Some favourite quotations

Collected by Nigel Temple

'I love deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly by.'
- Douglas Adams, author

'Little friends may prove great friends.'
- Aesop, author

'Eighty percent of success is showing up.'
- Woody Allen, humourist

'All men desire knowledge.'
- Aristotle. Greek critic, philosopher, scientist

'We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence then is not an act but a habit.'
- Aristotle. Greek critic, philosopher, scientist

'I never, ever thought of myself as a businessman.  I was interested in creating things I would be proud of.'
- Richard Branson, entrepreneur

'All that we are is the result of what we have thought. The mind is everything. What we think we become.'
- Buddha, religious leader

'Believe nothing, no matter where you read it, or who said it, no matter if I have said it, unless it agrees with your own reason and your own common sense.'
- Buddha, religious leader

'If you can't find the truth right where you are, where else do you think you will find it?'
- Buddha, religious leader

'A day without laughter is a day wasted.'
- Charlie Chaplin, actor

'Forget injuries, never forget kindnesses.'
- Confucious, philosopher

'Do not fear mistakes. There are none.'
- Miles Davis, jazz musician

'We are not human beings having a spiritual experience.  We are spiritual beings having a human experience.'
- Perre Teilhard de Chardin, writer

'Nurture your mind with great thoughts.'
- Benjamin Disraeli, politician

'I am enough of an artist to draw freely upon my imagination.  Imagination is more important than knowledge.  Knowledge is limited.  Imagination encircles the world.'
- Albert Einstein, scientist

'The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a faithful servant. We have created a society that honors the servant and has forgotten the gift.'
- Albert Einstein, scientist

'It is never too late to be what you might have been.'
- George Eliot, author

'Any person capable of angering you becomes your master; he can anger you only when you permit yourself to be disturbed by him.'
- Epictetus, philosopher

'Learn as if you were going to live forever. Live as if you were going to die tomorrow.'
- Mahatma Gandhi

'Don't be afraid to take a big step if one is indicated. You can't cross a chasm in two small jumps.'
- David Lloyd George, politician

'Good teaching is one-fourth preparation and three-fourths theatre.'
- Gail Godwin, author

'Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it.   Boldness has genius, power and magic in it.  Begin it now.'
- Goethe, writer and scientist

'There is measure in all things.'
- Horace, Roman philosopher

'Try to be a little kinder.'
- Aldous Huxley, author (on his deathbed)

Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.
- Jesus

'Research is the starting point for marketing.  Without research, a company enters a market like a blind man.'
- Philip Kotler, marketing author

'There are two ways to slide easily through life: to believe everything or to doubt everything; both ways save us from thinking.'
- Alfred Korzybski, author

'Society drives people crazy with lust and calls it advertising.'
- John Lahr, writer

'Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans.'
- John Lennon, musician

'Be brilliant at the basics.'
- Vince Lombardi, Coach, Green Bay Packers

'The only dumb question is a question you don't ask.'
- Paul MacCready, Inventor

'Yesterday is history. Tomorrow is a mystery. And today? Today is a gift. That's why we call it the present.'
- Babatunde Olatunji, musician

'All man's miseries derive from not being able to sit quietly in a room alone.'
- Blasé Pascal, author

'Learn to be silent.  Let your quiet mind listen and absorb.'
- Pythagoras, mathematician

'If you don't like change, you're going to like irrelevance even less.'
- General Eric Shinseki, Chief of Staff, U.S. Army

'Everybody gets so much information all day long that they lose their common sense.'
- Gertrude Stein, author

'We do not walk on our legs, but on our will."
- Sufi Proverb

'Go confidently in the direction of your dreams.  Live the life you have imagined.'
- Henry David Thoreau, author

'To be a philosopher is not merely to have subtle thoughts, nor even to found a school, but so to love wisdom as to live, according to its dictates, a life of simplicity, independence, magnanimity and trust.'
- Henry David Thoreau, author

'It's a dangerous business going out your front door.'
- JRR Tolkien, author

'A banker is a fellow who lends you his umbrella when the sun is shining, but wants it back the minute it begins to rain.'
 - Mark Twain, author

'The secret of getting ahead is getting started.'
 - Mark Twain, author

'We may talk and reason all our lives, but we shall not understand a word of truth until we experience it ourselves.'
- Vivekanada

'We've all heard that a million monkeys banging on a million typewriters will eventually reproduce the entire works of Shakespeare. Now, thanks to the Internet, we know this is not true.'
- Robert Wilensky, author

'Last night somebody broke into my apartment and replaced everything with exact duplicates.  When I pointed it out to my roommate, he said: 'Do I know you?'
- Stephen Wright, comedian

'So, what's the speed of dark?'
- Stephen Wright, comedian

I found some of these quotations here:
The Quotations Page

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