repairing our loss. -Thomas
Kempis
- When dealing
with people, let us remember we are not dealing with creatures of logic.
We are dealing with creatures of emotion, creatures bustling with prejudices
and motivated by pride and vanity. –Dale Carnegie
- The greatest
way to live with honor in this world is to be what we pretend to be.
-Socrates
- Search others
for their virtue, and yourself for your vices. - R. Buckminster
Fuller
- We are what
we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be.
-Kurt Vonnegut
- The intellectualization
and aestheticizing of principles and values in this country is one of
the things that's gutted our generation. All the things that my parents
said to me, like "It's really important not to lie." OK, check,
got it. I nod at that but I don't really feel it. Until I get to be
about 30 and I realize that if I lie to you, I also can't trust you.
I feel that I'm in pain, I'm nervous, I'm lonely and I can't figure
out why. Then I realize, "Oh, perhaps the way to deal with this
is really not to lie." The idea that something so simple and, really,
so aesthetically uninteresting -- which for me meant you pass over it
for the interesting, complex stuff -- can actually be nourishing in
a way that arch, meta, ironic, pomo stuff can't, that seems to me to
be important. That seems to me like something our generation needs to
feel. -David Foster Wallace
JOY
- Let us celebrate
the occasion with wine and sweet words. -Plautus
- Tears of joy
are like the summer rain drops pierced by sunbeams. -Hosea Ballou
- It seems to
me we can never give up longing and wishing while we are thoroughly
alive. There are certain things we feel to be beautiful and good, and
we must hunger after them. How can we ever be satisfied without them
until our feelings are deadened?"-George Eliot
- It's very difficult
for me to dislike an artist. No matter what he's creating, the fact
that he's experiencing the joy of creation makes me feel like we're
in a brotherhood of some kind... we're in it together. -Chick Corea
- Courage
to me means ploughing through that dull gray mist that comes down on
life--not only overriding people and circumstances but overriding the
bleakness of living. A sort of insistence on the value of life and the
worth of transient things...My courage is faith--faith in the eternal
resilience of me--that joy'll come back, and hope and spontaneity. And
I feel that till it does, I've got to keep my lips shut and my chin
high, and my eyes wide -F. Scott Fitzgerald
FAME
- I never wanted
to be famous. I only wanted to be great. -Ray Charles
- Fame usually
comes to those who are thinking about something else. -Oliver Wendell
Holmes
- I find my
greatest pleasure, and so my reward, in the work that precedes what
the world calls success. -Thomas Edison
LEADERSHIP
- The secret
of managing is to keep the guys who hate you away from the guys who
are undecided. -Casey Stengel
- He lives
in fame that died in virtue's cause. -William Shakespeare
- Leaders are
visionaries with a poorly developed sense of fear and no concept of
the odds against them. -Robert Jarvik
- A community
is like a ship; everyone ought to be prepared to take the helm. -Henrik
Ibsen
- Wanted:
for hazardous journey. small wages, bitter cold, long months of complete
darkness, constant danger, safe return doubtful. honour and recognition
in case of success. -Sir Ernest Shackelton
CRIME
- The number
one rule of thieves is that there is nothing too small to steal. -Jimmy
Breslin
- The infectiousness
of crime is like that of the plague. -Napolean Bonaparte
MEANING
- To
discover to the world something which deeply concerns it, and of which
it was previously ignorant; to prove to it that it had been mistaken
on some vital point of temporal or spiritual interest, is as important
a service as a human being can render to his fellow creatures. -John
Stuart Mill
- If a person
is to get the meaning of life he must learn to like the facts about
himself -- ugly as they may seem to his sentimental vanity -- before
he can learn the truth behind the facts. And the truth is never ugly.
-Eugene O’Neill
- Life
is a continuous adjustment in internal relations to external relations.
-Herbert Spencer
- To give
anything less than your best is to sacrifice the gift. -Steve Prefontaine
- My whole generation's
mission is to kill the cliche...it's one of the reasons a lot of my
generation are always on the fence about things. They're afraid to commit
to anything for fear of seeming like a cliche. They're afraid to commit
to their lives because they see so much of the world as a cliche. -Beck
- Nihilism is
best done by professionals. -Iggy Pop
- Our generation
has had no great War, no Great Depression. Our war is spiritual. Our
depression is our lives. -Chuck Palahniuk
- [T]he
happiest people are those who make a conscious effort to live useful
lives. Their happiness, of course, is not a shallow exhilaration where
life is one continuous intoxicating party. Rather, their happiness is
a deep sense of inner peace that comes when they believe their lives
have meaning and that they are making a difference for good in the world
-Ernest Fitzgerald
- The universe
is built on a plan, the profound symmetry of which is somehow present
in the inner structure of our intellect. - Paul Valery
LOVE
- What else
is there to write about when you're 17? Love, dude. –Tyson
Ritter
- Kisses are
the remnants of paradise. -Joseph Conrad
- Love talked
about can be easily turned aside, but love demonstrated is irresistible.
–W. Stanley Mooneyham
- Neither a
lofty degree of intelligence nor imagination nor both together go to
the making of genius. Love, love, love, that is the soul of genius.
-Mozart
- We
should take care not to make the intellect our god; it has, of course,
powerful muscles, but no personality. –Albert Einstein
- Looking back,
I have this to regret, that too often when I loved, I did not say so.
-David Grayson
- We can do
no great things; only small things with great love. -Mother Teresa
STRESS
- A sufferer
of anxiety becomes regardless of enjoyment of the world and the spirit,
and contraction happens to his body and soul. -Zoroaster
- Cheerfulness
in most cheerful people is the rich and satisfying result of strenuous
discipline. -Edwin Whipple
- How easy it
is for a fantasy to grab hold of your foot like a rope, and dangle your
life upside down while brigands go through your pockets … Deal
with the life you’ve got. Solve the problems you have, rather
than fantasizing about a life without them. –Bill James
- I think it's
probably a good thing to be considered stable, but with a capacity for
madness. -Wayne Coyne
- If life gives
you lemons, make some kind of fruity juice. -Conan O'Brien
SPORT
- I run each
day to preserve the self I attained the day before and to secure the
self yet to be. –George Sheehan
- I like
to make something beautiful when I run … it's style. It's doing
something better than anyone else. It's being creative. -Steve Prefontaine
- Train hard,
eat light, and avoid television and people with bad attitudes. -Scott
Tinley
- I could have
played another year, but I would have been playing for the money, and
baseball deserves better than that. -George Brett
MONEY
- Principles
have no real force except when one is well fed. -Mark Twain
- Keep
it moving. Don't hoard. Money's no good, get rid of it. Turn it into
people doing things. Turn it into jobs. Turn it into happiness...The
more people I employ, the happier I am -- that means my money's goin'
into other people's lives, and if I can give 'em something to create
that they can be happy with, that's great. -Neil Young
- Outperforming
the majority of investors requires doing what they are not doing. Buying
when others have despaired, and selling when they are full of hope,
takes fortitude. -Sir John Templeton
- Success
results when preparation meets opportunity. –Joseph Wirthlin
(and Bass Fishing magazine…)
- The music
business is a cruel and shallow money trench, a long plastic hallway
where thieves and pimps run free, and good men die like dogs. There's
also a negative side. - Hunter S. Thompson
TECHNOLOGY
- Nobody
realized digital wasn't as good...The first time, "Hey -- no hiss,
wow, great!" You didn't realize there was no sound until a little
while later...It hurts. Did you ever go in a shower and turn it on and
have it come out tiny little ice cubes? That's the difference between
CDs and the real thing --water and ice. It's like gettin' hit with somethin'
instead of havin' it flow over ya. -Neil Young
- Have nothing
in your house that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful.
-William Morris
CONFLICT
- The weak can
never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong. -Mahatma
Gandhi
- Always forgive
your enemies, nothing annoys them so much. –Oscar Wilde
- No doubt there
are other important things in life besides conflict, but there are not
many other things so inevitably interesting. The very saints interest
us most when we think of them as enganged in a conflict with the Devil.
-Robert Lynd
- Whenever
anyone has offended me, I try to raise my soul so high that the offense
cannot reach it. -Rene Descartes
- Long, flat
expanses of professionalism bother me. I'd rather have a band that could
explode at any time. -Neil Young
LOGIC
- It’s
not a problem, unless it’s a problem. –Jane McLeod
- I’m not
sayin’, I’m just sayin'. -Dan Cole
- It
is what it is. –Al Gore, Jay-Z, Donald Rumsfeld…
- "It
is what it is" means what it means. -J. Daniel Janzen
- The
Rolling Stones are Gunsmoke. The Strokes are Kiefer Sutherland's 24.
Jimi Hendrix was The Twilight Zone. Devo was Fernwood 2-Night. Lynryd
Skynyrd was The Beverly Hillbillies, which makes Molly Hatchet Petticoat
Junction. The Black Crowes are That '70s Show. Hall & Oates were
Bosom Buddies. U2 is M*A*S*H (both got preachy at the end). Dokken was
Jason Bateman's short-lived sitcom It's Your Move. Eurythmics were Mork
& Mindy. -Chuck Klosterman
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