Change

In matters of change, the compass is more important than the clock
~ Abraham Lincoln

We must be the change we wish to see.
~Gandhi

Choices

Alice came to a fork in the road. “Which road do I take?” she asked.
“Where do you want to go?” responded the Cheshire cat.
“I don’t know,” Alice answered.
“Then,” said the cat, “it doesn’t matter.”
~Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
~Robert Frost, The Road not taken (1915)

Curiosity

The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing. One cannot help but be in awe when he contemplates the mysteries of eternity, of life, of the marvelous structure of reality. It is enough if one tries merely to comprehend a little of this mystery every day. Never lose a holy curiosity!
~ Albert Einstein

Seize the moment of excited curiosity on any subject to solve your doubts; for if you let it pass, the desire may never return, and you may remain in ignorance.
~ William Wirt

Destiny

Khudi ko kar buland itna ke har taqdeer se pehle
Khuda bande se khud pooche, bataa teri razaa kya hai?
Raise yourself to such great heights that before writing your fate
God asks you himself, tell me how should I write your destiny?
~Muhamed Iqbal

You create your own universe as you go along
~ Winston Churchill

Life isn’t about finding yourself
Life is about creating yourself
~ George Bernard Shaw

Hell is to drift, Heaven is to steer
~ George Bernard Shaw, Don Juan in Hell

Through chances various, through all vicissitudes we make our way…
~ Aeneid

When one door of happiness closes, another opens; but often we look so long at the closed door that we do not see the one that has been opened for us.
~Helen Keller

Diplomacy

The supreme act of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting
~ Sun Tzu, the Art of War 

Know your enemy, know yourself and you can fight a hundred battles without disaster
~ Sun Tzu, the Art of War  

Listen a 100 times. Ponder a 1000 times. Speak once.
~ unknown

Dreams

The greater danger for most of us is not that our aims are too high and we miss it, but that it is too low and we reach it.
~ Michelangelo

You want to set a goal that is big enough
that in the process of achieving it you become
someone worth becoming
~ Jim Rohn

Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far they can go
~ T.S. Eliot

Make sure your dreams are greater than your memories
~ Anonymous, found from Siegfried and Roy’s site

Excellence

The good is the enemy of the Best
~Anonymous

How you do anything is how you do everything
~Anonymous

We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, therefore, is not an act, but a habit.
~Aristotle

Finances

Honesty is the best policy - when there is money in it.
~Mark Twain

If you are willing to do more than you are paid,
eventually you will be paid to do more than you do.
~ anonymous

Forgiveness

The weak can never forgive.
Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong.
~ Mahatma Gandhi

For a bowl of water give a goodly mean;
For a kindly greeting bow thou down with zeal;
For a simple penny pay thou back with gold;
If thy life me rescued, life do not withhold;
Thus the words and actions of the wise regard;
Every little service tenfold they reward;
But the truly noble know all men as one,
And return with gladness good for every evil done.
~ Hindi sacred text

God

The real is one: wise men call it variously
~Rig Veda

Happiness

If you have a garden and a library, you have everything you need
~ Cicero

Happiness is self-contentedness
~ Aristotle

Knowledge

If I have seen further than others,
It is by standing on giant’s shoulders
~Issac Newton

What we know is trifling
What we not know is immense
~Pierre Simon de Laplace

I still do not have all the answers
But i’m beginning to ask the right questions
~Calvin and Hobbes Cartoon

What I cannot create, I do not understand.
~ Richard Feynman

I’m looking for a lot of men who have an infinite capacity
to not know what can’t be done
~ Henry Ford

The intellect has little to do on the road to discovery.
There comes a leap in consciousness call it intuition
or what you will, and the solution comes to you
and you don’t know how or why.
~ Albert Einstein.

Imagination is more important than knowledge
~Albert Einstein

We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time
~T. S. Eliot’s The 4 Quartets

Study and in general the pursuit of truth and beauty is a sphere of activity in which we are permitted to remain children all our lives
~ Albert Einstein

Study the Art of Science and the Science of the Arts.
~ Leonardo Da Vinci

The ink of a scholar is more sacred than the blood of a martyr.
~ Prophet Muhammad

There is only one thing I know, and that is I know nothing
~Socrates

Two of the greatest gifts we can give our children are roots and wings
~ Hodding Carter

Knowing many things doesn’t teach insight
~ Heraclitus

Leadership

A leader has a right to be beaten, but never the right to be surprised.
~Napolean Bonaparte

Life

To see the world in a grain of sand,
Or heaven in a wild flower,
To hold infinity in the palm of hand,
or eternity in an hour.
~William Blake, Auguries of Innocence

All the world’s a stage
And all the men and women are merely players:
They have their exits and their entrances;
And one man in his time plays many parts…
~Shakespeare, As You Like It

Work like you don’t need the money.
Love like you’ve never been hurt.
Dance like nobody is watching
~ Mark Twain

Live out of your imagination, not your history
~ Stephen Covey

To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all.
~Oscar Wilde

In 3 words I can sum up what I’ve learned about life: It goes on.
~Robert Frost

There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.
~Albert Einstein

Man

Service to man is service to God
~Swami Vivekananda

Men are cruel, but Man is kind
~Rabindranath Tagore

I keep my ideals, because in spite of everything
I still believe that people are really good at heart
~Anne Frank

Man is equally incapable of seeing the nothingness from which he emerges
and the infinity in which he is engulfed
~Blaise Pascal

You are the average of the 5 people you spend most time with
~ Jim Rohn

The history of the world is the history of a few people
who had faith in themselves
~ Swami Vivekananda

History knows of no man who ever did the same
~ Memorial of Christopher Columbus

Who you are speaks so loudly that i cannot hear what you are saying!
~Emmerson

This is above all: to your own self be true.
~William Shakespeare

When we hate someone,
it is because we hate some part of ourselves in their image.
~Herman Hesse

Minimalism

Perfection is not when there is no more to add, but no more to take away
~Antione de Saint-Exupery

Simplicity is harder than complexity
~Anon 

Three Rules of Work: Out of clutter find simplicity; From discord find harmony; In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity.
~Albert Einstein

Optimism

We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.
~ Oscar Wilde

Passion

I will not learn about fire by thinking about fire
but by burning
~Carla Needleman, The work of craft

Persistence

But if our expectations, if our fondest prayers and dreams are not realised then we should all bear in mind that the greatest glory of living lies not in never falling, but in rising every time you fall
~ Nelson Mandela

I might walk slowly or stand still, but I never walk backwards
~Gandhi

The harder I work, the luckier I get
~Gary Player

If you’re going thorugh hell, keep going!
~Winston Churchill

“I am” is reportedly the shortest sentence in the Englsigh Language. Could it be that “I Do” is the Longest Sentence?
~ George Carlin

When at peace, prepare for war. When at war, prepare for peace.
~Sun Tzu, the Art of War 

Power

Give me a single place to stand
And i’ll move the earth
~Archimedes on the pulley and lever system

I could be bound in a nutshell
and count myself as the king of infinite space
~Shakespeare, Hamlet

There is nothing so powerful as an idea whose time has come.
~Victor Hugo

Nearly all men can stand adversity,
but if you want to test a man’s character, give him power.
~ Abraham Lincoln

Science

Politics is for the moment,
but an equation is for eternity
~Albert Einstein when offered the PM post for Israel

If you can’t explain it to a six-year old you really don’t understand it.
~Albert Einstein

Physics isn’t the most important thing. Love is.
~Richard Feynman

When you are solving a problem, don’t worry.
Now, after you have solved the problem, then that’s the time to worry.
~Richard Feynman

Stands at the sea,
wonders at wondering:
I a universe of atoms
an atom in the universe.
~ Richard Feynman, The Value of Science

Service

I sought my God and my God i could not find
I sought my soul and my soul eluded me.
I sought my brother to serve him in his need.
and I found all three - my God, my soul and thee
~Anonymous

I shall pass through this life but once. Any good therefore that I can do, or any kindness I can show, let me do it now. Let me not defer or neglect it. For I shall never pass this way again.
~Etienne de Grellet

Success

Success leaves clues
~ Tony Robbins

Success does not always go along with merit: America is not named after Columbus
~Sigmund Freud

Recipe for success:
Study while others are sleeping;
Work while others are loafing;
Prepare while others are playing;
and dream while others are wishing
~ William A. Ward

For true success ask yourself these four questions:
Why? Why not? Why not me? Why not now?
~ Jimmy Dean

The road to success is always under construction
~ Lily Tomlin

Success is the child of audacity
~ Benjamin Disraeli

Thoughts

Thoughts become things
~ Mike Dooley

All that we are, are the result of what we have thought
~ Lord Buddha

What you resist, persist.
~ Carl Jung

I think, therefore, I am.
~Descartes

Imagination is everything.
It is the preview of life’s coming attractions!
~Albert Einstein

Faith is the ‘eternal elixir’ which gives life, power and action to the impulse of thought!
~Napolean Hill, Think and Grow Rich

Traveling

Like all great travelers, I have seen more than I remember, and remember more than I have seen
~ Benjamin Disraeli

We live in a wonderful world that is full of beauty, charm and adventure. There is no end to the adventures we can have if only we seek them with our eyes open
~ Jawaharal Nehru

The journey is my home
~ Muriel Rukeyser

Values

Values are like fingerprints. Nobody’s are the same, but you leave them all over everything you do.
~Elvis Presley

[last edited: 28 sept 2008, Sun]