• If I wanted to become a tramp, I would seek information and advice from the most successful tramp I could find. If I wanted to be a failure, I would seek advice from men who never succeeded. If I wanted to succeed in all things, I would look around me for those who are succeeding, and do as they do.

Wadsworth, Henry

• Talk not of wasted affection; affection never was wasted.

Waggoner, Fred

• Success is relevant to coping with obstacles... But no problem is ever solved by those, who, when they fail, look for someone to blame instead of something to do.

Wagner, Jane

• I made some studies, and reality is the leading cause of stress amongst those in touch with it. I can take it in small doses, but as a lifestyle I found it too confining.

Waitley, Denis

• As long as we are persistence in our pursuit of our deepest destiny, we will continue to grow. We cannot choose the day or time when we will fully bloom. It happens in its own time.

• Don't dwell on what went wrong. Instead, focus on what to do next. Spend your energies on moving forward toward finding the answer.

• Expect the best, plan for the worst, and prepare to be surprised.

• Failure should be our teacher, not our undertaker. Failure is delay, not defeat. It is a temporary detour, not a dead end. Failure is something we can avoid only by saying nothing, doing nothing, and being nothing.

• Forget about the consequences of failure. Failure is only a temporary change in direction to set you straight for your next success.

• Goals are your personal statements of what you are truly willing to do to achieve what you really want to achieve.

• If you believe you can, you probably can. If you believe you won't, you most assuredly won't. Belief is the ignition switch that gets you off the launching pad.

• Mistakes are painful when they happen, but years later a collection of mistakes is what is called experience.

• Our limitations and success will be based, most often, on your own expectations for ourselves. What the mind dwells upon, the body acts upon.

• Procrastination is the fear of success. People procrastinate because they are afraid of the success that they know will result if they move ahead now. Because success is heavy, carries a responsibility with it, it is much easier to procrastinate and live on the "someday I'll" philosophy.

• The reason most people never reach their goals is that they don't define them, learn about them, or even seriously consider them as believable or achievable. Winners can tell you where they are going, what they plan to do along the way, and who will be sharing the adventure with them.

• To establish true self-esteem we must concentrate on our successes and forget about the failures and the negatives in our lives.

• Tomorrow's leaders not only have dreams, goals and plans. They are willing to work hard and to take responsibility for turning their plans into energy, perspiration and effort. They don't sit back and wait for someone else to turn their dreams into action. They take charge of executing their own plan.

• The winners in life think constantly in terms of I can, I will, and I am. Losers, on the other hand, concentrate their waking thoughts on what they should have or would have done, or what they can't do.

• You must learn from your past mistakes, but not lean on your past successes.

Waldman, Ayelet

• The only difference between a writer and someone who wants to be a writer is discipline.

Waldoks, Moshe

• A sense of humor can help you overlook the unattractive, tolerate the unpleasant, cope with the unexpected, and smile through the unbearable.

Waldrip, Mary H.

• It's important that people should know what you stand for. It's equally important that they know what you won't stand for.

Walker, Addison

• It is not true that nice guys finish last. Nice guys are winners before the game ever starts.

Walker, Alice

• Even now, I find that no matter what has happened, I still have that trust. I have a lot of trust, that people can be better than they are.

• I think we have to own the fears that we have of each other, and then, in some practical way, some daily way, figure out how to see people differently than the way we were brought up to.

• No person is your friend who demands your silence, or denies your right to grow.

• People do not wish to appear foolish; to avoid the appearance of foolishness, they are willing to remain actually fools. (All the Woman Are White, All the Blacks Are Men, But Some of Us are Brave by Hull, Scott & Smith)

• People tend to think that life really does progress for everyone eventually, that people progress, but actually only some people progress. The rest of the people don't.

• Storytelling is how we survive, when there's no feed, the story feeds something, it feeds the spirit, the imagination. I can't imagine life without stories, stories from my parents, my culture. Stories from other people's parents, their culture. That's how we learn from each other, it's the best way. That's why literature is so important, it connects us heart to heart.

Walker, C. J. (Madame)

• Don't sit down and wait for the opportunities to come; you have to get up and make them.

Wallace, George

• Why does the Air Force need expensive new bombers? Have the people we've been bombing over the years been complaining?

Waller, Robert James

• Life is never easy for those who dream.

• Remember the great adversary of art or anything else is a hurried life.

Wallis, Jim

• Hope unbelieved is always considered nonsense. But hope believed is history in the process of being changed. (The Soul of Politics: a Practical and Prophetic Vision for Change)

Walsh, Basil S.

• If you don't know where you are going. How can you expect to get there?

Walsh, Bill

• Nothing is more effective than sincere, accurate praise, and nothing is more lame than a cookie-cutter compliment. ("The Case for Kudos" Forbes ASAP, 10/10/1954)

Walter, Alan C.

• A problem, to be a problem, must contain an unknown. If all was known, the problem would vanish.

Walter, Harold Arnold

• I would be true, for there are those who trust me;
  I would be pure, for there are those who care;
  I would be strong, for there is much to suffer;
  I would be brave, for there is much to dare. ("I Would Be True")

Walters, Barbara

• A great many people think that polysyllables are a sign of intelligence.

Walters, Dottie

• Failure? I never encountered it. All I ever met were temporary setbacks.

Walton, Sam

• High expectations are the key to everything.

• Nothing else can quite substitute for a few wellchosen, welltimed, sincere words of praise. They're absolutely free and worth a fortune. (Your Achievement Ezine - Issue No. 155)

• Outstanding leaders go out of their way to boost the self-esteem of their personnel. If people believe in themselves, it's amazing what they can accomplish.

Walton, William H.

• To carry a grudge is like being stung to death by one bee.

Wanamaker, John

• Gratitude takes three forms: a feeling in the heart, an expression in words, and a giving in return.

• One may walk over the highest mountain one step at a time.

Wangerin, Walter (Jr.)

• Gloria, Gloria! they cry, for their song embraces all that the Lord has begun this day: Glory to God in the highest of heavens! And peace to the people with whom he is pleased! And who are these people? With whom does the good Lord choose to take his pleasure? The shepherds. The plain and nameless--whose every name the Lord knows well. You. And me. (Preparing for Jesus)

• So here comes Gabriel again, and what he says is "Good tidings of great joy ... for all people." ... That's why the shepherds are first: they represent all the nameless, all the working stiffs, the great wheeling population of the whole world. (Preparing for Jesus)

Ward, Barbara

• If a man has lived in a tradition which tells him that nothing can be done about his human condition, to believe that progress is possible may well be the greatest revolution of all. (The Unity of the Free World)

• Enthusiasm, like measles, mumps and the common cold, is highly contagious.

Ward, F. Champion

• Citizens may be born free; they are not born wise. Therefore, the business of liberal education in a democracy is to make free men wise.

Ward, H. O. (Mrs.)

• Education is the mental railway, beginning at birth and running on to eternity. No hand can lay it in the right direction but the hand of a mother.

• A mother's example sketches the outline of her child's character.

Ward, William Arthur

• A cloudy day is no match for a sunny disposition.

• Curiosity is the wick in the candle of learning.

• The experienced mountain climber is not intimidated by a mountain--he is inspired by it. The persistent winner is not discouraged by a problem--he is challenged by it. Mountains are created to be conquered; adversities are designed to be defeated; problems are sent to be solved. It is better to master one mountain than a thousand foothills.

• Feeling gratitude and not expressing it is like wrapping a present and not giving it.

• Flatter me, and I may not believe you. Criticize me, and I may not like you. Ignore me, and I may not forgive you. Encourage me, and I will not forget you.

• Forgiveness is the key that unlocks the door of resentment and the handcuffs of hate. It is a power that breaks the chains of bitterness and the shackles of selfishness. (Your Achievement Ezine - Issue No. 154)

• Four steps to achievement: plan purposefully, prepare prayerfully, proceed positively, pursue persistently.

• If you can imagine it, you can achieve it; if you can dream it, you can become it.

• It is wise to direct your anger towards problems--not people; to focus your energies on answers--not excuses.

• The mediocre teacher tells. The good teacher explains. The superior teacher demonstrates. The great teacher inspires.

• Opportunity is often difficult to recognize; we usually expect it to beckon us with beepers and billboards.

• The optimist pleasantly ponders how high his kite will fly; the pessimist woefully wonders how soon his kite will fall.

• The pessimist borrows trouble; the optimists lend encouragement.

• To make mistakes is human; to stumble is commonplace; to be able to laugh at yourself is maturity.

• When we seek to discover the best in others, we somehow bring out the best in ourselves.

• A well-developed sense of humor is the pole that adds balance to your steps as you walk the tightrope of life.

• The winner asks, "May I help?" The loser asks, "Do you expect me to do that?"

• Wise are they who have learned these truths: Trouble is temporary. Time is tonic. Tribulation is a test tube.

Ware, Eugene F.

• All glory comes from daring to begin.

Ware, Kallistos

• The isolated individual is not a real person. A real person is one who lives in and for others. And the more personal relationships we form with others, the more we truly realize ourselves as persons. It has even been said that there can be no true person unless there are two, entering into communication with one another.

Warhol, Andy

• They always say time changes things, but you actually have to change them yourself.

Warner, Caroline

• I am convinced that attitude is the key to success or failure in almost any of life's endeavors. Your attitude--your perspective, your outlook, how you feel about yourself, how you feel about other people--determines your priorities, your actions, your values. Your attitude determines how you interact with other people and how you interact with yourself.

Warner, Charles Dudley

• It is one of those beautiful compensations of this life that no one can sincerely try to help another without helping himself.

• Memory has the singular characteristic of recalling in a friend absent, as in a journey long past, only that which is agreeable. ("Fifth Study" Backlog Studies)

• Perhaps nobody ever accomplishes all that he feels lies in him to do but nearly every one who tries his power touches the walls of his being occasionally, and learns about how far to attempt to spring. ("Third Study" Backlog Studies)

• There is no such thing as absolute value in this world. You can only estimate what a thing is worth to you. ("Sixteenth Week" My Summer in a Garden)

Warner, Christi Mary

• A true friend is one who knows all about you and likes you anyway.

Warren, Earl (Chief Justice)

• Everything I did in my life that was worthwhile, I caught hell for.

• I always turn to the sports pages first, which records people's accomplishments. The front page has nothing but man's failures.

Warren, Shellie R.

• Love's a choice. Make wise decisions.

Washington, Booker T.

• Any man's life will be filled with constant and unexpected encouragement if he makes up his mind to do his level best each day.

• Character is power.

• Excellence is to do a common thing in an uncommon way.

• Few things help an individual more than to place responsibility upon him, and to let him know that you trust him.

• I believe that any man's life will be filled with constant and unexpected encouragement, if he makes up his mind to do his level best each day, and as nearly as possible reaching the high water mark of pure and useful living.

• I have learnt that success is to be measured not so much by the position that one has reached in life as by the obstacles which he has overcome while trying to succeed.

• I think I began learning long ago that those who are happiest are those who do the most for others.

• I will permit no man to narrow and degrade my soul by making me hate him.

• There are two ways of exerting one's strength; one is pushing down, the other is pulling up.

• There is no power on earth that can neutralize the influence of a high, simple and useful life.

Washington, George

• Friendship is a plant of slow growth and must undergo and withstand the shocks of adversity before it is entitled to the appellation.

• I hope I shall always possess firmness and virtue enough to maintain what I consider the most enviable of all titles, the character of an "Honest Man." (Maxim)

Washington, Martha

• I've learned from experience that the greater part of our happiness or misery depends on our dispositions and not on our circumstances.

Watson, Lilian Eichler

• Happiness is not in having being; it is in doing.

Watson, Thomas J. (Jr.)

• All the problems of the world could be settled easily if men were only willing to think. The trouble is that men very often resort to all sorts of devices in order not to think, because thinking is such hard work.

• Follow the path of the unsafe, independent thinker. Expose your ideas to the dangers of controversy. Speak your mind and fear less the label of 'crackpot' than the stigma of conformity. And on issues that seem important to you, stand up and be counted at any cost.

• If you aren't playing well, the game isn't as much fun. When that happens I tell myself just to go out and play as I did when I was a kid.

• If you stand up and be counted, form time to time you may get yourself knocked down. But remember this: A man flattened by an opponent can get up again. A man flattened by conformity stays down for good.

• If you want to achieve excellence, you can get there today. As of this second, quit doing less-than-excellent work.

• Nothing so conclusively proves a man's ability to lead others as what he does from day to day to lead himself.

• The way to succeed is to double your error rate.

• Would you like me to give you a formula for...success? It's quite simple, really. Double your rate of failure... You're thinking of failure as the enemy of success. But it isn't at all... You can be discouraged by failure--or you can learn from it. So go ahead and make mistakes. Make all you can. Because, remember that's where you'll find success. On the far side.

Watson, Thomas J. (Sr.)

• To be successful, you have to have your heart in your business and your business in your heart.

Watterson, Bill

• There is not enough time to do all the nothing we want to do. (The Calvin and Hobbes Collection)

Watts, Alan W.

• Things are as they are. Looking out into it the universe at night, we make no comparisons between right and wrong stars, nor between well and badly arranged constellations.

Watts, Isaac

• Do not hover always on the surface of things, nor take up suddenly with mere appearances; but penetrate into the depth of matters, as far as your time and circumstances allow, especially in those things which relate to your profession.

Watts, J. C.

• Everyone tries to define this thing called Character. It's not hard. Character is doing what's right when nobody's looking.

Wayne, John

• Tomorrow is the most important thing in life. Comes into us at midnight very clean. It's perfect when it arrives and it puts itself in our hands. It hopes we've learned something from yesterday.

Weatherly, G.

• Forgiving those who hurt us is the key to personal peace.

Webb, Mary

• If you stop to be kind, you must swerve often from your path. (Precious Bane)

• Nature's music is never over; her silences are pauses, not conclusions. (The Spring of Joy)

Weber, Lenora Mattingly

• Christmas is for children. But it is for grownups too. Even if it is a headache, a chore, and nightmare, it is a period of necessary defrosting of chill and hide-bound hearts. (Extension)

Weber, Max

• Man would not have attained the possible unless time and again he had reached out of the impossible. ("Politics as a Vocation" Max Weber: Essays in Sociology)

Webster, Daniel

• Failure is more frequently from want of energy than want of capital.

• If we work upon marble, it will perish; if we work upon brass, time will efface it; if we rear temples, they will crumble into dust; but if we work upon immortal minds and instill into them just principles, we are then engraving that upon tablets which no time will efface, but will brighten and brighten to all eternity.

Weil, Simone

• The human soul has need of security and also of risk. The fear of violence or of hunger or of any other extreme evil is a sickness of the soul. The boredom produced by a complete absence of risk is also a sickness of the soul. (Selected Essays 1934-1943)

• Humility is attentive patience. (First and Last Notebooks)

• Imaginary evil is romantic and varied; real evil is gloomy, monotonous, barren, boring. Imaginary good is boring; real good is always new, marvelous, intoxicating.

Weinbaum, Dave

• Don't forget to pack your courage for your journey to greatness.

• The secret to a rich life is to have more beginnings than endings.

Weiskott, Gerald N.

• The greatest failure is a person who never admits that he can be a failure.

Weitzman, Geri

• Sometimes you gotta create what you want to be a part of.

Weick, Carl

• Chaotic action is preferable to orderly inaction.

Welch, John F.

• We know where most of the creativity, the innovation, the stuff that drives productivity lies--in the minds of those closest to the work. It's been there in front of our noses all along while we've been running around chasing robots and reading books on how to become Japanese--or at least manage like them.

Welch, Kevin

• There'll be two dates on your tombstone
  And all your friends will read 'em
  But all that's gonna matter is that little dash between 'em...

Weldon, Fay

• If you do nothing unexpected, nothing unexpected happens.

Wells, Alisa

• Now the real beginnings of the "freedom" which we have discussed for many years--and a heady freedom it is, coming after so many years of reaching outward for it--to finally discover all I had to do was reach inward, and it was there waiting all the time for me!

Wells, Carolyn

• Advice is one of those things it is far more blessed to give than to receive. (The Rest of My Life)

• To make a library
  It takes two volumes
  And a fire.
  Two volumes and a fire,
  And interest.
  The interest alone will do
  If logs are few. (The Rest of My Life)

Wells, H. G.

• Adapt or perish, now as ever, is nature's inexorable imperative.

• Crude classifications and false generalizations are the curse of the organized life.

• Every time I see an adult on a bicycle, I no longer despair for the future of the human race.

• A time will come when a politician who has willfully made war and promoted international dissension will be as sure of the dock and much surer of the noose than a private homicide. It is not reasonable that those who gamble with men's lives should not stake their own. (The Salvaging of Civilization)

• War is a curtain of dense black fabric across all the hopes and kindliness of mankind. Yet always it has let through some gleams of light, and not--I am not dreaming--it grows threadbare, and here and there and at a thousand points the light is breaking through.

• We are living in 1937, and our universities, I suggest, are not half-way out of the fifteenth century. We have made hardly any changes in our conception of university organization, education, graduation, for a century--for several centuries. The three or four year' course of lectures, the bachelor who knows some, the master who knows most, the doctor who knows all, are ideas that have come down unimpaired from the Middle Ages. Nowadays no one should end his learning while he lives and these university degrees are preposterous. It is true that we have multiplied universities greatly in the past hundred years, but we seem to have multiplied them altogether too much upon the old pattern.

• While there is a chance of the world getting through its troubles, I hold that a reasonable man has to behave as though he were sure of it. If at the end your cheerfulness in not justified, at any rate you will have been cheerful.

Wells, Kenneth A.

• A good listener tries to understand thoroughly what the other person is saying. In the end he may disagree sharply, but before he disagrees, he wants to know exactly what it is he is disagreeing with.

Welsh, Jack (Neutron Jack)

• There is no straight line to a dream.

Welty, Eudora

• Childhood's learning is made up of moments. It isn't steady. It's a pulse. (One Writer's Beginnings)

• I am a writer who came of a sheltered life. A sheltered life can be a daring life as well. For all serious daring starts from within. (One Writer's Beginnings)

• Integrity can neither be lost nor concealed nor faked nor quenched nor artificially come by nor outlived nor, I believe, in the long run denied. ("Must the Novelist Crusade?" The Eye of the Story)

Wesley, John

• Do all the good you can, By all the means you can, In all the ways you can, In all the places you can, At all the times you can, To all the people you can, As long as ever you can.

West, Jessamyn

• It is easy to forgive others their mistakes; it takes more grit to forgive them for having witnessed your own.

• Memory is a magnet. It will pull to it and hold only material nature has designed it to attract. (The Life I Really Lived)

• We want the facts to fit the preconceptions. When they don't it is easier to ignore the facts than to change the preconceptions.

• Writing is a solitary occupation. Family, friends, and society are the natural enemies of the writer. He must be alone, uninterrupted, and slightly savage if he is to sustain and complete an undertaking.

West, Rebecca

• The trouble about man is twofold. He cannot learn truths which are too complicated; he forgets truths which are too simple.

Westheimer, Ruth

• Our way is not soft grass, it's a mountain path with lots of rocks. But it goes upwards, forward, toward the sun.

Wharton, Edith

• Habit is necessary; it is the habit of having habits, of turning a trail into a rut, that must be incessantly fought against if one is to remain alive. (A Backward Glance)

• In spite of illness, in spite even of the archenemy sorrow, one can remain alive log past the usual date of disintegration if one is unafraid of change, insatiable in intellectual curiosity, interested in big things, and happy in small ways.

• Life is always a tightrope or a feather bed. Give me the tightrope.

• The only thing to do is to hug one's friends tight and do one's job.

• There are two ways of spreading light; to be the candle or the mirror that reflects it.

• True originality consists not in a new manner but in a new vision. (The Writing of Fiction)

Whately, Richard (Archbishop)

• Curiosity is as much the parent of attention, as attention is of memory.

• He only is exempt from failures who makes no efforts.

• A man who gives his children habits of industry provides for them better than by giving them fortune.

Wheatley, Margaret J.

• We have created trouble for ourselves in organizations by confusing control with order. (Leadership and the New Science)

Wheeler, John Archibald

• Time is what prevents everything from happening at once. (The American Journal of Physics, 1978)

Wheeler, Tony

• Ultimately magic finds you, if you let it. (Fast Company)

Wheelwright, Philip

• Much learning does not teach understanding.

Whelpley, John

• Man, who would have thought being a librarian could be so tough? ("Harper 2.0" Andromeda [television program])

Whewell, William

• Every failure is a step to success...

Whipple, Edwin Percy

• Cheerfulness in most cheerful people is the rich and satisfying result of strenuous discipline.

• The universal line of distinction between the strong and the weak is that one persists; the other hesitates, falters, trifles, and at last collapses or "caves in." ("Character" Character and Characteristic Men)

Whitaker, Jim

• You never conquer a mountain. Mountains can't be conquered; you conquer yourself--your hopes, your fears.

White, E. B.

• It is not often that someone comes along who is a true friend and a good writer.

• There is no limit to how complicated things can get, on account of one thing always leading to another. (Quo Vadimus?)

• Writing is hard work and bad for the health.

White Eagle

• Flowers do not force their way with great strife. Flowers open to perfection slowly in the sun.... Don't be in a hurry about spiritual matters. Go step by step, and be very sure.

• Happiness is the realization of God in the heart. Happiness is the result of praise and thanksgiving, of faith, of acceptance; a quiet tranquil realization of the love of God.

• When you are in doubt, be still, and wait. When doubt no longer exists for you, then go forward in courage.

White Shield

• The color of the skin makes no difference. What is good and just for one is good and just for the other, and the Great Spirit made all men brothers.

White, William Allen

• I am not afraid of tomorrow, for I have seen yesterday and I love today.

Whitehead, Alfred North

• The art of progress is to preserve order amid change and to preserve change amid order.

• Human nature loses its most precious quality when it is robbed of its sense of things beyond, unexplored and yet insistent. ("Harvard: The Future" Atlantic, September 1936)

• It is the business of the future to be dangerous.... The major advances in civilization are processes that all but wreck the societies in which they occur.

• No period of history has ever been great or ever can be that does not act on some sort of high, idealistic motives, and idealism in our time has been shoved aside, and we are paying the penalty for it.

Whitehorn, Katherine

• The best career advice to give to the young is "Find out what you like doing best and get someone to pay you for doing it." (Observer (London), 1975)

• Too great a preoccupation with motives (especially one's own motive) is liable to lead to too little concern for consequences. (Roundabout)

Whitman, Walt

• Afoot and light-hearted I take to the open road,
  Healthy, free, the world before me,
  The long brown path before leading wherever I choose. ("Song of the Open Road" Leaves of Grass)

• Have you learned lessons only of those who admired you, and were tender with you, and stood aside for you? Have you not learned great lessons from those who rejected you, and braced themselves against you, or disputed the passage with you?

• I like the scientific spirit--the holding off, the being sure but not too sure, the willingness to surrender ideas when the evidence is against them: this is ultimately fine--it always keeps the way beyond open. (in Walt Whitman's Camden Conversations by Traubel)

• I no doubt deserved my enemies, but I don't believe I deserved my friends.

• O to have my life henceforth a poem of new joys!
  To dance, clap hands, exult, shout, skip, leap, roll on, float on,
  To be a sailor of the world, bound for all ports,
  A ship itself, (see indeed these sails I spread to the sun and air,)
  A swift and swelling ship, full of rich words--full of joys.

• Judging from the main portions of the history of the world, so far, justice is always in jeopardy.

Whitney, Polly

• Misanthropes need people; without a steady supply, the misanthrope cannot fully apply his art.

Whitney, Willis

• Some men have thousands of reasons why they cannot do what they want to, when all they need is one reason why they can.

Whittier, John Greenleaf

• No longer forward nor behind
  I look in hope or fear;
  But, grateful, take the good I find,
  The best of now and here.

• Somehow not only for Christmas
  But all the long year through,
  The joy that you give to others
  Is the joy that comes back to you.
  
  And the more you spend in blessing
  The poor and lonely and sad,
  The more of your heart's possessing
  Returns to make you glad.

Widener, Chris

• So what is courage? It is simply acting on what we know we should do, regardless of any fear we may have. It is the choice to disregard worry. It is the choice to do right, to pursue our dreams, to be successful people, to lead the way for others.

• The world needs people like you to dream of something great and then pursue it with all your heart.

Wiener, Norbert

• To live effectively is to live with adequate information.

Wiener, Paul

• But few have spoken of the actual pleasure derived from giving to someone, from creating something, from finishing a task, form offering unexpected help almost invisibly and anonymously.

• I like to think of my best moment on the job as quiet victories. Victories over what? Over the "system", over the various bureaucracies not watching me, over my colleagues' indifference, over my patron's ignorance, over the very concept of horn-blowing pride.

Wiersbe, Warren W.

• Four Lessons on Life 1. Never take down a fence until you know why it was put up. 2. If you get too far ahead of the army, your soldiers may mistake you for the enemy. 3. Don’t complain about the bottom rungs of the ladder; they helped to get you higher. 4. If you want to enjoy the rainbow, be prepared to endure the storm.

• A Realist is an idealist who has gone through the fire and been purified. A skeptic is an idealist who has gone through the fire and been burned. (in Leadership)

Wiesel, Elie

• Man walks the moon but his soul remains riveted to earth. Once upon a time it was the opposite.

• No one is as capable of gratitude as one who has emerged from the kingdom of night.

• There are victories of the soul and spirit. Sometimes, even if you lose, you win.

• There is divine beauty in learning, just as there is human beauty in tolerance. To learn means to accept the postulate that life did not begin at my birth. Others have been here before me, and I walk in their footsteps. The books I have read were composed by generations of fathers and sons, mothers and daughters, teachers and disciples. I am the sum total of their experiences, their quests. And so are you.

• There may be times when we are powerless to prevent injustice, but there must never be a time when we fail to protest.

• Ultimately, the only power to which man should aspire is that which he exercies over himself.

Wigert, Robert D.

• I like the Christmas that fulfills my needs ... to be forgiven from greed and selfishness, to fill my empty soul with peace and compassion, for hope and faith and charity, for myself renewed and hope restored in an erring world. ("I Like Christmas")

Wiggin, Kate Douglas

• Most of all the other beautiful things in life come by twos and threes by dozens and hundreds. Plenty of roses, stars, sunsets, rainbows, brothers, and sisters, aunts and cousins, but only one mother in the whole world. (in The Treasure Chest ed. by Wallis)

Wiggington, Eliot

• Life isn't worth living unless you're willing to take some big chances and go for broke.

Wilbee, Brenda

• The month of June saw long, warm days, cloudless blue skies, and mountain peaks that stayed out of hiding--as if intentionally, just to instill more deeply the settlers' conviction that Elliot Bay [Seattle] was indeed the most beautiful and productive country anyone could live in. (Sweet-Briar)

Wilcox, Ella Wheeler

• Back on its golden hinges
  The gate of Memory swings,
  And my heart goes into the garden
  And walks with the olden things. ("Memory's Garden" Shells)

• I think of death as some delightful journey that I shall take when all my tasks are done. ("The Journey")

• It is easy enough to be pleasant, When life flows by like a song, But the man worth while is the one who can smile, When everything goes dead wrong. For the test of the heart is troubled, And it always comes with the years. And the smiles that is worth the praises of earth Is the smile that shines through tears.

• Laugh, and the world laughs with you;
  Weep, and you weep alone;
  For the sad old earth must borrow its mirth,
  But has trouble enough of its own.

• Let me, tonight look back across the span
  Twixt dawn and dark, and to my conscience say-
  Because of some good act to beast or human-
  The world is better that I lived today.

• Let there be many windows to your soul, that all the glory of the world may beautify it.

• There is no chance, no destiny, no fate, that can circumvent or hinder or control the firm resolve of a determined soul.

• With every deed you are sowing a seed, though the harvest you may not see.

Wilcox, Frederick

• Progress always involves risk; you can't steal second base and keep your feet on first.

Wild, Ron

• Seek the wisdom of the ages, but look at the world through the eyes of a child.

Wilde, Oscar

• Always love your enemies--nothing annoys them so much.

• Dragons will wander about
  the waste places,
  and the phoenix will soar
  from her nest of fire
  into the air
  We shall lay our hands
  upon the Basilisk,
  and see the jewel
  in the toad's head.
  Champing his gilded oats,
  the hippogriff will stand
  in our stalls,
  and over our heads
  will float the bluebird,
  singing of beautiful and
  impossible things,
  of things that are lovely
  and that never happened,
  of things that are not
  and that should be. (The Decay of Lying)

• Education is an admirable thing, but it is well to remember from time to time that nothing that is worth knowing can be taught.

• Experience is simply the name we give our mistakes.

• If you meet at dinner a man who has spent his life in educating himself … you rise from the table richer, and conscious that a high ideal has for a moment touched and sanctified your days. (The Artist as Critic)

• Keep love in your heart. A life without it is like a sunless garden when the flowers are dead.

• Laughter is not at all a bad beginning for a friendship, and it is far the best ending for one.

• Life is never fair, and perhaps it is a good thing for most of us that it is not.

• Life is too important to be taken seriously.

• Nowadays people know the price of everything and the value of nothing. (Picture of Dorian Gray)

• The old believe everything; the middle aged suspect everything: the young know everything.

• The only thing one can do with good advice is to pass it on. It is never of any use to oneself.

• The public have an insatiable curiosity to know everything except what is worth knowing. ("The Soul of Men Under Socialism" Fortnightly Review, Feb. 1891)

• Whenever a man does a thoroughly stupid thing, it is always from the noblest motives. (The Picture of Dorian Gray)

• You now what a woman's curiosity is. Almost as great as a man's!

Wilder, Laura Ingalls

• A good laugh overcomes more difficulties and dissipates more dark clouds than any other one thing.

• It is the sweet, simple things of life which are the real ones after all. (Little House in the Ozarks by Hines)

• No one has ever achieved anything from the smallest to the greatest unless the dream was dreamed first.

• The trouble with organizing a thing is that pretty soon folks get to paying more attention to the organization than to what they're organized for. (Little Town on the Prairie)

Wilder, Thornton Niven

• My advice to you is not to inquire why or whither, but just enjoy your ice cream while it's on your plate--that's my philosophy. (By the Skin of Our Teeth)

• The planting of trees is the least self-centered of all that we can do. It is a purer act of faith than the procreation of children.

• Seek the lofty by reading, hearing and seeing great work at some moment every day.

Wilensky, Robert

• We've heard that a million monkeys at a keyboard could produce the Complete Works of Shakespeare; now, thanks to the Internet, we know this is not true.

Will, George

• Football combines two of the worst things about American life. It is violence punctuated by committee meetings.

• The pursuit of perfection often impedes improvement.

Willard, Frances E.

• This seems to be the law of progress in everything we do; it moves along a spiral rather than a perpendicular; we seem to be actually going out of the way, and yet it turns out that we were really moving upward all the time. (A Wheel Within a Wheel)

William of Ockham

• Plurality should not be assumed without necessity. (Ockham's Razor)

Williams, Ben Ames

• Life is the acceptance of responsibilities or their evasion; it is a business of meeting obligations or avoiding them. To every man the choice is continually being offered, and by the manner of his choosing you may fairly measure him.

Williams, Bern

• A friend is a lot of things, but a critic he isn't.

• Man never made any material as resilient as the human spirit.

• We may pass violets looking for roses. We may pass contentment looking for victory.

Williams, Carice

• Each sight, each sound of Christmas
  And fragrances sublime
  Make hearts and faces happy
  This glorious Christmastime. ("Christmas")

Williams, Charles

• Many promising reconciliations have broken down because while both parties come prepared to forgive, neither party come prepared to be forgiven.

Williams, Marc

• Every temptation is an opportunity to triumph over evil.

Williams, Tennessee

• There is a time for departure even when there's no certain place to go. (Camino Real)

Williamson, Marianne

• As we become purer channels for God's light, we develop an appetite for the sweetness that is possible in this world. A miracle worker is not geared toward fighting the world that is, but toward creating the world that could be.

• Dear God, Please send to me the spirit of Your peace. Then send, dear Lord, the spirit of peace from me to all the world. Amen.

• Fill you mind with the meaningless stimuli of a world preoccupied with meaningless things, and it will not be easy to feel peace in your heart.

• God exists in eternity. The only point where eternity meets time is in the present. The present is the only time there is.

• God is a peaceful ground of being. He is the energy of nonviolence. To ask Him to help is to ask Him to turn us into profoundly peaceful people.

• I trust life not because I trust the world, but because I trust the God who lives in my heart.

• Love is what we were born with. Fear is what we learned here. The spiritual journey is the relinquishment, or unlearning, of fear and the acceptance of love back into our hearts.

• Nothing liberates our greatness like the desire to help, the desire to serve.

• Personal transformation can and does have global effects. As we go, so goes the world, for the world is us. The revolution that will save the world is ultimately a personal one.

• Success means that we go to sleep at night knowing that our talents and abilities were used in a way that served others.

• We are not held back by the love we didn't receive in the past, but by the live we're not extending in the present. (A Return to Love)

• We receive His peace when we ask Him for it. We keep His peace by extending it to others. Those are the keys and there are no others.

Willig, Susan Laurson

• Limited expectations yield only limited results.

Willis, Garry

• Writing came easy--it would only get hard when I got better at it. (Confessions of a Conservative)

Willis, Love Maria

• Father hear the prayer we offer:
  Not for ease that prayer shall be,
  But for the strength that we may ever
  Live our lives courageously. ("Father hear the prayer we offer")

Wilson, August

• Confront the dark parts of yourself, and work to banish them with illumination and forgiveness. Your willingness to wrestle with your demons will cause your angels to sing. Use the pain as fuel, as a reminder of your strength.

Wilson, Colin

• The mind has exactly the same power as the hands; not merely to grasp the world, but to change it.

• The visionary disciplines himself to see the world always as if he had only just seen it for the first time. ("An Autobiographical Introduction" Religion and the Rebel)

Wilson, Sloan

• The hardest part of raising a child is teaching them to ride bicycles. A father can only ride beside the bicycle or stand yelling directions while the child falls. A shaky child on a bicycle for the first time needs both support and freedom. (What Shall We Wear to This Party?)

Wilson, Tom (creator of Ziggy)

• Wisdom doesn't necessarily come with age. Sometimes age just shows up all by itself.

• You can complain because roses have thorns, or you can rejoice because thorns have roses.

Wilson, Woodrow

• Business underlies everything in our national life, including our spiritual life. Witness the fact that in the Lord's Prayer, the first petition is for daily bread. No one can worship God or love his neighbor on an empty stomach.

• I am not one of those who believe that a great army is the means of maintaining peace, because if you build up a great profession those who form parts of it want to exercise their profession.

• I not only use all the brains that I have but all that I can borrow.

• I would rather lose in a cause that will some day win, than win in a cause that will some day lose.

• The man who is swimming against the stream knows the strength of it.

• We grow great by dreams. All big men are dreamers. They see things in the soft haze of a spring day or in the red fire of a long winter's evening. Some of us let these dreams die, but others nourish and protect them; nurse them through bad days till they bring them to the sunshine and light which comes always to those who hope that their dreams will come true.

• You are not here merely to make a living. You are here in order to enable the world to live more amply, with greater vision, with a finer spirit of hope and achievement. You are here to enrich the world, and you impoverish yourself if you forget the errand.

Winchell, Walter

• A real friend is one who walks in when the rest of the world walks out.

Winfrey, Oprah

• Be thankful for what you have; you'll end up having more. If you concentrate on what you don't have, you will never, ever have enough.

• Doing the best at this moment puts you in the best place for the next moment.

• I believe that every single event in life happens as an opportunity to choose love over fear.

• I don't think of myself as a poor deprived ghetto girl who made good. I think of myself as somebody who from an early age knew I was responsible for myself, and I had to make good.

• I was once afraid of people saying, "Who does she think she is?" Now I have the courage to stand and say, "This is who I am."

• Keep a grateful journal. Every night, list five things that you are grateful for. What it will begin to do is change our perspective of your day and your life.

• Living in the moment means letting go of the past and not waiting for the future. It means living your life consciously, aware that each moment you breathe is a gift.

• My philosophy is that not only are you responsible for your life, but doing the best at this moment puts you I the best place for the next moment.

• Think like a queen. A queen is not afraid to fail. Failure is another steppingstone to greatness.

Winget, Larry

• Age-old question: Is the glass half empty or half full?
  Answer: Who cares?
  Does it really matter whether the glass is half full or half empty? The issue is whether it quenches your thirst. (in 1 Question 2 Answers by Winget and Percy)

• And most importantly, ask more from yourself! This is the real key. Ask what you can do to help. Ask what you have to offer. Ask what you can contribute. Ask how you can serve. Ask yourself how you can do more. Ask your spouse how you could be more helpful, loving or kind. (Success One Day At A Time)

• Discover your uniqueness and learn to exploit it in the service of others and you war guaranteed success, happiness, and prosperity. (Thoughts and Observations)

Winsett, Marvin Davis

• Teach us to value most eternal things…
  To find the happiness that giving brings...
  To know the peace of misty, distant hills…
  To know the joy that giving self fulfils…
  To realize anew this Christmas Day…
  The things we keep are those we give away. ("A Christmas Prayer")

Winson, Kathleen

• Most people are so busy knocking themselves out trying to do everything they think they should do, they never get around to what they want to do.

Winter, Barbara J.

• The ... difference is that of attitude. But that difference determines who gets ideas and who does not. An apathetic or hostile attitude is the enemy of creative thought. Ideas, like people, flourish when they are welcomed and embraced. (Making a Living with a Job)

Winters, Shelley

• Every now and then, when you're on stage, you hear the best sound a player can hear. It's a sound you can't get in movies or in television. It is the sound of a wonderful, deep silence that means you've hit them where they live. (In Theatre Arts, June 1956)

Winterson, Jeanette

• The curious are always in some danger. If you are curious you might never come home. (Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit)

• What you risk reveals what you value. (Written on the Body)

Winthrop, Elizabeth

• A library is where you go to escape the world outside and to explore the worlds within.

Winword, Richard I.

• Life offers two great gifts--time, and the ability to choose how we spend it. Planning is a process of choosing among those many options. If we do not choose to plan, then we choose to have others plan for us.

Wisdom, Ken

• A person determined never to be wrong won't likely accomplish much.

Wise, Stephen S.

• Vision looks inward and becomes duty.
  Vision looks outward and becomes aspiration.
  Vision looks upward and becomes faith.

Wittgenstein, Ludwig

• If people never did silly things nothing intelligent would ever get done.

Wodehouse, P. G.

• I always advise people never to give advice.

• So always look for the silver lining
  And try to find the sunny side of life. ("Look for the Silver Lining" Sally)

Wohlstetter, Roberta

• In conditions of great uncertainty people tend to predict the events that they want to happen actually will happen.

Wolf, Beverly Hungry

• In the years since I began following the ways of my grandmothers I have come to value the teachings, stories, and daily examples of living which they shared with me. I pity the younger girls f the future who will miss out on meeting some of these fine old women.

Wolfe, Thomas

• If a man has talent and can't use it, he's failed. If he uses only half of it, he has partly failed. If he uses the whole of it, he has succeeded, and won a satisfaction and triumph few men ever know.

Womack, James

• Commitment unlocks the doors of imagination, allows vision, and gives us the "right stuff" to turn our dreams into reality.

Woodard, Alfre

• When you expect good, it's available constantly, and it makes itself a reality in your life.

Wooden, John

• Be more concerned with your character than your reputation, because your character is what you really are, while your reputation is merely what others think you are.

• Do not let what you cannot do interfere with what you can do.

• Success is that peace of mind that comes from knowing you've done everything in your power to become the very best you're capable of becoming.

• Things turn out best for the people who make the best of the way things turn out.

Woodman, Marion

• Moreover, perfectionist standards do not allow for failure. They do not even allow for life, and certainly not death. ("Addiction to Perfection")

Woods, Tiger

• Look, there are no shortcuts in golf, and there are no shortcuts in life. You have to work for it. Dream big and keep your dreams for yourself. Because the dreams that you have are those things that separate you from others. If you give up your dream, you give up hope. And without hope, you are nothing.

Woolcott, Alexander

• There is no such thing in anyone's life as an unimportant day.

Woolf, Virginia

• If you do not tell the truth about yourself you cannot tell it about other people.

• Now the writer, I think, has the chance to live more than other people in the presence of ... reality. It is his business to find it and collect it and communicate it to the rest of us. (A Room of One's Own)

• Second-hand are wild books, homeless books; they have come together in vast flocks of variegated feather, and have a charm which the domesticated volumes of the library lack. (The Art of the Personal Essay)

Woolverton, Linda see Mecchi, Irene

Wordsworth, William

• The best portion of a good man's life is his little, nameless, unremembered acts of kindness and of love.

• Neither evil tongues,
  Rash judgements, nor the sneers of selfish men,
  Nor greetings where no kindness is, nor all
  The dreary intercourse of daily life,
  Shall e'er prevail against us.

• Whether we be young or old,
  Our destiny, our being's heart and home,
  Is with infinitude, and only there;
  With hope it is, hope that can never die,
  Effort and expectation, and desire,
  And something evermore about to be.

Work, Edgar W.

• The real tragedy of life is not in being limited to one talent, but in the failure to use that one talent.

Wotton, Henry

• Tell the truth so as to puzzle and confound your adversaries.

Wright, Frank Lloyd

• The cultural influences in our country are like the floo floo bird. I am referring to the peculiar and especial bird who always flew backward. To keep the wind out of its eyes? No. Just because it didn't give a darn where it was going, but just had to see where it had been.

• Genius is no more than childhood recaptured at will.

Wright, Margaret H.

• The peace of Christmas fills our hearts,
  Inspiring many living deeds.
  It takes our cares and fears away
  And gives the courage each one needs. ("The Peace of Christmas")

Wright, Orville

• The airplane stays up because it doesn't have time to fall.

• If we all worked on the assumption that what is accepted as true is really true, there would be little hope of advance.

Wright, Steven

• I went to a restaurant that serves "breakfast any time." So I ordered French toast during the Renaissance.

Wright, Trisha

• If we found out that we all had five minutes to live, every phone line in the world would be tied up with people calling other people to stumble about how much they love them. So don't wait until we only have five minutes to live--do it now.

Wulf, Bill

• There is only one nature--the division into science and engineering is a human imposition, not a natural one. Indeed, the division is a human failure; it reflects our limited capacity to comprehend the whole.

Wyatt, Woodrow

• If we're not enthusiastic, we can't get things done. If we're over-enthusiastic, we run into the danger of being fanatical. (on the television program Bernard Russell Speaks His Mind May 11, 1960)

Wyse, Lois

• For most of us, dreams come true only after they do not matter, Only in childhood do we ever have the chance of making dreams come true when they mean everything.--(Far From Innocence)

Quote of the Day Home Page