Quotes arranged by Author, E

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Eades, John M.
  • There are some days I practice positive thinking, and other days I'm not positive I am thinking.


Eadie, Betty J.

  • If we understood the power of our thoughts, we would guard them more closely. If we understood the awesome power of our words, we would prefer silence to almost anything negative. In our thoughts and words we create our own weaknesses and our own strengths. Our limitations and joys begin in our hearts. We can always replace negative with positive.

  • The more we thank God for the blessings we receive, the more we open the way for further blessings.


Earhart, Amelia

  • Courage is the price that life exacts for granting peace.
    The soul that knows it not, knows no release from little things;
    Knows not the livid loneliness of fear;
    Nor mountain heights where bitter joy can hear
    The sound of wings.

  • The more one does and sees and feels, the more one is able to do, and the more genuine may be one's appreciation of fundamental things like home, and love, and understanding companionship.

  • Never interrupt someone doing what you said couldn't be done.

  • Please know I am quite aware of the hazards. I want to do it because I want to do it. Women must try to do things as men have tried. When they fail, their failure must be but a challenge to others. (Last Flight)


Easley, Grace E.

  • What happy faces do we see,
    Their cares forgotten everyone,
    This is the way it ought to be
    From dawn until the set of sun.
    These blessed days of joy and peace,
    Bedecked with wonder, set apart,
    Through all our yeas will never cease,
    If we keep Christmas in our heart! ("Christmas in the Heart")


Eastwood, Clint

  • I think that, for all of us, as we grow older, we must discipline ourselves to continue expanding, broadening, learning, keeping our minds active and open.

  • Sometimes if you want to see a change for the better, you have to take things into your own hands.


Easwaran, Eknath

  • Patience can't be acquired overnight. It is just like building up a muscle. Every day you need to work on it.


Ebaugh, Sue Atchley

  • The greatest gift we can give one another is rapt attention to one another's existence.


Eberhardt, Isabelle

  • Oh if at every moment of our lives we could know the consequences of some of the utterings, thoughts and deeds that seem so trivial and unimportant at the time! And should we not conclude from such examples that there is no such thing in life as unimportant moments devoid of meaning for the future? (The Passionate Nomad)


Ebner-Eschenbach, Marie von

  • The greatest enemy of justice is privilege. (Aphorisms)

  • In youth we learn; in age we understand.

  • The mediocre always feel as if they're fighting for their lives when confronted by the excellent.

  • Much less evil would be done on earth if evil could not be done in the name of good. (Aphorisms)

  • Those who understand only what can be explained understand very little. (Aphorisms)

  • When curiosity turns to serious matters, it's called research. (Aphorisms)


Eckhart, Meister (Sir)

  • Be willing to be a beginner every single morning.

  • If "thank you" is the only prayer you say, that will be enough.

  • One must learn an inner solitude, where or with whomsoever he may be. He must learn to penetrate things and find God there, to get a strong impression of God firmly fixed on his mind.

  • Truly, it is in darkness that one finds the light, so when we are in sorrow, then this light is nearest to all of us.


Eco, Umberto

  • I believe that what we become depends on what our fathers teach us at odd moments, when they aren't trying to teach us. We are formed by little scraps of wisdom. (Foucault's Pendulum)

  • The real hero is always a hero by mistake; he dreams of being an honest coward like everybody else. (Travels in Hyper Reality)


Edinborough, Arnold

  • Curiosity is the very basis of education and if you tell me that curiosity killed the cat, I say only the cat died nobly.


Eddington, Arthur Stanley (Sir)

  • Life would be stunted and narrow if we could feel no significance in the world around us beyond that which can be weighed and measured with the tools of the physicist or described by the metrical symbols of the mathematician.

  • We are all of us clocks whose faces tell the passing years. (The Nature of the Physical World)


Eddy, Mary Baker

  • The devotion of thought to an honest achievement makes the achievement possible.

  • Happiness is spiritual, born of Truth and Love. It is unselfish; therefore it cannot exist alone, but requires all mankind to share it.

  • In spring, nature is like a thrifty housewife ... taking up the white carpets and putting down the green ones. (Miscellaneous Writings, 1883-1896)

  • To live and let live, without clamour for distinction or recognition; to wait on divine live; to write truth first on the table of one's own heart--this is the sanity and perfection of living, and my human ideal.


Eddy, Sherwood

  • Faith is not trying to believe something regardless of the evidence. Faith is daring to do something regardless of the consequences.


Edelman, Marian Wright

  • If we think we have ours and don't owe any time or money or effort to help those left behind, then we are a part of the problem rather than the solution to the fraying social fabric that threatens all Americans.

  • If you don't like the way the world is, you change it. You have an obligation to change it. You just do it one step at a time.

  • So often we dwell on the things that seem impossible rather than on the things that are possible. So often we are depressed by what remains to be done and forget to be thankful for all that has been done.

  • You just need to be a flea against injustice. Enough committed fleas biting strategically can make even the biggest dog uncomfortable and transform even the biggest nation.

  • You're not obligated to win. You're obligated to keep trying to do the best you can every day.


Edison, Thomas Alva

  • Genius is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration.

  • I am not discouraged, because every wrong attempt discarded is another step forward.

  • Negative results are just what I want. They’re just as valuable to me as positive results. I can never find the thing that does the job best until I find the ones that don’t.

  • Non-violence leads to the highest ethics, which is the goal of all evolution. Until we stop harming all other living beings, we are still savages.

  • Restlessness is discontent--and discontent is the first necessities of progress. Show me a thoroughly satisfied man and I will show you a failure.

  • Show me a thoroughly satisfied man and I will show you a failure.

  • When I have fully decided that a result is worth getting I go ahead of it and make trial after trial until it comes.


Edman, Irwin

  • The contemporary hero, the mythical pattern in the imitation of whom we would live, remains as yet undefined. We have no hero; what is more to the point, we suspect hero worship.

  • God may still be in His Heaven, but there is more than sufficient evidence that all is not right with the world. (Adam, the Baby and the Man from Mars)


Edmonds, Bernard

  • To dream anything that you want to dream. That's the beauty of the human mind. To do anything that you want to do. That is the strength of the human will. To trust yourself to test your limits. That is the courage to succeed.


Edmondson, Lisa

  • He who is humble is confident and wise. He who brags is insecure and lacking.

  • A talented trumpeter who toots his own horn winds up playing to an empty theatre. A talented trumpeter who lets others recognize his talent winds up a legend.


Edwards, Flora

  • In helping others, we shall help ourselves, for whatever good we give out completes the circle and comes back to us.


Edwards, Janet (Rev. Dr.)

  • So the return of Christmas each December resets my hope. It calms my fears, turning my mind and heart to follow Jesus into the new year committed again to do justice, love kindness and walk humbly with God. (quot;When Christmas Comes Round Again")


Edwards, Tyron

  • Between two evils, choose neither; between two goods, choose both.

  • The great end of education is to discipline rather than to furnish the mind; to train it to the use of its own powers, rather than fill it with the accumulation of others.

  • Have a time and place for everything, and do everything in its time and place, and you will not only accomplish more, but have far more leisure than those who are always hurrying.

  • He that never changes his opinions, never corrects his mistakes, will never be wiser on the morrow than he is today.

  • People never improve unless they look to some standard or example higher and better than themselves.

  • Piety and morality are but the same spirit differently manifested. Piety is religion with its fact toward God; morality is religion with its fact toward the world.

  • This world is the land of the dying; the next is the land of the living.

  • Thoughts lead on to purposes; purposes go forth in action; actions form habits; habits decide character; and character fixes our destiny.

  • True humility is not an abject, groveling, self-despising spirit--it is but a right estimate of ourselves as God sees us.


Eggleston, Edward

  • Persistent people begin their success where others end in failure.


Ehlert, Lois

  • A library is where ideas sleep between covers, waiting for you to discover them.


Ehrelich, Barbara

  • It would be nice if someone would read this sad-eyed crowd the Sermon on the Mount, accompanied by a rousing commentary on income inequality and a need for a hike in the minimum wage. But Jesus makes his appearance here only as a corpse; the living man, the wine-guzzling vagrant and precocious socialist, is never once mentioned, nor anything he ever had to say. Christ crucified rules, and it may be that the true business of modern Christianity is to crucify him again and again so that he can never get a word out of his mouth. (Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America)


Ehrhard, Joseph

  • You need a plan ... but don't become consumed by it. Winds change. (from The Quotable Teacher, comp. by Howe)


Einstein, Albert

  • After a certain high level of technical skill is achieved, science and art tend to coalesce in esthetics, plasticity, and form. The greatest scientists are always artists as well. (in the Durban Morning Herald, 8/21/55)

  • ... all our science, measured against reality, is primitive and childlike--yet it is the most precious thing we have. ("Glimpses of Einstein" The Physics Teacher, April 1974)

  • Any fool can know. The point is to understand.

  • 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.

  • Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new.

  • Before God we are equally wise--and equally foolish.

  • A clever person solves a problem. A wise person avoids it.--Albert Einstein

  • Computers are incredibly fast, accurate, and stupid. Human beings are incredibly slow, inaccurate, and brilliant. Together they are powerful beyond imagination.

  • Everyone should be respected as an individual, but no one idolized. ("My Credo" Wisdom)

  • Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler.

  • Few are those who see with their own eyes and feel with their own hearts.

  • The finest emotion of which we are capable is the mystic emotion. Herein lies the germ of all art and all true science. Anyone to whom this feeling is alien, who is no longer capable of wonderment and lives in a state of fear is a dead man.

  • For the most part, I do the thing which my own nature prompts me to do. It is embarrassing to earn so much respect and love for it.--Albert Einstein

  • Great spirits have always found violent opposition from mediocrities. The latter cannot understand it when a man does not thoughtlessly submit to hereditary prejudices but honestly and courageously uses his intelligence.

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

  • He who joyfully marches to music in rank and file has already earned my contempt. He has been given a large brain by mistake, since for him the spinal cord would fully suffice. This disgrace to civilization should be done away with at once. Heroism at command, senseless brutality, deplorable love-of-country stance, how violently I hate all this, how despicable and ignoble war is; I would rather be torn to shreds than be a part of so base an action! It is my conviction that killing under the cloak of war is nothing but an act of murder.

  • How strange is the lot of us mortals! Each of us is here for a brief sojourn; for what purpose he knows not, though he senses it. But without deeper reflection one knows from daily life that one exists for other people.

  • A human being is a part of the whole, called by us "Universe," a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest--a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty. Nobody is able to achieve this completely, but the striving for such achievement is in itself a part of the liberation and a foundation for inner security.

  • Humanity has every reason to place the proclaimers of high moral standards and values above the discoverers of objective truth. What humanity own to personalities like Buddha, Moses, and Jesus ranks for me higher than all the achievements of the of the inquiring constructive mind. (in Albert Einstein: the Human Side by Dukas and Hoffman)

  • A hundred times every day I remind myself that my inner and outer life depend on the labors of other men, living and dead, and that I must exert myself in order to give in the same measure as I have received and am still receiving.

  • I am absolutely convinced that no wealth in the world can help humanity forward, even in the hands of the most devoted worker. The example of great and pure individuals is the only thing that can lead us to noble thoughts and deeds. Money only appeals to selfishness and irresistibly invites abuse. Can anyone imagine Moses, Jesus or Ghandi armed with the money-bags of Carnegie?

  • 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.

  • I believe that a simple and unassuming manner of life is best for everyone, best both for the body and the mind.

  • I have never looked upon ease and happiness as ends in themselves - such an ethical basis I call the ideal of a pigsty. ... The ideals which have lighted my way, and time after time have given me new courage to face life cheerfully have been Kindness, Beauty, and Truth. ("What I Believe" Forum and Century)

  • I have no special talents. I am only passionately curious. (The Evolution of Physics)

  • I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.

  • I live in that solitude which is painful in youth, but delicious in the years of maturity.

  • I never teach my pupils, I only attempt to provide the conditions in which they can learn.

  • I think and think for months and years, ninety-nine times, the conclusion is false. The hundredth time I am right.

  • The idle man does not know what it is to enjoy rest.

  • If you are out to describe the truth, leave elegance to the tailor.

  • If you can't explain it simply, you don't understand it well enough. (from The Quotable Teacher, comp. by Howe)

  • Imagination is everything. It is the preview of life's coming attractions.

  • Information is not knowledge.

  • It is not so very important for a person to learn facts. For that he does not really need a college. He can learn them from books. The value of an education is a liberal arts college is not learning of many facts but the training of the mind to think something that cannot be learned from textbooks. (in Einstein: His Life and Times by Frank)

  • It is the supreme art of the teacher to awaken joy in creative expression and knowledge.

  • It's not that I'm so smart; it's just that I stay with problems longer. (from The Quotable Teacher, comp. by Howe)

  • Keep on sowing your seed, for you never know which will grow - perhaps it all will. (from The Quotable Teacher, comp. by Howe)

  • Logic will get you from A to B. Imagination will take you everywhere.

  • The mere formulation of a problem is far more essential than its solution, which may be merely a matter of mathematical or experimental skills. To raise new questions, new possibilities, to regard old problems from a new angle requires creative imagination and marks real advances in science.

  • More and more I come to value charity and love of one's fellow being above everything else... All our lauded technological progress--our very civilization--is like the axe in the hand of the pathological criminal.

  • 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.

  • The most important human endeavor is the striving for morality in our actions. Our inner balance and even our very existence depend on it. Only morality in our actions can give beauty and dignity to life. (in a letter 11/20/50)

  • Most people say that is it is the intellect which makes a great scientist. They are wrong: it is character.

  • Never do anything against conscience, even if the state demands it. (in Albert Einstein: Philosopher-Scientist ed. by Schilpp)

  • Nor do I take into account a danger of starting a chain reaction of a scope great enough to destroy part or all of the planet... But it is not necessary to imagine the earth being destroyed like a nova by a stellar explosion to understand vividly the growing scope of atomic war and to recognize that unless another war is prevented it is likely to ring destruction on a scale never before held possible, and even now hardly conceived, and that little civilization would survive it.

  • Not everything that can be counted, counts. And not everything that counts can be counted.

  • Nothing that I can do will change the structure of the universe. But maybe, by raising my voice I can help the greatest of all causes - goodwill among men and peace on earth.

  • One cannot help but be in awe when one contemplates the mysteries of eternity, of life, of the marvelous structure of reality. It is enough if one tries merely to comprehend a little of this mystery each day.

  • The only source of knowledge is experience.

  • The only thing that you absolutely have to know, is the location of the library.

  • Our task must be to free ourselves...by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature and its beauty.

  • Out of clutter, find Simplicity.
    From discord, find Harmony.
    In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity. (Three Rules of Work)

  • 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.

  • Science can only ascertain what is, but not what should be, and outside of its domain value judgements of all kinds remain necessary.

  • Setting an example is not the main means of influencing another, it is the only means. (from The Quotable Teacher, comp. by Howe)

  • Strive not to be a success, but rather to be of value.

  • There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.

  • To punish me for my contempt for authority, fate made me an authority myself. (Albert Einstein: Creator and Rebel)

  • True religion is real living; living with all one's soul, with all one's goodness and righteousness.

  • The true sign of intelligence is not knowledge but imagination.

  • Truth is what stands the test of experience. (Out of my Later Years)

  • Unthinking respect for authority is the greatest enemy of truth.

  • We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.

  • When I examine myself and my methods of thought, I come to the conclusion that the gift of fantasy has meant more to me than my talent for absorbing positive knowledge.

  • When you examine the lives of the most influential people who have ever walked among us, you discover one thread that winds through them all. They have been aligned first with their spiritual nature and only then with their physical selves.

  • When the solution is simple, God is answering.

  • Whoever undertakes to set himself up as a judge of Truth and Knowledge is shipwrecked by the laughter of the gods.

  • The world as we have created it is a process of our thinking. It cannot be changed without changing our thinking.

  • The world is not dangerous because of those who do harm but because of those who look at it without doing anything.


Einstein, Elsa

  • No, I don't understand my husband's theory of relativity, but I know my husband and I know he can be trusted.


Eiseley, Loren

  • If you cannot bear the silence and the darkness, do not go there; if you dislike black night and yawning chasms, never make them your profession. If you fear the sound of water hurrying through crevices toward unknown and mysterious destinations, do not consider it. Seek out the sunshine. It is a simple prescription. Avoid the darkness. (The Night Country)

  • In the end, science as we know it has two basic types of practitioners. One is the educated man who still has a controlled sense of wonder before the universal mystery, whether it hides in a snail's eye or within the light that impinges on that delicate organ. The second kind of observer is the extreme reductionist who is so busy stripping things apart that the tremendous mystery has been reduced to a trifle, to intangibles not worth troubling one's head about. ("Science and the Sense of the Holy" The Star Trowner)

  • It is frequently the tragedy of the great artist, as it is of the great scientist, that he frightens the ordinary man. (The Night Country)

  • Man is always marveling at what he has blown apart, never at what the universe has put together, and this is his limitation.

  • Tomorrow lurks in us, the latency to be all that was not achieved before. ("Man Against the Universe" The Star Thrower)


Eisenhower, Dwight David

  • 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 cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron.

  • I like to believe that people in the long run are going to do more to promote peace than our governments. Indeed, I think that people want peace so much that one of these days governments had better get out of the way and let them have it.

  • Leadership is the art of getting someone else to do something you want done because he wants to do it.

  • Motivation is the art of getting people to do what you want them to do because they want to do it.

  • Plans are nothing; planning is everything. New! as of 04/01/17

  • There is no victory at bargain basement prices.

  • Though force can protect in emergency, only justice, fairness, consideration and cooperation can finally lead men to the dawn of eternal peace.

  • The world moves, and ideas that were once good are not always good.


El, Paul M. (Mrs.)

  • They err who thinks Santa Claus comes down through the chimney; he really enters through the heart.


Eldridge, Paul

  • Authors hide their big thefts by putting small ones between quotation marks. (Maxims for Modern Man)


Eliot, Charles W.

  • Books are the quietest and most constant of friends, and the most patient of teachers.


Eliot, George

  • Blessed is the man who, having nothing to say, abstains from giving us wordy evidence of the fact.

  • Conscientious people are apt to see their duty in that which is the most painful course. (The Mill on the Floss)

  • Consequences are unpitying. (Adam Bede)

  • Delicious autumn! My very soul is wedded to it, and if I were a bird I would fly about the earth seeking the successive autumns. (George Eliot's Life as Related in Her Letters and Journals)

  • Failure after long perseverance is much grander than never to have a striving good enough to be called a failure.

  • The first condition of human goodness is something to love; the second, something to reverence.

  • The golden moments in the stream of life rush past us, and we see nothing but sand; the angels come to visit us, and we only know them when they are gone.

  • I have always been thinking of the different ways in which Christianity is taught, and whenever I find one way that makes it a wider blessing than any other, I cling to that as the truest--I mean that which takes in the most good of all kinds, and brings in the most people as sharers in it. It is surely better to pardon too much, than to condemn too much. (Middlemarch)

  • I hold it a blasphemy to say that a man ought not to fight against authority: there is no great religion and no great freedom that has not done it, in the beginning. (Felix Holt, the Radical)

  • I think I should have no other mortal wants, if I could always have plenty of music. It seems to infuse strength into my limbs and ideas into my brain. Life seems to go on without effort, when I am filled with music.

  • If we had a keen vision and feeling of all ordinary human life, it would be like hearing the grass grow and the squirrel's heart beat, and we should die of the roar which lies on the other side of silence. As it is, the quickest of us walk about well wadded with stupidity.

  • I'm not denyin' the women are foolish; God Almighty made 'em to match the men.

  • It is impossible, to me at least, to be poetical in cold weather. (George Eliot's Life as Related in Her Letters and Journals)

  • It is never too late to be what you might have been.

  • It seems to me that we can never give up longing and wishing, while we are thoroughly alive. There are certain things we feel to be beautiful and good, and we must hunger after them.

  • It will never rain roses; when we want to have more roses, we must plant more roses.

  • Mankind is not disposed to look narrowly into the conduct of great victors when their victory is on the right side.

  • No great deed is done by falterers who ask for certainty.

  • Nothing is so good as it seems beforehand. (Silas Marner)

  • One must be poor to know the luxury of giving.

  • Opposition may become sweet to a man when he has christened it persecution. (Janet's Repentance)

  • Our consciousness rarely registers the beginning of a growth within us any more than without us; there have been many circulations of the sap before we detect the smallest sign of the bud. (Silas Marner)

  • The strongest principle of growth lies in human choice. (Daniel Deronda)

  • There are many victories worse than a defeat.

  • There is no sorrow I have thought about more than that - to love what is great, and try to reach it, and yet to fail.

  • Those who trust us educate us. (from The Quotable Teacher, comp. by Howe)

  • 'Tis what I love determines how I love.

  • We hand folks over to God's mercy, and show none ourselves.

  • We must not inquire too curiously into motives. ... They are apt to become feeble in the utterance: the aroma is mixed with the grosser air. We must keep the germinating grain away from the light. (Middlemarch)

  • What do we live for, if not to make the world less difficult for each other?

  • What makes life dreary is the want of a motive.

  • When we get to wishing a great deal for ourselves, whatever we get soon turns into mere limitation and exclusion. (Daniel Deronda)


Eliot, Robert S. and Dennis Breo

  • It's important to run not on the fast track, but on your track. Pretend you have only six months to live. Make three lists: the things you have to do, want to do, and neither have to do nor want to do. Then, for the rest of your life, forget everything in the third category.


Eliot, T. S.

  • April is the cruelest month, breeding
    Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
    Memory and desire, stirring
    Dull roots with spring rain. (The Waste Land)

  • A book is not harmless merely because no one is consciously offended by it.

  • A cold coming we had of it,
    Just the worst time of year
    For a journey, and such a long journey:
    The ways deep and the weather sharp,
    The very dead of winter. ("Journey of the Magi")

  • The end of all our exploring
    Will be to arrive where we started
    And know the place for the first time. ("Little Gidding")

  • For last year's words belong to last year's language
    And next year's words await another voice.
    And to make an end is to make a beginning. ("Little Gidding")

  • For us, there is only the trying. The rest is not our business. ("East Coker" Four Quartets)

  • Half of the harm that is done in this world is due to people who want to feel important. They don't mean to do harm. But the harm does not interest them.

  • Humankind cannot bear very much reality. (Murder in the Cathedral)

  • Humility is the most difficult of all virtues to achieve, nothing dies harder than the desire to think well of oneself.

  • It is in fact a part of the function of education to help us escape, not from our own time — for we are bound by that — but from the intellectual and emotional limitations of our time.

  • Old men [and women] ought to be explorers.
    Here and there does not matter. We must be still
    And still moving, into another intensity
    For a further union, a deeper communion… (The Four Quartets)

  • Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go.

  • Right action is freedom.

  • The very existence of libraries affords the best evidence that we may yet have hope for the future of man.

  • Where is the Life we have lost in living?
    Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge?
    Where is the knowledge we have lost in information? ("The Rock")

  • You do not know how much they mean to me, my friends, and how, how rare and strange it is, to find in a life composed so much of odds and ends... to find a friend who has these qualities, who has, and gives those qualities upon which friendship lives. How much it means that I say this to you-- without these friendships-- life, what cauchemar!


Elizabeth II (Queen of Great Britain)

  • For Christians, as for all people of faith, reflection, meditation and prayer help us to renew ourselves in God's love, as we strive daily to become better people. The Christmas message shows us that this love is for everyone. There is no one beyond its reach. (Christmas message 2013)


Elle, Alexanra

  • The Sun will rise and set regardless. What we choose to do with the light while it's here is up to us. Journey wisely.


Ellerbee, Linda

  • I have always felt that laughter in the face of reality is probably the finest sound there is and will last until the day when the game is called on account of darkness. In this world, a good time to laugh is any time you can.

  • In the coldest February, as in every other month in every other year, the best thing to hold on to in this world is each other. New! as of 04/01/17


Ellington, Duke

  • Gray skies are just clouds passing over.

  • A problem is a chance for you to do your best.

  • There are two kinds of worries -- those you can do something about and those you can't. Don't spend any time on the latter.


Elliot, Jim

  • He is no fool who gives up what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose.


Elliott, L. G.

  • The long span of the bridge of your life is supported by countless cables called habits, attitudes, and desires. What you do in life depends upon what you are and what you want. What you get from life depends on how much you want it, how much you are willing to work and plan and co-operate and use your resources. The long span of the bridge of your life is supported by countless cables that you are spinning now, and that is why today is such an important day. Make the cables strong.


Elliott, Walter

  • Perseverance is not a long race; it is many short races one after another.


Ellis, Albert

  • 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.


Ellis, George

  • What is the nature of true morality? I have argued ... that it must be a kind of ethics involving letting go of one's own interest on behalf of others, being ready if necessary to sacrifice one's own interests for them, even on behalf of an enemy.


Ellis, Havelock

  • However well organized the foundations of life may be, life must always be full of risks.


Ellis, James

  • We can all be heroes in our virtues, in our homes, in our lives.


Ellis, W. T.

  • It is Christmas in the heart that puts Christmas in the air.


Ellison, David V.

  • Goals are the barriers that limit our ability to reach our true potential.

  • Setting goals provides man with an excuse to stop before he has exhausted all efforts to reach his maximum potential.


Ellison, Ralph

  • It takes a deep commitment to change and an even deeper commitment to grow.


Ellsberg, Daniel

  • You needn't think there is nothing you can do--you can tell the truth. ("Awakening From a Dream of Kings and Wizards" in Peace is the Way)


Emerson, Ralph Waldo

  • All great masters are chiefly distinguished by the power of adding a second, a third, and perhaps a fourth step in a continuous line. Many a man had taken the first step. With every additional step you enhance immensely the value of you first.

  • All our progress is an unfolding, like a vegetable bud. You have first an instinct, then an opinion, then a knowledge as the plant has root, bud, and fruit. Trust the instinct to the end, though you can render no reason.

  • Bad times have a scientific value. These are occasions a good learner would not miss.

  • Be a little careful about your library. Do you foresee what you will do with it? Very little to be sure. But the real question is, What it will do with you? You will come here and get books that will open your eyes, and your ears, and your curiosity, and turn you inside out or outside in.

  • By necessity, by proclivity, and by delight, we all quote.

  • Cause and effect, means and ends, seed and fruit, cannot be severed; for the effect already blooms in the cause, the end pre-exists in the means, the fruit in the seed… You cannot do wrong without suffering wrong.

  • Character is higher than intellect. A great soul will be strong to live as well as think.

  • Concentration is the secret of strength in politics, in war, in trade, in short, in all management of human affairs. ("Power" The Conduct of Life)

  • The definition of success--To laugh much; to win respect of intelligent persons and the affections of children; to earn the approbation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends; to appreciate beauty; to find the best in others; to give one's self; to leave the world a little better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch, or a redeemed social condition.; to have played and laughed with enthusiasm, and sung with exultation; to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived--this is to have succeeded.

  • The difference between talent and genius is in the direction of the current: in genius, it is from within outward; in talent from without inward. (Journal, May 3, 1841)

  • Do not be too timid and squeamish... All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make, the better.

  • The faith that stands on authority is not faith.

  • Few people know how to take a walk. The qualifications are endurance, plain clothes, old shoes, an eye for nature, good humor, vast curiosity, good speech, good silence and nothing too much.

  • Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could; some blunders and absurdities have crept in; forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day; you shall begin it serenely and with too high a spirit to be encumbered with your old nonsense.

  • Flowers ... are a proud assertion that a ray of beauty outvalues all the utilities of the world. ("Gifts", Essays, First Series)

  • For every minute you are angry you lose sixty seconds of happiness.

  • For everything you have missed, you have gained something else; and for everything you gain, you lose something else.

  • A friend may well be reckoned the masterpiece of nature.

  • Genius seems to consist merely in trueness of sight, in using such words as show that the man was an eye-witness, and not a repeater of what was told. (Journals, 1834)

  • Give no bounties: makes equal laws: secure life and prosperity and you need not give alms.

  • Great men are they who see that spiritual is stronger than any material force, that thoughts rule the world.

  • Guard well your spare moments. They are like uncut diamonds. Discard them and their value will never be known. Improve them and they will become the brightest gems in a useful life.

  • Happiness is a perfume you cannot pour on others without getting a few drops on yourself.

  • He who is not everyday conquering some fear has not learned the secret of life.

  • A hero is no braver than an ordinary man, but he is braver five minutes longer.

  • The highest revelation is that God is in every man.

  • I hate quotations.

  • I like the silence of a church, before the service begins better than any preaching.

  • I see that sensible men and conscientious men all over the world were of one religion of well-doing and daring.: (The Preacher. Lectures and Biographical Sketches

  • If a man ... can paint a landscape, and convey into souls and ochres all the enchantments of Spring or Autumn; it is certain that the secret cannot be kept; the first witness tells it to a second, and men go by fives and tens and fifties to his doors.

  • If the stars should appear one night in a thousand years, how would we believe and adore; and preserve for many generations the remembrance of the city of God which had been shown! But every night come out these envoys of beauty, and light the universe with their admonishing smile. ("Nature")

  • In every work of genius we recognize our own rejected thoughts; they come back to us with a certain alienated majesty.

  • Insist upon yourself. Be original.

  • The invariable mark of wisdom is to see the miraculous in the common.

  • If there is any period one would desire to be born in, is it not the age of Revolution; when the old and the new stand side by side...when the glories of the old can be compensated by the rich possibilities of the new era? This time...is a very good one...

  • It is a happy talent to know how to play. (Journals)

  • It is easy in the world to live after the world's opinion, it is easy in solitude to live after your own; but the great man is he who, in the midst of the world, keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude.

  • It is not the length of life, but depth of life.

  • Knowledge is the antidote to fear. (from The Quotable Teacher, comp. by Howe)

  • Life is a succession of lessons which must be lived to be understood.

  • The line between failure and success is so fine that we scarcely know when we pass it--so fine that we often are on the line and do not know it.

  • A little praise goes a great ways. ("Encyclopedia")

  • Make the most of yourself, for that is all there is of you.

  • The man of genius inspires us with a boundless confidence in our own powers. ("Encyclopedia")

  • The man who can make hard things easy is the educator.

  • Men love to wonder, and that is the seed of our science.

  • [Music] takes us out of the actual and whispers to us dim secrets that startle our wonder as to who we are, and for what, whence, and whereto. (Journals)

  • Nature always wears the colors of the spirit. (Nature)

  • Never lose an opportunity of seeing anything that is beautiful for beauty is God's handwriting - a wayside sacrament. Welcome it in every fair face, in every fair sky, in every fair flower, and thank God for it as a cup of blessing.

  • Next to the originator of a good sentence is the first quoter of it.

  • No change of circumstances can repair a defect of character.

  • No great man ever complains of want of opportunity.

  • None of us will ever accomplish anything excellent or commanding except when he listens to this whisper which is heard by him alone. ("Greatness" Letters and Social Aims)

  • Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm.

  • Often a certain abdication of prudence and foresight is an element of success.

  • An original sentence, a step forward, is worth more than all the centuries.

  • The ornament of a house is the friends who frequent it.

  • One must be an inventor to read well. ...there is then creative reading as well as creative writing. ("The American Scholar" address, Harvard Univ. 8/31/1837)

  • Our chief want in life is somebody who will make us do what we can.

  • Peace cannot be achieved through violence, it can only be attained through understanding.

  • People only see what they are prepared to see. (Journals)

  • People seem not to see that their opinion of the world is also a confession of character. ("Worship" The Conduct of Life)

  • People with great gifts are easy to find, but symmetrical and balanced ones never.

  • The purpose of life is not to be happy. It is to be useful, to be honorable, to be compassionate, to have it make some difference that you have lived and lived well.

  • The real and lasting victories are those of peace and not of war. ("Worship" The Conduct of Life)

  • The religion that is afraid of science dishonors God and commits suicide.

  • The reward of a thing well done is to have done it.

  • The right performance of this hour's duties will be the best preparation for the hours or ages that follow it.

  • The secret of education is respecting the pupil.

  • The secret of the world is the tie between person and event. Person makes event and event person. ("Fate" The Conduct of Life)

  • Shallow men believe in luck. Strong men believe in cause and effect.

  • Society is always taken by surprise at any new example of common sense.

  • Some men's words I remember so well that I must often use them to express my thought. Yes, because I perceive that we have heard the same truth, but they have heard it better.

  • Some of the sweetest hours in life, in retrospect will be found to have been spent with books.

  • Some of your hurts you have cured,
    And the sharpest you've even survived,
    But what torments of grief you've endured,
    From evils which never arrived.

  • The sower may mistake and sow his peas crookedly: the peas make no mistake, but come up and show his line. (Journals)

  • Spring still makes spring in the mind
    When sixty years are told.
    Love wakes anew this throbbing heart,
    And we are never old.--Ralph Waldo Emerson ("The World-Soul" May-Day and Other Pieces)

  • The sun shines and warms and lights us and we have no curiosity to know why this is so; but we ask the reason of all evil, of pain, and hunger.

  • The sweetest music is not in the oratorio, but in the human voice when it speaks from its instant life tones of tenderness, truth, or courage. ("Art" Essays: First Series)

  • Thefts never enrich; alms never impoverish; murder will speak out of stone walls. The least admixture of a lie--for example, the taint of vanity, the least attempt to make a good impression, a favorable appearance--will instantly vitiate the effect.

  • There can be no high civility without a deep morality.

  • There is a time in every man's education when he arrives at the conviction that envy is ignorance: that imitation is suicide: that he must take himself for better, or for worse. (Self-Reliance)

  • There is health in table talk and nursery play. We must wear old shoes and have aunts and cousins.

  • They can conquer who believe they can. He has not learned the first lesson in life who does not every day surmount a fear.

  • This world belongs to the enthusiastic.

  • To finish the moment, to find the journey’s end in every step of the road, to live the greatest number of good hours, is wisdom.

  • Trust men and they will be true to you; treat them greatly and they will show themselves great. ("Prudence," (Essays: First Series)

  • Unless you try to do something beyond what you have already mastered, you will never grow.

  • Use what language you will, you can never say anything but what you are. ("Worship" The Conduct of Life)

  • We gain the strength of the temptation we resist. ("Compensation" Essays: First Series)

  • We judge of man's wisdom by his hope.

  • We know better than we do. We do not yet possess ourselves.

  • What is a weed? A plant whose virtues have never been discovered.

  • What is the hardest task in the world? To think. (Journals)

  • Whatever course you decide upon, there is always someone to tell you that you are wrong. There are always difficulties arising which tempt you to believe that your critics are right. To map out a course of action and follow it to an end requires courage.

  • Whatever games are played with us, we must play no games with ourselves, but deal in our privacy with the last honesty and truth.

  • When I first open my eyes upon the morning meadows and look out upon the beautiful world, I think God I am alive.

  • When it is darkest, men see the stars.

  • When Nature has work to be done, she creates a genius to do it. (Method of Nature)

  • When summer opens, I see how fast it matures, and fear it will be short; but after the heats of July and August, I am reconciled, like one who has had his swing, to the cool of autumn.

  • When the eyes say one thing and the tongue another, the practiced person relies on the language of the first.

  • When we have arrived at the question, the answer is already near. (Journal, April 1852)

  • When you do a thing, do it with all your might. Put you whole soul into it. Stamp it with your own personality. Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm. (from The Quotable Teacher, comp. by Howe)

  • The whole secret of the teacher's force lies in the conviction that man are convertible. (Journals)

  • Win as if you were used to it, lose as if you enjoyed it for a change.

  • The wise man always throws himself on the side of his assailants. It is more his interest than it is theirs to find his weak point.

  • The wise man in the storm prays God, not for safety from danger, but for deliverance from fear.

  • Write it on your heart that every day is the best day in the year.

  • You cannot do a kindness too soon, for you never know how soon it will be too late.


Emmanuel

  • The universe cannot be miserly. It cannot be wanting. It holds nothing but abundance. It is perfect love, and perfect love is absolute, eternal giving.


Emmons, Nathaniel

  • Habit is either the best of servants or the worst of masters.


Engelbreit, Mary

  • Part of my passion for all things Christmas is seeing my holiday stuff again every December. I suppose I do have more than most folks, so the reunion each winter keeps me in the holiday spirit for a full year. And there are always a few pieces out in my house whatever the month. (Christmas with Mary Engelbreit)


English, Wilda

  • God grant you the light in Christmas which is faith;
    the warmth of Christmas, which is love;
    the radiance of Christmas, which is purity;
    the righteousness of Christmas, which is justice;
    the belief in Christmas, which is truth...


Engstrom, Ted W.

  • Concentrate on the essentials. We will then be accomplishing the greatest possible results with the effort expended.

  • The rewards for those who persevere far exceed the pain that must precede the victory

  • We must expect to fail...but fail in a learning posture, determined no to repeat the mistakes, and to maximize the benefits from what is learned in the process.


Epictetus

  • Do you know that disease and death must needs overtake us, no matter what we are doing? What do you wish to be doing when it overtakes you? If you have anything better to be doing when you are so overtaken, get to work at it. (The Life That Calls Me)

  • First say to yourself what you would be; and then do what you have to do.

  • Freedom is not procured by a full enjoyment of what is desired, but by controlling the desire.

  • God has entrusted me with myself.

  • Happiness and freedom begin with a clear understanding of one principle: Some things are within our control, and some things are not. It is only after you have faced up to this fundamental rule and learned to distinguish between what you can and can't control that inner tranquility and outer effectiveness become possible.

  • If virtue promises happiness, prosperity and peace, then progress in virtue is progress in each of these; for to whatever point the perfection of anything brings us, progress is always an approach toward it.

  • If you wish to be a good reader - read.

  • It is impossible for a man to begin to learn what he think he knows. (Discourses)

  • No greater thing is created suddenly, any more than a bunch of grapes or a fig. If you tell me that you desire a fig, I answer you that there must be time. Let it first blossom, then bear fruit, then ripen.

  • No man is free who is not master of himself

  • Only the educated are free. (from The Quotable Teacher, comp. by Howe)

  • There is only one way to happiness and that is to cease worrying about things which are beyond the power of our will.

  • A thing either is what it appears to be; or it is not, but yet appears to be; or it is, but does not appear to be; or it is not, and does not appear to be.

  • To accuse others for one's own misfortunes is a sign of want of education. To accuse oneself shows that one's education has begun. To accuse neither oneself nor others shows that one's education is complete.

  • We all carry the seeds of greatness within us, but we need an image as a point of focus in order that they may sprout.

  • You can be happy if you know this secret: Some things are within your power to control and some things are not.


Epicurus

  • The greater the difficulty, the more glory in surmounting it.

  • He who doesn't find a little enough will find nothing enough.

  • It is not so much our friends' help that helps us as the confident knowledge that they will help us.


Erasmus, Deciderius

  • It is the chiefest point of happiness that a man is willing to be what he is.

  • The main hope of a nation lies in the proper education of its youth.

  • When I get a little money I buy books; and if any is left I buy food and clothes.


Erhard, Werner

  • You and I want our lives to matter. We want our lives to make a real difference - to be of genuine consequence in the world. We know that there is no satisfaction in merely going through the motions, even if those motions make us successful, or even if we have arranged to make those motions pleasant. We want to know we have made some impact on the world. In fact, you and I want to contribute to the quality of life. We want to make the world work.


Ericksen, Adam

  • In the first century, the wisdom of Christ crucified was a stumbling block to the Jews and foolishness to the Gentiles. In the 21st century, the wisdom of God that led to Christ’s nonviolent love in the face of violence is a stumbling block and utter foolishness not primarily to Jews and Gentiles, but to Christians. ("How Christians Reject Jesus: On Violence and ISIS" in God’s Politics Blog, 9/24/14)


Erwin, Ira

  • The greatest discoveries have come from people who have looked at a standard situation and seen it differently.


Esar, Evan

  • The closest to perfection a person ever comes is when he fills out a job application form.

  • Housework is what a woman does that nobody notices unless she hasn't done it.


Escher, M. C.

  • Only those who attempt the absurd...will achieve the impossible. I think ...I think it's in my basement...Let me go upstairs and check.

  • We adore chaos because we love to produce order.


Esquith, Rafe

  • I don't think we expect enough of students. They just need someone to show them the way. (from The Quotable Teacher, comp. by Howe)


Estefan, Gloria

  • The library takes me away from my everyday life and allows me to see other places and learn to understand other people unlike myself.

  • The sad truth is that opportunity doesn't knock twice. You can put things off until tomorrow but tomorrow may never come.


Estep, Jeff

  • When assuming the throne, great kings are not judged by how many good changes they may make; rather, on how little they change the things which are already good.


Estes, Clarissa Pinkola

  • I hope you will go out and let stories happen to you, and that you will work them, water them with your blood and tears and you laughter till they bloom, till you yourself burst into bloom.


Estrada, Ignacio 'Nacho'

  • If a child can't learn the way we teach, maybe we should teach the way they learn.


Etters, Britt

  • If nothing in life is a struggle then life itself will become one.


Euclid

  • The laws of nature are but the mathematical thoughts of God. (in Mathematical Journey by Stanley Gudder)


Euripides

  • The best and safest thing is to keep a balance in your life, acknowledge the great powers around us and in us. If you can do that, and live that way, you are really a wise man.

  • Do not consider painful what is good for you.

  • New faces have more authority than accustomed ones.

  • One loyal friend is worth ten thousand relatives.

  • Wealth stays with us a little moment if at all: only our characters are steadfast, not our gold.

  • What we look for does not come to pass;
    God finds a way for what none foresaw. (Alcestis)


Evans, Bergen

  • Freedom of speech and freedom of action are meaningless without freedom to think. And there is no freedom of thought without doubt.

  • Leadership is more likely to be assumed by the aggressive than by the able, and those who scramble to the top are more often motivated by their own inner torments. (The Spoor of the Spook)


Evans, Dale

  • Every time we love, every time we give, it's Christmas.


Evans, Margiad

  • Our health is a voyage and every illness is an adventure story.


Evans, Marsha (Rear Admiral)

  • Working hard overcomes a who lot of other obstacles. You can have unbelievable intelligence, you can have connections, you can have opportunities fall out of the sky. But in the end, hard work is the true, enduring characteristic of successful people.


Evans, Rachard Held

  • Sometimes you have to be forced away from your work to realize you’ve made too much of it, to remember it doesn’t define you. ("13 Things I Learned Upon Spilling A Chai Tea Latte on My Laptop and Thinking For 48-Hours I May Have Lost My Manuscript")


Evans, Richard Paul

  • People are like books, unknown until they are opened.

  • The smells of Christmas are the smells of childhood. (The Christmas Box)


Evelyn, John

  • Friendship is the golden thread that ties the heart of all the world.


Evens, Bergen

  • Wisdom is meaningless until your own experience has given it meaning ... and there is wisdom in the selection of wisdom.


Evenus

  • Habit, my friend, is practice long pursued, that at last becomes man himself.


Everett, Douglas

  • There are some people who live in a dream world, and there are some who face reality; and then there are those who turn one into the other.


Everett, Edward

  • Education is a better safeguard of liberty than a standing army.


Evert, Chris

  • You've got to take the initiative and play your game...confidence makes the difference.


Ewart, J. Lloyd

  • God is personified in sacred writings, but long before the pen, ultimate reality, the ever creating God, was defined in the majestic mountains, trees and flowing waters. (Inspirational Images)

  • In this fast paced, plastic, microchip culture, dominated by internet, T.V. and satellite dishes, we rush from place to place and often fail to find our roots in the created order. Cars speed by forests, deserts, mountains and streams, missing the "statement" these wild areas are making to us about the origins and purpose of our life. We hurry past the wild flowers, the mountains, the deer. We carry the pressures and stresses of modern life along with us. (Inspirational Images)

  • The metamorphosis that transforms the lowly worm into a beautiful butterfly reminds us of the loving miracle producing Creator always at work before us, around us and in us. To witness this marvel is to experience our own resurrection, new life, and beginning. (Inspirational Images)

  • Some astronomers say we may be alone in this galaxy. That this planet, filled with life, is an extremely rare event. If so, all the more we must preserve its beauty which speaks to our inner self as nothing else. (Inspirational Images)

  • When we find the LOVE in creation as expressed in the natural world around us, we are wealthy beyond words. One can be no richer and need not be. (Inspirational Images)


Ewing, Russell H.

  • A boss creates fear, a leader confidence.
    A boss fixes blame, a leader corrects mistakes.
    A boss knows all, a leader asks questions.
    A boss makes work drudgery, a leader makes it interesting.
    A boss is interested in himself or herself, a leader is interested in the group.


Ewing, Sam

  • Hard work spotlights the character of people: some turn up their sleeves, some turn up their noses, and some don't turn up at all

  • Nothing is so embarrassing as watching someone do something that you said couldn't be done.

  • Success has a simple formula: do your best, and people may like it.

  • When you finally go back to your old home, you find it wasn't the old home you missed but your childhood.


Exley, Helen

  • Thank you to all the people in the world who are always 10% kinder than they need to be. That's what really makes the world go round.

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