Quotation Saturday

Yes, indeed, another week has come and gone and it’s time for Quotation Saturday once again!

1.  It is a poverty to decide that a child must die so that you may live as you wish.  –Mother Teresa

2. Rudeness is the weak man’s imitation of strength. –Eric Hoffer

3.  True remorse is never just a regret over consequences; it is a regret over motives.  —  Mignon McLaughlin

4.  The knowledge of the world is only to be acquired in the world, and not in a closet.  –Lord Chesterfield

5.  There isn’t anyone you couldn’t love once you’re heard their story.  –Mary Lou Kownacki

6.  Many of life’s failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up.  — Thomas Edison

7.  Something you consider bad may bring out your child’s talents; something you consider good may stifle them.  –Chateaubriand

8.  How much pain they have cost us, the evils which have never happened.   –Thomas Jefferson

9. Many men go fishing all of their lives without knowing that it is not fish they are after.   –Henry David Thoreau

10. We are more often treacherous through weakness than through calculation.   –Francois De La Rochefoucauld

11.  A man with one watch knows what time it is; a man with two watches is never quite sure.  –Lee Segall

12.  Begin at the beginning and go on till you come to the end; then stop.   –Lewis Carrol, Alice in Wonderland

13.  Believe those who are seeking the truth.  Doubt those who find it.   –Andre Gide

14.  Beware lest you lose the substance by grasping at the shadow.   –Aesop

15.  There’s more to the truth than just the facts.   –Author Unknown

16.  Losing an illusion makes you wiser than finding a truth.   –Ludwig Börne

17.   If a man who cannot count finds a four-leaf clover, is he lucky?   –Stanislaw J. Lec

18.  The obscure we see eventually.  The completely obvious, it seems, takes longer.   –Edward R. Murrow

19. 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

20.  Each forward step we take we leave some phantom of ourselves behind.   –John Lancaster Spalding

21. The scars you can’t see are the hardest to heal.   –Astrid Alauda

22. The opposite of a correct statement is a false statement.  But the opposite of a profound truth may well be another profound truth.   –Niels Bohr

23.  Who is more foolish, the child afraid of the dark or the man afraid of the light?   –Maurice Freehill

24. Genuine tragedies in the world are not conflicts between right and wrong.  They are conflicts between two rights.   –Georg Hegel

25. A stumble may prevent a fall.   –English Proverb

26. The society which scorns excellence in plumbing because plumbing is a humble activity, and tolerates shoddiness in philosophy because philosophy is an exalted activity, will have neither good plumbing nor good philosophy. Neither its pipes nor its theories will hold water. — John W. Gardner

27. Keep me away from the wisdom which does not cry, the philosophy which does not laugh, and the greatness which does not bow before children.  –Kahil Gibran

28.  He who postpones the hour of living is like the rustic who waits for the river to run out before he crosses.  –Horace

29. This is my living faith, an active faith, a faith of verbs: to question, explore, experiment, experience, walk, run, dance, play, eat, love, learn, dare, taste, touch, smell, listen, argue, speak, write, read, draw, provoke, emote, scream, sin, repent, cry, kneel, pray, bow, rise, stand, look, laugh, cajole, create, confront, confound, walk back, walk forward, circle, hide, and seek. To seek: to embrace the questions, be wary of answers. -Terry Tempest Williams

30. Those who never retract their opinions love themselves more than they love truth. -Joseph Joubert,

31. To find a person who will love you for no reason, and to shower that person with reasons, that is the ultimate happiness. -Robert Brault

32. The Sun, with all the planets revolving around it, and depending on it, can still ripen a bunch of grapes as though it had nothing else in the Universe to do.  — Galileo

34.  The next time you feel like God can’t use you, just remember that Noah was a drunk; Abraham was too old; Isaac was a daydreamer; Jacob was a liar; Leah was ugly; Joseph was abused; Moses had a stuttering problem;  Gideon was afraid; Samson had long hair and was a womanizer; Rahab was a prostitute; Jeremiah and Timothy were too young; David had an affair and was a murderer; Elijah was suicidal; Isaiah preached naked; Jonah ran from God; Naomi was a widow; Job went bankrupt; Peter denied Christ; The Disciples feel asleep while praying; Martha worried about everything; Mary Magdalene was a prostitute; The Samaritan woman was divorced more than once; Zaccheus was too small; Paul was too religious; Timothy had an ulcer, and Lazarus was DEAD.  Now, no more excuses!  Besides, you’re not the message; you’re just the messenger.  –Author Unknown

35.  It is better to break one’s heart than to do nothing with it.  –Margaret Kennedy

36.  I shall never permit myself to stoop so low as to hate any man.  –Booker T. Washington

37.  We should take care not to make the intellect our god; it has, of course, powerful muscles, but no personality.  –Einstein

38.  I imagine one of the reasons people cling to their hates so stubbornly is because they sense, once hate is gone, that they will be forced to deal with pain.  –James Baldwin

39.  The wise man is informed in what is right.  The inferior man is informed in what will pay.  –Confucious

40.  When things go wrong, don’t go with them.  –Author Unknown

41.  Flee the wicked, even when they are agreeable, constructive, and charming.  –Eugene Delacroix

42.  Weak men are apt to be cruel, because they stick at nothing that may repair the ill effect of their mistakes.  –Lord Halifax

43.  Anyone who can walk to the welfare office can walk to work.  –Al Capp

44.  Women over thirty are at their best, but men over thirty are too old to recognize it.  –Jean-Paul Belmondo

45.  No bird soars too high, if he soars with his own wings.  –William Blake

46.  The reason some men do not succeed is because their wishbone is where their backbone ought to be.  –Author Unknown

47.  When I’m asked why Southern writers particularly have a penchant for writing about freaks, I say it’s because we are still able to recognize one.  –Flannery O’Connor

48.  He who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe is as good as dead; his eyes are closed.  –Einstein

49.  The world is full of wooden people who are always doing their best to whittle others down.  –Thomajan

50.  War does not determine who is right, but who is left.  –Andrew Goligowski

I have been collecting quotations since I was a teenager, and that was a long time ago. You may therefore assume that I have amassed a lot of quotations. You would be correct.

It’s just that so often, someone puts together a few words, and you read them, and suddenly your whole life has changed.  Just a few words, and the world is a different place.

This is why we call it the Language ARTS, you know.  Done properly, it’s as much of an art as music, or sculpture, or dancing, or painting.  And what is an art but something that makes us look more closely at that which we thought we already knew.  And then, stand away from it and look again.


Comments

Quotation Saturday — 10 Comments

  1. I’m all over #s 9, 12, and 38! I always get a kick out of your Quotation Saturday! 🙂 BTW, The Scholastic Scribe is back online. Please drop in tomorrow to Share the Caption Love during another highLARious Silly Summer Sunday Sweepstakes. You’ll be glad you did!

  2. I’m all over #s 9, 12, and 38! I always get a kick out of your Quotation Saturday! 🙂 BTW, The Scholastic Scribe is back online. Please drop in tomorrow to Share the Caption Love during another highLARious Silly Summer Sunday Sweepstakes. You’ll be glad you did!

  3. Mamacita,

    This is off topic but there is an article you may be interested in involving children’s literature in the classroom. It’s at beliefnet.com, written by the crunchy con guy, Rod Dreher. Would be interested to hear your take on this.

    Best wishes,
    Another Jane

  4. Mamacita,

    This is off topic but there is an article you may be interested in involving children’s literature in the classroom. It’s at beliefnet.com, written by the crunchy con guy, Rod Dreher. Would be interested to hear your take on this.

    Best wishes,
    Another Jane

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