Words of Wisdom

• Enlightened Perspective
• Quotes

Enlightened Perspective

If you will take the time to read these. I promise you'll come away with an enlightened perspective. The subjects covered affect us all on a daily basis! They're written by Andy Rooney, a man who has the gift of saying so much with so few words. Enjoy.......

I've learned.... That the best classroom in the world is at the feet of an elderly person.
I've learned.... That when you're in love, it shows.
I've learned.... That just one person saying to me, "You've made my day!" makes my day.
I've learned.... That having a child fall asleep in your arms is one of the most peaceful feelings in the world.
I've learned.... That being kind is more important than being right.
I've learned.... That you should never say no to a gift from a child.
I've learned.... That I can always pray for someone when I don't have the strength to help him in some other way.
I've learned.... That no matter how serious your life requires you to be, everyone needs a friend to act goofy with.
I've learned.... That sometimes all a person needs is a hand to hold and a heart to understand.
I've learned.... That simple walks with my father around the block on summer nights when I was a child did wonders for me as an adult.
I've learned.... That life is like a roll of toilet paper. The closer it gets to the end, the faster it goes.
I've learned.... That we should be glad God doesn't give us everything we ask for.
I've learned.... That money doesn't buy class.
I've learned.... That it's those small daily happenings that make life so spectacular.
I've learned.... That under everyone's hard shell is someone who wants to be appreciated and loved.
I've learned.... That the Lord didn't do it all in one day. What makes me think I can?
I've learned.... That to ignore the facts does not change the facts.
I've learned.... That when you plan to get even with someone, you are only letting that person continue to hurt you.
I've learned.... That love, not time, heals all wounds.
I've learned.... That the easiest way for me to grow as a person is to surround myself with people smarter than I am.
I've learned.... That everyone you meet deserves to be greeted with a smile.
I've learned.... That there's nothing sweeter than sleeping with your babies and feeling their breath on your cheeks.
I've learned.... That no one is perfect until you fall in love with them.
I've learned.... That life is tough, but I'm tougher.
I've learned.... That opportunities are never lost; someone will take the ones you miss.
I've learned.... That when you harbor bitterness, happiness will dock elsewhere.
I've learned.... That I wish I could have told my Dad that I love him one more time before he passed away.
I've learned.... That one should keep his words both soft and tender, because tomorrow he may have to eat them.
I've learned.... That a smile is an inexpensive way to improve your looks.
I've learned.... That I can't choose how I feel, but I can choose what I do about it.
I've learned.... That when your newly born grandchild holds your little finger in his little fist, that you're hooked for life.
I've learned.... That everyone wants to live on top of the mountain, but all the happiness and growth occurs while you're climbing it.
I've learned.... That it is best to give advice in only two circumstances; when it is requested and when it is a life threatening situation.
I've learned.... That the less time I have to work with, the more things I get done.

Kindly emailed to me from RT

Quotes

At the Day of Judgment, we shall not be asked what we have read, but what we have done.
-Thomas a Kempis (1379-1471) German ecclesiastic and writer

The hero is one who kindles a great light in the world, who sets up blazing torches in the dark streets of life for men to see by. The saint is the man who walks through the dark paths of the world, himself a light.
-Felix Adler

A liar will not be believed, even when he speaks the truth.
-Aesop

True wisdom is less presuming than folly. The wise man doubts often, and changes his mind; the fool is obstinate, and doubts not; he knows all things but his own ignorance.
-Akhenaton

What single ability do we all have? The ability to change.
-Leonard Andrews

Men of sense often learn from their enemies. It is from their foes, not their friends, that cities learn the lesson of building high walls and ships of war; and this lesson saves their children, their homes, and their properties.
-Aristophanes

Hope is a waking dream.
-Aristotle

When you arise in the morning, think of what a precious privilege it is to be alive--to breathe, to think, to enjoy, to love.
-Marcus Aurelius

Pride slays thanksgiving, but a humble mind is the soil out of which thanks naturally grow. A proud man is seldom a grateful man, for he never thinks he gets as much as he deserves.
-Henry Ward Beecher

We are what we think. All that we are arises with our thoughts. With our thoughts, we make the world.
-Buddha

All bad precedents begin with justifiable measures.
-Julius Caesar

A man's work is nothing but this slow trek to rediscover, through the detours of art, those two or three great and simple images in whose presence his heart first opened.
- Albert Camus

Never mistake knowledge for wisdom. One helps you make a living; the other helps you make a life.
-Sandra Carey

No man who has once heartily and wholly laughed can be altogether irreclaimably bad.
-Thomas Carlyle

Dream is the spark of passion; talent is the firework of its expression; perseverance, the sacred fire of its accomplishment.
-Daniel Chabot (Psychologist)

He who learns but does not think, is lost! He who thinks but does not learn is in great danger.
-Confucius

If you look into your own heart, and you find nothing wrong there, what is there to worry about? What is there to fear?
-Confucius

Real knowledge is to know the extent of one's ignorance.
-Confucius

The one who relies on authority during a discussion does not use his mind but his memory.
-Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519) Italian artist, scientist

While I thought I was learning how to live, I have been learning how to die.
-Leonardo Da Vinci

The hottest places in hell are reserved for those who in times of great moral crisis maintained their neutrality.
-Dante

Dream as if you'll live forever. Live as if you'll die today.
-James Dean

What is all wisdom save a collection of platitudes? But the man who orders his life according to their teachings cannot go far wrong.
-Norman Douglas, English Writer

He that will not reason is a bigot, He that cannot reason is a fool, He that dares not reason is a slave.
-William Drummond

Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius - and a lot of courage to move in the opposite direction.
-Albert Einstein

In any conflict between humanity and technology, humanity will win.
-Albert Einstein

The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and all science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead; his eyes are closed.
-Albert Einstein

The real problem is in the hearts and minds of men. It is not a problem of physics but of ethics. It is easier to denature plutonium than to denature the evil from the spirit of man.
- Albert Einstein

Wisdom is not a product of schooling but of the lifelong attempt to acquire it.
-Albert Einstein

Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. This is not a way of life at all in any true sense. Under the clouds of war, it is humanity hanging on a cross of iron.
-Dwight Eisenhower, 1953 speech

Only those who risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go.
-T.S. Eliot

The best years of your life are the ones in which you decide your problems are your own. You do not blame them on your mother, the ecology or the president. You realize that you control your own destiny.
-Albert Ellis

Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.
-Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882)

To laugh often and much;
To win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children;
To earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends;
To appreciate beauty, to find the best in others;
To leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch or a redeemed social condition;
To know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived.
This is to have succeeded.
-Ralph Waldo Emerson

An ounce of action is worth a ton of theory.
-Friedrich Engels

Why should I fear death? If I am, death is not. If death is, I am not. Why should I fear that which can only exist when I do not?
-Epicurus

Freedom of speech and freedom of action are meaningless without freedom to think. And there is no freedom of thought without doubt.
-Bergen Evans, The Natural History of Nonsense

I believe that man will not only endure: he will prevail. He is immortal, not because he alone among creatures has an inexhaustible voice, but because he has a soul, a spirit capable of compassion and sacrifice and endurance.
-William Faulkner

So long as we are full of self, we are shocked at the faults of others. Let us think often of our own sin, and we shall be lenient to the sins of others.
-Francois Fenelon, French writer

There are two possible outcomes: If the result confirms the hypothesis, then you've made a measurement. If the result is contrary to the hypothesis, then you've made a discovery.
-Enrico Fermi

The truth always turns out to be simpler than you thought.
-Richard Feynman, Physicist, educator

Goodwill is the one and only asset that competition cannot undersell or destroy.
-Marshall Field, Retailing magnate

History has demonstrated that the most notable winners usually encountered heartbreaking obstacles before they triumphed. They won because they refused to become discouraged by their defeats.
-B. C. Forbes

It's really a wonder that I haven't dropped all my ideals, because they seem so absurd and impossible to carry out. Yet I keep them, because in spite of everything I still believe that people are really good at heart.
-Anne Frank

Contentment makes poor men rich; discontent makes rich men poor.
-Ben Franklin

The direct use of force is such a poor solution to any problem, it is generally employed only by small children and large nations.
-David Friedman

You cannot teach a man anything, You can only help him to find it within himself
-Galileo

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

And think not you can direct the course of love, for love, if it finds you worthy, directs your course.
-Khalil Gibran

You give little when you give of your possessions. It is when you give of yourself that you truly give.
-Khalil Gibran

Should we all confess our sins to one another we would all laugh at one another for our lack of originality. Should we all reveal our virtues we would also laugh for the same cause.
-Khalil Gibran

To understand the heart and mind of a person, look not at what he has already achieved, but at what he aspires to.
-Khalil Gibran

You can muffle the drum, and you can loosen the strings of the lyre, but who shall command the skylark not to sing?
-Khalil Gibran

No matter what accomplishments you achieve, somebody helped you.
-Althea Gibson

A person should hear a little music, read a little poetry and see a fine picture every day in order that worldly cares do not obliterate the sense of the beautiful which God has implanted in the human soul.
-Goethe

Daring ideas are like chess men moved forward. They may be beaten, but they may start a winning game.
-Goethe

Reality is the cage of those who lack imagination.
-JBS Haldane, English Geneticist

Dreams do not vanish, so long as people do not abandon them.
-Phantom F. Harlock

No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it's not the same river and he's not the same man.
-Heraclitus

The soul is dyed the color of its thoughts. Think only on those things that are in line with your principles and can bear the full light of day. The content of your character is your choice. Day by day, what you choose, what you think, and what you do is who you become. Your integrity is your destiny- it is the light that guides your way.
-Heraclitus

If you are drowning and all you can think about is the fact that you can't swim, you are certainly going to die.
-Lee Highsmith

By means of shrewd lies, unremittingly repeated, it is possible to make people believe that heaven is hell - and hell heaven. The greater the lie, the more readily it will be believed.
-Adolph Hitler, from Mein Kampf

If you don't understand that you work for your mislabeled subordinates, then you know nothing of leadership. You know only tyranny.
-Dee W. Hock, Business writer

You can discover what your enemy fears most by observing the means he uses to frighten you.
-Eric Hoffer

Through our great good fortune, in our youth our hearts were touched with fire. It was given to us to learn at the outset that life is a profound and passionate thing.
-Oliver Wendall Holmes

The true test of character is not how much we know how to do, but how we behave when we don't know what to do.
-John Holt

Hold fast to dreams, for if dreams die, life is a broken winged bird that cannot fly.
-Langston Hughes

Have no fear of robbers or murderers. Such dangers are without, and are but petty. We should fear ourselves. Prejudices are the real robbers; vices the real murderers. The great dangers are within us. What matters it what threatens our heads or our purses? Let us think only of what threatens our souls.
-Victor Hugo

The greatest happiness of life is the conviction that we are loved - loved for ourselves, or rather, loved in spite of ourselves.
-Victor Hugo, poet, novelist, and dramatist (1802-1885)

My father always used to say that when you die, if you've got five real friends, then you've had a great life.
-Lee Iacocca, Former CEO of Chrysler

The greatest test of courage on earth is to bear defeat without losing heart.
-Robert G. Ingersoll

If...I can by any lucky chance, in these days of evil, rub out one wrinkle from the brow of care, or beguile the heavy heart of one moment of sorrow; if I can now and then penetrate through the gathering film of misanthropy, prompt a benevolent view of human nature, and make my reader more in good humor with his fellow beings and himself, surely, surely, I shall not then have written entirely in vain.
-Washington Irving

Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves.
-Carl Gustav Jung (1875-1961) Swiss psychologist

Your vision will become clear only when you look into your heart. Who looks outside, dreams. Who looks inside, awakens.
-Carl Gustav Jung

It is not God's will merely that we should be happy, but that we should make ourselves happy.
-Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) German philosopher

Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through experience of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, ambition inspired, and success achieved.
-Helen Keller (1880-1968) American author and lecturer

I long to accomplish a great and noble task, but it is my chief duty to accomplish small tasks as if they were great and noble.
-Helen Keller (1880-1968) American author and lecturer

No loss of flood and lightning, no destruction of cities and temples by hostile forces of nature, has deprived man of so many noble lives and impulses as those which his intolerance has destroyed.
-Helen Keller (1880-1968) American author and lecturer

No pessimist ever discovered the secrets of the stars, or sailed to an uncharted land, or opened a new heaven to the human spirit.
-Helen Keller

Optimism is the faith that leads to achievement. Nothing can be done without hope and confidence.
-Helen Keller

Science may have found a cure for most evils; but it has found no remedy for the worst of them all- the apathy of human beings.
-Helen Keller

Mankind must put an end to war, or war will put an end to mankind.
-John F. Kennedy

He who angers you conquers you.
-Elizabeth Kenny

God is not justice. Justice is in his nature, but love is predominant. People attach such importance to actions and their results. They do not know that above action and result is a law which can consume the fire of hell, which can dominate even if the whole world were being drowned in the flood of destruction; they do not know that the power of love is greater than any other.
-Hazrat Inayat Khan

The tyrant dies and his rule is over, the martyr dies and his rule begins.
-Soren Kierkegaard

In the End, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.
-Martin Luther King

The means by which we live have outdistanced the ends for which we live. Our scientific power has outrun our spiritual power. We have guided missiles and misguided men.
-Martin Luther King Jr.

If one looks with a cold eye at the mess mankind had made of his history, it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that he has been afflicted by some built-in mental disorder which drives him towards self-destruction. Murder within a species on an individual or collective scale is a phenomenon unknown in the whole animal kingdom, except for man, and a few varieties of ants and rats.
-Arthur Koestler, 1905-1983

Weapons are the tools of violence;
all decent men detest them.
Weapons are the tools of fear;
a decent man will avoid them
except in the direst necessity
and, if compelled, will use them
only with the utmost restraint.

Peace is his highest value.
If the peace has been shattered,
how can he be content?

His enemies are not demons,
but human beings like himself.
He doesn't wish them personal harm.
Nor does he rejoice in victory.
How could he rejoice in victory
and delight in the slaughter of men?

He enters a battle gravely,
with sorrow and with great compassion,
as if he were attending a funeral.
-Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching

All people dream, but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their mind, wake in the morning to find that it was vanity. But the dreamers of the day are dangerous people, for they dream their dreams with open eyes, and make them come true.
-T.E. Lawrence (AKA "Lawrence of Arabia")

Success is not the result of spontaneous combustion. You must set yourself on fire.
-Reggie Leach

Nothing will ever be attempted if all possible objections must be first overcome.
-Jules Lederer (1917?-1999) American businessman

The game of life is not so much in holding a good hand as playing a poor hand well.
-H. T. Leslie

Good and evil both increase at compound interest.
-C.S. Lewis (1898-1963) English writer and scholar

If I had eight hours to chop down a tree, I'd spend six sharpening my axe.
-Abraham Lincoln

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

If we could read the secret history of our enemies, we should find in each man's life sorrow and suffering enough to disarm all hostility.
-Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Every now and again take a good look at something not made with hands, a mountain, a star, the turn of a stream. There will come to you wisdom and patience and solace and, above all, the assurance that you are not alone in the world.
-Sidney Lovett

Nobody grows old by merely living a number of years. People grow old by deserting their ideals. Years may wrinkle the skin, but to give up wrinkles the soul.
-Douglas MacArthur

Obstacles are necessary for success... victory comes only after many struggles and countless defeats. Yet each struggle, each defeat, sharpens your skills and strengths, your courage and your endurance, your ability and your confidence and thus each obstacle is a comrade-in-arms forcing you to become better... or quit. Each rebuff is an opportunity to move forward; turn away from them, avoid them, and you throw away your future.
-Og Mandino (Motivational Author & Speaker)

Every experience in life, everything with which we have come in contact in life, is a chisel which has been cutting away at our life statue, molding, modifying, shaping it. We are part of all we have met. Everything we have seen, heard, felt, or thought has had its hand in molding us, shaping us.
-Orson Swett Marden

Patriotism is a kind of religion; it is the egg from which wars are hatched.
-Guy de Maupassant, French author (1850-1893)

Often we allow ourselves to be upset by small things we should despise and forget. We lose many irreplaceable hours brooding over grievances that, in a year's time, will be forgotten by us and by everybody.
-Andre Maurois (1885-1967) French writer [AKA Emile Herzog]

Without dreams, we couldn't live.
-Kara Melancon

Making the simple complicated is commonplace; making the complicated simple, awesomely simple, that's creativity.
-Charles Mingus

Vision is where tomorrow begins, for it expresses what you and others who share the vision will be working hard to create. Since most people don't take the time to think systematically about the future, those who do, and who base their strategies and actions on their visions, have inordinate power to shape the future.
-Burt Nanus

I do not know what I may appear to the world; but to myself I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the sea-shore, and diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me.
-Sir Isaac Newton (1642-1727) English physicist

If I have ever made any valuable discoveries, it has been owing more to patient attention, than to any other talent.
-Sir Isaac Newton

The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher regard those who think alike than those who think differently.
-Friedrich Nietzche

We love life, not because we are used to living but because we are used to loving.
-Nietzsche

It takes courage to push yourself to places that you have never been before... to test your limits... to break through barriers. And the day came when the risk it took to remain tight inside the bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.
-Anais Nin

It's always the old, who lead us on to war,
It's always the young to fall...
-Phil Ochs

Being in a minority, even a minority of one, did not make you insane. There was truth and there was untruth, and if you clung to the truth even against the whole world, you were not mad.
-George Orwell, 1984

The worst prison would be a closed heart.
-Pope John Paul II

Emotional sickness is avoiding reality at any cost. Emotional health is facing reality at any cost.
-M. Scott Peck

Only the dead have seen the last of war.
-Plato

Good fortune will elevate even petty minds, and give them the appearance of a certain greatness and stateliness, as from their high place they look down upon the world; but the truly noble and resolved spirit raises itself, and becomes more conspicuous in times of disaster and ill fortune.
-Plutarch

The oldest, shortest words -- "yes" and "no" -- are those which require the most thought.
-Pythagoras

Begin doing what you want to do now. We are not living in eternity. We have only this moment, sparkling like a star in our hand and melting like a snowflake.
-Marie Beyon Ray

Never part without loving words to think of during your absence. It may be that you will not meet again in this life.
-Jean Paul Richter

Courage is doing what you're afraid to do. There can be no courage unless you are scared.
-Eddie Rickenbacker (1890-1973) American Ace of WWI

Even if you're on the right track, you'll get run over if you just sit there.
-Will Rogers

You gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You must do the thing which you think you cannot do.
-Eleanor Roosevelt (1884-1962) First Lady

The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood...who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and ...if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.
-Franklin Delano Roosevelt

Three passions, simple but overwhelmingly strong, have governed my life: the longing for love, the search for knowledge, and unbearable pity for the suffering of mankind.
-Bertrand Russell

The hardest thing to learn in life is which bridge to cross and which to burn.
-David Russell

The glory that goes with wealth is fleeting and fragile; virtue is a possession glorious and eternal.
-Sallust

Time is the coin of your life. It is the only coin you have, and only you can determine how it will be spent. Be careful lest you let other people spend it for you.
-Carl Sandburg

Yesterday is a dream, tomorrow but a vision. But today well lived makes every yesterday a dream of happiness, and every tomorrow a vision of hope. Look well, therefore to this day.
-Sanskrit Proverb

Never build your emotional life on the weaknesses of others.
-George Santayana

As long as you live, keep learning how to live.
-Seneca

It is often better not to see an insult than to avenge it.
-Seneca

The only service a friend can really render is to keep up your courage by holding up to you a mirror in which you can see a noble image of yourself.
-George Bernard Shaw

A ship in harbor is safe- but that's not what ships are for.
-John Shedd

Heaven never helps the men who will not act.
-Sophocles

Reach high, for the stars lie hidden in your soul. Dream deep, for every dream precedes the goal.
-Pamela Vaull Starr

I am nothing special; of this I am sure. I am a common man with common thoughts and I've led a common life. There are no monuments dedicated to me and my name will soon be forgotten, but I've loved another with all my heart and soul, and to me, this has always been enough.
-Nicholas Sparks, The Notebook

Whoever kindles the flames of intolerance is lighting a fire underneath his own home.
-Harrold Stassen (b. 1907) American politician

Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself.
-Leo Tolstoy, Russian Novelist

It is amazing what you can accomplish if you do not care who gets the credit.
-Harry S. Truman (1884-1972) US President, 1945-52

Many risks fail because they were not taken in time. Too many risks are postponed until unnecessarily elaborate preparations are made...Don't sit back waiting for the perfect moment. It almost never comes.
-David Viscott

As long as there is one upright man, as long as there is one compassionate woman, the contagion may spread and the scene is not desolate. Hope is the thing left to us in a bad time.
- E.B.White

A visionary is one who can find his way by moonlight, and see the dawn before the rest of the world.
-Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)

Humanity needs to listen, until such a time as the voice of the soul is heard throughout the universe as the only voice of compassion and reason that has ever existed. When this occurs, all of humanity will be truly free and the voice of the Soul will sing the end of time.
-Fred Wolf, Physicist

If we fail to nourish our souls, they wither, and without soul, life ceases to have meaning. The creative process shrivels in the absence of continual dialogue with the soul. And creativity is what makes life worth living.
-Marion Woodman

A man is not honest simply because he never had a chance to steal.
-Yiddish proverb