Deep Thoughts

I use a Random Quote plugin to generate the Smart Thoughts you see in the sidebar on this blog. Below is the entire list of those:?

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.

Neither a wise man nor a brave man lies down on the tracks of history to wait for the train of the future to run over him.

Patriotism is supporting your country all the time, and your government when it deserves it.

When you get into a tight place and everything goes against you, till it seems as though you could not hang on a minute longer, never give up then, for that is just the place and time that the tide will turn.

Life is without meaning. You bring the meaning to it. The meaning of life is whatever you ascribe it to be. Being alive is the meaning.

Criticism may not be agreeable, but it is necessary. It fulfils the same function as pain in the human body. It calls attention to an unhealthy state of things.

Let each man hear his own music and live by it. The drums roll one way for one man, and another way for another. You have to listen for your own.

The final test of a gentleman is his respect for those who can be of no possible service to him.

Prejudice is a burden that confuses the past, threatens the future and renders the present inaccessible.

There is a fountain of youth: it is your mind, your talents, the creativity you bring to your life and the lives of people you love. When you learn to tap this source, you will truly have defeated age.

Humility is not thinking less of yourself, it’s thinking of yourself less.

Truth is, I’ll never know all there is to know about you just as you will never know all there is to know about me. Humans are by nature too complicated to be understood fully. So, we can choose either to approach our fellow human beings with suspicion or to approach them with an open mind, a dash of optimism and a great deal of candour.

If you wish to succeed in life, make perseverance your bosom friend, experience your wise counselor, caution your elder brother, and hope your guardian genius.

Great leaders are almost always great simplifiers, who can cut through argument, debate and doubt, to offer a solution everybody can understand.

True friendship is a plant of slow growth and must undergo and withstand the shocks of adversity before it is entitled to the appellation.

Don’t dwell on what went wrong. Instead, focus on what to do next. Spend your energies on moving forward toward finding the answer.

Character is like a tree and reputation like a shadow. The shadow is what we think of it; the tree is the real thing.

I have never in my life envied a human being who led an easy life; I have envied a great many people who led difficult lives and led them well.

I have no right, by anything I do or say, to demean a human being in his own eyes. What matters is not what I think of him; it is what he thinks of himself. To undermine a man’s self-respect is a sin.

It is easy to hate and it is difficult to love. This is how the whole scheme of things works. All good things are difficult to achieve; and bad things are very easy to get.

Never respond to an angry person with a fiery comeback, even if he deserves it… Don’t allow his anger to become your anger.

At the end of the day, you are solely responsible for your success and your failure. And the sooner you realize that, you accept that, and integrate that into your work ethic, you will start being successful. As long as you blame others for the reason you aren’t where you want to be, you will always be a failure.

Confidence comes not from always being right but from not fearing to be wrong.

True friendship multiplies the good in life and divides its evils. Strive to have friends, for life without friends is like life on a desert island… to find one real friend in a lifetime is good fortune; to keep him is a blessing.

Your conscience is the measure of the honesty of your selfishness. Listen to it carefully.

Grief can take care if itself, but to get the full value of a joy you must have somebody to divide it with.

My mission in life is not merely to survive, but to thrive; and to do so with some passion, some compassion, some humor, and some style.

There is nothing wrong in change, if it is in the right direction. To improve is to change, so to be perfect is to have changed often.

Holding on to anger is like grasping a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else; you are the one who gets burned.

The secret to living well and longer is: eat half, walk double, laugh triple and love without measure.

Charity isn’t justice. Charity accepts the status quo. When we do charity, we give out of our affluence to help the poor; we don’t actually sacrifice our affluence to destroy the distinction between the rich and poor. We mustn’t settle for charity when justice is required.

Youth would be an ideal state if it came a little later in life.

The sage knows all goodbyes are temporary, the prophet knows happiness has nothing to do with what others say or do, and the mystic knows life is always fair even when circumstances are not.

A great many people think they are thinking when they are merely rearranging their prejudices.

The belief in a supernatural source of evil is not necessary; men alone are quite capable of every wickedness.

When true geniuses appear in the world, you may know them by this sign, that the dunces are all in confederacy against them.

To live content with small means–to seek elegance rather than luxury, and refinement rather than fashion, to be worthy, not respectable, and wealthy not rich–to study hard, think quietly, talk gently, act frankly, to listen to stars and birds, babes and sages, with open heart–to bear all cheerfully–do all bravely, await occasions–never hurry; in a word. to let the spiritual, unbidden and unconscious, grow up through the common. This is to be my symphony.

Half of the harm that is done in this world is due to people who want to feel important. They don’t mean to do harm. But the harm does not interest them.

The meaning of life is to find your gift. The purpose of life is to give it away.

Hope cannot be defeated finally because it belongs not to the whims of fate but to the common life pulsing through our veins Hope cannot be defeated finally by any present evil because hope is our heart’s commitment to the lives yet to be. Hope is not the naive assurance we will reach our stated goal, only that we will find our noble path.

One doesn’t have to operate with great malice to do great harm. The absence of empathy and understanding are sufficient.

Whatever is my right as a man is also the right of another; and it becomes my duty to guarantee as well as possess.