180 Famous Quotations

1."Like a ten-speed bike, most of us have gears we do not use." -- Charles Schulz 2."Everyone must row with the oars he has." -- English proverb 3."When spider webs unite, they can tie up a lion." -- Ethiopian proverb 4."Reading is to the mind what exercise is to the body." -- Joseph Addison 5."You can't win unless you know how to lose." -- Kareem Abdul-Jabbar 6."You cannot shake hands with a clenched fist." -- Indira Gandhi 7."He that is good at making excuses is seldom good at anything else." -- Benjamin Franklin 8."Hold fast to dreams For if dreams die Life is a broken-winged bird That cannot fly." -- Langston Hughes 9."Don't worry about knowing people; just make yourself worth knowing." -- Unknown 10."If you have much, give your wealth. If you have little, give your heart." -- Arab proverb 11."An angry man opens his mouth and shuts his eyes." -- Cato the Elder 12."There is a great distance between said and done." -- Puerto Rican proverb 13."Beware of a wolf in sheep's clothing." -- Aesop 14."Make friends before you need them." -- Unknown 15."Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime." -- Chinese proverb 16."The way to be nothing is to do nothing." -- Nathaniel Howe 17."If you were another person, would you like to be a friend of yours?" -- Unknown 18."To speak kindly does not hurt the tongue." -- proverb 19."Man was made at the end of the week's work when God was tired." -- Mark Twain 20."Thinking is the hardest work there is, which is the probable reason why so few engage in it." -- Henry Ford 21."Don't judge a book by its cover." -- English proverb 22."The reason a dog has so many friends is that he wags his tail and not his tongue." -- Unknown 23."You will never have a friend if you must have one without faults." -- Unknown 24."If you fail to plan, you plan to fail." -- Unknown 25."You can encounter many defeats, but you must not be defeated." -- Maya Angelou 26."We haven't failed. We now know a thousand things that won't work, so we are much closer to finding what will." -- Thomas Edison 27."We must be authors of the history of our age." -- Madeleine Albright 28."You can't unscramble eggs." -- John Pierpont Morgan 29."A book is like a garden carried in a pocket." -- Chinese proverb 30."No individual has any right to come into the world and go out of it without leaving behind him distinct and legitimate reasons for having passed through it." -- George Washington Carver 31."We may all have come on different ships, but we're in the same boat now." -- Martin Luther King Jr. 32."Choose your socks by their color and your friends by their character. Choosing your socks by their character makes no sense. Choosing your friends by their color is unthinkable."-- Unknown

33."Genius is 1 percent inspiration, 99 percent perspiration." -- Thomas Edison 34."Each life is like a letter of the alphabet. Alone it can be meaningless. Or it can be part of a great meaning." -- Unknown 35."Your children need your presence more than your presents." -- Jesse Jackson 36."A friend who lies for you may also lie against you." -- Unknown 37."The price of your hat isn't the measure of your brain." -- African-American Saying 38."The wastebasket is a writer's best friend." -- Isaac Bashevis Singer 39."We are wiser than we know." -- Ralph Waldo Emerson 40."Friendship with oneself is all important because without it one cannot be friends with anyone else in the world." -- Eleanor Roosevelt 41."People don't get along because they fear each other. People fear each other because they don't know each other. They don't know each other because they have not properly communicated with each other." - Martin Luther King, Jr. 42."You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes. You can steer yourself any direction you choose. You're on your own. And you know what you know. And you are the guy Who'll decide where you go." -- Dr. Seuss, Oh, the Places You'll Go! 43."Sloth, like rust, consumes faster than labor wears, while the used key is always bright." -- Benjamin Franklin 44."He that flings dirt at another dirties himself most." -- Thomas Fuller 45."Be kind; everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle." -- John Watson 46."The trouble with life isn't that there is no answer, it's that there are so many answers." -- Ruth Benedict, anthropologist 47."The sleeping fox catches no poultry." -- Benjamin Franklin 48."A failure is a man who has blundered but is not able to cash in the experience." -- Elbert Hubbard 49."One machine can do the work of 50 ordinary men. No machine can do the work of one extraordinary man." Elbert Hubbard 50."Statistically 100 percent of the shots you don't take don't go in." -- Wayne Gretsky 51."If a man empties his purse into his head, no man can take it away from him. An investment in knowledge always pays the best interest." -- Benjamin Franklin 52."Life is like playing a violin solo in public and learning the instrument as one goes on." -- Samuel Butler 53."You can't build a reputation on what you are going to do." -- Henry Ford 54."This thing we call 'failure' is not the falling down but the staying down." -- Mary Pickford 55."If you're going to do good work, the work has to scare you." -- Andre Previn 56."We must be careful what we say. No bird resumes its egg." -- Emily Dickinson 57."Experience is a hard teacher because she gives the test first, the lesson afterwards." -- Vernon Saunders Law 58."For all of us today, the battle is in our hands. The road ahead is not altogether a smooth one. There are no broad highways to lead us easily and inevitably to quick solutions. We must keep going." -- Martin Luther King Jr.

59."Life is like a trumpet. If you don't put anything into it, you don't get anything out of it." -- W.C. Handy 60."To err is human, to forgive is divine." -- Alexander Pope 61."A true friend is someone who thinks that you are a good egg even though he knows that you are slightly cracked." -- Bernard Meltzer 62."Truth may be stretched but cannot be broken. It always gets above falsehood as oil does above water." -- Miguel de Cervantes 63."Each time a man stands up for an ideal or acts to improve the lot of others or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope and, crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring, those ripples build a current that can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance." -- Robert F. Kennedy 64."My opinion is that you never find happiness until you stop looking for it." -- Chuang-tzu 65."Make new friends, but keep the old. One is silver, the other gold." -- Anonymous 66."Not failure, but low aim, is crime." -- James Russell Lowell 67."Wherever you are, it is your own friends who make your world." -- William James 68."The art of being wise is the art of knowing what to overlook." -- William James 69."The main thing is to care. Care very hard, even if it is only a game you are playing." -- Billie Jean King 70."What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us." [set dash Unknown 71."Life is too short to be small." -- Benjamin Disraeli 72."The world is round and the place which may seem like the end may also be only the beginning." -Ivy Baker Priest 73."The older I get, the greater power I seem to have to help the world; I am like a snowball -- the further I am rolled the more I gain." -- Susan B. Anthony 74."The bird a nest, the spider a web, man friendship." -- William Blake 75."[I]t is a dangerous thing to ask why someone else has been given more. It is humbling -- and indeed healthy -- to ask why you have been given so much." -- Condoleeza Rice 76."You have to be true to yourself, but you have to be true to your best self, not to the self that secretly thinks you are better than other people." -- Stephen Gaskin 77."He who opens a school door, closes a prison." -- Victor Hugo 78."Even monkeys fall out of trees." -- Japanese proverb 79."To the uneducated, an A is just three sticks." -- A. A. Milne 80."Things turn out the best for people who make the best of the way things turn out." -- John Wooden 81."Children act in the village as they have learned at home." -- Swedish proverb 82."The more he cast away, the more he had." -- John Bunyan 83."Eyes of youth have sharp sight but commonly not so deep as those of elder age." -- Elizabeth I 84."Genius without education is like silver in the mine." -- Benjamin Franklin 85."If we were meant to talk more than listen, we would have two mouths and one ear." -- Mark Twain 86."The reason a lot of people do not recognize opportunity is because it usually goes around wearing overalls and looking like hard work." -- Thomas Edison 87."Read, read, read. Read everything -- trash, classics, good and bad, and see how they do it. Just like a carpenter who works as an apprentice and studies the master. Read! You'll absorb it. Then write." --

William Faulkner 88."Drawing on my fine command of the English language, I said nothing." -- Robert Benchley 89."Talent is like electricity -- we do not understand electricity. We use it." -- Maya Angelou 90."If a man write a better book, preach a better sermon, or make a better mousetrap, than his neighbor, though he build his house in the woods, the world will make a beaten path to his door." -- Ralph Waldo Emerson 91."There's a great power in words, if you don't hitch too many of them together." -- Josh Billings 92."He who will not economize will have to agonize." -- Confucius 93."Make the most of yourself, for that is all there is of you." -- Ralph Waldo Emerson 94."If you haven't got any charity in your heart, you have the worst kind of heart trouble." -- Bob Hope 95."The best way to cheer yourself up is to try to cheer somebody else up." -- Mark Twain 96."A long dispute means both parties are wrong." -- Voltaire 97."Behind every able man, there are always other able men." -- Chinese proverb 98."Talk does not cook rice." -- Chinese proverb 99."The unfortunate thing about this world is that the good habits are much easier to give up than the bad ones." -- W. Somerset Maugham 100."When you see a rattlesnake poised to strike, you do not wait until he has struck before you crush him." -- Franklin D. Roosevelt 101."Flattery is like cologne water, to be smelt of, not swallowed." -- Josh Billings 102."Have more than thou showest, speak less than thou knowest. -- William Shakespeare 103."A man of words and not of deeds Is like a garden full of weeds." -- Mother Goose 104."The best way I know of to win an argument is to start by being in the right." -- Lord Hailsham 105."Every man is the architect of his own fortune." -- Sallust 106."Some books are to be tasted; others swallowed; and some to be chewed and digested." -- Francis Bacon 107."When you have faults, do not fear to abandon them." -- Confucius 108."Speak when you are angry, and you will make the best speech that you will ever regret." -- Ambrose Bierce 109."So you see! There's no end To the things you might know, Depending how far beyond Zebra you go." -- Dr. Seuss, On Beyond Zebra 110."Every artist was first an amateur." -- Ralph Waldo Emerson 111."A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step." -- Lao-Tze 112."If you don't know where you want to go, any road will take you there." -- African-American proverb 113."A thousand friends are few; one enemy is too many." -- Russian proverb 114."Luck is a matter of preparation meeting opportunity." -- Oprah Winfrey 115."Great oaks from little acorns grow." -- Latin proverb 116."One reason I don't drink is that I want to know when I am having a good time." -- Nancy Astor 117."The foolish man seeks happiness in the distance; the wise man grows it under his feet." -- James Oppenheim 118."A happy heart is better than a full purse." -- Italian proverb 119."No one is useless in this world who lightens the burdens of others." -- Charles Dickens

120."When you clench your fist, no one can put anything in your hand." -- Alex Haley 121."A rich child often sits in a poor mother's lap." -- Spanish proverb 122."Appearances may be deceiving." -- Aesop 123."Anger is as a stone cast into a wasp's nest." -- Malabar proverb 124."Home is where one starts from." -- T.S. Eliot 125."I complained that I had no shoes until I met a man who had no feet." -- Persian proverb 126."I must say I find television very educational. The minute somebody turns it on, I go to the library and read a good book." -- Groucho Marx 127."Life can be understood only backwards, but it must be lived forwards." -- Soren Kierkegaard 128."Like snowflakes, the human pattern is never cast twice." -- Alice Childress 129."Many hands make light work." -- English proverb 130."Oh, what a tangled web we weave When first we practice to deceive!" -- Sir Walter Scott 131."Mercy to the criminal may be cruelty to the people." -- Arab proverb 132."My grandfather once told me that there were two kinds of people: those who do the work and those who take the credit. He told me to try to be in the first group; there was much less competition." -- Indira Gandhi 133."No one can make you feel inferior without your consent." -- Eleanor Roosevelt 134."What goes around comes around." -- African-American Saying 135."What its children become, that will the community become." -- Suzanne La Follette 136."Consider the postage stamp: Its usefulness consists in the ability to stick to one thing till it gets there." -- Josh Billings 137."What you do speaks so loud that I cannot hear what you say." -- Ralph Waldo Emerson 138."Nothing can be loved or hated unless it is first understood." -- Leonardo da Vinci 139."Time heals all wounds." -- Geoffrey Chaucer 140."Two heads are better than one." -- John Heywood 141."When I was a boy of 14, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. When I got to be 21, I was astonished at how much he had learned in seven years." -- Mark Twain 142."The Earth is given as a common for men to labor and live in." (Note: For students to understand this one, teachers might need to explain to students a little about the history of town commons, common lands set aside for the common use and enjoyment of all.) -- Thomas Jefferson 143."Happiness isn't something you experience; it's something you remember." -- Oscar Levant 144."To hate fatigues." -- Jean Rostand 145."Beware of little expenses; a small leak will sink a great ship." -- Benjamin Franklin 146."The educated differ from the uneducated as much as the living from the dead." -- Aristotle 147."There has never yet been a man in our history who led a life of ease whose name is worth remembering." Theodore Roosevelt 148."Our real enemies are the people who make us feel so good that we are slowly, but inexorably, pulled down into the quicksand of smugness and self-satisfaction." -- Sydney Harris 149."If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away." -- Henry David Thoreau 150."My advice to you is not to inquire why or whither, but just enjoy your ice cream while it's on your plate -- that's my philosophy." -- Thornton Wilder

151."The man who makes no mistakes does not usually make anything." -- Edward Phelps 152."One thorn of experience is worth a whole wilderness of warning." -- James Russell Lowell 153."The eye of the master will do more work than both his hands." -- Benjamin Franklin 154."Show me a thoroughly satisfied man and I will show you a failure." -- Thomas A. Edison 155."Avoid flatterers, for they are thieves in disguise." -- William Penn 156."Fortunes made in no time are like shirts made in no time; it's ten to one if they hang long together." - Douglas Jerrold 157."Friendship is one mind in two bodies." -- Mencius 158."Genius is an African who dreams up snow." -- Vladimir Nabokov 159."Even doubtful accusations leave a stain behind them." -- Thomas Fuller 160."While grief is fresh, every attempt to divert only irritates. You must wait till it be digested, and then amusement will dissipate the remains of it." -- Samuel Johnson 161."Every man is guilty of all the good he didn't do." -- Voltaire 162."The chains of habit are too weak to be felt until they are too strong to be broken." -- Samuel Johnson 163."No man is hurt but by himself." -- Diogenes 164."Be happy while you're living, for you're a long time dead." -- Scottish proverb 165."The heart of a fool is in his mouth, but the mouth of the wise man is in his heart." -- Benjamin Franklin 166."Nothing makes one feel so strong as a call for help." -- George MacDonald 167."It is better to deserve honors and not have them than to have them and not deserve them." -- Mark Twain 168."A misty morning does not signify a cloudy day." -- ancient proverb 169."Some of us are like wheelbarrows -- only useful when pushed and very easily upset." -- Jack Herbert 170."Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the universe." -Albert Einstein 171."Good humor is one of the best articles of dress one can wear in society." -- William Makepeace Thackeray 172."Most of the things worth doing in the world had been declared impossible before they were done." -Louis D. Brandeis 173."As long as I can conceive something better than myself, I cannot be easy unless I am striving to bring it into existence or clearing the way for it." -- George Bernard Shaw 174."While the mind is in doubt, it is driven this way and that by a slight impulse." -- Terence 175."It is better to wear out than to rust out." -- Richard Cumberland 176."When I'm not thanked at all, I'm thanked enough." -- Henry Fielding 177."To inherit property is not to be born -- it is to be still-born, rather. -- Henry David Thoreau 178."The injury we do and the one we suffer are not weighed in the same scale." -- Aesop 179."The only place success comes before work is in the dictionary." -- May Smith 180."Perfection never exists in reality, but only in our dreams." -- Dr. Rudolf Dreikurs