Quotes by Authors - Page 127

I was seldom able to see an opportunity until it had ceased to be one.
Mark Twain
Opportunity knocks but once.
Anonymous
To avoid an occasion for our virtues is a worse degree of failure than to push forward pluckily and make a fall.
Robert Louis Stevenson
Vigilance in watching opportunity tact and daring in seizing upon opportunity force and persistence in crowding opportunity to its utmost possible achievement-these are the martial virtues which must command success.
Austin Phelps
The opportunities for enjoyment in your life are limitless. If you feel you are not experiencing enough joy you have only yourself to blame.
David E. Bresler
When one door closes another opens. But we often look so long and so regretfully upon the closed door that we do not see the one which has opened for us.
Helen Keller
I think luck is the sense to recognize an opportunity and the ability to take advantage of it. Everyone has bad breaks but everyone also has opportunities. The man who can smile at his breaks and grab his chances gets on.
Samuel Goldwyn
We are told that talent creates its own opportunities. But it sometimes seems that intense desire creates not only its own opportunities but its own talents.
Eric Hoffer
Opportunities do not come with their values stamped upon them. ... To face every opportunity of life thoughtfully and ask its meaning bravely and earnestly is the only way to meet supreme opportunities when they come whether open-faced or disguised.
Maltbie D. Babcock
Opportunity is as scarce as oxygen men fairly breathe it and do not know it.
Doc Sane
Nothing is so often irretrievably missed as a daily opportunity.
Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach
Men do with opportunities as children do at the seashore they fill their little hands with sand and then let the grains fall through one by one till all are gone.
T. Jones
Great opportunities to help others seldom come but small ones come daily.
Ivy Baker Priest
Opportunities are usually disguised as hard work so most people don't recognize them.
Ann Landers
To see a shadow and think it is a tree-that is a pity but to see a tree and to think it a shadow can be fatal.
Phyllis Bottome
You can't make souffle rise twice.
Alice Roosevelt Longworth
Opportunity knocks at every man's door once. On some men's door it hammers till it breaks down the door and then it goes in and wakes him up if he's asleep and ever afterward it works for him as a night watchman.
Finley Peter Dunne
Our opportunities to do good are our talents.
Cotton Mather
Any ritual is an opportunity for transformation.
Starhawk
You decide you'll wait for your pitch. Then as the ball starts toward the plate you think about your stance. And then you think about your swing. And then you realize that the ball that went past you for a strike was your pitch.
Bobby Murcer
Freedom is nothing else but a chance to be better whereas enslavement is a certainty of the worst.
Albert Camus
You don't just luck into things ... you build step by step whether it's friendships or opportunities.
Barbara Bush
Mediocre men wait for opportunity to come to them. Strong able alert men go after opportunity.
B.C. Forbes
Life is a narrative that you have a hand in writing.
Henriette Anne Klauser
You create your opportunities by asking for them.
Patty Hansen
It is rare that the public sentiment decides immorally or unwisely and the individual who differs from it ought to distrust and examine well his own opinion.
Thomas Jefferson
There are a great many opinions in this world and a good half of them are professed by people who have never been in trouble.
Mavis Gallant
Too often we . . . enjoy the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought.
John F Kennedy
There never were two opinions alike in all the world no more than two hours or two grains: the most universal quality is diversity.
Michel de Montaigne
The world is not run by thought nor by imagination but by opinion.
Elizabeth Drew
It is always considered a piece of impertinence in England if a man of less than two or three thousand a year has any opinions at all upon important subjects.
Sydney Smith
When I want your opinion I'll give it to you.
Laurence J. Peter
To be positive: to be mistaken at the top of one's voice.
Ambrose Bierce
Public opinion a vulgar impertinent anonymous tyrant who deliberately makes life unpleasant for anyone who is not content to be the average man.
Dean William R. Inge
We are so vain that we even care for the opinion of those we don't care for.
Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach
I'm moving down here . . . because some of you in the back might not be able to hear my talk . . . and that wouldn't be fair to those who can hear it.
Anonymous
Good evening ladies and gentlemen. I'm pleased to be with you. (Pause) That concludes my prepared remarks.
Anonymous
Most experts suggest that one should open with a joke. Obviously they've never heard me tell a joke.
Anonymous
When I was preparing for this speech I asked my family for advice. One member replied "There's a first time for everything so try to be funny and brief."
Anonymous
I hope you will excuse my being late. The person in this organization who gave me directions here has obviously heard me speak before.
Anonymous
We were worried that our main speaker wouldn't be able to make it tonight. But fortunately due to a hole in the prosecution's case . . .
Anonymous
Thanks for the nice introduction. Next to my resume that's the closest I'll ever come to perfection.
Anonymous
As one skeleton said to the other - if I had any guts I'd get the heck out of here.
Anonymous
We will then hear from the founder of the Mayo Clinic . . . Dr. Ted Clinic.
Dave Barry
Even more exasperating than the guy who thinks he knows it all is the one who really does.
Al Bernstein
A lot of you want me to hurry through the introduction. That's because you're so much older you don't want to waste a minute of your life.
Wendy Morgan
When I told her we were going to roast her she said "Of course . . . they only crucify the innocent."
Anonymous
Buffet: A French word that means "get up and get it yourself."
Ron Dentinger
Response to clapping: "Thank you for ovating."
Anonymous
We noticed a crasher at the bar - that shows what a real man he is - he's here to show he's not ticked for not being asked.
Anonymous
I was chosen to speak today based on my senility.
Wendy Morgan
Thank you for the privilege of speaking to you in this magnificent auditorium. You know the meaning of the word auditorium don't you? It is derived from two Latin words audio "to hear " and taurus "the bull."
Larry Wilde
The recipe for a good speech includes some shortening.
Anonymous
It usually takes me more than three weeks to prepare a good impromptu speech.
Mark Twain
A speech that's full of sparkling wit will keep its hearer grinning provided its end is close to its beginning.
Anonymous
I was chosen to speak due to my warm personality. . . . Look up warm and it means "not so hot."
Anonymous
After such an introduction I can hardly wait to hear what I'm going to say.
Evelyn Anderson
speaker: I have only ten minutes and hardly know where to begin. voice in back: Begin at the ninth.
Jacob Braude
I don't want to be patronizing . . . that means "talking down."
Wendy Morgan
I have noticed that the people who are late are often so much jollier than the people who have to wait for them.
E. V. Lucas