• Whether it is fun to go to bed with a good book depends a great deal on who's reading it.

Packer, Boyd K.

• Some people think a miracle is only a miracle if it happens instantaneously, but miracles can grow slowly and patience and faith can compel things to happen that otherwise never would have come to pass.

Paddleford, Clementine

• Never grow a wishbone, daughter, where you backbone ought to be.

Paeth, Scott

• If Jesus came to preach to the poor, the homeless, the tax collectors, the prostitutes, the colonized, then he came, most profoundly, to preach the kingdom of God to the outsiders of the world. He didn’t show up in the center of Rome to proclaim a kingdom to supplant Rome, he came to the margins, to preach a kingdom coming to be within the existing kingdoms of the world. And Jesus’ kingdom would supplant and subvert those earthly kingdoms. (" Open the doors and see all the people")

Pagels, Douglas

• Don't scrutinize people with a microscope; view them from a comfortable distance. And allow some room for compassion in the space the lies between you.

• Each day brings with it the miracle of a new beginning. Many of the moments ahead will be marvelously disguised as ordinary days, but each one of us has the chance to make something extraordinary out of them.

• Even if you can't just snap your fingers and make a dream come true, you can travel in the direction of your dream, every single day and you can shorten the distance between the two of you.

• Life continually teaches. We eventually catch on.

• Many of us have road maps we envision for the course we think our lives should take. It's important to get headed in the right direction, but don't get so caught up in the concerns over your destination that you forget to delight in the scenery of each new day. Remember that some of the secret joys of living are not found by rushing from point A to point B, but by inventing some imaginary letters along the way.

• Sometimes you just have to be patient and brave and strong. If you don't know how, just make it up as you go along.

Pagels, Heinz R.

• Science shows us what exists but not what to do about it. (The Dreams of Reason)

Paige, Satchel

• How old would you be if you didn't know how old you are?

Paine, Thomas

• The harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph.

• He who would make his own liberty secure must guard even his enemy from oppression; for if he violates this duty he establishes a precedent that will reach to himself.

• I love the man that can smile in trouble, that can gather strength from distress, and grow brave by reflection. 'Tis the business of little minds to shrink, but he whose heart is firm, and whose conscience approves his conduct, will pursue his principles unto death.

• It’s not in numbers but in unity that our great strength lies.

• A long habit of not thinking a thing wrong gives it the superficial appearance of being right, and raises at first a formidable outcry in defense of custom. But the tumult soon subsides. Time makes more converts than reason.

• Moderation in temper is always a virtue; but moderation in principle is always a vice.

• What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly; it is dearness only that gives everything its value. (The American Crisis)

• When it becomes necessary to do a thing, the whole heart and soul should go into the measure, or not attempt it. (The Rights of Man)

Palahniuk, Chuck

• Nothing of me is original. I am the combined effort of everyone I've ever known. (Invisible Monsters)

• We all die. The goal isn’t to live forever, the goal is to create something that will.

Pale Moon (Princess)

• How can we communicate love? I think three things are involved. We must reach out to a person, make contact. We must listen with the heart, be sensitive to the other's needs. We must respond in a language that the person can understand. Many of us do all the talking. We must learn to listen and to keep on listening.

Paley, Grace

• Rosiness is not a worse windowpane than gloomy gray when viewing the world.

Palmer, Alice Freeman

• Every day stop before something beautiful long enough to say, "Isn’t that b-e-a-u-t-i-f-u-l!"

Palmer, Amanda

• There’s no "correct path" to becoming a real artist. ... You’re an artist when you say you are. And you’re a good artist when you make somebody else experience or feel something deep or unexpected. (The Art of Asking: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Let People Help)

Palmer, Gretta

• Happiness is a by-product of an effort to make someone else happy.

Palmer, Parker

• Children may forget what you say, but they'll never forget how you make them feel. (from The Quotable Teacher, comp. by Howe)

• Generosity does not require material abundance. When I think back on the many people who have been so generous toward me, I never think of money or "things." Instead, I think of the way they gave me their presence, their confidence, their affirmation, support, and blessing — all gifts of "self" that any of us can give. ("Breathe In My Life, Breathe Out My Gratitude")

• The past isn't fixed and frozen in place. Instead, its meaning changes as life unfolds. ("Meaning Changes As Life Unfolds")

Palmer, Samuel

• Wise men make proverbs, but fools repeat them.

Panchetantra

• Knowledge is the true organ of sight, not the eyes.

Panin, Ivan

• For every beauty there is an eye somewhere to see it.
  For every truth there is an ear somewhere to hear it.
  For every love there is a heart somewhere to receive it.

Paolinetti, Jamie

• Limitations live only in our minds. But if we use our imaginations, our possibilities become limitless.

Paramanda

• Evil can never survive, though for a time it may seem to triumph. It is only a question of our endurance and patience.

Parent, Gail

• She knew what all smart women knew: Laughter made you live better and longer.

Pareto, Vilfredo

• Above, far above the prejudices and passions of men soar the laws of nature. Eternal and immutable, they are the expression of the creative power; they represent what is, what must be, what otherwise could not be. Man can come to understand the: he is incapable of changing them. (Cours d'economie Politique)

• Give me a fruitful error any time, full of seeds, bursting with its own corrections. You can keep your sterile truth for yourself.

Parini, Jay

• Anything of real value requires effort, understanding, and dedication.

Park, Sun-Young

• It is raining still... Maybe it is not one of those showers that is here one minute and gone the next, as I had so boldly assumed. Maybe none of them are. After all, life in itself is a chain of rainy days. But there are times when not all of us have umbrellas to walk under. Those are the times when we need people who are willing to lend their umbrellas to a wet stranger on a rainy day. I think I'll go for a walk with my umbrella.

Parker, Charlie

• Music is your own experience, your thoughts, your wisdom. If you don't live it, it won't come out of your horn.

Parker, Dorothy

• If you want to know what God thinks of money, just look at the people he gave it to.

• There's a ... distance between wisecracking and wit. Wit has truth in it; wisecracking is simply calisthenics with words. (in Writers At Work by Cowley)

Parkhurst, Charles Henry

• Faith is a kind of winged intellect. The great workmen of history have been men who believed like giants. (Sermons: Walking by Faith)

Parkinson, C. Northcote

• Work expands to fill the time available for its completion.

Parkinson, Cyril

• The chief product of an automated society is a widespread and deepening sense of boredom.

Parks, Rosa

• I was determined to achieve the total freedom that our history lessons taught us we were entitled to, no matter what the sacrifice.

Parks, William

• Christmas is not just a day, an event to be observed and speedily forgotten. It is a spirit which should permeate every part of our lives. (Missions)

Parmenter, Ross

• The need for devotion to something outside ourselves is even more profound than the need for companionship. If we are not to go to pieces or wither away, we must have some purpose in life; for no man can live for himself alone.

Parr, Ellen

• The cure for boredom is curiosity. There is no cure for curiosity.

Parrott, Les

• The higher one’s level of helpfulness to others, the greater wellbeing one will experience. (25 Ways to Win with People: How to Make Others Feel Like a Million Bucks)

Parry, Jouh Danaan

• I say yes to my life
  I say yes to love
  I say yes to a one-world-family
  I say yes to a planet at peace
  I say yes to all the children ... everywhere
  

  I say yes to us
  I want my next act
  to increase the yes in the world. (Warriors of the Heart)

Parsons, Frances Theodora

• Spring slides gradually into the farmer's consciousness, but on us city people it bursts with all the relish of a sudden surprise, compensating for much of what we lose. (According to Season)

Parton, Dolly

• Find out who you are and do it on purpose.

• I'm not going to limit myself just because people won't accept the fact that I can do something else.

• Leave something good in every day.

• The way I see it, if you want the rainbow, you gotta put up with the rain.

Partridge, Sibyl F.

• Just for today I will be happy... Just for today I will try to live through this day only, not to tackle my whole life problem at once. I can do things for twenvel hosrs that would appall me if I had to keep them up for a lifetime. Just for today...

Pascal, Blaise

• Belief is a wise wager. Granted that faith cannot be proved, what harm will come to you if you gamble on its truth and it proves false? If you gain, you gain all; if you lose, you lose nothing. Wager, then, without hesitation, that He exists.

• Even the most equitable of men is not permitted to be a judge in his own cause. (Pensees)

• Faith is different from proof; the latter is human, the former is a Gift from God.

• I have discovered that all human evil comes from this, man's being unable to sit still and quiet in a room alone.

• In each action we must look beyond the action at our past, present, and future state, and at others whom it affects, and see the relations of all those things. And then we shall be very cautious.

• In faith there is enough light for those who want to believe and enough shadows to blind those who don’t.

• Our past and present are only our means; the future is always our end. Thus we never really live, but only hope to live.

• The struggle alone pleases us, not the victory.

• Things are always at their best in their beginning.

• Time heals griefs and quarrels, for we change and are no longer the same persons. (Pensees)

Pasternak, Boris

• What is laid down, ordered, factual is never enough to embrace the whole truth: life always spills over the rim of every cup.

Pasterno, Joe

• Act like you expect to get into the end zone. (New York Times)

Pasteur, Louis

• Chance favors the prepared mind.

• Let me tell you the secret that has led to my goal. My strength lies solely in my tenacity.

• When I approach a child he inspires me in two sentiments: tenderness for what he is, and respect for what he may become.

Patel, Eboo

• My favorite single line from the Qur’an is from Surah 49:13, which says that God made us different nations and tribes that we may come to know one another, in the sense that diversity is holy and it was created by God. What we humans are meant to do with that diversity is engage in positive interaction with each other and come to know one another – because knowledge is holy and pluralism or positive engagement is holy. (in The Jesus Fatah)

Pater, Walter

• Art comes to you proposing frankly to give nothing but the highest quality to your moments as they pass. (Studies in the History of the Renaissance)

Paterson, Alexander (Sir)

• The secret of discipline is motivation. When a man is sufficiently motivated, discipline will take care of itself.

Paterson, Katherine

• The wonderful thing about books is that they allow us to enter imaginatively into someone else's life. And when we do that, we learn to sympathize with other people. But the real surprise is that we also learn truths about ourselves, about our own lives that somehow we hadn't been able to see before.

Patmore, Coventry

• To him that waits all things reveal themselves, provided that he has the courage not to deny, in the darkness, what he has seen in the light.

Paton, Alan

• There is a hard law... When an injury is done to us, we never recover until we forgive.

Patrul Rinpoche

• Do not take lightly small good deeds,
  Believing they can hardly help.
  For drops of water, one by one,
  In time, can fill a giant pot.

Patterson, John H.

• Beatitudes as if Steve Jobs translated them:
  Here’s to the weak ones.
  The outcasts.
  The broken.
  The peacemakers.
  The ragamuffin royalty who will inherit a new world.
  The ones who see God through open eyes and open hearts.
  They don’t long for power.
  And they have no respect for status.
  You can insult them, spread lies about them,
  disbelieve, vilify or persecute them.
  About the only thing you can’t do is dishearten them.
  Because God is changing them, they change things.
  They comfort.
  They show mercy.
  They heal.
  They mourn with those who mourn.
  They love.
  They are filled to overflowing with goodness.
  And while some may see them as the weak ones,
  I say they are blessed.
  Because the people who give up everything to follow me in this life, will get it all back and more in the next. ("Live Different: If Steve Jobs Translated the Beatitudes")

• To get your ideas across, use small words, big ideas, and short sentences.

Patton, George S. (General)

• Accept the challenges so that you can feel the exhilaration of victory.

• I do not fear failure. I only fear the "slowing up" of the engine inside of me which is pounding, saying, "Keep going, someone must be on top, why not you?"

• If you tell people where to go, but not how to get there, you'll be amazed at the results.

• Success is how high you bounce when you hit bottom.

• When a decision has to be made, make it. There is no totally right time for anything.

Pauling, Linus

• The best way to have a good idea is to have lots of ideas.

• Satisfaction of one's curiosity is one of the greatest sources of happiness in life.

• Science is the search for truth - it is not a game in which one tries to beat his opponents, to do harm to others. We need to have the spirit of science in international affairs, to make the conduct of international affairs the effort to find the right solution, the just solution of international problems, nor the effort by each nation to get the better of other nations... (No More War)

• To have good ideas, you have to have a lot of ideas.

Pausch, Randy

• Brick walls are there for a reason. They give us a chance to show how badly we want something. Because the brick walls are there to stop the people who don’t want it badly enough. They’re there to stop the other people. (The Last Lecture)

• Experience is what you get when you didn't get what you wanted. And experience is often the most valuable thing you have to offer. (The Last Lecture)

• The number one goal of teachers should be to help students learn how to learn.

• A parent's job is to encourage kids to develop a joy for life and a great urge to follow their own dreams. The best we can do is to help them develop a personal set of tools for the task.

Pavlov, Ivan

• Gradualness, gradualness, and gradualness. From the very beginning of your work, school yourself to severe gradualness in the accumulation of knowledge.

Pavlova, Anna

• Success is the satisfaction of feeling that one is realizing one's ideal.

Pavone, Frank

• It is much harder to criticize or to be angry with someone who wants to listen to you rather than lecture you or get angry in turn. Let people know that you are listening, that you know their pain, and that the message of respect for life also says that their lives are precious, no matter how strongly they disagree with you. (Proclaiming the Message of Life)

Payne, Roman

• Womankind always seems to be able to see a dozen steps into the future, far ahead of what men are able to see. And they have strength where we do not.

Payton, Walter

• If you ask me how I want to be remembered, it is as a winner. You know what a winner is? A winner is somebody who has given his best effort, who has tried the hardest they possibly can, who has utilized every ounce of energy and strength within them to accomplish something. It doesn't mean that they accomplished it or failed, it means that they've given it their best. That's a winner. (Never Die Easy: The Autobiography of Walter Payton)

Peabody, A. P.

• The force, the mass of character, mind, heart, or soul that a man can put into any work is the most important factor in that work.

Peace Pilgrim

• Anything you strive to hold captive will hold you captive and if you desire freedom you must give freedom.

• How often are you worrying about the present moment? The present moment is usually all right. If you're worrying, you're either agonizing over the past which you should have forgotten long ago, or else you're apprehensive over the future which hasn't even come yet. We tend to skip over the present moment which is the only moment God gives any of us to live.

• Many people profess Christianity. Very few live it--almost none. And when you live it people may think you're crazy. It has been truthfully said that the world is equally shocked by one who repudiates Christianity as by one who practices it.

• The motive, if you are to find inner peace, must be an outgoing motive. Service, of course, service. Giving, not getting. Your motive must be good if your work is to have good effect. The secret of life is being of service.

• This is the way of peace: Overcome evil with good, and falsehood with truth, and hatred with love.

Peake, Mervyn

• What is Time... That you speak of it so subserviently? Are we to be the slaves of the sun, that second-hand, overrated knob of gilt, or of his sister, that fatuous circle of silver paper? A curse upon their ridiculous dictatorship!

Peale, Anna Delaney

• God will help you if you try, and you can if you think you can.

Peale, Norman Vincent

• Always remember, there is more strength in you than you ever realized or even imagined. Certainly nothing can keep you down if you are determined to get on top of things and stay there.

• Any fact facing us is not as important as our attitude toward it, for that determines our success or failure.

• Become a possibilitarian. No matter how dark things seem to be or actually are, raise your sights and see the possibilities--always see them, for they're always there.

• Believe in yourself! Have faith in your abilities! Without a humble but reasonable confidence in your own powers you cannot be successful or happy.

• Change your thoughts and you change your world.

• Christmas is the season of joy, of holiday greetings exchanged, of gift-giving,and of families united.

• Christmas waves a magic wand over this world, and behold, everything is softer and more beautiful.

• Don't take tomorrow to bed with you.

• Faith supplies staying power. ... Anyone can keep going when the going is good, but some extra ingredient is needed to keep you fighting when it seems that everything is against you.

• Happiness consists not in having, but of being, not of possessing, but of enjoying. It is the warm glow of a heart at peace with itself.

• I truly believe that if we keep telling the Christmas story, singing the Christmas songs, and living the Christmas spirit, we can bring joy and happiness and peace to this world.

• Life is not all fun and easy going. Far from it; there are many rough times. But, sadly, we too often let the hard times dull our enthusiasm. And that is dangerous, if not fatal, to our lives.

• The life of inner peace, being harmonious and without stress, is the easiest type of existence.

• The mind, properly controlled, can do just about everything. You can think your way through adversity, you can think your way through problems. It is a superpowerful instrument which so few use to maximum. And if the mind thinks with a believing attitude one can do amazing things.

• Never say anything to hurt anyone. Moreover . . . refrain from double talk, from shrewd and canny remarks that are designed to advance our interests at someone's disadvantage. We are to turn our back upon evil, and in every way possible, do good, help people and bring blessings into their lives.

• The one person who most blocks you from a full, happy, and successful life is you. He is therefore wise who makes himself an asset. We can be our won worst enemy or best friend. We can be a source of trouble or a cure for trouble. So if you feel empty, as many do, start by getting free from yourself as a first stop to vibrant living.

• Silence fertilizes the deep place where personality grows. A life with a peaceful center can weather all storms.

• There is real magic in enthusiasm. It spells the difference between mediocrity and accomplishment.

• Whatever your problem, no matter how difficult, you can release spiritual power sufficient to solve your problem. The secret is--pray and believe.

Pearce, Dan

• The greatest mark of a father is how he treats his children when no one is looking. (Single Dad Laughing)

Pearce, Joseph Chilton

• Play is the only way the highest intelligence of humankind can unfold.

• We are shaped by each other. We adjust not to the reality of a world, but to the reality of other thinkers.

Pearson, Carol

• Heroes take journeys, confront dragons, and discover the treasure of their true selves. (The Hero Within)

• It is important to use all knowledge ethically, humanely, and lovingly. (The Hero Within)

Peart, Neil

• Luck is when preparation meets opportunity.

Peck, M. Scott

• Life is difficult. This is the great truth, one of the greatest truths--it is a great truth because once we see this truth, we transcend it.

• The life of wisdom must be a life of contemplation combined with action.

• Problems do not go away. They must be worked through or else they remain, forever a barrier to the growth and development of the spirit. (The Road Less Traveled)

• Until you value yourself, you will not value your time. Until you value your time, you will not do anything with it.

• We must be willing to fail and to appreciate the truth that often "Life is not a problem to be solved, but a mystery to be lived."

• Whenever we seek to avoid the responsibility for our own behavior, we do so by attempting to give that responsibility to some other individual or organization or entity. But this means we then give away our power to that entity.

Pedersen, Kathleen

• Unless your heart, your soul, and your whole being are behind every decision you make, the words from your mouth will be empty, and each action will be meaningless. Truth and confidence are the roots of happiness.

Peers, John

• The solution to a problem changes the nature of the problem. ("Peer's Law" 1,001 Logical Laws)

Peguy, Charles

• It is the essence of genius to make use of the simplest ideas.

Pelzer, Dave

• I believe that no matter how many mistakes we’ve made; how badly we’ve really, really screwed up; how old, worn out, or dejected we’ve become; as long as there is true, steadfast ambition, all of us have an opportunity for greatness.

• I'm so alive. As I stand facing the beauty of the never-ending Pacific Ocean, a late afternoon breeze blows down from the hills behind. As always, it is a beautiful day. The sun is making its final descent. The magic is about to begin. The skies are ready to burn with brilliance, as it turns from a soft blue to a bright orange. Looking towards the West, I stare in awe at the hypnotic power of the waves. A giant curl begins to take form, then breaks with a thundering clap as it crashes on the shore.

Penn, Jack

• One of the secrets of life is to make stepping stones out of stumbling blocks.

Penn, William

• The humble, meek, merciful, and just are everywhere of one religion; and when death has taken off the mask they will know one another, though the diverse liveries they wear here make them strangers.

• Humility and knowledge in poor clothes excel pride and ignorance in costly attire.

• Patience and Diligence, like faith, remove mountains.

• Right is right, even if everyone is against it; and wrong is wrong, even if everyone is for it.

• Silence is Wisdom where Speaking is Folly. (Some Fruits of Solitude)

• Time is what we want most, but ... what we use worst.

• True silence is the rest of the mind, and is to the spirit what sleep is to the body, nourishment and refreshment.

• Truth often suffers more by the heat of its defenders than the arguments of its opposers.

Penney, J. C.

• Christmas is not just a time for festivity and merry making. It is more than that. It is a time for the contemplation of eternal things. The Christmas spirit is a spirit of giving and forgiving. ("Christmas Thoughts")

• We should make the Yuletide season an occasion not merely for the giving of material things but an occasion for the giving of that which counts infinitely more ... the giving of self. ("Christmas Thoughts")

Pennington, Chester A.

• No amount of good deeds can make us good persons. We must be good before we can do good.

Pennington, M. Basil

• Unfortunately, in seeing ourselves as we truly are, not all that we see is beautiful and attractive. This is undoubtedly part of the reason we flee silence. We do not want to be confronted with our hypocrisy, our phoniness. We see how false and fragile is the false self we project. We have to go through this painful experience to come to our true self.

Penwell, Derek

• In the final analysis, the good news of the reign of God is not first that the well taken care of will be even more well taken care of in the next life. The good news of the reign of God is that God's reign is present wherever the homeless are sheltered, wherever the hungry are fed, wherever the rich give away their money and power in defense of the poor, wherever the forgotten ones gather to be remembered and embraced, to be told that as long as we follow God, not one of God's children will be left to die alone and unloved. (The Mainliner’s Survival Guide to the Post-Denominational World)

Pepke, Erik

• Any society that needs disclaimers has too many lawyers.

Percy, Walker

• You can get all A's and flunk life.

Perenyi, Eleanor

• September is the time to begin again. In the country, when I could smell the wood-smoke in the forest, and the curtains could be drawn when the tea came in, on the first autumn evening, I always felt that my season of good luck had come. (More Was Lost)

Periander

• Nothing is impossible to industry.

Pericles

• Time is the wisest counsellor.

Perito, Nick, see, Knight, Peter Norman

Perlow, Aaron

• You are obligated to understand that you are unique in the world. There has never been anyone like you because, of there were, there would be no need for you to exist. You are an utterly new thing in creation. Your life goal is to realize this uniqueness. (Itturay Torah)

Perls, Fritz

• If you need encouragement, praise, pats on the back from everybody, then you make everybody your judge.

• Our dependency makes slaves out of us, especially if this dependency is a dependency of our self-esteem. If you need encouragement, praise, pats on the back from everybody, then you make everybody your judge.

Peron, Eva

• Almsgiving leaves a man just where he was before. Aid restores him to society as an individual worthy of all respect and not as a man with a grievance.

Perot, Ross

• Eagles don't flock - you have to find them one at a time.

• Failures are like skinned knees--painful, but superficial.

• Most people give up just when they're about to achieve success. They quit on the one yard line. They give up at the last minute of the game, one foot from a winning touchdown.

• Never put off till tomorrow what you can do today. You may enjoy doing it so much that you want to do it again.

• Something in human nature causes us to start slacking off at our moment of greatest accomplishment. As you become successful, you will need a great deal of self-discipline not to lose your sense of balance, humility, and commitment.

Perry, Donald Robert (Marquis)

• If you make people think they're thinking, they'll love you. If you really make them think they'll hate you.

Persius

• He conquers who endures.

Pesci, Joe

• Winners forget they are in a race, they just love to run. (With Honors)

Pestalozzi, Heinrich

• Education consists of example and love--nothing else.

Peter, Lawrence

• Get up one time more than you're knocked down. (Peter's Principle of Success)

• If you don't know where you're going, you will probably end up somewhere else.

• Originality is the fine art of remembering what you hear but forgetting where you heard it.

Peters, Bernadette

• You've gotta be original, because if you're like someone else, what do they need you for?

Peters, Ellis

• Every spring is the only spring, a perpetual astonishment.

Peters, Stephen

• No matter where we are we need those friends who trudge across from their neighborhoods to ours.

Peters, Tom

• Excellent firms don’t believe in excellence--only in constant improvement and constant change.

• The greatest difficulty in the world is not for people to accept new ideas, but to make them forget old ideas.

• If a window of opportunity appears, don't pull down the shade.

• Life is pretty simple: You do some stuff. Most fails. Some works. You do more of what works. If it works big, others quickly copy it. Then you do something else. The trick is the doing something else.

• The simple act of paying positive attention to people has a great deal to do with productivity.

Peterson, Kathrine Palmer

• Any successful journey begins by packing your luggage full of imagination.

• Our words should be purrs instead of hisses.

Peterson, Richard Laurence

• Imagination is the spark that ignites the fire of creativity.

Peterson, Wilford A.

• Christmas is not in tinsel and lights and outward show.
  The secret lies in an inner glow.
  It's lighting a fire inside the heart.
  Good will and joy a vital part.
  It's higher thought and a greater plan.
  It's glorious dream in the soul of man. (The Art of Living)

• Decision is the spark that ignites action. Until a decision is made, nothing happens....

Pepper, Claude

• Life is like riding a bicycle. You don't fall off unless you plan to stop peddling.

Petrarch

• Five enemies of peace inhabit with us--avarice, ambition, envy, anger, and pride; if these were to be banished, we should infallibly enjoy perpetual peace.

Petre, M. D.

• The path of freedom is blocked much more by those who wish to obey than by those who wish to command.

Petry, Ann

• Everything you ever had, everything you ever lost. It's all there in the trumpet--pain and hate and trouble and peace and quiet and love. ("Solo on the Drums" in '47 Magazine of the Year)

Petronius Arbiter

• We trained hard--but it seemed that every time we were beginning to form into teams, we would be reorganized. I was to learn later in life that we tend to meet any new situation by reorganizing. And what a wonderful method it can be for creating the illusion of progress while producing confusion, inefficiency and demoralizaton.

Pfeiffer, Jane Cahill

• It is not easy, but you have to be willing to make mistakes. And the earlier you make those mistakes, the better.

Pfeiffer, Michelle

• I'm a perfectionist, so I can drive myself mad - and other people, too. At the same time, I think that's one of the reasons I'm successful. Because I really care about what I do. ("Interview by Jane Wollman Rusoff")

Phaedrus

• Things are not always what they seem; the first appearance deceives many; the intelligence of a few perceives what has been carefully hidden.

Pharo, Agnes M.

• Christmas is a spirit that flows from one heart to another. It is more precious than rubies and better than gold. ("What Is Christmas")

• What is Christmas? It is tenderness for the past, courage for the present, hope for the future. It is a fervent wish that every cup may overflow with blessings rich and eternal, and that every path may lead to peace. ("What Is Christmas")

Phelps, Austin

• A disciplined conscience is a man's best friend. It may not be his most amiable, but it is his most faithful mentor.

• A great idea is usually original to more than one discoverer. Great ideas come when the world needs them. They surround the world's ignorance and press for admission.

• Wear the old coat and buy the new book.

Phelps, William Lyon

• Being educated means to prefer the best not only to the worst but to the second best.

• The belief that youth is the happiest time of life is founded on a fallacy. The happiest person is the person who thinks the most interesting thoughts and we grow happier as we grow older.

• If happiness truly consisted in physical ease and freedom from care, then the happiest individual would not be either a man or a woman; it would be, I think, an American cow.

• One appreciates that daily life is really good when one wakes from a horrible dream, or when one takes the first outing after a sickness. Why not realize it now?

• One of the secrets of life is to keep our intellectual curiosity acute.

Philips, Erno

• I was walking across a bridge one day, and I saw a man standing on the edge about to jump off. So 1 ran over and said, "Stop! Don't do it! . . There's so much to live for!"
  He said, "Like what?"
  I said, "Well, are you religious or atheist? "
  He said, "Religious."
  I said, "Me too! Are you Christian or Buddhist?"
  He said. "Christian"
  I said, "Me too! Are you Catholic or Protestant?"
  He said, "Protestant."
  I said, "Me too! Are you Episcopalian or Baptist?"
  He said, "Baptist!!"
  I said. "Wow! Me too! Are you Baptist Church of God or Baptist Church of the Lord?"
  He said, "Baptist Church of God!"
  I said. "Me too! Are you original Baptist Church of God or Reformed Baptist Church of God?"
  He said. "Reformed Baptist Church of God!"
  I said, "Me too! Are you Reformed Baptist Church of God, reformation of 1879, or Reformed Baptist Church of God, reformation of 1915?"
  He said, "Reformed Baptist Church of God, reformation of 1915!"
  I said. "Die, heretic scum," and pushed him off.

Phillips, Jan

• You can tell the real Christians by their acts. They are the ones serving, the ones loving, the ones sharing whatever they have. They are withholding judgment, offering compassion, being that light they want to see in the world. They are the hands and the feet of God on earth, vessels of holiness, chalices of generosity. The next time someone calls himself a Christian, look for these qualities for the living proof. ("Republicans and the Christian Vote")

Phillips, John Bertram

• If words are to enter men's minds and bear fruit, they must be the right words shaped cunningly to pass men's defenses and explode silently and effectually within their minds.

Phillips, Wendell

• Truth is one forever absolute, but opinion is truth filtered through the moods, the blood, the disposition of the spectator. (Idols)

• What is defeat? Nothing but education; nothing but the first step to something better.

Phillpots, Eden

• The universe is full of magical things patiently waiting for our wits to grow sharper. (in The World within the World by Barrow)

Phipps, Wintley

• It is in the quiet crucible of your personal, private sufferings that your noblest dreams are born and God’s greatest gifts are given.

Piaget, Jean

• The more we try to improve our schools, the heavier the teaching task becomes; and the better our teaching methods the more difficult they are to apply. (from The Quotable Teacher, comp. by Howe)

• The principle goal of education is to create men who are capable of doing new things, not simply of repeating what other generations have done--men who are creative, inventive and discoverers.

Picasso, Pablo

• Art washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life.

• The chief enemy of creativity is good sense.

• Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once he grows up.

• I am always doing that which I can not do, in order that I may learn how to do it.

• I do not evolve, I am. In art there is neither past nor future. Art that is not in the present will never be. (The Art)

• Only put off until tomorrow what you are willing to die having left undone.

• Without great solitude no serious work is possible.

Pickford, Mary

• Supposing you have tried and failed again and again. You may have a fresh start any moment you choose, for this thing that we call "Failure" is not the falling down, but the staying down.

Picoult, Jodi

• Heroes didn't leap tall buildings or stop bullets with an outstretched hand; they didn't wear boots and capes. They bled, and they bruised, and their superpowers were as simple as listening, or loving. Heroes were ordinary people who knew that even if their own lives were impossibly knotted, they could untangle someone else's. And maybe that one act could lead someone to rescue you right back. (Second Glance)

• "I always wondered why God was supposed to be a father," she whispers. "Fathers always want you to measure up to something. Mothers are the ones who love you unconditionally, don't you think?"

Pierce, Edith Lovejoy

• We will open the book. Its pages are blank. We are going to put words on them ourselves. The book is called Opportunity and its first chapter is New Year's Day.

Pierce, Mary

• Sometimes things aren’t clear right away. That’s where you need to be patient and persevere and see where things lead.

Pierce, Tamora

• A library is a gateway to others' minds, hearts, and lives.

Piercy, Marge

• Life is the first gift, love is the second, and understanding the third.

Pike, Albert

• Be prudent, diligent, temperate and discreet. Remember that every human being has a claim upon your kind offices.

• Faith begins where Reason sinks exhausted.

• The spoken discourse may roll on strongly as the great tidal wave; but, like the wave, it dies at last feebly on the sands. It is heard by few, remembered by still fewer, and fades away, like an echo in the mountains, leaving no token of power. It is the written human speech, that gave power and permanence to human thought.

Pincus, Lily

• Thinking and talking about death need not be morbid; they may be quite the opposite. Ignorance and fear of death overshadow life, while knowing and accepting death erases this shadow.

Pindar

• In all things rest is sweet; there is surfeit even in honey, even in Aphrodite’s lovely flowers. (Odes)

• The test of any man lies in action. (Odes)

Pinker, Steven

• Babies are born with the instinct to speak, the way spiders are born with the instinct to spin webs. You don't need to train babies to speak; they just do. But reading is different.

Pinero, Arthur Wing (Sir)

• Those who love deeply never grow old; they may die of old age, but they die young.

Pintasilgo, Maria de Lourdes

• I feel that what we must say to one another is based on encouraging each of us to be true to herself: "Now that we are equal, let us dare to be different!"

Piper, Katherine

• The real judges of your character aren't your neighbors, your relatives, or even the people you play bridge with. The folks who really know you are waiters, waitresses, and clerks.

Pirsig, Robert M.

• Any effort that has self-glorification as its final endpoint is bound to end in disaster. (Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance)

• The past exists only in our memories, the future only in our plans. The present is our only reality. The tree that you are aware of intellectually, because of that small time lag, is always in the past and therefore is always unreal. Any intellectually conceived object is always in the past and therefore unreal. Reality is always the moment of vision before the intellectualization takes place. There is no other reality. (Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance)

• To live only for some future goal is shallow. It's the sides of the mountain which sustain life, not the top. Here's where things grow. But of course, without the top you can't have any sides. It's the top that defines the sides. (Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance)

• Traditional scientific method has always been at the very best, 20-20 hindsight. It's good for seeing where you've been. It's good for testing the truth of what you think you know, but it can't tell you where you ought to go. (Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance)

Pitkin, Walter B.

• If you wish to begin life at forty, you must settle two large personal questions first of all. You must find work and play that call for no more energy than you can afford to spend on them. Then you must train your mind, eye and hand to the point of working and playing with ease, grace and precision.

Pitt, William

• Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves.

Planck, Max

• Anybody who has been seriously engaged is scientific work of any kind realizes that over the entrance to the gates of the temple of science are written the words: 'Ye must have faith.' It is a quality which the scientist cannot dispense with.

• A scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it.

Plato

• Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.

• Beauty of style and harmony and grace and good rhythm depend on simplicity. (The Republic)

• The beginning is the most important part of any work, especially in the case of a young and tender thing; for that is the time at which the character is being formed and the desired impression more readily taken. (The Republic)

• Do not train children in learning by force and harshness, but direct them to it by what amuses their minds, so that you may be better able to discover with accuracy the peculiar bent of the genius of each.

• The first and the best victory is to conquer self.

• For a man to conquer himself is the first and noblest of all victories.

• Good people do not need laws to tell them to act responsibly, while bad people will find a way around the laws.

• He is richest who is content with the least, for content is the wealth of nature.

• I am the wisest man alive, for I know one thing, and that is that I know nothing. (Apology)

• I cannot teach anybody anything. I can only make them think. (from The Quotable Teacher, comp. by Howe)

• If all our misfortunes were laid in one common heap whence everyone must take an equal portion, most people would be contented to take their won and depart.

• Knowledge is the food of the soul. (from The Quotable Teacher, comp. by Howe)

• Living well and beautifully and justly are all one thing.

• A man who is good for anything ought not to calculate the chance of living or dying; he ought only to consider whether in doing anything he is doing right or wrong--acting the part of a good man or a bad. (Apology)

• Music gives a soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination and life to everything.

• Thinking is the talking of the soul with itself.

• We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark; the real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light.

• When men speak ill of you, live so as nobody may believe them.

• Wise men talk because they have something to say; fools, because they have to say something.

• Wonder is the feeling of a philosopher, and philosophy begins in wonder.

• You can discover more about a person in an hour of play than in a year of conversation.

Platt, Charles

• If the 20th century taught us anything, it is to be cautious about the work impossible. (in Wired)

• Teachers don't just teach; they can be vital personalities who help young people to mature, to understand the world and to understand themselves. A good education consists of much more than useful facts and marketable skills.

Plautus

• Patience is the best remedy for every trouble.

Pliny the Elder

• Indeed, what is there that does not appear marvelous when it comes to our knowledge for the first time? How many things, too, are looked up on as quite impossible until they have been actually effected?

• The lust of avarice as so totally seized upon mankind that their wealth seems rather to possess them than they possess their wealth.

Pliny the Younger

• Honor puts us under an obligation as binding as necessity is for other people. (Letters)

• Since it is not granted to us to live long, let us transmit to posterity some memorial that we have at least lived.

Plotinus

• Beauty addresses itself chiefly to sight, but there is a beauty for the hearing too, as in certain combinations so words and in all kinds of music; for melodies and cadences are beautiful; and minds that lift themselves above the realm of sense to a higher order are aware of beauty in the conduct of life, in actions, in character, in the pursuits of the intellect; and there is the beauty of the virtues. (The Enneads)

• We ourselves possess Beauty when we are true to our own being' ugliness is in going to another order; knowing ourselves, we are beautiful; in self-ignorance we are ugly.

Plutarch

• Know how to listen, and you will profit even from those who talk badly.

• The mind is not a vessel to be filled but a fire to be kindled.

• Perseverance is more prevailing than violence; and many things which cannot be overcome when they are together, yield themselves up when taken little by little.

Poe, Edgar Allan

• The angels ... singing unto one another,
  Can find among their burning terms of love,
  None so devotional as that of "mother" (To My Mother)

• Those who dream by day are cognizant of many things that escape those who dream only at night.

Pogregin, Lettie Cottin

• We need old friends to help us grow old and new friends to help us stay young.

Pola, Eddy and George Wyle

• It's the most wonderful time of the year.
  With the kids jingle belling,
  and everyone telling you,
  "Be of good cheer,"
  It's the most wonderful time of the year. ("It's The Most Wonderful Time Of The Year")

Polgar, Alfred

• Too often man handles life as he does the bad weather, He whiles away the time as he waits for it to stop.

Pollack, Channing

• Happiness: a way station between too little and too much.

• My clearest recollection of a long-ago interview with Thomas A. Edison is of a single sentence that was painted and hung on a wall in his room. In effect, the sentence was, "It is remarkable to what lengths people will go to avoid thought." That is tragically true. Some of think, more of us think we think, and most of us don't even think of thinking. The result is a somewhat cockeyed world.

Pollack, Robert

• Science differs from politics or religion, in precisely this one discipline: we agree in advance to simply reject our own findings when they have been shown to be in error.

Pollan, Michael

• The way we eat represents our most profound engagement with the natural world. Daily, our eating turns nature into culture, transforming the body of the world into our bodies and minds. (The Omnivore's Dilemma)

Pollard, C. William

• If you want people to listen, you have to have a platform to speak from, and that is excellence in what you do. (speech at Seattle Pacific University)

• In examining the potential of individuals, we must focus on their strengths and not just their mistakes. We cannot be limited by what they may have spilled in the kitchen. (The Soul of the Firm)

• Information is a source of learning. But unless it is organized, processed, and available to the right people in a format for decision making, it is a burden, not a benefit. (The Soul of the Firm)

• It is not always what we know or analyzed before we make a decision that makes it a great decision. It is what we do after we make the decision to implement and execute it that makes it a good decision. (The Soul of the Firm)

• It is the responsibility of leadership to provide opportunity, and the responsibility of individuals to contribute. (speech at Seattle Pacific University)

• Learning and innovation go hand in hand. The arrogance of success is to think that what you did yesterday will be sufficient for tomorrow. (The Soul of the Firm)

• Too often new ideas are studied and analyzed until they are suffocated. (The Soul of the Firm)

• Without change there is no innovation, creativity, or incentive for improvement. Those who initiate change will have a better opportunity to manage the change that is inevitable. (The Soul of the Firm)

Ponder, Catherine

• The forgiving state of mind is a magnetic power for attracting good.

• When you hold resentment toward another, you are bound to that person or condition by an emotional link that is stronger than steel. Forgiveness is the only way to dissolve that link and get free.

Poole, Mary Pettibone

• He who laughs, lasts.

• The next best thing to being clever is being able to quote someone who is.

• To repeat what others have said, requires education; to challenge it, requires brains.

Pope, Alexander

• An honest man's the noblest work of God. (An Essay on Man)

• Honor and shame from no condition rise;
  Act well your part: there all the honor lies. (An Essay on Man)

• Hope springs eternal in the human breast:
  Man never is, but always To be Blest.

• A little learning is a dangerous thing;
  Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring.

• No writing is good that does not tend to better mankind in some way or other. (in Observations, Anecdotes, and Characters, of Books and Men Collected from the Conversation of Mr. Pope, and Other Eminent Persons of His Time by Spence)

• Teach me to feel another's woe,
  To hide the fault I see,
  That mercy I to others show,
  That mercy show to me.

• To err is human, to forgive, divine.

• Vice is a monster of so frightful mien,
  As, to be hated, needs but to be seen;
  Yet seen too oft, familiar with her face,
  We first endure, then pity, then embrace.

Pope Francis

• In a word, if we want security, let us give security. If we want life, let us give life. If we want opportunities, let us provide opportunities. The yardstick we use for others will be the yardstick which time will use for us. (address to the joint Congress of the US, Sept. 24, 2015)

• A little bit of mercy makes the world less cold and more just. (Angelus on March 17, 2013)

• No one listens willingly to someone who speaks to them from a position of self-righteousness and judgment. Again and again in the Gospels, Jesus reserves his harshest words for those who ignore their own weakness in order to lord it over others. (Pope Francis and our Call to Joy)

• We have created new idols. The worship of the ancient golden calf has returned in a new and ruthless guise in the idolatry of money and dictatorship of an impersonal economy lacking a truly human purpose.

Pope Gregory I

• Be not anxious about what you have, but about what you are.

Pope John XIII

• Listen to everything, forget much, correct little.

• Mankind is a great, an immense family... This is proved by what we feel in our hearts at Christmas.

• The progress, order, security, and peace of each country are necessarily connected with the social progress, order, security and peace of all other countries. ("Pacem in terris" Encyclical)

Pope John Paul

• Consult not your fears but your hopes and your dreams. Think not about your frustrations, but about your unfulfilled potential. Concern yourself not with what you tried and failed in, but with what it is still possible for you to do.

• The truth is not always the same as the majority decision.

Pope John Paul II

• As the family goes, so goes the nation and so goes the whole world in which we live.

• Each individual in fact has moral responsibility for the acts which he personally performs; no one can be exempted from this responsibility, and on the basis of it everyone will be judged by God himself. ("Evangelium Vitae")

Pope Leo XIII

• Nothing is more important than to war on war.

Popova, Maria

• Yes, people sometimes do horrible things, and we can speculate about why they do them until we run out of words and sanity. But evil only prevails when we mistake it for the norm. There is so much goodness in the world – all we have to do is remind one another of it, show up for it, and refuse to leave. ("Some Thoughts on Hope, Cynicism, and the Stories We Tell Ourselves")

Popper, Karl (Sir)

• Good tests kill flawed theories; we remain alive to guess again.

• Our knowledge can only be finite, while our ignorance must necessarily be infinite. (Conjectures and Refutations)

Popplestone, Charles E.

• Mistakes are stepping stones to success.

Porchi, Antonio

• They will say you are on the wrong road, if it is your own.

Porter, Eleanor

• What men and women need is encouragement... Instead of always harping on a man's faults, tell him of his virtues. Try to pull him out of his rut of bad habits. (Pollyanna)

Porter, Katherine Anne

• Adventure is something you seek for pleasure, or even for profit, like a gold rush or invading a country; ... but experience is what really happens to you in the long run; the truth that finally overtakes you.

• Experience is what really happens to you in the long run; the truth that finally overtakes you. ("St. Augustine and the Bullfight" The Collected Essays and Occasional Writings of Katherine Anne Porter)

• Miracles are instantaneous; they cannot be summoned, but they come of themselves, usually at unlikely moments and to those who least expect them.

• The past is never where you think you left it.

• Writing, in any sense that matters, cannot be taught. It can only be learned by each separate one of us in his own way, by the use of his own powers of imagination and perception, the ability to learn the lessons he has set for himself. ("On Writing" The Collected Essays and Occasional Writings of Katherine Anne Porter)

Porter, Roger

• People underestimate their capacity for change. There is never a right time to do a difficult thing. A leader's job is to help people have vision of their potential. (speech in Detroit, MI, June 1990)

Poscente, Vincent

• Interestingly, koi, when put in a fish bowl, will only grow up to three inches. When this same fish is placed in a large tank, it will grow to about nine inches long. In a pond koi can reach lengths of eighteen inches. Amazingly, when placed in a lake, koi can grow to three feet long. The metaphor is obvious. You are limited by how you see the world (Invinceable Principles)

• It's not how much you do, it's how often you do it. It simply doesn't matter if you make some monumental effort at any given time. You have it in your to give that extra little bit. You know that you could add that finishing touch. You know you can take that extra step. (Invinceable Principles)

• Judgmentalism assumes that you have the right to change someone else. Well, you don't. You only have the right to choose how you will change and behave. Trust others to make their own choices. Put the accountability for another's actions where it belongs, on the other person's shoulders. (Invinceable Principles)

• Walking your talk is a great way to motivate yourself. No one likes to live a lie. Be honest with yourself, and you will find the motivation to do what you advise others to do. (Invinceable Principles)

Post, Emily

• Ideal conversation must be an exchange of thought, and not, as many of those who worry most about their shortcomings believe, an eloquent exhibition of wit or oratory.

Postman, Neil

• Children enter school as question marks and leave as periods.

• The point is that profound but contradictory ideas may exist side by side, if they are constructed from different materials and methods. and have different purposes. Each tells us something important about where we stand in the universe, and it is foolish to insist that they must despise each other. (The End of Education)

Potter, Beatrix

• Thank goodness I was never sent to school; it would have rubbed off some of the originality.

Pound, Ezra Loomis

• Genius...is the capacity to see ten things where the ordinary man sees one.

• Properly, we should read for power. Man reading should be man intensely alive. The book should be a ball of light in one's hand.

• Real education must ultimately be limited to men who insist on knowing. The rest is mere sheep-herding.

• A slave is one who waits for someone to come and free him.

Poundstone, Paula

• Adults are always asking kids what they want to be when they grow up because they are looking for ideas.

• The truth is libraries are raucous clubhouses for free speech, controversy and community.

Povich, Lynn

• Change is often rejuvenating, invigoration, fun ... and necessary.

Powell, Colin (General)

• A dream doesn't become reality through magic; it takes sweat, determination and hard work.

• Great leaders are almost always great simplifiers, who can cut through argument, debate, and doubt to offer a solution everybody can understand.

• Perpetual optimism is a force multiplier.

• There are no secrets to success. It is the result of preparation, hard work, and learning from failure.

Powell, John

• The only real mistake is the one from which we learn nothing.

Powell, Lawrence Clark

• A book is one of the most patient of all man's inventions. Centuries mean nothing to a well-made book. It awaits its destined reader, come when he may, with eager hand and seeing eye. Then occurs one of the great examples of union, that of a man with a book, pleasurable, sometimes fruitful, potentially world-changing, simple; and in a public library...without cost to the reader.

• Books themselves need no defense. Their spokesmen come and go, their readers live and die, they remain constant.

• The good writer, the great writer, has what I have called the three S's: the power to see, to sense, and to say. That is, he is perceptive, he is feeling, and he has the power to express in language what he observes and reacts to.

• I can speak of my own criterion for judging whether or not a book is good or bad. I ask of it a single question, From how deep and true an impulse did it spring? Was it written merely to shock? Only to make money? Or was it written to create something more perfect and more lasting than the life experience from which it came?

• No university in the world has ever risen to greatness without a correspondingly great library... When this is no longer true, then will our civilization have come to an end.

• This is the gift all writers seek--to write language that incandesces yet does not melt.

• To achieve lasting literature, fictional or factual, a writer needs perceptive vision, absorptive capacity, and creative strength.

• Unless their use by readers bring them to life, books are indeed dead things.

• We are the children of a technological age. We have found streamlined ways of doing much of our routine work. Printing is no longer the only way of reproducing books. Reading them, however, has not changed; it is the same as it has always been, since Callimachus administered the great library in Alexandria.

• What makes a book great, a so-called classic, it its quality of always being modern, of its author, though he be long dead, continuing to speak to each new generation.

• Write to be understood, speak to be heard, read to grow...

• [A writer] must try to think clearly, to feel deeply, to write honestly. If he is fortunate he will make a living, but his work will never be anymore essentially clear and deep and honest than he himself is, and he will be judged finally not for how many copies his books have sold, but for what they have done to enrich the lives of their readers, now and in time to come.

Powers, Melvin

• The uncommon man is merely the common man thinking and dreaming of success in larger terms and in more fruitful areas.

Powter, Susan

• My father instilled in me that if you don't see things happening the way you want them to, you get out there and make them happen.

Pratchett, Terry, see also, Neil Gaiman

• I have no use for people who have learned the limits of the possible.

• If you don’t turn your life into a story, you just become a part of someone else’s story. (The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents)

• It’s not worth doing something unless someone, somewhere, would much rather you weren’t doing it. (from the foreword to The Ultimate Encyclopedia of Fantasy, by David Pringle)

• Only in our dreams are we free. The rest of the time we need wages.

• The presence of those seeking the truth is infinitely to be preferred to the presence of those who think they’ve found it. (Monstrous Regiment)

• Why do you go away? So that you can come back. So that you can see the place you came from with new eyes and extra colors. And the people there see you differently, too. Coming back to where you started is not the same as never leaving. (A Hat Full of Sky)

Prather, Hugh

• Almost any difficulty will move in the face of honesty. When I am honest I never feel stupid. And when I am honest I am automatically humble. (I Touch the Earth, The Earth Touches Me.)

• Happiness is a present attitude--not a future condition.

• I live now and only now, and I will do what I want to do this moment and not what I decided was best for me yesterday.

• Just when I think I have learned the way to live, life changes.

Prentice, George Dennison

• It is in vain to hope to please all alike. Let a man stand with his face in what direction he will, he must necessarily turn his back on one half of the world.

• Memory is not so brilliant as hope, but it is more beautiful, and a thousand times as true. (Prenticeana)

• A word of kindness is seldom spoken in vain, while witty sayings are as easily lost as the pearl slipping from a broken string.

Pressfield, Steven

• A child has no trouble believing the unbelievable, nor does the genius or the madman. It's only you and I with our big brains and our tiny hearts, who doubt and overthink and hesitate. (Do the Work)

Preston, Margaret

• 'Tis the motive exalts the action; 'Tis the doing, and not the deed.

Price, Leontyne

• The ultimate of being successful is the luxury of giving yourself the time to do what you want to do.

Priest, Ivy Baker

• The world is round and the place which may seem like the end may also be only the beginning. (Parade, 1958)

Priestly, Joseph B.

• I have always been delighted at the prospect of a new day, a fresh try, one more start, with perhaps a bit of magic waiting somewhere behind the morning.

• In completing one discovery we [find] others which we could have no idea of before; we cannot solve one doubt without creating several new ones. (from The Quotable Teacher, comp. by Howe)

• The more we elaborate our means of communication, the less we communicate. ("Televiewing" Thoughts in the Wilderness)

Prigogine, ILya

• The irreversibility [of time] is the mechanism that brings order out of chaos. (in The Big Bang Never Happened by Lerner)

Pritchard, Michael

• Fear is that little darkroom where negatives are developed.

Pritchett, Price

• Ethical dilemmas have a way of sneaking up on a person. If something smells funny, stay away from it. Or help get rid of it.

• Excellence calls for character, integrity, fairness, honesty ... a determination to do what's right. High ethical standards, across the board.

Pritchett, V. S.

• The mark of genius is an incessant activity of mind. Genius is a spiritual greed.

Prochnow, Herbert V.

• A great many people mistake opinions for thought.

• You may be sorry that you spoke,
  sorry you stayed or went,
  sorry you won or lost,
  sorry so much was spent.
  But as you go through life, you'll find--
  you're never sorry you were kind.

Procter, Bob

• Clearly understand, there isn't any situation that isn't made worse by worry. Worry never solves anything. Worry never prevents anything. Worry never heals anything. Worry serves only one purpose... it makes matters worse. (Your Achievement Ezine - Issue No. 176)

• I am aware there are books that instruct you on how to manipulate the market, stocks and people... they might even help you get money. But, let me caution you... when there is no spiritual growth... there is no spiritual strength... there is no lasting happiness... and, there is no real or lasting wealth. (Your Achievement Ezine - Issue No. 153)

Proctor, Adelaide A.

• No star is ever lost we once have seen,
  We always may be what we might have been.

Proust, Marcel

• A powerful idea communicates some of its strength to him who challenges it. (Remembrance of Things Past)

• The voyage of discovery is not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes.

• We don't receive wisdom; we must discover it for ourselves after a journey no one can take for us or spare us

Proverbs

• After three days without reading, talk becomes flavorless. (Chinese)

• Be as an cup, and the universe flows into you. Be as an arrow, and the universe retreats from you. (Zen)

• Be the master of your will, and the slave of your conscience. (Yiddish)

• The beginning of wisdom is to call things by their right names. (Chinese)

• Brothers and sisters are as close as hands and feet. (Vietnamese)

• Clemency is the support of justice. (Russian)

• Couples who love each other can communicate a thousand things without ever once talking, (Chinese)

• Deal with the faults of others as gently as with your own. (Chinese)

• Deliberate often - decide once. (Latin)

• Do not confine your children to your own learning, for they were born of another time. (Hebrew)

• Even a small star shines in the darkness. (Finnish)

• Every child's life is like a piece of paper on which every person leaves a mark. (from The Quotable Teacher, comp. by Howe) (Chinese)

• Evil enters like a needle and spreads like an oak tree. (Ethopian)

• Fear less, hope more; eat less, chew more; whine less, breathe more; talk less, say more; hate less, love more; and all good things are yours. (Swedish)

• A fool may be known by six things: anger, without cause; speech, without profit; change, without progress; inquiry, without object; putting trust in a stranger, and mistaking foes for friends. (Arabian)

• Fools get things mixed up and wise men straighten them out. (Scottish)

• Friendship doubles our joy and divides our grief. (Swedish)

• God could not be everywhere, so He made mothers. (Jewish)

• Gold is tested by fire, man by gold. (Chinese)

• Good advice is often annoying--bad advice never is. (French)

• A good laugh and a long sleep are the best cures in the doctor's book. (Irish)

• Gratefulness is the poor man's payment. (English)

• Hay is more acceptable to an ass than gold. (Latin )

• He who has health has hope. And he who has hope has everything. (Arabian)

• He who is outside his door already has the hard part of his journey behind him. (Dutch)

• Hold a true friend with both hands. (Nigerian)

• I hear, I forget. I see, I remember. I do, I understand. (Chinese)

• If thine enemy wrong thee, buy each of his children a drum. (Chinese)

• If work were nice, the rich would not have left it to the poor. (Haitian)

• If you are planning for a year, sow rice; if you are planning for a decade, plant trees; if you are planning for a lifetime, educate people. (Chinese)

• If you believe everything you read, you better not read. (Japanese)

• If you have much, give of your wealth; if you have little, give of your heart. (Arab)

• If you stand straight, do not fear a crooked shadow. (Chinese)

• If you want happiness for an hour, take a nap.
  If you want happiness for a day, go fishing.
  If you want happiness for a year, inherit a fortune.
  If you want happiness for a lifetime, help somebody. (Chinese)

• If you wish to know what a man is, place him in authority. (Yugoslavian)

• It is the heart that does the giving; the fingers only let go (Nigerian)

• It's not good for all of our wishes to be fulfilled. Through sickness, we recognize the value of health; through evil, the value of good; through hunger, the value of food; through exertion, the value of rest. (Greek)

• Justice is like fire; if one covers it with a veil, it still burns. (Madagascan)

• Knowledge without wisdom is a load of books on the back of an ass. (Japanese)

• Learning is a treasure that will follow its owner everywhere. (Chinese)

• Live to learn and you will learn to live.

• The man who removes a mountain begins by carrying away small stones. (Chinese)

• No one tests the depth of a river with both feet. (Ashanti)

• Not to know is bad, not to wish to know is worse. (Nigerian)

• One kind word can warm three snowy peaks. (Japanese)

• One pound of learning requires ten pounds of common sense to apply it. (Persian)

• One who sits between two chairs may easily fall down. (Russian)

• Only after the last tree has been cut down,
  Only after the last river has been poisoned,
  Only after the last fish has been caught,
  Only then will you find that money cannot be eaten. (Cree Indian)

• An ounce of patience is worth a pound of brains. (Dutch)

• Patience is the mother of a beautiful child. (Bantu)

• Pray to God, but continue to row toward shore. (Russian)

• The reputation of a thousand years may be determined by the conduct of one hour. (Japanese)

• The sky is not less blue because the blind man does not see it. (Danish)

• The soul would have no rainbow if the eyes had no tears. (Indian)

• Time is the best doctor. (Yiddish)

• To advise is easier than to help. (German)

• To forget a wrong is the best revenge. (Italian)

• To listen well is as powerful a means to influence as to talk well, and is as essential to all true conversations. (Chinese)

• To question a wise man is the beginning of wisdom. (German)

• Two shorten the road. (Irish)

• Useless wisdom is double foolishness. (Icelandic)

• Vision without action is a daydream. Action without vision is a nightmare. (Japanese)

• Visitor's footfalls are like medicine; they heal the sick. (Bantu)

• War ends nothing. (African)

• We shall light a candle of understanding in our hearts which shall not be put out. (Jewish)

• We're fools whether we dance of not, so we might as well dance. (Japanese)

• When an old man dies, a library burns down. (African)

• When eating fruit, think of the person who planted the tree. (Vietnamese)

• When it comes to changes, people like only those they make themselves. (French)

• When you were born, you cried and the world rejoiced. Live your life in such a manner that when you die the world cries and you rejoice. (Indian)

• Who does not thank for little will not thank for much. (Estonian)

• The wise adapt themselves to circumstances, as water molds itself to the pitcher. (from The Quotable Teacher, comp. by Howe) (Chinese)

• Worry often gives a small thing a big shadow. (Swedish)

• Write kind words in marble, insults in sand. (Iranian)

• You may be deceived if you trust too much, but you will live in torment if you don't trust enough. (Chinese)

• You've got to do your own growing, no matter how tall your grandfather was. (Irish)

Pryor, Heather

• A true friend is someone who reaches for your hand and touches your heart.

Publius Syrus

• Do not despise the bottom rungs in the ascent to greatness.

• No one knows what he can do till he tries. (Public Sayings)

Pulitizer, Joseph

• Put it before them briefly so they will read it, clearly so they will appreciate it, picturesquely so they will remember it and, above all, accurately so they will be guided by its light.

Pulsifer, Bryan

• Each one of us must face our own issues of balance, and the real key lies within your own hands. It is not someone else’s responsibility to manage your life, or to help create balance in your life. It is something you need to control. (The Hard Part Of Balance)

Pulsifer, Catherine

• The easiest way to set goals is to answer the following questions: What is it I want to achieve? When do I want to achieve it? Where am I today and what action do I need to take to achieve my goal? ("Words of Wisdom")

• If you compared your troubles, or challenges, with those of others, you would surely find that there are those whose troubles make yours look like minor inconveniences.

• People never forget that helping hand especially when times are tough.

• The personal example you set will do more to convince someone than all the eloquent speeches in the world. (Your Example)

Purcell, Edward M.

• I have not yet lost a feeling of wonder, and of delight, that this delicate motion should reside in all the things around us, revealing itself only to him who looks for it.

Purcell, Edwin S.

• With every breath of air we breathe, every time we enjoy a flower, a leaf or a sunset, every time we pet our animal friends or hug a loved one, we strike out against terrorism. There is no angry word we can utter that will so unsettle those hate filled souls as knowing that civilized human beings still appreciate life. It is our duty to those whose lives have been taken and those that will join them that we appreciate what we have. It is important that we stand united and let them know that we know we defeat them, with every breath of air we breathe.

Purdy, Ginger

• A women's organization was the catalyst to trigger a flip-flop in my mind that I wasn't a follower, I was a leader. And in spite of my first reaction, that of fear, and a feeling I couldn't' do it, I took the risk. Don't listen to other people's negativity: they filter through their own experiences. Learn to trust your own feelings.

Purkiser, W. T.

• Not what we say about our blessings, but how we use them, is the true measure of our thanksgiving.

Pyle, Ernie

• The praries are all right. The mountains are all right. The forests and the deserts and the clear clean air of the heights, they're all right. But what a bewitching thing is a city of the sea. It was good to be in Seattle--to hear the foghorns on the Sound, and the deep bellow of departing steamers' to feel the creeping fog all around you, the fog that softens things and makes a velvet trance out of nighttime.

Pym, Barbara

• Those quotations were really quite obscure. Anyone can see that he is a very well read man. (Crampton Hodnet)

Pynchon, Thomas

• If they can get you asking the wrong questions, they don't have to worry about the answers. (Gravity’s Rainbow)

Pythagoras

• Be silent, or say something better than silence.