Quotes by American Authors - Page 3262

Wisdom is nothing more than confirmed imagination: just because one did not study for his exam does not mean that he should leave it blank.
Criss Jami
Unless you want a horrible surprise, never go bird watching with an open mouth.
Kent Allan Rees
Really to believe in human nature while striving to know the thousand forces that warp it from its ideal development-to call for and expect much from men and women, and not to be disappointed and embittered if they fall short- to try to do good with people rather than to them- this is my religion on its human side. And if God exists, I think that he must be in the warm sun, in the kindly actions of the people we know and read of, in the beautiful things of art and nature, and in the closeness of friendships.
Randolph Bourne
Kingsley nodded. 'Of course. Sophia always did say wisdom had to be earned.
Melissa de la Cruz
Author says her father was so diplomatic that when people came to him for solutions, people not only accepted them, but they believed they thought of them.
Immaculée Ilibagiza
With infinite wisdom and care your life is constantly sustained because Nature flows through you.
Michael J. Cohen
So I learned then, that gold in it's native state is but dull, unornamental stuff, and that only low-born metals excite the admiration of the ignorant with an ostentatious glitter. However, like the rest of the world, I still go underrating men of gold and glorifying men of mica. Commonplace human nature cannot rise above that.
Mark Twain
At the time of Lewis and Clark, setting the prairies on fire was a well-known signal that meant, ‘Come down to the water.’ It was an extravagant gesture, but we can’t do less. If the landscape reveals one certainty, it is that the extravagant gesture is the very stuff of creation. After the extravagant gesture of creation in the first place, the universe has continued to deal exclusively in extravagances, flinging intricacies and colossi down aeons of emptiness, heaping profusions on profligacies with ever fresh vigor. The whole show has been on fire from the word go. I come down to the water to cool my eyes. But everywhere I look, I see fire: that which isn’t flint is tinder, and the whole world sparks and flames.
Annie Dillard
The greater puzzle of universal wisdom and beauty that we have strived to honor through our work includes the profound legacies of world artistic and spiritual traditions, the innate integrity of human communities where people seek to live in social harmony, and that regenerative stream of life sustained upon the earth itself as it spins through the cosmos to the music of the spheres.
Luther E. Vann
Wisdom is nothing more than the marriage of intelligence and compassion.And, as with all good unions, it takes much experience and time to reach its widest potential.Have you introduced your intellect to your compassion yet? Be careful; lately, intellect has taken to eating in front of the TV and compassion has taken in too many cats.
Vera Nazarian
Head knowledge is worthless, unless accompanied by submission of the will and right action.
Fulton J. Sheen
There are 1,198,500,000 people alive now in China. To get a feel for what that means, simply take yourself - in all your singularity, importance, complexity, and love - and multiply by 1,198,500,000. See? Nothing to it.
Annie Dillard
The worship of power is an old religion.
George Santayana
The world is fairly studded and strewn with pennies cast broadside by a generous hand. But- and this is the point- who gets excited by a mere penny? But if you cultivate a healthy poverty and simplicity, so that finding a penny will literally make your day, then, since the world is in fact planted in pennies, you have with your poverty bought a lifetime of days.
Annie Dillard
Seek and see all the marvels around you. You will get tired of looking at yourself alone, and that fatigue will make you deaf and blind to everything else. - Don Juan
Carlos Castañeda
It is worth remembering one of the important lessons of the Buck story: a small number of zealous advocates can have an impact on the law that defies both science and conventional wisdom.
Paul A. Lombardo
The things we hate about ourselves aren't more real than things we like about ourselves.
Ellen Goodman
When wiggling through a holethe world looks different thanwhen scrubbed clean by the wiggleand looking back.
Mark Nepo
[Y]ou are here to learn something. Don’t try to figure out what it is. This can be frustrating and unproductive.
Steven L. Peck
My friend Madea has "attitude" that comes with wisdom. Back in our teens and twenties, we thought we knew everything and made all those foolish mistakes. Then, when we got a little older, at thirty, we started getting these flashes of light, revelations of what a great and lucky thing it is that we didn't get caught doing those stupid things back then. Around forty, if we are lucky, we stop lying to ourselves. Fifty and above, we've run out of patience for foolishness. Take me to the bottom line.
Tyler Perry
One of the greatest victories you can gain over someone is to beat him at politeness.
Josh Billings
If you boil it down, just because someone else does the wrong thing we are not exempt from doing what’s right.
E.A. Bucchianeri
Make your lives a masterpiece, you only get one canvas.
E.A. Bucchianeri
The waters of spirituality are forever changing and forever constant. Prejudice or fixed ideas can only weigh you down and remove you from the flow. - The Book of Metanoia (D. Williamsen)
Dannye Williamsen
It is only the brave who win life’s rewards. Those who don’t overcome their fears are destined to fail at even the least things.
Kevis Hendrickson
Keep secret things secret and they will serve you the better!
Kevis Hendrickson
Magic is a dangerous thing, child. It isn’t something to use lightly.
Kevis Hendrickson
If she could no longer be called beautiful, she possessed something better-a knowledge of beauty; it’s inflated value, it’s inevitable loss.
Hilary Thayer Hamann
This, then, is held to be the duty of the man of wealth: To set an example of modest, unostentatious living, shunning display or extravagance; to provide moderately for the legitimate wants of those dependent on him; and, after doing so, to consider all surplus revenues which come to him simply as trust funds, which he is called upon to administer, and strictly bound as a matter of duty to administer in the manner which, in his judgement, is best calculated to produce the most beneficial results for the community--the man of wealth thus becoming the mere trustee and agent for his poorer brethren, bringing to their service his superior wisdom, experience, and ability to administer, doing for them better than they would or could do for themselves.
Andrew Carnegie
Mastery is the breeding ground of fresh, creative passion.
Mollie Marti
Freedom flourishes upon the bedrock of ethics and integrity.
Mollie Marti
There is no adversity that cannot bear a gift and no gift that cannot bring adversity.
Mollie Marti
To recognize our bias toward error should teach us modesty and reflection, and to forgive it should help us avoid the inhumanity of thinking we ourselves are not as fallible as those who, in any instance, seem most at fault. Science can give us knowledge, but it cannot give us wisdom. Nor can religion, until it puts aside nonsense and distraction and becomes itself again.
Marilynne Robinson
Yesterday I was clever,That is why I wanted to change the world.Today I am wise,That is why I am changing myself.
Sri Chinmoy
Whatever can be threatened, whatever can be shaken, whatever you fear cannot stand, is destined to crash. Do not go down with the ship. Let that which is destined to become the past slip away. Believe that the real you is that which beckons from the future. If it is a sadder you, it will be a wiser one. And dawn will follow the darkness sooner or later. Rebirth can never come without death.
Robert M. Price
Cara: I used to believe everything my brother told me, because he was older and I figured he knew more about the world. But as it turns out, being a grown-up doesn't mean you're fearless. It just means you fear different things.
Jodi Picoult
Your greatest responsibility is to live a life that nourishes your highest truth.
Mollie Marti
... what you think is right isn't the same as knowing what is right.
E.A. Bucchianeri
Art is art. You can take it or leave it. Liking it or not liking it does not make you a better person, and who you like or dislike results in the same thing.
Trent Zelazny
Gently guide the tender vine else it become wild, tangled and impossible.
Kathryn Hall
A Guardian is only as strong as its Muse.
Susie M. Hanley
There is some advantage in having imagination, since that visionary faculty opens the mental eyes to facts that more practical and duller intellects could never see.
E.D.E.N. Southworth
When people say "If I only knew then what I know now" makes me wonder why they aren't using that wisdom now.
Rob Liano
Never rebel for the sake of rebelling, but always rebel for the sake of truth.
Criss Jami
There comes a moment in history when ignorance is no longer a forgivable offense... a moment when only wisdom has the power to absolve. - Bertrand Zobrist
Dan Brown
It’s less a matter of looking the other way than of closing our eyes to what we can’t stop from happening.
Arthur Golden
If believing were simple, then this world wouldn’t be in the mess that it is today.
M.K. Clinton
Love keeps no record of wrongs, but bitterness keeps detailed accounts.
Craig Groeschel
It's simple, it's not that simple; or life is simple, but the things in it are not. When a man does not understand it, he tends to inflate it. When he does, he tends to deflate it. In the end, neither images are fully accurate.
Criss Jami
A proof once established is better left so.
Mark Twain
You should always listen to minotaurs. Anybody with four stomachs has to have a firm grip on reality.
Catherynne M. Valente
There is no Jesus without Judas, no Martin Luther King, Jr., without the Klan; no Ali without Joe Frazier; no freedom without tyranny. No wisdom exists that does not include perspective. Relativity is the greatest gift.
Chris Crutcher
Good...if you've done things you aren't proud of. It means you have a conscience.
Criss Jami
Your actions will always be what the world sees, but people who choose to see through God's eyes will always have the compassion to understand why.
Shannon L. Alder
You can't be a rebel without the scars that come with it. Truth is, some days scars are just as ugly as they are beautiful.
Criss Jami
I've come to the point where I never feel the need to stop and evaluate whether or not I am happy. I'm just 'being', and without question, by default, it works.
Criss Jami
Always take a compliment, Caroline. Always take it for the way it was intended. You girls are always so quick to twist what others say. Simply say thank you and move on.
Alice Clayton
What's so magical about solitude? In many fields, Ericsson told me, it's only when you're alone that you can engage in Deliberate Practice, which he has identified as the key to exceptional achievement. When you practice deliberately, you identify the tasks or knowledge that are just out of your reach, strive to upgrade your performance, monitor your progress, and revise accordingly. Practice sessions that fall short of this standard are not only less useful - they're counterproductive. They reinforce existing cognitive mechanisms instead of improving them.
Susan Cain
O Heavenly Children, the stories you have concocted in God's name have angered Him; for he would never instigate war between brothers, or encourage tribes to harbor resentment towards one another. He prefers the man who loves over the one who hates. And the man who spreads kindness, peace and knowledge, over the one who spreads lies, fear and terror — and misuses His name.
Suzy Kassem
As Hegel said, tragedy was not the conflict between right and wrong but right and right, a dilemma none of us who wanted to participate in history could escape. The major had the right to live, and I was right to kill him. Wasn't I?
Viet Thanh Nguyen