"The expectations of life depend upon diligence; the mechanic that would perfect his work must first sharpen his tools."

Confucius on diligence
19 fans of this quote   

"Be noble minded! Our own heart, and not other men's opinions of us, forms our true honor."

Schiller, Johann Friedrich Von on self-respect
3 fans of this quote   

"You will always have to live with yourself, and it is to your best interest to see that you have good company -- a clean, pure, straight, honest, upright, generous, magnanimous companion."

Marden, Orison Swett on love
5 fans of this quote   

"Success is not forever and failure isn't fatal."

Shula, Don on success
6 fans of this quote   

"Every noble acquisition is attended with its risks; he who fears to encounter the one must not expect to obtain the other."

Metastasio, Pietro on risk
4 fans of this quote   

"Whenever the people are well informed, they can be trusted with their own government; that whenever things get so far wrong as to attract their notice, they may be relied on to set them to rights."

Jefferson, Thomas on government
4 fans of this quote   

"We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness"

Jefferson, Thomas on equality
7 fans of this quote   

"Enlighten the people generally, and tyranny and oppressions of body and mind will vanish like evil spirits at the dawn of day."

Jefferson, Thomas on education
5 fans of this quote   

"The world is indebted for all triumphs which have been gained by reason and humanity over error and oppression."

Jefferson, Thomas on debt   

"Honesty is the first chapter of the book of wisdom."

Jefferson, Thomas on honesty
10 fans of this quote   

"My reading of history convinces me that most bad government results from too much government."

Jefferson, Thomas on government
9 fans of this quote   

"That government is the strongest of which every man feels himself a part."

Jefferson, Thomas on government
3 fans of this quote   

"Experience demands that man is the only animal which devours his own kind, for I can apply no milder term to the general prey of the rich on the poor."

Jefferson, Thomas on greed
9 fans of this quote   

"Ignorance is preferable to error; and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing, than he who believes what is wrong."

Jefferson, Thomas on ignorance
3 fans of this quote   

"To compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical."

Jefferson, Thomas on opinions
3 fans of this quote   

"Nothing can stop the man with the right mental attitude from achieving his goal; nothing on earth can help the man with the wrong mental attitude."

Jefferson, Thomas on attitude
16 fans of this quote   

"I have never been able to conceive how any rational being could propose happiness to himself from the exercise of power over others."

Jefferson, Thomas on power
3 fans of this quote   

"No well-informed person ever imputed inconsistency to another for changing his mind."

Cicero, Marcus T. on consistency   

"A good friend who points out mistakes and imperfections and rebukes evil is to be respected as if he reveals a secret of hidden treasure."

Buddha on friends and friendship
18 fans of this quote   

"Talk not of wasted affection; affection never was wasted."

Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth on affection
11 fans of this quote   

"People must be taken as they are, and we should never try make them or ourselves better by quarreling with them."

Burke, Edmund on relationship
8 fans of this quote   

"Men of genius are often dull and inert in society; as the blazing meteor, when it descends to earth, is only a stone."

Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth on socializing and socialism
5 fans of this quote   

"Common Sense is very uncommon."

Greeley, Horace on common sense
3 fans of this quote   

"I tore myself away from the safe comfort of certainties through my love for truth; and truth rewarded me."

Warner, Sylvia Ashton on certainty
4 fans of this quote   

"Whenever men take the law into their own hands, the loser is the law. And when the law loses, freedom languishes."

Kennedy, Robert F. on law and lawyers
6 fans of this quote   

"We lie loudest when we lie to ourselves."

Hoffer, Eric on lies and lying
6 fans of this quote   

"In a time of drastic change it is the learners who inherit the future. The learned usually find themselves equipped to live in a world that no longer exists."

Hoffer, Eric on learning
5 fans of this quote   

"Kindness can become its own motive. We are made kind by being kind."

Hoffer, Eric on kindness
6 fans of this quote   

"Passionate hatred can give meaning and purpose to an empty life."

Hoffer, Eric on hatred
6 fans of this quote   

"Friendship Never explain -- your friends do not need it, and your enemies will not believe it anyway. A real friend never gets in your way, unless you happen to be on the way down. A friend is someone you can do nothing with and enjoy it. However much we guard ourselves against it, we tend to shape ourselves in the image others have of us. It is not so much the example of others we imitate, as the reflection of ourselves in their eyes and the echo of ourselves in their words."

Hoffer, Eric on friends and friendship
6 fans of this quote   

"It is by its promise of a sense of power that evil often attracts the weak."

Hoffer, Eric on evil   

"It is remarkable by how much a pinch of malice enhances the penetrating power of an idea or an opinion. Our ears, it seems, are wonderfully attuned to sneers and evil reports about our fellow men."

Hoffer, Eric on malice   

"Rudeness is a weak imitation of strength."

Hoffer, Eric on manners
6 fans of this quote   

"It still holds true that man is most uniquely human when he turns obstacles into opportunities."

Hoffer, Eric on opportunity   

"Propaganda does not deceive people; it merely helps them to deceive themselves."

Hoffer, Eric on propaganda
7 fans of this quote   

"We all have private ails. The troublemakers are they who need public cures for their private ails."

Hoffer, Eric on protest   

"We need not only a purpose in life to give meaning to our existence but also something to give meaning to our suffering. We need as much something to suffer for as something to live for."

Hoffer, Eric on purpose
3 fans of this quote   

"People who bite the hand that feeds them usually lick the boot that kicks them."

Hoffer, Eric on self-sabotage
5 fans of this quote   

"In every adversity there lies the seed of an equivalent advantage. In every defeat is a lesson showing you how to win the victory next time."

Collier, Robert on adversity
23 fans of this quote   

"The pre-human creature from which man evolved was unlike any other living thing in its malicious viciousness toward its own kind. Humanization was not a leap forward but a groping toward survival."

Hoffer, Eric on evolution