Quotes arranged by Author, R

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Raban, Jonathan
  • My new city [Seattle] and its hinterland felt deceptively homely. Their similar latitude gave them the angular light and lingering evenings I was used to. Their damp marine weather, blowing in from the southwest, came in the right direction. When the mountains are hidden under a low sky, one might almost imagine oneself to be in Britain. (Driving Home)


Rabelais, François

  • All's well in the end, if you've only the patience to wait. (Gargantua and Pantagreul)

  • How shall I be able to rule over others, that have not full power and command of myself? (Gargantua and Pantagreul)


Rabin, Jonathan

  • Seattle is not an overly friendly city. It is a civil city, but not altogether friendly. People from outside mistake the civility for friendliness. Seattle is full of people who have their own lives to live. They won't waste their time being friendly. But they are civil. (in Once Upon a Time in Seattle by Watson)


Rabin, Susan

  • Enthusiasm is contagious. Be a carrier. (How to Attract Anyone, Anytime, Anyplace)


Rabinowitz, Zadoc

  • A man's dreams are an index to his greatness.


Radford, Arthur W.

  • A decision is the action an executive must take when he has information so incomplete that the answer does not suggest itself. ("The Man Behind the Power" in Time, February 25, 1957)


Radmacher, Mary Anne

  • Courage doesn't always roar. Sometimes courage is the little voice at the end of the day that says I'll try again tomorrow.


Radner, Gilda

  • I wanted a perfect ending. Now I've learned, the hard way, that some poems don't rhyme, and some stories don't have a clear beginning, middle, and end. Life is about not knowing, having to change, taking the moment and making the best of it, without knowing what's going to happen next. Delicious Ambiguity.

  • It's such an act of optimism to get through a day and enjoy it and laugh and do all that without thinking about death. What spirit human beings have!


Ram Dass

  • The spiritual journey is individual, highly personal. It can’t be organized or regulated. It isn’t true that everybody should follow one path. Listen to your own truth.


Ramadas, Papa

  • Simplicity is the nature of great souls.


Ramakirshna

  • The breeze of grace is always blowing on you. You have to open the sails and your boat will move forward.


Ramana (Maharish)

  • Grace is not something outside or you.. In fact, your very desire for grace is due to grace that is already working in you.

  • If you approach the ocean with a cup, you can only take away a cupful; if you approach it with a bucket you can take away a bucketful.


Ramee, Marie Louise De La see De La Ramee, Marie Louise


Ramuz, Charles

  • It is because everything must come to an end that everything is so beautiful. (Adieu, a beaucoup de personnages)


Rand, Ayn

  • Believing in fate produces fate. Believing in freedom will create infinite possibilities.

  • The ladder of success is best climbed by stepping on the rungs of opportunity.

  • The man who lets a leader prescribe his course is a wreck being towed to the scrap heap.

  • To achieve you need thought. You have to know what you are doing and that's real power..


Randall, Charles B.

  • The leader must know, most know that he knows, and must be able to make it abundantly clear to those about him that he knows. (Making Good in Management)


Randall, J. Herman

  • Any individual can be, in time, what he earnestly desires to be, if he but set his face steadfastly in the direction of that one thing and bring all his powers to bear upon its attainment.


Randall, Laurel Lee

  • Out of the earth, the rose,
    Out of the night, the dawn,
    Out of my heart, with all its woes,
    High courage to press on.


Randall, Lisa

  • The key distinction between science and religion might well be the character of the questions they choose to ask. ... Religion asks "why," in the sense of the presumption of an underlying purpose, whereas science asks "how." (Knocking on Heaven's Door)

  • Maybe the question of whether people can access truth on their own is the real issue at the heart of the religion/science debate. ... I’m not sure we are arguing so much about how the world came to be as about who has a right to figure things out and whose conclusions we should trust. (Knocking on Heaven's Door)


Rando, Caterina

  • Increase your personal power through positive and powerful communication. Recognize and eliminate negative self talk.


Randolph, John

  • Time is at once the most valuable and the most perishable of all our possessions.


Randolph, William

  • The greatest right in the world is the right to be wrong.


Randour, Mary Lou

  • The goal of compassion is not to care because someone is like us but to care because they are themselves.


Rankin, Arlene

  • The way in which we think of ourselves has everything to do with how our world sees us and how we can see ourselves successfully acknowledged by that world.


Rankin, Diana

  • Instead of thinking about where you are, think about where you want to be. It takes twenty years of hard work to become an overnight success.


Ransdell, Eric

  • The stories that you tell about your past shape your future. (in Fast Company)


Ransom, Jhn Crowe

    Two evils, monstrous either one apart,
    Possessed me, and were long and loath at going:
    A cry of Absence, Absence, in the heart,
    And in the woods the furious winter blowing. ("Winter Remembered")


Ransom, Ralph

    Before the reward there must be labor. You plant before you harvest. You sow in tears before you reap joy.


Raper, John W.

  • There is no pleasure in having nothing to do; the fun is having lots to do and not doing it.


Rapp, Anthony

  • There is only one you for all time. Fearlessly be yourself.


Rath, Tom

  • If you spend life trying to be good at everything you will never be great at anything. (Strengths Based Leadership)


Rather, Dan

  • The dream begins, most of the time, with a teacher who believes in you, who tugs and pushes and leads you to the next plateau, sometimes with a sharp stick called truth. (from The Quotable Teacher, comp. by Howe)


Rathenau, Walter

  • We are not here for the sake of possessions, or of power. Or of happiness, but we are here to transfigure the divine out of human spirit.


Ravi, I. I.

  • I think physicists are the Peter Pans of the human race. They never grow up and they keep their curiosity. (in Experiencing Science by Bernstein)


Ravitch, Diane

  • The person who knows "how" will always have job. The person who knows "why" will always be his boss.


Ravn, Karen

  • Only as high as I reach can I grow,
    Only as far as I seek can I go,
    Only as deep as I look can I see,
    Only as much as I dream can I be.


Rawls, Michael J.

  • Acquire purpose, rather than possessions. Fulfillment is not found through the achievement of goals.

  • Appreciate what you have, accept the blessings waiting for you to need them, and above all - realize that Source from which it all comes.

  • Consistency: the last refuge of the unimaginative.

  • Courage is not simply another virtue, it is the true form each and every virtue takes when put into practice. (from Friday's Inspiration: The Foundation of Integrity - 6/1/2001)

  • Creativity defeats complication with simplicity, overcomes fear with empowerment, and discovers order by achieving balance.

  • Creativity is the unbounded refuge of the imaginative.

  • Each moment a blessing of abundance, each breath a prayer of thanksgiving.

  • Each of us has a bank account of time, into which a deposit is made and withdrawals are taken. No matter how depleted that account was at the end of yesterday, today it is chock-full of moments to cherish, memories to make, and minute after minute to spend wisely or not. (from Friday's Inspiration: Remember These Things - 3-12-2004)

  • The greatest accomplishment began as a decision once made.

  • Honor is not something we take upon ourselves, but that which is freely given by others.

  • How can the future be molded with hands full of baggage labeled What Was and What Could've Been? Where can you go with all that stuff, and how much fun will you have with it when you get there? Leave those bags behind, and hope they stay lost before you get to your next destination. All right, take a few souvenirs if you must, but just nice stuff. No junk. (Friday's Inspiration, 11/21/03)

  • Humility, forgiveness, clarity of purpose and choosing love as a first response - these are the dynamics of true freedom in life.

  • Individuals are said to be "in pursuit" of knowledge. They are said to "search" for knowledge. They are said to be "on a quest" for knowledge. They describe themselves as "seekers after" knowledge. All these idioms suggest the same thing: that the knowledge already exists that the individual has yet to find. No one ever says they have "created" knowledge, for, of course, they cannot. (Friday's Inspiration, 4/21/06)

  • I see myself living a life where I am not bound by the opinions others have of me, one where I no longer concern myself with the judgments of others, one in which I believe in myself and my talents, skills and capabilities. I imagine, and therefore bring about, a life where I do not need to justify my existence, where I am free to be who I really am. (Friday's Inspiration, 2/6/09)

  • Inventiveness leaps beyond competence, and utilizes a sense of freedom to venture beyond the known. It is a personal resource developed from multiple experiences, a muscle strengthened with practice and frequent use. (from Friday's Inspiration: Remember These Things - 3-12-2004)

  • It is not what we say, but what we do, that leaves the lasting mark in the lives of others. Doing this, we glorify and honor our Creator. (on Facebook 12/10/11

  • Master your choices, or become the slave of their consequences.

  • Micro-management does little more than annoy the micro-managed.

  • Morning affirmation: I am in the right place, doing the right thing, achieving what I have envisioned, and feeling fulfilled and complete.

  • My path need not be strewn with flowers. Let them bloom behind me because I have passed.

  • Namaste - We honor others to validate that which is sacred, virtuous and wonderful in ourselves.

  • Not all knowledge is right out in plain sight, and it may take careful research, consideration and conclusion. Seeking Light in this manner, banishing my own shadows of ignorance, has helped me to see the effects of malice, envy and self-seeking, and the corroding influences of prejudice and intolerance. May these shadows, someday, be gone from this planet! (Friday's Inspiration, 4/21/06)

  • The opposite of fear is not happiness, it is decisiveness. Have no fear; happiness is to be found in having made a decision.

  • Shout praise, whisper blame. Sow encouragement, reap enthusiasm.

  • Strive for harmony and stability in your own choices, and you will surround your relationships with contentment.

  • Successful folk are the ones that manage to turn To-Do Lists into "Ta-Da!" Lists.

  • The sword of Truth is a blunt instrument without the keen edge of Justice.

  • There are more people who know how to be virtuous than actually exemplify it. Kindness and compassion are not a suit of clothes to be worn only at convenient times.

  • To make excuses and do nothing is to accept the world as it is. Making a decision and taking action is to shape the world into what it can be.

  • Trust yourself. Think for yourself. Act for yourself. Speak for yourself. Be yourself. Imitation is suicide.

  • When I realize I have all that I need, everything I want to do with my life becomes not just possible, but inevitable.

  • When I was growing up, Mother was the necessity of invention.

  • Work is that which ennobles mankind, making order out of chaos and employing creativity to improve the lot of daily life. Work is the Universe's ordinance for human improvement, and the worker is far more deserving of honor than the idler. Keep in balance with the outer work of the world by not ignoring the necessary inner work of the spirit. (from Friday's Inspiration: Remember These Things - 3-12-2004)

  • The world is my cathedral, its inhabitants my fellow parishioners.


Rawls, Robert

  • It is the risk element which ensures security. Risk brings out the ingenuity and resourcefulness which ensure success.


Ray, Dixie Ray

  • The general public has long been divided into two parts; those who think science can do anything, and those who are afraid it will. (New Scientist 7/5/73)


Ray, Marie Beyon

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


Raymone, Rositer

  • Life is eternal and love is immortal; and death is only a horizon; and a horizon is nothing save the limit of our sight.


Reade, Charles

  • Example is contagious behavior.

  • We go on fancying that each person is thinking of us, but they are not; they are like the rest of us--they are thinking of themselves.


Reagan, Nancy

  • A woman is like a tea bag--only in hot water do you realize how strong she is. (The Observer, 1981)


Reagan, Ronald

  • Government is like a baby. An alimentary canal with a big appetite at one end and no sense of responsibility at the other.

  • Information is the oxygen of the modern age. It seeps through the walls topped by barbed wire, it wafts across the electrified borders.

  • My philosophy of life is that if we make up our mind what we are going to make of our lives, then work hard toward that goal, we never lose--somehow we win out. (Your Achievement Ezine - Issue No. 138)


Reagon, Bernice Johnson

  • Life's challenges are not supposed to paralyze you, they're supposed to help you discover who you are.


Reddy, Helen

  • The most exciting thing about women's liberation is that this century will be able to take advantage of talent and potential genius that have been wasted because of taboos.


Redmond, John

  • The holly green, the ivy green
    The prettiest picture you've ever seen
    Is Christmas in Killarney
    With all of the folks at home. ("Christmas in Killarney")


Redmoon, Ambrose

  • Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the judgment that something else is more important than fear.


Reece, Gabrielle

  • My philosophy is anyone or anything that gives you knowledge inspires you.


Reed, Myrtle

  • If we all tried to make other people's paths easy, our own feet would have a smooth even place to walk on. (A Weaver of Dreams)

  • Silence and reserve will give anyone a reputation for wisdom. (Old Rose and Silver)


Reed, Scott

  • You must give to get, You must sow the seed, before you can reap the harvest.


Reed, Thomas Brackett

  • Copernicus ... did not publish his book [on the nature of the solar system] until he was on his deathbed. He knew how dangerous it is to be right when the rest of the world is wrong. (speech at Waterville, Maine 7/30/1885)

  • The reason why the race of man moves slowly is because it must move all together.


Reed, Willis

  • Go for the moon. If you don't get it, you'll still be heading for a star.


Reese, Betty

  • If you think you're too small to be effective, you have never been in bed with a mosquito.


Reeve, Christopher

  • Once you choose hope, anything's possible.

  • So many of our dreams at first seem impossible, then they seem improbable, and then, when we summon the will, they soon become inevitable.

  • When the first Superman movie came out I was frequently asked "What is a hero?" ... My answer was that a hero is someone who commits a courageous action without considering the consequences... Now my definition is completely different. I think a hero is an ordinary individual who finds strength to persevere and endure in spite of overwhelming obstacles.


Reeves, Keanu

  • The simple act of paying attention can take you a long way.


Reigier, Wills Goth

  • Ralph Keyes calls quotation collectors "quotographers," the men and women who gather catchwords, watchwords, war words, winged words, maxims, mottos, sayings, and quips into books of a thousand pages. Through the centuries quotation collectors have saved quotations that would otherwise be lost. (Quotology)


Reiland, Karl

  • In about the same degree as you are helpful, you will be happy.


Reimer, Jack (Rabbi)

  • We cannot merely pray to You, O God to end war:
    For we know You made the world in a way
    That we must find our own path of peace
    Within ourselves and with our neighbor.

    We cannot merely pray to You, O God, to root out prejudice:
    For you have already given us eyes
    With which to see the good in all people
    If we would only use them rightly. ("Social Action" Living God's Justice: Reflections and Prayers)


Reinhold, Barbara

  • Change is not a process for the impatient.


Remen, Rachel Naomi

  • I suspect that the most basic and powerful way to connect to another person is to listen. Just listen. Perhaps the most important thing we ever give each other is our attention And especially if it's given from the heart. When people are talking, there's no need to do anything but receive them. Just take them in. Listen to what they're saying. Care about it. Most times caring about it is even more important than understanding it. Most of us don't value ourselves or our love enough to know this. (Kitchen Table Wisdom)

  • We all yearn for mastery. But mastery is always limited. Sooner or later we will come to the edge of all that we can control and find life, waiting thee for us. (My Grandfather's Blessings)


Renard, Jules

  • A cold in the head causes less suffering than an idea.

  • We don't understand life any better at forty than at twenty, but by then we realize it and admit it. (Journal)

  • Writing is the only profession where no one considers you ridiculous if you earn no money.


Renault, Mary

  • In hatred as in love, we grow like the thing we brood upon. What we loathe, we graft into our very soul.


Rendell, Ruth

  • While most of the things you've worried about have never happened, it's a different story with the things you haven't worried about. They are the ones that happen. (Talking to Strange Men)


Renkei, Ruth E.

  • Never fear shadows. They simply mean that there's a light somewhere nearby.


Rent, Jonathan Larson

  • The opposite of war is not peace, it's creation.


Repplier, Agnes

  • The impulse to travel is one of the hopeful symptoms of life. ("The American Takes a Holiday" Time and Tendencies)

  • It is not easy to find happiness in ourselves, and impossible to find it elsewhere.

  • A man who listens because he has nothing to say can hardly be a source of inspiration. The only listening that counts is that of the talker who alternately absorbs and expresses ideas. ("The Luxury of Conversation" in Compromises)

  • It takes time and trouble to persuade ourselves that the things we want to do are the things we ought to do.

  • There is an optimism which nobly anticipates the eventual triumph of great moral lows, and there is an optimism which cheerfully tolerates unworthiness.

  • We cannot really love anybody with whom we never laugh.


Reston, James

  • Stick with the optimists. It's going to be tough enough even if they're right. (advice to his grandson in New York Times Feb. 1980)


Retton, Mary Lou

  • Each of us has a fire in our hearts for something. It's our goal in life to find it and to keep it lit.


Retz, Jean Francois Paul de Gondi de (Cardinal)

  • The man who doesn't trust himself can never trust anyone else. (Mémoires)


Reuther, Walter

  • If you're not big enough to lose, you're not big enough to win.


Reynolds, Barbara

  • Whatever reason you have for not being somebody, there's somebody who had that same problem and overcame it.


Reynolds, Joshua (Sir)

  • Simplicity is an exact medium between too little and too much.


Reynolds, Wynetka Ann

  • When you talk to young girls these days about their role modles, very few mention a chemist like Madame Curie or an astrophysicist and astronaut like Sally Ride, or a zoologist like Jane Goodall. Instead, they look to someone like Madonna...


Reznikoff, Charles

  • The miracle, of course, was not that the oil for the sacred light - in a little cruse - lasted as long as they say; but that the courage of the Maccabees lasted to this day: let that nourish my flickering spirit. ("Meditations on the Fall and Winter Holidays")


Rhodes, Richard

  • "A unification of fact and value" is an excellent definition, it seems to me, of any given word in any given language. So words bloom into novels ... and the large problem grows out of the small: to assemble words so they work together with something approaching the same force of unified fact and value that each word has accrued in its long, accumulating passage through history. Words are the model, words are the tools, words are the boards, words are the nails.


Rice, Alice H.

  • Joy is at its keenest when contrasted with sorrow, courage at its height when it follows fear, faith at its noblest when it grows from doubt.

  • Solitude, if rightly used, becomes not only a privilege but a necessity. Only a superficial soul fears to fraternize with itself.


Rice, Berkeley

  • Visionary people are visionary partly because of the very great many things they don't see. (New York Times Magazine, March 17, 1968)


Rice, Helen Steiner

  • Bless us Lord, this Christmas, with quietness of mind;
    Teach us to be patient and always to be kind.

  • Peace on earth will come to stay,
    When we live Christmas every day.


Rich, Adrienne

  • Lying is done with words and also with silence.


Richards, Ann

  • I'm really glad that your young people missed the Depression and missed the big war. But I do regret that they missed the leaders that I knew, leaders who told us when things were tough and that we'd have to sacrifice, and that these difficulties might last awhile... They brought us together and they gave us a sense of national purpose.


Richards, Frank

  • All big things in this world are done by people who are naive and have an idea that is obviously impossible.


Richards, Keith

  • When you are growing up there are two institutional places that affect you most powerfully: the church, which belongs to God, and the public library, which belongs to you.


Richards, Laura E.

  • Once there was an elephant
    Who tried to use the telephant
    No! no! I mean an elephone who tried to use the telephone.
    Dear me, I am not certain quite
    That even now I've got it right. ("Elephony")


Richards, Mary Caroline

  • All the arts we practice are apprenticeship. The big art is our life.

  • The imagination equips us to perceive reality when it is not fully materialized.


Richardson, Dorothy M.

  • Life is creation. Self and circumstances are the raw material.

  • Suddenly a mist of green on the trees, as quiet as thought. (Pilgrimage: the Trap)


Richardson, Dot

  • A true champion is someone who wants to make a difference, who never gives up, and who gives everything she has no matter what the circumstances are. A true champion works hard and never loses sight of her dreams.


Richardson, Greg

  • Advent helps us remember that light shines in the darkness and we reflect it. ("Advent is About Making a Fresh Start")

  • Advent is a season of anticipation and preparation. Advent is about finding the Sacred in the Everyday. Advent is about finding the time. Advent grows and gains momentum during the weeks before Christmas. ("Advent is Finding Light in the Darkness", Dec. 14, 2013)


Richardson, Jan L.

  • God of wilderness, God of wildness, lead me to the quiet places of my soul. In stillness, in openness, may I find my strength.

  • This season of advent means there is something on the horizon, the likes of which we have never seen before. ... So stay. Sit. Linger. Tarry. Ponder. Wait. Behold. Wonder. There will be time enough for running. For rushing. For worrying. For pushing. For now, stay. Wait. Something is on the horizon. (Night Visions)


Richardson, John M., Jr.

  • When it comes to the future, there are three kinds of people: those who let it happen, those who make it happen, and those who wonder what happened.


Richet,Charles

  • I never said it was possible. I only said it was true.


Richter, Jean Paul

  • In later life, as in earlier, only a few persons influence the formation of our character; the multitude pass us by like a distant army.

  • A man never discloses his own character so clearly as when he describes another's.

  • Only actions give life strength; only moderation gives it charm.


Rickenbacker, Eddie (Edward V.) (Captain)

  • Courage is doing what you're afraid to do. There can be no courage unless you're scared.

  • I would rather have a million friends than a million dollars.

  • Think positively and masterfully, with confidence and faith, and life becomes more secure, more fraught with action, richer in achievement and experience.


Rickey, Branch

  • Problems are the price you pay for progress.


Rickman, Alan

  • And it’s a human need to be told stories. The more we’re governed by idiots and have no control over our destinies, the more we need to tell stories to each other about who we are, why we are, where we come from, and what might be possible.


Rickover, Hyman (Admiral)

  • Good ideas are not adopted automatically. They must be driven into practice with courageous patience.

  • Organizations don’t get things done. Plans and programs don’t get things done. Only people get things done. Organizations plans and programs either help or hinder people.


Ridge, David

  • True forgiveness is not an action after the fact, it is an attitude with which you enter each moment.


Riggs, Donald

  • The successful person is the individual who forms the habit of doing what the failing person doesn't like to do.


Rigney, Melanie

  • Feeding the poor and clothing the hungry are important ministries. But so is the ability to write a moving eulogy or devotion, compose a beautiful hymn, or paint a glorious sunset. The ways in which God gifts us with the talent to touch souls are as infinitesimal as he is. (Sisterhood of Saints: Daily Guidance and Inspiration)


Riis, Jacob A.

  • I'd look at one of my stonecutters hammering away at the rock, perhaps a hundred times without as much as a crack showing in it. Yet, at the hundred and first blow it would split in two, and I knew it was not that blow that did it, but all that had gone before.


Riley, James Whitcomb

  • The most essential factor is persistence - the determination never to allow your energy or enthusiasm to be dampened by the discouragement that must inevitably come.


Riley, Pat

  • Excellence is the gradual result of always striving to do better.

  • I've learned to keep things simple. Look at your choices, pick the best one, then go to work with all your heart.

  • There are only two options regarding commitment: you're either IN or you're OUT. There's no such thing as life in-between.


Rilke, Rainer Maria

  • And now let us believe in a long year that is given to us, new, untouched, full of things that have never been... (Letters of Rainer Maria Rilke, 1892-1910)

  • ... be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books that are written in a very foreign tongue. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer.

  • Spring has returned. The Earth is like a child that knows poems.

  • This is the miracle that happens every time to those who really love; the more they give, the more they possess.


Ringer, Robert J.

  • Reality isn't the way you wish things to be, nor the way they appear to be, but the way they actually are.


Ristad, Eloise

  • When we give ourselves permission to fail, we at the same time give ourselves permission to excel.


Rivarol, Antoine

  • Man spends his life in reasoning on the past, in complaining of the present, in fearing future.


Rivers, Joan

  • I have become my own version of an optimist. If I can't make it through one door, I'll go through another door--or I'll make a door. Something terrific will come no matter how dark the present.


Robbins, Anthony

  • It is not what we get. But who we become, what we contribute...that gives meaning to our lives.

  • I've come to believe that all my past failure and frustration were actually laying the foundation for the understandings that have created the new level of living I now enjoy.

  • Life is a gift, and it offers us the privilege, opportunity, and responsibility to give something back by becoming more.

  • Put yourself in a state of mind where you say to yourself, "Here is an opportunity for you to celebrate like never before, my own power, my own ability to get myself to do whatever is necessary.".

  • Quality questions create a quality life. Successful people ask better questions, and as a result, get better answers.

  • You see, in life, lots of people know what to do, but few people actually do what they know. Knowing is not enough! You must take action.


Robbins, Tom

  • Humanity has advanced, when it has advanced, not because it has been sober, responsible, and cautious, but because it has been playful, rebellious, and immature.

  • Love is the ultimate outlaw. It just won't adhere to any rules. The most any of us can do is sign on as its accomplice. (Still Life with Woodpecker)


Robbins, Tony

  • In essence, if we want to direct our lives, we must take control of our consistent actions. It’s not what we do once in a while that shapes our lives, but what we do consistently.


Roberts, Alice Kennelly

  • Christmas time's for dreaming
    Thoughts of long ago...
    Holidays of childhood,
    Memories all aglow. ("Christmas Time Is...")


Roberts, Anthony

  • Forget your past. Who are you now? Who have you decided to become?


Roberts, Dan

  • Grace is when God gives us what we don't deserve and Mercy is when God doesn't give us what we do deserve...


Roberts, Gareth

  • It may not seem like much, but think of the consequences. One overdue library book today, the collapse of the universe by the end of the week.


Roberts, Johnathan see Mecchi, Irene


Roberts, Nora

  • If you don't go after what you want, you'll never have it. If you don't ask, the answer is always no. If you don't step forward, you're always in the same place.


Roberts, Richard

  • It is not even the beginning of Christmas unless it is Christmas in the heart. (Contemporary Christ)


Roberts, Wess

  • Anyone who doesn't make mistakes isn't trying hard enough.

  • The only habits you never conquer are the ones you put off doing something about.


Robertson, Anne

  • The Grinch and [the gospel of] Luke have a message for you. No one can steal Christmas. No matter how powerful you are, you can't take it away; and no matter how poor and weak you are, no one can take it from you. ... The setting cannot be too humble, you cannot be too poor. It doesn't matter whether anyone notices or whether anybody cares. Christmas can't be stolen and it can't be stopped. ("Transformation in Whoville")


Robertson, Frederick W.

  • The charm of the words of great men, those grand sayings which are recognized as true as soon as heard, is this, that you recognize them as wisdom which has passed across your own mind. You feel that they are your own thoughts come back to you...

  • It is not the situation that makes the man, but the man who makes the situation.


Robinson, Eugene

  • To be poor in America was to be invisible, but not after this week, not after those images of the bedraggled masses at the Superdome, convention center and airport. No one can claim that the post-Reagan orthodoxy of low taxes and small government, which does wonders for the extremely rich, also inevitably does wonders for the extremely poor. What was that about a rising tide lifting all boats? What if you don't have a boat? (The Washington Post)


Robinson, Marilynne

  • The moon looks wonderful in this warm evening light, just as a candle flame looks beautiful in the light of morning. Light within light... It seems to me to be a metaphor for the human soul, the singular light within that great general light of existence. (Gilead)


Roche, Arthur Somers

  • Worry is a thin stream of fear trickling through the mind. If encouraged, it cuts a channel into which all other thoughts are drained.


Rochefoucauld, Francois la, see La Rochefoucauld, Francois, duc de


Rockfeller, John D., Jr.

  • I believe that every right implies a responsibility; every opportunity, an obligation; every possession, a duty.


Rockfeller, John D., Sr.

  • I always tried to turn every disaster into an opportunity.

  • I do not think there is any other quality so essential to success of any kind as the quality of perseverance. It overcomes almost everything, even nature.

  • If you want to succeed you should strike out on new paths, rather than travel the worn paths of accepted success.


Rockfeller, Margaretta (Happy)

  • Once you have been confronted with a life-and-death situation, trivia no longer matters. Your perspective grows and you live at a deeper level. There's no time for pettiness.


Rockne, Knute

  • The secret of winning football games is working more as a team, less as individuals. I play not my eleven best but my best eleven.


Roddenberry, Gene

  • A man either lives life as it happens to him, meets it head-on and licks it, or he turns his back on it and starts to wither away.


Rodgers, Buck

  • There are countless ways of attaining greatness, but any road to reaching one's maximum potential must be built on a bedrock of respect for the individual, a commitment to excellence, and a rejection of mediocrity.


Roe, Anne

  • Nothing in science has any value if it is not communicated.


Roethke, Theodore

  • What we need are more people who specialize in the impossible.


Roger, John see John-Roger


Rogers, Al

  • In times of profound change, the learners inherit the earth, while the learned find themselves beautifully equipped to deal with a world that no longer exists.


Rogers, Carl

  • The only person who is educated is the one who has learned how to learn...and change


Rogers, Dale Evans

  • Christmas, my child, is love in action. ... Every time we love, every time we give, it's Christmas.


Rogers, Fred (Mister Rogers)

  • All I know to do is to light the candle that has been given to me.

  • Confronting our feelings and giving them appropriate expression always takes strength, not weakness. It takes strength to acknowledge our anger, and sometimes more strength yet to curb the aggressive urges anger may bring and to channel them into nonviolent outlets. It takes strength to face our sadness and to grieve and to let our grief and our anger flow in tears when they need to. It takes strength to talk about our feelings and to reach out for help and comfort when we need it. (The World According to Mr. Rogers)

  • I believe that appreciation is a holy thing – that when we look for what’s best in a person we happen to be with at the moment, we’re doing what God does all the time. So in loving and appreciating our neighbor, we’re participating in something sacred. New! as of 04/01/17

  • When I say it's you I like, I'm talking about that part of you that knows that life is far more than anything you can ever see or hear or touch. That deep part of you that allows you to stand for those things without which humankind cannot survive. Love that conquers hate, peace that rises triumphant over war, and justice that proves more powerful than greed.

  • When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, "Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping."


Rogers, Rutherford D.

  • We're drowning in information and starving for knowledge.


Rogers, Will

  • America is a nation that conceives many odd inventions for getting somewhere but it can think of nothing to do once it gets there.

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

  • The fellow that can only see a week ahead is always the popular fellow, for he is looking with the crowd. But the one that can see years ahead, he has a telescope but he can't make anybody believe that he has it.

  • Half our life is spent trying to find something to do with the time we have rushed through life trying to save.

  • Never let yesterday use up too much of today.

  • An onion can make you cry, but there never was a vegetable invented to make people laugh.

  • Plans get you into things but you must work your way out.

  • So live that you wouldn't be ashamed to sell the family parrot to the town gossip.

  • Things ain't what they used to be and never were.

  • Too many people spend money they haven't earned, to buy things they don't want, to impress people they don't like.

  • We could certainly slow the aging process down if it had to work its way through Congress.

  • You politicians have got to look further ahead; you always got a Putter in your hands, when you ought to have a Driver.

  • You've got to go out on a limb sometimes because that's where the fruit is.


Rohn, Jim

  • Affirmation without discipline is the beginning of delusion.

  • All of the insights that we might ever need have already been captured by others in books. The important question is this: In the last ninety days, with this treasure of information that could change our lives, our fortunes, our relationships, our health, our children and our careers for the better, how many books have we read? (Jim Rohn's Weekly E-zine- February 4, 2003)

  • The amount you give isn't important. What matters is what that amount represents in terms of your life. (Jim Rohn's Weekly E-zine June 24, 2003)

  • Ask yourself, "How long am I going to work to make my dreams come true?" I suggest you answer, "As long as it takes. (Jim Rohn's Weekly E-zine May 27, 2003)

  • The big challenge is to become all that you have the possibility of becoming. You cannot believe what it does to the human spirit to maximize your human potential and stretch yourself to the limit.--( Jim Rohn's Weekly E-zine - February 11, 2003)

  • The challenge of leadership is to be strong, but not rude; be kind, but not weak; be bold, but not a bully; be thoughtful, but not lazy; be humble, but not timid; be proud, but not arrogant; have humor, but without folly. (Jim Rohn's Weekly E-zine March 18, 2003)

  • Don't set your goals too low. If you don't need much, you won't become much. (Jim Rohn's Weekly E-zine - July 1, 2003)

  • Don't just read the easy stuff. You may entertained by it, but you will never grow from it. (Jim Rohn's Weekly E-zine - January 27, 2004)

  • Don't wish it were easier, wish you were better.

  • Every life form seems to strive to its maximum except human beings. How tall will a tree grow? As tall as it possibly can. Human beings, on the other hand, have been given the dignity of choice. You can choose to be all or you can choose to be less. Why not stretch up to the full measure of the challenge and see what all you can do?--Jim Rohn (Jim Rohn's Weekly E-zine March 18, 2003)

  • Everything you need for your better future and success has already been written. And guess what? It's all available. All you have to do is go to the library. (The Treasure of Quotes)

  • For every disciplined effort there is a multiple reward.

  • Formal education will make you a living; self-education will make you a fortune.

  • Give whatever you are doing and whoever you are with the gift of your attention.

  • The goal of effective communication should be for listeners to say, "Me, too!" versus "So what?"--Jim Rohn (Jim Rohn's Weekly E-zine January 28, 2003)

  • A good objective of leadership is to help those who are doing poorly to do well and to help those who are doing well to do even better.

  • Here's what is exciting about sharing ideas with others: if you share a new idea with ten people, they get to hear it once and you get to hear it ten times.

  • How about this miracle... God says if you plant the seed I will make the tree. Wow, you can't have a better arrangement than that. First, it gives God the tough end of the deal. What if you had to make a tree? That would keep you up late at night trying to figure out how to make a tree. God says, "No, leave the miracle part to me. I've got the seed, the soil, the sunshine, the rain and the seasons. I'm God and all this miracles stuff is easy for me. I have reserved something very special for you and that is to plant the seed." (Jim Rohn's Weekly E-zine - February 11, 2003)

  • How long should you try? Until. (Jim Rohn's Weekly E-zine March 18, 2003)

  • I find it fascinating that most people plan their vacations with better care than they plan their lives. Perhaps that is because escape is easier than change. (Jim Rohn's Weekly E-zine, Sept. 16, 2003)

  • I have found in life that if you want a miracle you first need to do whatever it is you can do - if that's to plant, then plant; if it is to read, then read; if it is to change, then change; if it is to study, then study; if it is to work, then work; whatever you have to do. And then you will be well on your way of doing the labor that works miracles. (Jim Rohn's Weekly E-zine, Feb. 18, 2003)

  • If someone is going down the wrong road, he doesn't need motivation to speed him up. What he needs is education to turn him around. (Jim Rohn's Weekly E-zine - August 5, 2003)

  • If you are not willing to risk the unusual, you will have to settle for the ordinary.

  • If you don't design your own life plan, chances are you'll fall into someone else's plan. And guess what they have planned for you? Not much.

  • If you don't like how something is going for you, change it. If something isn't enough, change it. If something doesn't suit you, change it. If something doesn't please you, change it. You don't ever have to be the same after today. If you don't like your present address change it - you're not a tree!(The Gift of Change)

  • If you wish to find, you must search. Rarely does a good idea interrupt you. ( Jim Rohn's Weekly E-zine - February 11, 2003)

  • It's easy to carry the past as a burden instead of a school. It's easy to let it overwhelm you instead of educate you. (Jim Rohn's Weekly E-zine, Feb. 18, 2003)

  • Learning is the beginning of wealth. Learning is the beginning of health. Learning is the beginning of spirituality. Searching and learning is where the miracle process all begins. (Jim Rohn's Weekly E-zine - July 8, 2003)

  • Let others lead small lives, but not you.
    Let others argue over small things, but not you.
    Let others cry over small hurts, but not you.
    Let others leave their future in someone else's hands, but not you.

  • The major reason for setting a goal is for what it makes of you to accomplish it. What it makes of you will always be the far greater value than what you get.

  • Managers help people see themselves as they are; Leaders help people to see themselves better than they are. (Jim Rohn's Weekly E-zine March 18, 2003)

  • Most homes valued at over $250,000 have a library. That should tell us something. (Jim Rohn's Weekly E-zine - January 27, 2004)

  • The most important question to ask on the job is not "What am I getting?" The most important question to ask on the job is "What am I becoming?"--( Jim Rohn's Weekly E-zine - February 11, 2003)

  • No one else "makes us angry." We make ourselves angry when we surrender control of our attitude. What someone else may have done is irrelevant. We choose, not they. They merely put our attitude to a test. (Jim Rohn's Weekly E-zine, Sept. 30, 2003)

  • One of the secrets to success is ideas mixed with inspiration. ( Jim Rohn's Weekly E-zine - September 23, 2003)

  • Reading is essential for those who seek to rise above the ordinary. We must not permit anything to stand between us and the book that could change our lives. (Jim Rohn's Weekly E-zine Febryary 4, 2003)

  • Sincerity is not a test of truth. We must not make this mistake: He must be right; he's so sincere. Because, it is possible to be sincerely wrong. We can only judge truth by truth and sincerity by sincerity. (Jim Rohn's Weekly E-zine - June 24, 2003)

  • So when somebody asks me to make a decision about a situation, I don't offer a solution, I ask a question: What are our options? Give me the good, give me the bad, give me the pretty, give me the ugly, give me the impossible, give me the possible, give me the convenient, give me the inconvenient. Give me the options. All I want are options. And once I have all the options before me, then I comfortably and confidently make my decision. ( Jim Rohn's Weekly E-zine - January 14, 2003)

  • Success is neither magical nor mysterious. Success is the natural consequence of consistently applying the basic fundamentals.

  • Successful people engage that creative part of their minds and ask, "Well, I wonder how else I can look at this problem? I wonder how else I could deal with this decision? I wonder what other possibilities I have there?" ( Jim Rohn's Weekly E-zine - January 14, 2003)

  • There is no better opportunity to receive more than to be thankful for what you already have. Thanksgiving opens the windows of opportunity for ideas to flow your way. (Jim Rohn's Weekly E-zine, May 20, 2003)

  • Time is more valuable than money. You can get more money, but you cannot get more time. (Jim Rohn's Weekly E-zine March 4, 2003)

  • To solve any problem, there are three questions to ask yourself: First, what could I do? Second, what could I read? And third, whom could I ask?--Jim Rohn ( Jim Rohn's Weekly E-zine - October 7, 2003)

  • The twin killers of success are impatience and greed. (Jim Rohn's Weekly E-zine March 18, 2003)

  • The ultimate reason for setting goals is to entice you to become the person it takes to achieve them. (Jim Rohn's Weekly E-zine - July 1, 2003)

  • We must all wage an intense, lifelong battle against the constant downward pull. If we relax, the bugs and weeds of negativity will move into the garden and take away everything of value. (Jim Rohn's Weekly E-zine - June 24, 2003)

  • We must learn to help those who deserve it, not just those who need it. Life responds to deserve not need. (Jim Rohn's Weekly E-zine March 18, 2003)

  • What you give becomes an investment that will return to you multiplied at some point in the future. (Jim Rohn's Weekly E-zine - June 24, 2003)

  • Whoever renders service to many puts himself in line for greatness--great wealth, great return, great satisfaction, great reputation, and great joy.

  • Words do two major things: They provide food for the mind and create light for understanding and awareness.

  • The worst thing one can do is not to try, to be aware of what one wants and not give in to it, to spend years in silent hurt wondering if something could have materialized--never knowing.

  • You cannot speak that which you do not know. You cannot share that which you do not feel. You cannot translate that which you do not have. And you cannot give that which you do not possess. To give it and to share it, and for it to be effective, you first need to have it. Good communication starts with good preparation. (Jim Rohn's Weekly E-zine 10/13/03)

  • You cannot take the mild approach to the weeds in your mental garden. You have got to hate weeds enough to kill them. Weeds are not something you handle; weeds are something you devastate. (Jim Rohn's Weekly E-zine - May 11, 2004)

  • You must constantly ask yourself these questions: Who am I around? What are they doing to me? What have they got me reading? What have they got me saying? Where do they have me going? What do they have me thinking? And most important, what do they have me becoming? Then ask yourself the big question: Is that okay? (Jim Rohn's Weekly E-zine, July 21, 2003)


Rohr, Richard

  • Forgiveness is loyalty to the truth of who you are. To truly forgive someone is to recognize who they are, to admit and affirm who they are, and to know that their best selves will be brought out only in the presence of an accepting and believing person. Forgiveness is basically the act of believing in another person and not allowing that person to be destroyed by self hatred. Forgiveness involves helping people uncover their self-worth, which is usually crusted over by their own self-hatred. This is a way of forgiving people that does not make you look good but makes them look good. That's the way God forgives us. In the act of forgiveness, God gives us back our dignity and self-worth. God is loyal to the truth that we are. God affirms that we are good persons who have sinned. God asserts that we are not bad.

  • I have committed myself to joy. I have come to realize that those who make space for joy, those who prefer nothing to joy, those who desire the utter reality, will most assuredly have it. We must not be afraid to announce it to refugees, slum dwellers, saddened prisoners, angry prophets. Now and then we must even announce it to ourselves. In this prison of now, in this cynical and sophisticated age, someone must believe in joy.

  • I think your heart needs to be broken, and broken open, at least once to have a heart at all or to have a heart for others. (Breathing Under Water)

  • It is in falling down that we learn almost everything that matters spiritually. (Things Hidden : Scripture as Spirituality)

  • It's the hardest place for us to live, the place where we're most afraid to live, because it feels so empty and boring. Now-here almost always feels like nowhere, and that's precisely where we must go. (Jesus' Plan for a New World)

  • Jesus liberated us from religion. Jesus taught simple religious practices over major theorizing.… The only thoughts Jesus told us to police were our own: our own negative thoughts, our own violent thoughts, our own hateful thoughts-not other people's thoughts. (adapted from Jesus as Liberator/Paul as Liberator)

  • Most of us live in the past, carrying our hurts, guilts and fears. We have to face the pain we carry, lest we spend the rest of our lives running away from it or letting it run us. But the only place you'll ever meet the real is now-here. (Jesus' Plan for a New World)

  • One of the biggest religious divides cuts across religious traditions rather than between them. It is the difference between those who treat religion as a magnifying glass to help expose and oppose the sins of others more effectively, and those who treat it as a mirror to help one’s own spiritual and moral life by fostering introspection and personal repentance and transformation.

  • Spirituality is about being ready. All the spiritual disciplines of your life - prayer, study, meditation or ritual, religious vows - are there so you can break through to the eternal. Spirituality is about awakening the eyes, the ears, the heart so you can see what's always happening right in front of you. (Jesus' Plan for a New World)

  • We have to learn to live in both the world-as-it-is and the world-as-it-should-be. One is power; the other is love. Power and love are conjugal partners. Power without love is brutality, but love without power is soon sentimentality. We have to put the two together in this world.

  • What healthy religion is saying is that the real life is both now and later. You have to taste the Real first of all now. The constant pattern, however, is that most Christians either move both backwards (religion as nostalgia) or into the distant future (religion as carrot on the stick) and consistently avoid where everything really happens and matters—the present moment.

  • Would you respect a God you could comprehend? And yet very often that’s what we want - a God who reflects our culture, our biases, our economic, political, and military systems. (Simplicity: The Freedom of Letting Go)


Rolheiser, Ken

  • When God looks at us he sees all the promise and talents he has given us. If only we could see ourselves as our heavenly Father does! (Where Earth Meets Heaven: Seeing God in Your Life)


Rollins, Alice Wellington

  • The test of a good teacher is not how many questions he can ask his pupils that they will answer readily, but how many questions he inspires them to ask him which he finds it hard to answer.


Romano, John (M.D.)

  • The smaller the understanding of the situation, the more pretentious the form of expression.


Romily, Samuel

  • There is nothing by which I have, through life, more profited than by the just observations, the good opinion, and the sincere and gentle encouragement of amiable and sensible women. ( The Westminster Review, Volume 34)


Rommel, Erwin Johannes Eugen (Field Marshall)

  • Don’t fight a battle if you don’t gain anything by winning.


Romtvedt, David

  • There is a beauty that arises from withholding judgment and evading comparison, a grace in not demanding consensus. ("Red Politics and Blue in Wyoming" in The Sun, June 2006)


Rooney, Andrew J. (Andy)

  • The best Christmas trees come very close to exceeding nature.

  • Everyone wants to live on top of the mountain, but all the happiness and growth occurs while you're climbing it.

  • The less time I have to work with, the more things I get done.

  • New ideas are one of the most overrated concepts of our time. Most of the important ideas that we live with aren't new at all. (Pieces of My Mind)

  • One of the most glorious messes in the world is the mess created in the living room on Christmas day. Don't clean it up too quickly.


Roosevelt, Eleanor

  • At any age it does us no harm to look over our past shortcomings and plan to improve our characters and actions in the coming year.

  • The basis of world peace is the teaching which runs through almost all the great religions of the world. "Love they neighbor as thyself."

  • Do what you feel in your heart to be right, for you'll be criticized anyway. You'll be damned if you do and damned if you don't.

  • For it isn't enough to talk about peace. One must believe it. And it isn't enough to believe in it. One must work at it.

  • The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.

  • Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people.

  • Happiness is not a goal; it is a by-product.

  • I could not, at any age, be content to take my place in a corner by the fireside and simply look on. Life was meant to be lived. Curiosity must be kept alive. The fatal thing is the rejection. One must never, for whatever reason, turn his back on life.

  • I have spent many years of my life in opposition, and I rather like the role. (Eleanor : the Years Alone by Lash)

  • I think, at a child's birth, if a mother could ask a fairy godmother to endow it with the most useful gift, that gift would be curiosity.

  • If you approach each new person you meet in a spirit of adventure, you will find yourself endlessly fascinated by the new channels of thought and experience and personality that you encounter.

  • In the long run, we shape our lives, and we shape ourselves. The process never ends until we die. And the choices we make are ultimately our own responsibility.

  • It takes as much energy to wish as it does to plan.

  • A little simplification would be the first step toward rational living, I think. (My Days)

  • No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.

  • One's philosophy is not best expressed in words; it is expressed in the choices one makes...and the choices we make are ultimately our responsibility.

  • The purpose of life is to live it, to taste experience to the utmost, to reach out eagerly and without fear for newer and richer experience.

  • We do not have to become heroes overnight. Just a step at a time, meeting each thing that comes up ... discovering we have the strength to stare it down. (You Learn by Living)

  • We gain strength, and courage, and confidence by each experience in which we really stop to look fear in the face ... we must do that which we think we cannot.

  • We have to face the fact that either all of us are going to die together or we are going to learn to live together, and if we are to live together we have to talk. (in The New York Times, 1960)

  • We must preserve our right to think and differ.

  • When will our consciences grow so tender that we will act to prevent human misery rather than avenge it?

  • When you cease to make a contribution, you begin to die.

  • With the new day comes new strength and new thoughts.

  • You have to accept whatever comes and the only important thing is that you meet it with courage and with the best that you have to give.

  • You must do the thing you think you cannot do. (You Learn by Living)


Roosevelt, Franklin Delano

  • The country needs and, unless I mistake its temper, the country demands bold, persistent experimentation. It is common sense to take a method and try it; if it fails, admit it frankly and try another. But above all, try something.

  • Get action. Seize the moment. Man was never intended to become an oyster.

  • Happiness...it lies in the joy of achievement, in the thrill of creative effort.

  • Human kindness has never weakened the stamina or softened the fiber of a free people. A nation does not have to be cruel to be tough.

  • I doubt if there is in the world a single problem, whether social, political, or economic, which would not find ready solution if men and nations would rule their lives according to the plain teaching of the Sermon on the Mount. (in The Age of Roosevelt, by Schlesinger)

  • I have an unshaken conviction that democracy can never be undermined if we maintain our library resources and a national intelligence capable of utilizing them.

  • A man who has never gone to school may steal from a freight train, but if he has a university education he may steal the whole railroad.

  • The only limit to our realization of tomorrow will be our doubts of today. Let us move forward with strong and active faith. (FDR Speaks)

  • The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.

  • The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have little. (Second Inaugural Address, January 20, 1937)

  • True individual freedom cannot exist without economic security and independence. People who are hungry and out of a job are the stuff of which dictatorships are made. (message to Congress, January 11, 1944)

  • We cannot always build the future for our youth, but we can build our youth for the future.

  • We may make mistakes--but they must never be mistakes which result from faintness of heart or abandonment of moral principles. (Fourth Inaugural Address January 20, 1945)

  • When you get to the end of your rope, tie a knot and hang on.


Roosevelt, Theodore

  • The best executive is the one who has sense enough to pick good men to do what he wants done, and self-restraint enough to keep from meddling with them while they do it.

  • Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.

  • Far and away the best prize that life has to offer is the chance to work hard at work worth doing.

  • Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure, than to take rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy nor suffer too much, because they live in the gray twilight that knows not victory nor defeat.

  • In any moment of decision, the best thing you can do is the right thing to do. The worst thing you can do is nothing.

  • Industry and determination can do anything that genius and advantage can do and many things that they cannot.

  • It is hard to fail, but it is worse never to have tried to succeed. In this life we get nothing save by effort.

  • It is not the critic that counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or the doer of deeds could have them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the Arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but he who does actually strive to do the deed; who knows the great devotion; who spends himself in a worthy cause, who at the best, knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails while daring greatly, knows that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls, who know neither victory nor defeat.

  • The most important single ingredient in the formula of success is knowing how to get along with people.

  • The only man who never makes a mistake is the man who never does anything.

  • The one characteristic more essential than any other is foresight... It should be the growing nation with a future which takes the long look ahead.

  • Rhetoric is a poor substitute for action, and we have trusted only to rhetoric. If we are really to be a great nation, we must not merely talk; we must act big.

  • [The] spirit of brotherhood recognizes of necessity both the need of self-help and also the need of helping others in the only way which every ultimately does great god, that is, of helping them to help themselves. ("Christian Citizenship" The Strenuous Life: Essays and Addresses)

  • The things that will destroy America are prosperity at any price, peace at any price, safety first instead of duty first and love of soft living and the get-rich-quick theory of life.

  • To educate a man in mind and not in morals is to educate a menace to society.

  • With self-discipline most anything is possible.


Rose, Wil

  • Success is not counted by how high you have climbed but by how many you have brought with you.


Rosemond, John K.

  • We live in the age of "Everything Has Rights." Now, I'm not denying that the concept of rights is valid, but I wonder ... whatever happened to obligations? One rarely hears the term anymore. Indeed, have you ever heard of a "human obligations movement?" ... The very ideal that holds a democracy together--the willingness to make personal sacrifice for the common good--is going quickly by the wayside.--John K. Rosemond ("Who's in Charge Around Here?" Hemispheres Sept. 1999)


Rosenbach, A. S. W.

  • I have seen men hazard their fortunes, go on long journeys halfway around the world, forge friendships, even lie, cheat and steal, all for the gain of a book.


Rosenblau, Roger

  • There may be no more pleasing picture in the world than that of a child peering into a book--the past and the future entrancing each other.


Rosmanith, Olga

  • Mankind has advanced in the footsteps of men and women of unshakable faith. Many of the great ones ... have set stars in the heavens to light others through the night.

  • You do build in darkness if you have faith. When the light returns you have made yourself a fortress which is impregnable to certain kinds of trouble; you may even find yourself needed and sought by others as a beacon in their dark.


Rosoff, Meg

  • To Whom It May Concern: Welcome to the library where no one will tell you what to read or tell you what to think.... Meanwhile a book over there on a shelf will be glancing at you sideways getting up the courage to ask you out make you laugh make you cry make you fall in love.


Ross, Charles S.

  • I love old mothers--mothers with white hair
    And kindly eyes, and lips grown softly sweet
    With murmured blessings over sleeping babes.


Ross, Diana

  • Instead of looking at the past, I put myself ahead twenty years and try to look at what I need to do now in order to get there then.

  • You can't just sit there and wait for people to give you that golden dream; you've got to get out there and make it happen for yourself.


Ross, Ruth

  • There are only three colors, ten digits, and seven notes; it's what we do with them that's important.


Rosetti, Christina G.

  • Christmas hath a beauty ... lovelier than the world can show.

  • For there is no friend like a sister
    In calm or stormy weather;
    To cheer one on the tedious way,
    To fetch one if one goes astray,
    To lift one if one totters down,
    To strengthen whilst one stands.

  • Love came down at Christmas;
    Love all lovely, love divine;
    Love was born at Christmas,
    Stars and angels gave the sign.


Roszek, Theodore

  • To bemoan the messiness of politics is not just a folly; it betrays a dangerous impatience with basic human realities.


Roth, Geneen

  • Chocolate is no ordinary food. It is not something ou can take or leave, something you like only moderately. You don't like chocolate. You don't even love chocolate. Chocolate is something you have an affair with.


Roth, Ruth

  • It is expressly at those times when we feel needy that we will benefit the most from giving.


Rotsler, William

  • You cannot hold back a good laugh any more than you can the tide. Both are forces of nature.


Rousseau, Jean-Jacques

  • People who know little are usually great talkers, while men who know much say little.

  • Teach him to live a life rather than to avoid death; life is not breath but action.

  • The world of reality has its limits; the world of imagination is boundless.


Roux, Joseph

  • A fine quotations is a diamond on the finger of a man of wit, and a pebble in the hand of a fool.

  • The folly which we might have ourselves committed is the one which we are least ready to pardon in another. (Meditations of a Parish Priest)


Rowe, John W.

  • At the end of the day, you want to respect what you do. In a certain sense, our work is us. We get into it, and it gets into us. (in What is a Calling? by Novak)


Rowen, Carl

  • The library is the temple of learning, and learning has liberated more people than all the wars in history.

  • There aren't any embarrassing questions--just embarrassing answers.


Rowland, Helen

  • And verily, a woman need know but one man well, in order to understand all men; whereas a man may know all women and understand not one of them. (The Sayings of Mrs. Solomon: Being the Confessions of the Seven-Hundredth Wife)


Rowland, Susan K.

  • The greatest thing each of us offers the world is ourselves, not a whirlwind of activity. People all around us are starving for love. People need our company, our presence and our comfort. (Make Room for God: Clearing Out the Clutter)

  • Let's make it our goal to be "present moment" people. Let's practice gratitude, especially when worry tries to take over our hearts. Life will become simpler, easier and less cluttered. (Make Room for God: Clearing Out the Clutter


Rowling, J. K.

  • Dumbledore says people find it far easier to forgive others for being wrong than being right. (Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince)

  • I think the willfully unimaginative see more monsters, they are often more afraid. What is more, those who choose not to empathize enable real monsters. For without ever committing an act of outright evil ourselves, we collude through our own apathy. (Harvard Commencement Address)

  • It is our choices ... that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities. (Harry Potter and The Chamber of Secrets)

  • It's a strange thing, but when you are dreading something, and would give anything to slow down time, it has a disobliging habit of speeding up. (Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire)

  • "One can never have enough socks," said Dumbledore. "Another Christmas has come and gone and I didn't get a single pair. People will insist on giving me books." (Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone)

  • ...those who choose not to empathize enable real monsters. For without ever committing an act of outright evil ourselves, we collude with it, through our own apathy. New! as of 04/01/17


Roy, Aryundhati

  • At a time when opportunism is everything, when hope seems lost, when everything boils down to a cynical business deal, we must find the courage to dream. To reclaim romance. The romance of believing in justice, in freedom, and in dignity. For everybody. (The Ordinary Person's Guide to Empire)

  • It’s odd how those who dismiss the peace movement as utopian don’t hesitate to proffer the most absurdly dreamy reasons for going to war: to stamp out terrorism, install democracy, eliminate fascism, and, most entertainingly, to "rid the world of evildoers."

  • There's really no such thing as the "voiceless." There are only the deliberately silenced, or the preferably unheard.


Royster, Richard

  • Acceptance of dissent is the fundamental requirement of a free society.


Rubenstein, Leonard

  • Curiosity is a willing, a proud, an eager confession of ignorance.


Rubin, Marty

  • Appreciation, not possession, makes a thing ours.


Rubin, Theodore Isaac (M.D.)

  • Happiness does not come from doing easy work but from the afterglow of satisfaction that comes after the achievement of a difficult task that demanded our best.

  • Kindness is more important than wisdom, and the recognition of this is the beginning of wisdom.


Rubinstein, Helena

  • I believe in hard work. It keeps the wrinkles out of the mind and the spirit. It helps to keep a woman young.


Rudyard, Benjamin (Sir)

  • No man is bound to be rich or great, - no, nor to be wise; but every man is bound to be honest.


Ruffini

  • Anxiety never yet successfully bridged any chasm.


Ruffus, Anneli

  • Loners, if you catch them, are well worth the trouble. Not dulled by excess human contact, nor blasé or focused on your crotch while jabbering about themselves, loners are curious, vigilant, full of surprises. They do not cling. Separate wherever they go, awake or asleep, they shimmer with the iridescence of hidden things seldom seen.


Rukeyser, Muriel

  • Nourish beginnings, let us nourish beginnings.
    Not all things are blest, but the
    Seeds of all things are blest.
    The blessing is in the seed. ("Elegy in Joy" The Green Wave)

  • The universe is made of stories, not atoms.

  • What would happen in one woman told the truth about her life? The world would split open. ("Kathe Kollwitz")


Rule, Jane

  • My private measure of success is daily. If this were to be the last day of my life would I be content with it? To live in a harmonious balance of commitments and pleasures is what I strive for.


Rumi

  • The art of knowing is knowing what to ignore.

  • Christian, Jew, Muslim, shaman, Zoroastrian, stone, ground, mountain, river, each has a secret way of being with the mystery, unique and not to be judged.

  • Dance, when you're broken open. Dance, if you've torn the bandage off. Dance in the middle of the fighting. Dance in your blood. Dance when you're perfectly free.

  • Everything in the universe is within you. Ask all from yourself.

  • Get yourself out of the way, and let joy have more space.

  • I closed my mouth and spoke to you in a hundred silent ways.

  • If you are seeking, seek us with joy
    For we live in the kingdom of joy.
    Do not give your heart to anything else
    But to the love of those who are clear joy,
    Do not stray into the neighborhood of despair.
    For there are hopes: they are real, they exist –
    Do not go in the direction of darkness –
    I tell you: suns exist.

  • Let the beauty of what you love be what you do.

  • Let the waters settle and you will see the moon and the stars mirrored in your own being.

  • Let yourself be silently drawn by the strange pull of what you really love. It will not lead you astray.

  • Limp along until your legs are spent, and you fall flat and your energy is drained.
    Then the grace of the Divine will lift you.

  • Love is the bridge between you and everything.

  • Love is the whole thing.
    We are only pieces.

  • My soul is from elsewhere, I'm sure of that, and I intend to end up there.

  • On a day when the wind is perfect,
    the sail just needs to open and
    the world is full of beauty.
    Today is such a day.

  • The only lasting beauty is the beauty of the heart.

  • Peaceful is the one who's not concerned with having more or less.
    Unbound by name and fame, he is free from sorrow from the world and mostly from himself.

  • Silence is the language of God, all else is poor translation.

  • Sit quietly and listen for a voice that will say, "Be more silent." As that happens, your soul starts to revive.

  • There is a candle in your heart, ready to be kindled.
    There is a void in your soul, ready to be filled.
    You feel it, don't you?

  • This place is a dream. Only a sleeper considers it real. Then death comes like dawn, and you wake up laughing at what you thought was your grief.

  • Try not to resist the changes that come your way. Instead let life live through you. And do not worry that your life is turning upside down. How do you know that the side you are used to is better than the one to come?

  • When you lose all sense of self, the bonds of a thousand chains will vanish.
    Lose yourself completely, return to the root of the root of your own soul.

  • Why should I stay at the bottom of a well when a strong rope is in my hand?

  • The wound is the place where the Light enters you.


Runbeck, Margaret Lee

  • Happiness is not a station to arrive at, but a manner of traveling.

  • Learning is always rebellion... Every bit of new truth discovered is revolutionary to what was believed before. (The Year of Love)


Rundell, Augusta E.

  • Christmas--that magic blanket that wraps itself about us, that something so intangible that it is like a fragrance. It may weave a spell of nostalgia. Christmas may be a day of feasting, or of prayer, but always it will be a day of remembrance--a day in which we think of everything we have ever loved.


Runyon, Damon

  • You can become a winner only if you are willing to walk over the edge.


Ruopp, Harold

  • Life does not require us to make good; it asks only that we give our best at each level of experience.


Ruopp, Joyce and Macrina Wiederkehr (co-author Circle of Life)

  • Maker of the Seasons, thank you for all that autumn teaches me. Change my focus so that I see not only what I am leaving behind, but also the harvest and plenitude that my life holds. May my heart grow freer and my life more peaceful as I resonate with, and respond to, the many teachings this season offers me.

  • When I fail to say "thank you" and see only what is not, instead of what is, lead me to gather all the big and little aspects of my life that have blessed me with comfort, hope, love, inner healing, strength, and courage. (The Circle of Life: The Heart’s Journey Through the Seasons)

  • When I fear the loss of my youthfulness and refuse to accept the reality of aging, turn my face to the brilliant colors of autumn trees; open my spirit to the mellow resonance of autumn sunsets and the beauty of the changing land. (The Circle of Life: The Heart’s Journey Through the Seasons)


Ruskin, John

  • All things are literally better, lovelier, and more beloved for the imperfections which have been divinely appointed, that the law of human life may be effort, and the law of human judgment, mercy. (The Stones of Venice)

  • Do justice to your brother (you can do that, whether you love him or not), and you will come to love him. But do injustice to him because you don't love him, and you will come to hate him. ("Work" The Crown of Wild Olive)

  • Education is the leading human souls to what is best, and making what is best out of them; and these two objects are always attainable together, and by the same means; the training which makes men happiest in themselves also makes them most serviceable to others. (The Stones of Venice)

  • I desire ... to leave this one great fact clearly stated. THERE IS NO WEALTH BUT LIFE.

  • Life being very short, and the quiet hours of it few, we ought to waste none of them in reading useless books. (Sesame and Lilies)

  • Nature is painting for us, day after day, pictures of infinite beauty if only we have the eyes to see them.

  • Remember that the most beautiful things in the world are the most useless; peacocks and lilies, for example. (The Stones of Venice, I)

  • A thing is worth precisely what it can do for you; not what you choose to pay for it. (The Queen of the Air)

  • To make your children capable of honesty is the beginning of education. (Time and Tide)

  • When love and skill work together, expect a masterpiece.


Ruskin, Theodore

  • The highest reward for a man's toil is not what he gets for it but what he becomes by it.

  • The problem is not that there are problems. The problem is expecting otherwise and thinking that having problems is a problem.


Russell, Bertrand

  • All the important human advances that we know of since historical times began have been due to individuals of whom the majority faced virulent public opposition. (Bertrand Russell Speaks His Mind)

  • The desire to understand the world and the desire to reform it are the two great engines of progress.

  • Folly is perennial and yet the human race has survived. ("An Outline of intellectual Rubbish" Unpopular Essays)

  • The free intellect is the chief engine of human progress. (the Practice and Theory of Bolshevism)

  • The fundamental defect of fathers is that they want their children to be a credit to them. (New York Times, June 9, 1963)

  • A happy life must be to a great extent a quiet life, for it is only in an atmosphere of quiet that true joy can live.

  • If fifty million people say a foolish thing, it is still a foolish thing.

  • If there were in the world today any large number of people who desired their own happiness more than they desired the unhappiness of others, we could have a paradise in a few years.

  • It is only in marriage with the world that our ideals can bear fruit, divorced from it, they remain barren. (Mysticism and Logic)

  • It is preoccupation with possessions, more than anything else, that prevents us from living freely and nobly.

  • It may seem to your conceited to suppose that you can do anything important toward improving the lot of mankind. But this is a fallacy. You must believe that you can help bring about a better world. A good society is produced only by good individuals, just as truly as a majority in a presidential election is produced by the votes of single electors. Everybody can do something toward creating in his own environment kindly feelings rather than anger, reasonableness rather than hysteria, happiness rather than misery.

  • It seems to be the fate of idealists to obtain what they have struggled for in a form which destroys their ideals. ("The Liberation of Women" Marriage and Morals)

  • Men fear thought as they fear nothing else on earth - more than ruin - more even than death... Thought is subversive and revolutionary, destructive and terrible, thought is merciless to privilege, established institutions, and comfortable habit. Thought looks into the pit of hell and is not afraid. Thought is great and swift and free, the light of the world, and the chief glory of man.

  • More important than the curriculum is the question of the methods of teaching and the spirit in which the teaching is given. (Education and the Good Life)

  • Nothing of importance is ever achieved without discipline. I feel myself sometimes not wholly in sympathy with some modern educational theorists, because I think that they underestimate the part that discipline plays. But the discipline you have in your life should be one determined by your own desires and your own needs, not put upon you by society or authority.

  • One of the chief obstacles to intelligence is credulity, and credulity could be enormously diminished by instructions as to the prevalent forms of mendacity. Credulity is a greater evil in the present day than it ever was before, because, owing to the growth of education, it is much easier than it used to be to spread misinformation, and, owing to democracy, the spread of misinformation is more important than in former times to the holders of power.

  • One of the symptoms of an approaching nervous breakdown is the belief that one's work is terribly important.

  • Right discipline consists, not in external compulsion, but in the habits of mind which lead spontaneously to desirable rather than undesirable activities. (On Education: Especially in Early Childhood)

  • The secret of happiness is this: let your interests be as wide as possible, and let your reactions to the things and persons that interest you be as far as possible friendly rather than hostile.

  • Self-respect will keep a man from being abject when he is in the power of enemies, and will enable him to feel that he may be in the right when the world is against him. (Authority and the Individual)

  • There is much pleasure to be gained from useless knowledge.

  • To be without some of the things you want is an indispensable part of happiness.

  • The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, and wiser people so full of doubts.

  • The wise man thinks about his troubles only when there is some purpose in doing so; at other times he thinks about other things.

  • Without civic morality communities perish; without personal morality their survival has no value.- (<"Individual and Social Ethics," Authority and the Individual)


Russell, David

  • The hardest thing in life to learn is which bridge to cross and which to burn.


Russell, Keri

  • Sometimes it's the smallest decisions that can change your life forever.


Russell, Rebecca

  • Giving whether it be of time, labor, affection, advice, gifts, or whatever, is one of life's greatest pleasures.


Ruth, George Hermon (Babe) (Jr.)

  • Don't let the fear of striking out hold you back.

  • Every strike brings me closer to the next home run.


Russell, Utterly

  • The fact that an opinion has been widely held is no evidence whatever that it is not utterly absurd.


Ruysbroeck, John

  • If you hear that a sick man is in need of hot soup, I counsel you to wake up from your ectasy and warm the soup for him. Leave God to serve God…


Ryan, Jim

  • Motivation is what gets you started. Habit is what keeps you going.


Ryan, Pam

  • A library is a temple unabridged with priceless treasure. Librarians are the majesties who loan the jewels of measure. They welcome to the kingdom the young and old of reapers and reign among the riches as the wondrous fortune keepers.

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