Jackson, Andrew

• One person with courage makes a majority.

• Take time to deliberate; but when the time for action arrives, stop thinking and go in.

Jackson, George

• Patience has its limits. Take it too far, and it's cowardice.

Jackson, Hardy D.

• Above all, be true to yourself, and if you cannot put your heart in it, take yourself out of it.

Jackson, Holbrook

• The poor are the only consistent altruists; they sell all they have and give it to the rich.

• The time to read is any time: no apparatus, no appointment of time and place, is necessary. It is the only art which can be practiced at any hour of the day or night, whenever the time and inclination comes, that is your time for reading; in joy or sorrow, health or illness.

• Your library is your portrait. (Maxims on Books and Reading)

Jackson, Jessie

• Both tears and sweat are salty, but they render a different result. Tears will get you sympathy; sweat will get you change.

• Hold your head high, stick your chest out. You can make it. It gets dark sometimes, but morning comes.... Keep hope alive.

• Leadership has a harder job to do than just choose sides. It must bring sides together.

• Never look down on anybody unless you're helping them up.

• No one rises to low expectations.

• No one should negotiate their dreams. Dreams must be free to flee and fly high. No government, no legislature, has a right to limit your dreams. You should never agree to surrender your dreams.

Jackson, Robert (Justice)

• Freedom to differ is not limited to things that do not matter mush. That would be a mere shadow of freedom. The test of its substance is the right to differ as to things that touch the heart of the existing order. (West Virginia State Board V. Barnette, 1943)

Jackson, Sarah

• Before you criticize someone, walk a mile in his shoes. That way, if he gets angry, he'll be a mile away--and barefoot.

Jagger, Mick and Keith Richards

• You can't always get what you want.
  But if you try sometimes,
  You just might find
  You get what you need. ("You Can't Always Get What You Want")

James, Isadora

• A sister is a gift to the heart, a friend to the spirit, a golden thread to the meaning of life.

James, Jennifer

• The accumulation of small, optimistic acts produces quality in our culture and in your life. Our culture resonates in tense times to individual acts of grace.

James, William

• Act as if what you do makes a difference. It does.

• Believe that life is worth living, and your belief will help create the fact.

• The essence of genius is to know what to overlook.

• Everyone knows on any given day that there are energies slumbering in him which the incitements of that day do not call fourth. … Compared with what we ought to be, we are only half awake. Our fires are damped, our drafts are checked. We are making use of only a small part of our possible mental and physical resources. … Stating the thing broadly, the human individual thus lives fare within his limits; he possesses powers of various sorts he habitually fails to use. (in Developing the Leader Within You by Maxwell)

• Genius...means little more than the faculty of perceiving in an unhabitual way

• A great many people think they are thinking when they are merely rearranging their prejudices.

• The greatest discovery of my generation is that human beings can alter their lives by altering their attitudes of mind.

• The greatest use of a life is to spend it on something that will outlast it.

• If you believe that feeling bad or worrying long enough will change a past or future event, then you are residing on another planet with a different reality system.

• It is our attitude at the beginning of a difficult task which more than anything else will affect its successful outcome.

• Let everything you do be done as if it makes a difference.

• Most people never run far enough on their first wind, to find out if they've got a second. Give your dreams all you've got, and you'll be amazed at the energy that comes out of you.

• Objective evidence and certitude are doubtless very fine ideals to play with, but where on this moonlit and dream-visited planet are they found?

• Three things in human life are important: The first is to be kind. The second is to be kind. And the third is to be kind.

• To improve the golden moment of opportunity, and catch the good that is within our reach, is the great art of life.

• To make our nervous system our ally instead of our enemy … we must make automatic and habitual, as early as possible, as many useful actions as we can, and guard against the growing into ways that are likely to be disadvantageous to us, as we should guard against the plague. (The Principles of Psychology)

Jameson, Anna

• We can sometimes love what we do not understand, but it is impossible completely to understand what we do not love. (A Commonplace Book)

Jameson, Storm

• For what I have received may the Lord make me truly thankful. And more truly for what I have not received. (Journey from the North, v.2)

• Hope is a talent like any other.

• We need the slower and more lasting stimulus of solitary reading as a relief from the pressure on eye, ear and nerves of the torrent of information and entertainment pouring from ever-open electronic jaws. It could end by stupefying us. (Parthian Words)

Jamison, Hahlil

• Relationships--of all kinds--are like sand held in your hand. Held loosely, with an open hand the sand remains where it is. The minute you close your hand and squeeze tightly to hold on, the sand trickles through your fingers. You may hold onto some of it, but mostly it will be spilled. A relationships is like that. Held loosely, with respect and freedom for the other person, it is likely to remain intact. But hold too tightly, too possessively, and the relationship slips away and is lost.

Jampolsky, Gerald

• Everyday ask yourself the question, "Do I want to experience Peace of Mind or do I want to experience Conflict?"

• Fear and love can never be experienced at the same time. It is always our choice as to which of these emotions we want.

• Forgiveness is an inner correction that lightens the heart. It is for our peace of mind first. Being at peace, we will now have peace to give to others, and this is the most permanent and valuable gift we can possibly give.

• Forgiveness means letting go of the past.

• Other people do not have to change for us to experience peace of mind.

• The world does not have to change.... The only thing that has to change is our attitude.

Janeway, Elizabeth

• Humor is an antidote to isolation. (Improper Behavior)

• We older women who know we aren't heroines can offer our younger sisters, at the very least, an honest report of what we have learned and how we have grown.

Jaques, Edna

• There'll always be Christmas as long as a light
  Glows in the window to guide folks at night,
  As long as a star in the heavens above,
  Keeps shining down … there'll be Christmas and love. ("There'll Always Be Christmas...")

Jarrell, Mildred L.

• Let us have music for Christmas…
  Sound the trumpet of joy and rebirth;
  Let each of us try, with a song in our hearts,
  To bring peace to men on earth. ("Music for Christmas")

Jay, Antony

• The uncreative mind can spot wrong answers, but it takes a very creative mind to spot wrong questions.

• You can judge a leader by the size of the problem he tackles… Other people can cope with the waves, it's his job to watch the tide. (Management and Machiavelli: An inquiry into the Politics of Corporate Life)

Jay, W. M. L.

• Excellence in any pursuit is the late, ripe fruit of toil. (Shiloh)

Jefferson, Thomas

• Any woodsman can tell you that in a broken and sundered nest, one can hardly find more than a precious few whole eggs. So it is with the family.

• Dependence begets subservience and venality, suffocates the germ of virtue, and prepares fit tools for the designs of ambition.

• Determine never to be idle. No person will have occasion to complain of the want of time who never loses any. It is wonderful how much may be done if we are always doing.

• I was bold in the pursuit of knowledge, never fearing to follow truth and reason to whatever results they led, and bearding every authority which stood in their way.

• In every country where man is free to think and to speak, differences of opinion will arise from difference of perception, and the imperfection of reason; but these differences when permitted, as in this happy country, to purify themselves by free discussion, are but as passing clouds overspreading our land transiently and leaving our horizon more bright and serene.

• I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than to those attending too small a degree of it.

• In matters of style, swim with the current; in matters of principle, stand like a rock.

• It is wonderful how much may be done if we are always doing.

• The most valuable of all talents is that of never using two words when one will do.

• My theory has always been, that if we are to dream, the flatteries of hope are as cheap, and pleasanter, than the gloom of despair.

• Nothing can stop the man with the right mental attitude from achieving his goal; nothing on earth can help the man with the wrong mental attitude.

• One man with courage is a majority.

• Peace and friendship with all mankind is our wisest policy, and I wish we may be permitted to pursue it.

• War is an instrument entirely inefficient toward redressing wrong; and multiplies, instead of indemnifying losses.

Jemison, Mae

• Don't let anyone rob you of your imagination, your creativity, or your curiosity. It's your place in the world; it's your life. Go on and do all you can with it, and make it the life you want to live.

Jenks, Earlene Larson

• Have the courage to act instead of react.

Jenner, Bruce

• I learned that the only way you are going to get anywhere in life is to work hard at it. Whether you're a musician, a writer, an athlete or a businessman, there is no getting around it. If you do, you'll win -- if you don't you won't.

Jewett, Sarah Orne

• The growth of friendship might be a lifelong affair.

• My dear father; my dear friend; the best and wisest man I ever knew, who taught me many lessons and showed me many things as we went together along the country by-ways. (Country By-Ways)

• You must find your own quiet center of life, and write from that to the world. (in Sarah Orne Jewett by Sliverthorne)

Jimenez, Juan Ramon

• If they give you ruled paper, write the other way.

Jobs, Stephen

• Be a yardstick of quality. Some people aren't used to an environment where excellence is expected.

• Innovation is usually the result of connections of past experiences--and luck. But if you have the same experiences as everybody else, you're unlikely to look in a different direction.

John-Roger (and Peter McWilliams for Do It!)

• The biggest lie in choosing is, "I can't." That is simply not true. We can do anything we want If we don't do something, it is because we have committed our time, energy and resources somewhere else. (Do It! Let's Get Off our Buts)

• Courage, contrary to popular belief, is not the absence of fear. Courage is the wisdom to act in spite of fear. (Do It! Let's Get Off our Buts)

• Enough! It's time to grow up. If we want to play adult games--living our Dream--we must play by adult rules. One of the primary adult rules: We are individually responsible for our own lives. (Do It! Let's Get Off our Buts)

• Every time we give our word, it counts. For the most part, most people give it entirely too often. Our word is a precious commodity and should be treated as such. (Do It! Let's Get Off our Buts)

• For the most part, most people most often choose comfort--the familiar, the time-honored, the well-worn but well-known. After a lifetime of choosing between comfort and risk, we are left with the life we currently have. (Do It! Let's Get Off our Buts)

• Live by what you believe so fully that your life blossoms, or else purge the fear-and-guilt producing beliefs from your life. When people believe one thing and do something else, they are inviting misery. If you give yourself the name, play the game. When you believe something you don't follow with your heart, intellect, and body, it hurts. Don't do that to yourself. Live your belief, or let that belief go. If you are not actively living a belief, it's not really your belief, anyway.

• Nothing succeeds like persistence. The common denominator of all successful people is their persistence. (Do It! Let's Get Off our Buts)

• One must, however, not just work hard. One must work smart. As the saying goes, the efficient person gets the job done right; the effective person gets the right job done. (Do It! Let's Get Off our Buts)

• People often confuse "goal" and "purpose." A goal is something tangible; a purpose is a direction. A goal can be achieved; a purpose is fulfilled in each moment. We can set ad achieve many goals; a purpose remains constant for life. (Do It! Let's Get Off our Buts)

• A primary reason people don't do new things Is because they want to be able to do them perfectly--first time. It's completely irrational, impractical, not workable--and yet, it's how most people run their lives. (Do It! Let's Get Off our Buts)

• When you are in a state of nonacceptance, it's difficult to learn. A clenched fist cannot receive a gift, and a clenched psyche--grasped tightly against the reality of what must not be accepted--cannot easily receive a lesson.

Johnson, Georgia Douglas

• Your world is as big as you make it. ("Your World")

Johnson, Jeremy Preston

• To rid ourselves of our shadows--who we are--we must step into either total light or total darkness.

Johnson, John

• Men and women are limited not by the place of their birth, not by the color of their skin, but by the size of their hope.

Johnson, Lewis P.

• The idea is to seek a vision that gives you purpose in life and then to implement that vision. The vision by itself is one half, one part, of a process. It implies the necessity of living that vision, otherwise the vision will sink back into itself. ("Seeking the Spirit Path" Parabala)

Johnson, Lyndon B.

• The test before us as a people is not whether our commitments match our will and our courage; but whether we have the will and courage to match our commitments. (Speech, 3 Aug 1967)

• ...where legitimate opportunities are closed, illegitimate opportunities are seized. Whatever opens opportunity and hope will help to prevent crime and foster responsibility.

Johnson, Percy H.

• You are not likely to get anywhere in particular if you don't know where you want to go.

Johnson, Samuel

• All the performances of human art, at which we look with praise or wonder, are instances of the resistless force of perseverance; it is by this that the quarry becomes a pyramid, and that distant countries are united with canals. If a man was to compare the single stroke of the pickaxe, or of one impression of the spade, with the general design and the last result, he would be overwhelmed by the sense of their disproportion; yet those petty operations, incessantly continued, in time surmount the greatest difficulties, and mountains are leveled and oceans bounded by the slender force of human beings.

• Curiosity is, in great and generous minds, the first passion and the last. (The Rambler, Aug. 24, 1751)

• Curiosity is one of the permanent and certain characteristics of a vigorous mind.

• Fear is implanted in us as a preservative from evil; but its duty, like that of other passions, is not to overbear reason, but to assist it. It should not be suffered to tyrannize in the imagination, to raise phantoms of horror, or to beset life with supernumerary distresses.

• Great works are performed not by strength but by perseverance.

• He who waits to do a great deal of good at once, will never do anything.

• If your determination is fixed, I do not counsel you to despair. Few things are impossible to diligence and skill. Great works are performed not by strength, but perseverance.

• Integrity without knowledge is weak and useless, and knowledge without integrity is dangerous and dreadful.

• It is better ... to be sometimes cheated than not to trust. (The Rambler, Dec. 18, 1750)

• It is more from carelessness about truth than from intentionally lying that there is so much falsehood in the world. (Boswells's Life of Johnson)

• It is reasonable to have perfection in our eye that we may always advance toward it, though we know it can never be reached.

• It would add much to human happiness, if an art could be taught of forgetting all of which the remembrance is at once useless and afflictive ... that the mind might perform its functions without incumbrance, and the past might no longer encroach upon the present. (The Idler)

• Knowledge is of two kinds. We know a subject ourselves, or we know where we can find information on it.

• Nothing will ever be attempted if all possible objections must first be overcome.

• Praise, like gold and diamonds, owes its value only to its scarcity. (The Rambler, June 6, 1751)

• Those who attain any excellence, commonly spend life in one pursuit; for excellence is not often gained upon easier terms. ("Pope" Lives of the English Poets)

• To strive with difficulties, and to conquer them, is the highest human felicity.

• To talk in public, to think in solitude, to read and to hear, to inquire and answer inquiries, is the business of the scholar.

Johnson, Sonia

• How desperately we wish to maintain our trust in those we love! In the face of everything, we try to find reasons to trust. Because losing faith is worse than falling out of love. (From Housewife to Heretic)

• What we resist persists. (Going Out of Our Minds)

Johnson, Spencer

• Integrity is telling myself the truth. And honesty is telling the truth to other people. ("Yes" or "No")

Johnson, Stewart B.

• Our business in life is not to get ahead of others, but to get ahead of ourselves--to break our own records, to outstrip our yesterday by our today.

Jones, Charles "Tremendous"

• You are the same today that you are going to be in five years from now except for two things: the people with whom you associate and the books you read.

Jones, DeWitt

• The ability to play is essential to being a creative artist.--Dewitt Jones

Jones, Franklin P.

• Experience is that marvelous thing that enable you to recognize a mistake when you make it again.

• Honest criticism is hard to take, particularly from a relative, a friend, an acquaintance, or a stranger.

• Love doesn't make the world go 'round. Love is what makes the ride worthwhile.

• Originality is the art of concealing your source.

Jones, James Earl

• One of the hardest things in life is having words in your heart that you can't utter.

• When I read great literature, great drama, speeches, or sermons, I feel that the human mind has not achieved anything greater than the ability to share feelings and thoughts through language.

Jones, Laurie Beth

• My father was always there for me when I lost. But, then, I never really lost when my father was there. (Grow Something Besides Old)

Jones, Lloyd

• The men who try to do something and fail are infinitely better than those who try to do nothing and succeed.

Jones, Quincy

• I've always thought a big laugh
  is a really loud noise
  from the soul saying
  "Ain't that the truth."

Jones, Shirley

• There's always someone to tell you you have to. Wrong. Don't. Rather, spend time finding out who you really are. Work on being more of that. A lot better than the futile "gotta change" treadmill, which never really ends. (in Success Secrets of Super Achievers by Stovall)

Jones, Thomas

• Many do with opportunities as children do at the seashore; they fill their little hands with sand, and then let the grains fall through, one by one, till all are gone.

Jones, W. Alton

• The man who gets the most satisfactory results is not always the man with the brilliant single mind, but rather the man who can best co-ordinate the brains and talents of his associates.

Jones, W. C.

• The joy of brightening other lives, bearing others' burdens, easing other's loads and supplanting empty hearts and lives with generous gifts becomes for us the magic of Christmas.

Jong, Erica

• Advice is what we ask for when we already know the answer but wish we didn't.

• And the trouble is, if you don't risk anything, you risk even more. (How to Save Your Own Life)

• Every time I catch myself saying, "Oh no, you shouldn't try that," I think, "Yes, I should."

• Everyone has talent. What is rare is the courage to follow the talent to the dark place where it leads.

• I have not ceased being fearful, but I have ceased to let fear control me. I have accepted fear as a part of life--specifically the fear of change, the fear of the unknown; and I have gone ahead despite the pounding in my heart that says: turn back, turn back, you'll die if you venture too far.

• Take your life in your own hands, and what happens? A terrible thing: no one to blame.

Jonson, Ben

• Very few men are wise by their own council, or learned by their own teaching. For he that was only taught by himself, had a fool for a master.

Joplin, Janis

• Don't compromise yourself. You are all you've got.

Jordan, Barbara

• How do we create a harmonious society out of so many kinds of people? The key is tolerance--the one value that is indispensable in creating community.

• I live a day at a time. Each day I look for a kernel of excitement. In the morning I say: "What is my exciting thing for today?" Then, I do the day. Don't ask me about tomorrow.

• We must exchange the philosophy of excuse--what I am is beyond my control--for the philosophy of responsibility.

Jordan, David Starr

• There is no real excellence in all of this world which can be separated from right living.

• Whatever you attempt, go at it with spirit. Put some in!

Jordon, Michael

• I have missed more than 9,000 shots in my career. I have lost almost 300 games. On 26 occasions I have been entrusted to take the game winning shot ... and I missed. And I have failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is precisely ... why I succeed.

• Obstacles don't have to stop you. If you run into a wall, don't turn around and give up. Figure out how to climb it, go through it, or work around it.

• You have to expect things of yourself before you can do them.

Jordon, William G.

• Conscience, as a mentor, the guide and compass of every act, leads ever to happiness. When the individual can stay alone with his conscience and get its approval, without knowing force of specious knowledge, then he begins to know what real Happiness is.

Joubert, Joseph

• He who has imagination without learning has wings and no feet. (Pensees)

• Imagination is the eye of the soul.

• Justice is the truth in action.

• Questions show the mind's range, and answers its subtlety.

• We find little in a book but what we put there. But in great books, the mind finds room to put many things. (Pensees)

Joyce, James

• A man of genius makes no mistakes. His errors are volitional and are the portals of discovery. ("Scylla and Charybdis" Ulysses)

Joyner-Kersee, Jackie

• Age is no barrier. It's a limitation you put on your mind.

Judd, H. Stanley

• Don't be afraid to fail. Don't waste energy trying to cover up failure. Learn from your failures and go on to the next challenge. It's OK to fail. If you're not failing, you're not growing.

Julius Caesar

• As a rule, men worry more about what they can't see than about what they can.

Jung, Carl Gustav

• All the greatest and most important problems of life are fundamentally insolvable. They can never be solved, but only outgrown.

• As any change must begin somewhere, it is the single individual who will experience it and carry it through. The change must indeed begin with an individual; it might be any one of us. Nobody can afford to look round and to wait for somebody else to do what he is loath to do himself. (Man and His Symbols)

• As far as we can discern, the sole purpose of human existence is to kindle a light in the darkness of mere being.

• Children are educated by what the grown-up is and not by his talk.

• The creation of something new is not accomplished by the intellect but by the play instinct acting from inner necessity. The creative mind plays with the objects it loves.

• The debt we owe to the play of imagination is incalculable

• Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves.

• Find out what a person fears most and that is where he will develop next.

• If there is anything we wish to change in the child, we should first examine it and see whether it is not something that could better be changed in ourselves.

• One looks back with appreciation to the brilliant teachers, but with gratitude to those who touched our human feelings. The curriculum is so much necessary new material, but the warmth is the vital element for the growing plant and for the soul of the child.

• Science is not ... a perfect instrument, but it is a superb and invaluable tool that works harm only when taken as an end in itself. (Commentary (on The Secret of the Golden Flower)

• Where love rules, there is no will to power; and where power predominates, there love is lacking. The one is the shadow of the other.

• The word "happiness" would lose its meaning if it were not balanced by sadness.

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

Junot, Laurie

• All fruits do not ripen in one season. (Memoires Historiques)

Juster, Norman

• You can swim all day in the Sea of Knowledge and still come out completely dry. Most people do.

Juvenal

• All wish to possess knowledge, but few, comparatively speaking, are willing to pay the price.

Quote of the Day Home Page