of Wisdom
 
"... I like them to talk nonsense. That`s man`s one privilege over all creation. Through error you come to the truth! I am a man because I err! You never reach any truth without making fourteen mistakes and very likely a hundred and fourteen. And a fine thing, too, in its way; but we can`t even makes mistakes on our own account! Talk nonsense, but talk your own nonsense, and I`ll kiss you for it. To go wrong in one own`s way is better than to go right in someone else`s. In the first case you are a man, in the second you`re no better than a bird. Truth won`t escape you, but life can be cramped. There have been examples. And what are we doing now? In science, development, thought, invention, ideals, aims, liberalism, judgement experience and everything, everythin, everything, we are still in the prepatory class at school. We prefer to live on other people`s ideas, it`s what we are used to!"
                                                                        -- Razumihin (Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Doestoevsky)

49. [The Power Of Goodness]
The wise have no mind-set.
They regard the people`s minds as their own.
They are good to people who are good.
They are also good to people who are not good.
This is the power of goodness.
They are honest to those who are honest.
They are also honest to those who are dishonest.
This is the power of honesty.
The wise live in the world peacefully and harmoniously.
The people share a common heart,
and the wise treat them as their own children.
                                                                    -- Lao Tzu

Do not believe in anything simply because you have heard it.
Do not believe in anything simply because it is spoken and rumored by many.
Do not believe in anything simply because it is found written in your religious books.
Do not believe in anything merely on the authority of your teachers and elders.
Do not believe in traditions because they have been handed down for many generations.
But after observation and analysis, when you find that anything agrees with reason and is conducive to the good and benefit of one and all, then accept it and live up to it.

                                                        -- Buddha
 
"I know that most men, including those at ease with problems of the greatest complexity, can seldom accept even the simplest and most obvious truth if it be such as would oblige them to admit the falsity of conlusions which they have delighted in explaining to colleages, which they have proudly taught to others, and which they have woven, thread by thread, into the fabric of their lives."
                                                                    -- Leo Tolstoy

"If one studies too zealously, one easily loses his pants."
                                                                    -- Albert Einstein

"The cold truth is that family dinners are more often than not an ordeal of nervous indigestion, preceded by hidden resentment and ennui and accompanied by psychosomatic jitters. The best way to guarantee smooth sailing at one of them is to assemble the relatives only when a will must be read. This at least presupposes good manners during the meal, if the lawyer is not scheduled to appear until after it".

        -- M.F.K. Fisher (An Alphabet for Gourmets)
 
"There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so."
       -- William Shakespeare
 
"Whether you think you can or think you can't - you are right."
                                                                             -- Henry Ford

           "Pay no attention to what the critics say; no statue has ever been erected to a critic."
                                                                             -- Jean Sibelius
 

"Knowledge is proud that she knows so much;
Wisdom is humble that she knows no more."
                                                                   -- Cowper
 
"Vision without action is a daydream. Action without vision is a nightmare."
                                                                             -- Japanese Proverb

"Think like a man of action, act like a man of thought."

                                                                            -- Henri Bergson

"The highest joy of man is creativity. No power, or wealth, or drugs can match that. There are three great sources of happiness in life: friends, love, and work. Take care of those three, and you can forget the rest. There is no cure for poverty of the spirit.

      -- Boris Strugatsky

"To recognize that you know when you do know and recognize that you do not know when you do not know: that is knowledge."

      -- Confucius

"The man of virtuous soul commands not, nor obeys."

      -- Percy Bysshe Shelley

"If you can conceive of morality without god, why can you not conceive of society without government?"

      -- Peter Saint-André

"Emancipate yourselves from mental slavery, none but ourselves can free our minds."

      -- Bob Marley
 
"They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.
      -- Ben Franklin
 
of Experience
 
"The way I see it, it doesn`t matter what you believe, just so long as you`re sincere."
                                                                                                        -- Charles Schulz

"Nothing in education is so astonishing as the amount of ignorance it accumulates in the form of inert facts."
                                                                                                        -- Henry Brooks Adams

                    "Anyone who eats thee meals a day should understand why cookbooks outsell sex books three to one."
                                                                                                                            -- L. M. Boyd

"I know how birds can fly, how fish can swim, how animals can run. Yet the runner may be trapped; the swimmer may be hooked; and the flyer may be shot by an arrow. But who knows how dragons ride on winds through clouds into heaven? Today I have seen Lao Tzu and can compare him only to a dragon."
    -- Confucious (on Lao Tzu)
 
"The only reason some people get lost in thought is because it's unfamiliar territory."
    -- Paul Fix
 
"Commit yourself to make a difference in the lives of others. Learn from the past and move on toward a brighter future. Forgive and love everyone. Have no time to criticize, condemn or complain. Do what you can. Do the best you can. Expect only the best. Settle for only the best."
            -- Lorrin L. Lee

"Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds."

                                                                                            -- Albert Einstein

"It all comes in the package,
Unlike a commodity.
I`m me.... unique.
And you don`t have to like me.
I`m serious. Everything I do
Is an assertion of what I am,
And if I bewilder you
It`s because I vary.
Nevertheless I`m a gift
offered with no conditions
To you. Since I damn well exist,
You do too."

                                 - Proposal for a Realistic Existentialism -- Milton Acorn


"Some men see things as they are and ask why. Others dream things that never were and ask why not.
                                                                                            -- George Bernard Shaw

"The world's greatest thinkers have often been amateurs; for high thinking is the outcome of fine and independent living, and for that a professional chair offers no special opportunities."

  -- Havelock Ellis

and then some...

"Aluminum siding is lighter and more durable than wood paneling. It’s also more durable than cotton, but it chaffs."

"Once the game is over, the king and the pawn go back in the same box"

"The best place to find a helping hand is at the end of your own arm."
 
 

Deep Thoughts - Jack Handey

"Contrary to what most people say, the most dangerous animal in the world is not the lion or the tiger or even the elephant. It's a shark riding on an elephant's back, just trampling and eating everything they see."

"If trees could scream, would we be so cavalier about cutting them down? We might, if they screamed all the time, for no good reason."

"I wish a robot would get elected president. That way, when he came to town, we could all take a shot at him and not feel too bad."

"When you're riding in a time machine way far into the future, don't stick your elbow out the window, or it'll turn into a fossil."

"Dad always thought laughter was the best medicine, which I guess is why several of us died of tuberculosis."

"Sometimes, when I drive across the desert in the middle of the night, with no other cars around, I start imagining: What if there were no civilization out there? No cities, no factories, no people? And then I think: No people or factories? Then who made this car? And this highway? And I get so confused I have to stick my head out the window into the driving rain - unless there's lightning, because I could get struck on the head by a bolt."