If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you
But make allowance for their doubting too,
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:
If you can dream--and not make dreams your master,
If you can think--and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools:
If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it all on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breath a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on!"
If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings--nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count with you, but none too much,
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And--which is more--you'll be a Man, my son!
- Rudyard Kipling
Never go out to meet trouble. If you will just sit still, nine cases out of ten someone will intercept it before it reaches you.
- Calvin Coolidge
Knowing others is intelligence; knowing yourself is true wisdom.
Mastering others is strength; mastering yourself is true power.
- Lao Tzu
Life is like a novel with the end ripped out.
- Rascal Flatts (in "Stand")
Cynics always say no. Saying yes leads to knowledge. So for as long as you have the strength to, say yes.
- Stephen Colbert
Whatever you do, don't wake up at 65 years old and think about what you should have done with your life.
- George Clooney, quoting his father
The reason why worry kills more people than work is that more people worry than work.
- Robert Frost
Much of life is not about getting answers.
It is identifying current questions.
Once you get the question right, the answers always come.
Moderation in all things.
- Buddha
The time to relax is when you don't have time for it.
- Syndey J. Harris
Much wisdom often goes with fewer words.
- Sophacles
Never try to tell everything you know. It may take too short a time.
- Norman Ford
Wisdom is the reward you get for a lifetime of listening when you'd have preferred to talk.
- Doug Larson
'Tis wisdom sometimes to seem a fool.
- Thomas Fuller
It is our responsibilities, not ourselves, that we should take seriously.
- Peter Ustinov
The trouble with facts is that there are so many of them.
- Samuel McChord Crothers
The greatest of faults, I should say, is to be conscious of none.
- Thomas Carlyle
If you tell the truth you only have to remember one story.
- Sister Lucille, Tim Russert's 7th grade teacher
Wise men don't need advice. Fools won't take it.
- Benjamin Franklin
Wisdom is oftentimes nearer when we stoop than when we soar.
- William Wadsworth
The truth is more important than the facts.
- Frank Lloyd Wright
You don't stop laughing because you grow old. You grow old because you stop laughing.
- Michael Pritchard
Wisdom is divided into two parts: (a) having a great deal to say, and (b) not saying it.
Be wiser than other people if you can; but do not tell them so.
- Lord Chesterfield in a Letter to his son
Life is a series of commas, not periods.
- Matthew McConaughey
You cannot stay on the summit forever; you have to come down again... So why bother in the first place? Just this: What is above knows what is below, but what is below does not know what is above. One climbs, one sees. Once descends, ones sees no longer but one has seen. There is an art of conducting oneself in the lower regions by the memory of what ones saw higher up. When one can longer see, one can at least know.
- Rene Daumal, Mount Analogue
Criticism is prejudice made plausible.
- HL Mencken
Remember who you are.
Remember who you represent.
Remember where you are from.
Remember where you are headed.
Strive to be more than "just average." Average is the best of the worst and the worst of the best.
- Jim Click, Sr.
Good judgement comes from experience. Experience comes from bad judgement.
Rights without power are unenforceable.
Power without rights is inexcusable.
- Grant M. Bright
People who matter do not judge and people who judge do not matter.
Wisdom is what's left after we've run out of personal opinions.
- Cullen Hightower
Great truths are sometimes so enveloping and exist in such plain view as to be invisible.
- E.O. Wilson
Learn from the mistakes of others. Life is too short to make them all yourself.
- Sam Levenson
Principles are the simplicity on the far side of complexity.
- Covey
Ride the horse in the direction that it's going.
- Werner Erhard
Wisdom is higher than a fool can reach.
- Phyllis Wheatly
Don't expect acorns to turn into redwoods.
- Jim Cathcart
This, too, shall pass.
- Wise men of the King of Siam, when asked for a proverb that would fit any occasion
Nothing ever becomes real till it is experienced - even a proverb is no proverb to you till your life has illustrated it.
- John Keats
May you live all the days of your life.
- Jonathan Swift
There are two things to aim at in life: first to get what you want; and after that, to enjoy it. Only the wisest of mankind achieve the second.
- Logan Pearsall Smith
The best way to get even is to forget...
Whoso diggeth a pit shall fall therein.
Feed your faith and your doubts will starve to death...
God wants spiritual fruit, not religious nuts...
Some folks wear their halos much too tight...
Some marriages are made in heaven, but they ALL have to be maintained on earth...
Sorrow looks back, worry looks around, and faith looks up...
Standing in the middle of the road is dangerous. You will get knocked down by the traffic from both ways.
Words are windows to the heart.
A skeptic is a person who when he sees the handwriting on the wall, claims it's a forgery.
It isn't difficult to make a mountain out of a molehill, just add a little dirt.
A successful marriage isn't finding the right person it's being the right person.
The mighty oak tree was once a little nut that held its ground.
Too many people offer God prayers, with claw marks all over them.
The tongue must be heavy indeed, because so few people can hold it.
To forgive is to set the prisoner free, and then discover the prisoner was you.
You have to wonder about humans, they think God is dead and Elvis is alive!
It's all right to sit on your pity pot every now and again. Just be sure to flush when you are done.
You'll notice that a turtle only makes progress when it sticks out its neck...
If the grass is greener on the other side of the fence, you can bet the water bill is higher.
You are richer today if you have laughed, given or forgiven.
We have met the enemy and he is us.
- Walt Kelly (in the cartoon strip "Pogo")
If it ain't broke, don't fix it.
- Bert Lantz
If there is light in the soul,
There will be beauty in the person.
If there is beauty in the person,
There will be harmony in the house.
If there is harmony in the house,
There will be order in the nation.
If there is order in the nation,
There will be peace in the world.
- Chinese Proverb
Meditation is thinking so hard that you feel it in your heart and see it clearly with your eyes of understanding.
Watch your thoughts, for they become words.
Choose your words, for they become actions.
Understand your actions, for they become habits.
Study your habits, for they will become your character.
Develop your character, for it becomes your destiny.
The beautiful thing about learning is nobody can take it away from you.
- B.B. King
| End of Quotes on "Words of Wisdom" |