Self/Life/Attitudes
A great deal of good can
be done in the world if one is not too careful who gets the credit. -A Jesuit
Motto
A man is not old until
regrets take the place of dreams. - John Barrymore
A perfect summer day is
when the sun is shining, the breeze is blowing, the birds are singing, and the
lawn mower is broken. - James Dent in Charleston, W. Va., Gazette
A porch is the only real
reward you need after a long summer's day - Shawn Sell (in USA Today)
Ah, but a man's reach
should exceed his grasp, or what's a heaven for? - Robert Browning, Andrea
Del Sarto
All that is necessary
for the forces of evil to win in this world is for enough good men to do
nothing. - Edmund Burke
Any change, even a
change for the better, is always accompanied by drawbacks and discomforts. –
Arnold Bennett
Anything I've ever done
that was ultimately worthwhile...initially scared me to death. - Bette Bender
Anywhere I am is HERE.
Anywhere I am not is THERE? - Grover (Sesame Street Muppet)
Attack life, it's going
to kill you anyway. - Steven Coallier
Be an optimist... at
least until they start moving animals in pairs to Cape Kennedy.
Be careful what you
pretend to be because you are what you pretend to be. - Kurt Vonnegut
Believe me, every man
has his secret sorrows, which the world knows not; and oftimes we call a man
cold, when he is only sad. - Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Beware of the fury of
the patient man. - John Dryden
Care about people, not
their opinions of you. - Bruce Heckathorn
Do not regret growing
older. It is a privilege denied to many.
Do you have the
curiosity and courage to meet the rest of whom you are? - Steven Puerto
Don't ask me any
questions, because I just might tell you the truth.
Don't think of it as
being outnumbered, think of it as a wide target selection.
Enjoy... all the days of
this meaningless life... -- all your meaningless days. For this is your lot in
life and in your toilsome labor under the sun. Whatever your hand finds to do,
do it with all your might, for in the grave, where you are going, there is
neither working nor planning nor knowledge nor wisdom. - Ecclesiastes 9:9-10
Everything's important.
Either that or nothing is. I prefer the former. - Cantus the Minstrel, Fraggle
Rock
Expecting the world to
treat you fairly because you are good is like expecting the bull not to charge
because you are a vegetarian. - Dennis Wholey
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
Good friends, good books
and a sleepy conscience: this is the ideal life. - Mark Twain
Happiness is often the
result of being too busy to be miserable.
Has this world been so
kind to you that you should leave with regret? There are better things ahead
than any we leave behind. - C. S. Lewis
Have you reached a point
in your life when you think, 'This is the best I'm ever going to do, the best
I'm ever going to feel, the best I'm ever going to look" and it ain't that
great? - City Slickers
How would the child that
you were view the person you've become?
I believe in looking
reality straight in the eye and denying it. - Garrison Keilor
I cannot speak well
enough to be unintelligible. - Jane Austen
I don't have pet peeves;
I have major fucking psychotic hatreds, okay? And it makes the world a lot
easier to sort out. - George Carlin
I don't try to describe
the future. I try to prevent it. - Ray Bradbury
I get in the dumps at
times, and don't open my mouth for days on end. You must not think I am sulky
when I do that. Just let me alone, and I'll soon be right. - Sherlock Holmes to
Dr. Watson: A Study in Scarlet
I have faith in fools,
my friends call it self-confidence.
I have learnt silence
from the talkative, toleration from the intolerant, and kindness from the
unkind; yet strange, I am ungrateful to these teachers. – Kahlil Gibran
I love to see a young
girl go out and grab the world by the lapels. Life's a bitch. You've got to go
out and kick ass. - Maya Angelou
I may not have gone
where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I intended to be. –
Douglas Adams
I sit in my cubicle,
here on the motherworld. When I die, they will put my body in a box and dispose
of it in the cold ground. And in all the million ages to come, I will never
breathe or laugh or twitch again. So won't you run and play with me here among
the teeming mass of humanity? The universe has spared us this moment.
I wanted a perfect
ending. Now I've learned, the hard way, that some poems don't rhyme, and some
stories don't have a clear beginning, middle, and end. Life is about not
knowing, having to change, taking the moment and making the best of it, without
knowing what's going to happen next. - Gilda Radner
I wouldn't mind dying -
it's that business of having to stay dead that scares the shit out of me. - R.
Geis
I'd rather be thought of
as a lesbian than thought of as a bigot. - straight mom in a gay-rights group
I'm the kid who has this
habit of dreaming/ Sometimes gets me in trouble too/ But the truth is I could
no more stop dreaming/ Than I could make them all come true - Buddy Mondlock
I've never had a humble
opinion. If you've got an opinion, why be humble about it? - Joan Baez
I've suffered a great many
catastrophes in my life. Most of them never happened. - Mark Twain
If all else fails,
immortality can always be assured by spectacular error. - J.K. Galbraith
If I did not laugh, I
should die. - Abraham Lincoln
If I didn't define
myself for myself, I would be crunched into other people's fantasies for me and
eaten alive. - Audre Lorde
If I had my life to live
over I'd dare to make more mistakes next time. I'd relax, I would limber up. I
would be sillier than I have been this trip. I would take fewer things
seriously. I would take more chances. I would climb more mountains and swim
more rivers. I would eat more ice cream and less beans. I would perhaps have
more actual troubles, but I'd have fewer imaginary ones. - Nadine Stair
If we listened to our
intellect, we'd never have a love affair. We'd never have a friendship. We'd
never go into business, because we'd be cynical. Well, that's nonsense. You've
got to jump off cliffs all the time and build your wings on the way down. - Ray
Bradbury
If you always do what
interests you, then at least one person will be pleased. - Advice to Katharine
Hepburn from her mother
If you can spend a
perfectly useless afternoon in a perfectly useless manner, you have learned how
to live. - Lin Yutang
If you can't be content
with what you have received, be thankful for what you have escaped.
If you can't be kind, at
least have the decency to be vague.
If you don't care where
you are, you're not lost.
If you ever find
happiness by hunting for it, you will find it as the old woman did her lost
spectacles, safe on her own nose all the time. - Josh Billings
If you get to thinkin'
you're a person of some influence, try orderin' somebody else's dog around.
If you're not living on
the edge, you're taking up too much room.
It is better to regret
something you did, rather than to regret something you didn't do.
It is good to be without
vices, but it is not good to be without temptations. - Walter Bagehot
It's great to be young
and insane. - Michael Keaton in "Dream Team"
Kids don't say,
"Wait." They say, "Wait up, hey wait up!" Because when
you're little, your life is up. The future is up. Everything you want is up.
"Hold up. Shut up! Mum, I'll clean up. Let me stay up!" Parents, of
course, are just the opposite. Everything is down. "Just calm down. Slow
down. Come down here! Sit down. Put... that... down." - Jerry Seinfeld
Language has created the
word "loneliness" to express the pain of being alone, and the word
"solitude" to express the glory of being alone. - Paul Johannes
Tillich
Life is a rollercoaster.
Try to eat a light lunch. - David A. Schmaltz
Life is not lost by
dying; life is lost minute by minute, day by dragging day, in all the thousand
small uncaring ways. - Stephen Vincent Benét
Life isn't fair, but we
do try to make it equally unfair for everyone.
Live so that you
wouldn't mind selling your pet parrot to the town gossip. - Will Rogers
Live your own life, for
you will die your own death. - Latin proverb
Man is most nearly
himself when he achieves the seriousness of a child at play. - Heraclitus
May you live every day
of your life. – Jonathan Swift
Millions long for
immortality but do not know what to do with themselves on a rainy Sunday
afternoon. - Susan Ertz
Moderation in all
things? But this saying itself is immoderate. For example, who wants to have a
moderate orgasm?
My life has a superb
cast but I can't figure out the plot. - Ashleigh Brilliant
Never apologize for
showing feeling. When you do so you apologize for truth. - Benjamin Disraeli
No man knows his true
character until he has run out of gas, purchased something on the installment
plan and raised an adolescent. - Mercelene Cox
Normal is in the eye of
the beholder. - Whoopi Goldberg
Remember that the beauty
of any dream is in never letting it go.
Resolutions? ME?? Just
what are you implying? That I need to change?? Well, Buddy, as far as I'm
concerned, I'm perfect the way I am! For your information, I'm staying like
this, and everyone else can just get used to it! If people don't like me the
way I am, well, though beans! It's a free country! I don't need anyone's
permission to be the way I want! This is how I am - take it or leave it! By
golly, life's too darn short to waste time trying to please every meddlesome
moron who's got an idea how I ought to be! I don't need advice! Everyone can
just stay out of my face! - Bill Watterson, Calvin and Hobbes
Sanity is madness put to
good uses. - George Santayana
So in conclusion,
gentlemen, fuck you. - NY State Senator Allan K. Race (D), in a written
response to a racist group's letter.
Sometimes I go into my
own little world. But that's okay, they know me there. - Joel Hodgson
Such is life. It is no
cleaner than a kitchen; it reeks of a kitchen; and if you mean to cook your
dinner, you must expect to soil your hands. The real art is getting them clean
again. - Honore de Balzac
The act of putting pen
to paper encourages pause for thought, this in turn makes us think more deeply
about life, which helps us regain our equilibrium. - Norbet Platt
The aging process has
you firmly in its grasp if you never get the urge to throw a snowball. - Doug
Larson
The amount of
satisfaction you get from life depends largely on your own ingenuity,
self-sufficiency, and resourcefulness. People who wait around for life to
supply their satisfaction usually find boredom instead. - William Menninger
The best thing to give
to your enemy is forgiveness; to an opponent, tolerance; to a friend, your
heart; to your child, a good example; to a father, deference; to your mother,
conduct that will make her proud of you; to yourself, respect; to all men,
charity. - Francis Maitland Balfour
The Constitution only
gives people the right to pursue happiness. You have to catch it yourself. –
Ben Franklin
The future is no place
to place your better days. - Dave Matthews, "Cry Freedom"
The only difference
between graffiti & philosophy is the word fuck...
The pursuit of happiness
that once carried the weight of the American Revolution now seems frivolous and
has to wait. But joy is also a habit. Use it or lose it. And happiness is not a
banal smiley face to stick on an envelope. It's an option that we must exercise
or watch atrophy. - Ellen Goodman
The right to be heard
does not automatically include the right to be taken seriously. - Hubert H. Humphrey
The way the world
underestimates me will be my greatest weapon. - Calista Flockhart
There are many who dare
not kill themselves for fear of what the neighbours will say. - Cyril Connoly
There is no such thing in anyone's life as an unimportant day. - Alexander
Woollcott
There comes a time in
every man's life when he's consumed by the desire to spit on his palms, hoist
the black flag and start cutting throats. Henry Louis Mencken
To laugh often and love
much, to win the respect of intelligent persons and the affection of children;
to earn the approbation of honest critics; to appreciate beauty; to give of
one's self; to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived -
that is to have succeeded. - Harry Emerson Fosdick
Those who can laugh
without cause have either found the true meaning of happiness or have gone
stark raving mad. - Norm Papernick
Though no one can go
back and make a brand new start, anyone can start from now and make a brand new
ending. - Carl Bard
Three things are bad for
you. I can't remember the first two, but doughnuts are the third. - Bill
Petersen
True spirit is loving
life and not caring who knows or what they have to say about it. - J. Silgals
To the question whether
I am a pessimist or an optimist, I answer that my knowledge is pessimistic, but
my willing and hoping are optimistic. - Albert Schweitzer
We don't always get what
we want, we don't always get what we like, just as long as we don't get what we
deserve.
We don't read and write
poetry because it's cute. We read and write poetry because we are members of
the human race. And the human race is filled with passion. And medicine, law, business,
engineering, these are noble pursuits and necessary to sustain life. But
poetry, beauty, romance, love, these are what we stay alive for. - Robin
Williams in Dead Poet's Society
We're fools whether we
dance or not, so we might as well dance. - Japanese proverb
What would you attempt
to do if you knew you would not fail? - Dr. Robert Schuller
When all of your wishes
are granted, many of your dreams will be destroyed. - Marilyn Manson
When I was a young man,
I wanted to change the world. I found it was difficult to change the world, so
I tried to change my nation. When I found I couldn't change the nation, I began
to focus on my town. I couldn't change the town and as an older man, I tried to
change my family. Now, as an old man, I realize the only thing I can change is
myself, and suddenly I realize that if long ago I had changed myself, I could
have made an impact on my family. My family and I could have made an impact on
our town. Their impact could have changed the nation and I could indeed have changed
the world.
When one door closes
another door opens; but we often look so long and so regretfully upon the
closed door, that we do not see the ones which open for us. - Alexander Graham
Bell
When the situation is
desperate, it is too late to be serious. Be playful.
When you are not
accepting the unacceptable, please try to do it in the most loving way
possible. - Geoffrey Nickerson
Whoever said you can't
buy happiness forgot about little puppies. - Gene Hill
You, yourself, as much
as anybody in the entire universe, deserve your love and affection. – Buddha