Quotes arranged by Author, W

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Waddles, Charleszetta
  • You can't give people pride, but you can provide the kind of understanding that makes people look to their inner strengths and find their own sense of pride.


Wade, Joseph H.

  • 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, Charles

  • By the time a man realizes that maybe his father was right, he usually has a son who thinks he's wrong.


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, Clare

  • Grief is not an illness that requires a cure; rather, it is a call to embark on a journey of the soul. (Awakening to Prayer: A Woman's Perspective)


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.

  • If evolution was worth its salt, by now it should've evolved something better than survival of the fittest. Yeah, I told 'em I think a better idea would be survival of the wittiest.


Wagoner, David

  • Stand still. The trees ahead and bushes beside you
    Are not lost. Wherever you are is called Here,
    And you must treat it as a powerful stranger,
    Must ask permission to know it and be known.
    The forest breathes. Listen. It answers,
    I have made this place around you.
    If you leave it, you may come back again, saying Here.
    No two trees are the same to Raven.
    No two branches are the same to Wren.
    If what a tree or a bush does is lost on you,
    You are surely lost. Stand still. The forest knows
    Where you are. You must let it find you. ("Lost")


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.

  • Never become so much of an expert that you stop gaining expertise. View life as a continuous learning 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.

  • The more I wonder, the more I love.

  • 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.


Walker, Shannon

  • With any trial and circumstance, a person's true color either shines or darkens.


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 means believing in spite of the evidence, and then watching the evidence change. (Speaking of Faith interview, Nov. 29, 2007)

  • 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)

  • It's hope as a decision that makes change possible. (Speaking of Faith interview, Nov. 29, 2007)


Walls, Jeannette

  • The tree burst into color and we all gasped at the red, yellow, green, white and the blue lights boldly growing in the cold night, the only lights for miles around in the immense darkness of the range. (Half Broke Horses)


Walpole, Horace

  • The way to ensure summer in England is to have it framed and glazed in a comfortable room. (Letter to Rev. William Cole Correspondence)


Walsch, Neale Donald

  • Life begins at the end of your comfort zone.


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, Izaak

  • He that loses his conscience has nothing left that is worth keeping.


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)

Ward, Charisse
  • Bottom line is, if you do not use it or need it, it’s clutter, and it needs to go.


Ward, Don

  • If you are going to doubt something, doubt your limits

  • Somebody saw something in you once - and that is partly why you're where you are today. Find a way to thank them.


Ward, Emory

  • 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.

  • God gave you a gift of 86,400 seconds today. Have you used one to say "thank you?"

  • 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.

  • When people are ready to, they change. They never do it before then, and sometimes they die before they get around to it. You can't make them change if they don't want to, just like when they do want to, you can't stop them. (Andy Warhol: In His Own Words)


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, Rick

  • We are products of our past, but we don't have to be prisoners of it. (The Purpose Driven Life: What on Earth Am I Here for?)

  • When you give someone your time, you are giving them a portion of your life that you’ll never get back. Your time is your life. That is why the greatest gift you can give someone is your time. (The Purpose Driven Life)


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.

  • You can't hold a man down without staying down with him. (from The Quotable Teacher, comp. by Howe)


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, Clyde

  • November comes
    And November goes,
    With the last red berries
    And the first white snows.


Watson, Emma

  • Don’t let anyone tell you what you can or cannot do, or cannot achieve. Just don't allow it. It's wrong. It's so wrong. Be what you want to be - and prove them wrong.--Emma Watson


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.

  • If you want to increase your success rate, double your failure rate. (from The Quotable Teacher, comp. by Howe)

  • 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

  • Oh look, yet another Christmas TV special! How touching to have the meaning of Christmas brought to us by cola, fast food, and beer.... Who'd have ever guessed that product consumption, popular entertainment, and spirituality would mix so harmoniously? (The Essential Calvin & Hobbes)

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


Watts, Alan Wilson

  • The attitude of faith is to let go, and become open to truth, whatever it might turn out to be.

  • Advice? I don’t have advice. Stop aspiring and start writing. If you’re writing, you’re a writer. Write like you’re a goddamn death row inmate and the governor is out of the country and there’s no chance for a pardon. Write like you’re clinging to the edge of a cliff, white knuckles, on your last breath, and you’ve got just one last thing to say, like you’re a bird flying over us and you can see everything, and please, for God’s sake, tell us something that will save us from ourselves. Take a deep breath and tell us your deepest, darkest secret, so we can wipe our brow and know that we’re not alone. Write like you have a message from the king. Or don’t. Who knows, maybe you’re one of the lucky ones who doesn’t have to.

  • I have realized that the past and future are real illusions, that they exist in the present, which is what there is and all there is.

  • Inability to accept the mystic experience is more than an intellectual handicap. Lack of awareness of the basic unity of organism and environment is a serious and dangerous hallucination. For in a civilization equipped with immense technological power, the sense of alienation between man and nature leads to the use of technology in a hostile spirit - to the "conquest" of nature instead of intelligent co-operation with nature. (Psychedelics and Religious Experience)

  • The only way to make sense out of change is to plunge into it, move with it, and join the dance.

  • The reason we have poverty is that we have no imagination. There are a great many people accumulating what they think is vast wealth, but it’s only money ... they don’t know how to enjoy it, because they have no imagination.

  • 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.

  • Some believe all that parents, tutors, and kindred believe. They take their principles by inheritance, and defend them as they would their estates, because they are born heirs to them.


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.


Watzlawick, Paul

  • The belief that one's own view of reality is the only reality is the most dangerous of all delusions.


Wayland, H. L.

  • The only people who make no mistakes are dead people. I saw a man last week who has not made a mistake for four thousand years. He was a mummy in the Egyptian department of the British Museum.


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.


Weakley, Laura

  • The Torah is a way of life... When we treat others kindly, fairly, and lovingly, both in our home, social, and business lives, we are living Torah. The "truth" is the Torah is many things simultaneously.


Weatherly, G.

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


Weaver, Louise Bennett

  • Cold and snowy February
    Does seem slow and trying, very.
    Still, a month made gay by Cupid
    Never could be wholly stupid. New! as of 04/01/17


Webb, Mary

  • Autumn is full of leave-taking. In September the swallows are chattering of destination and departure like a crowd of tourists. (The Spring of Joy)

  • 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

  • Every scientific fulfillment raises new questions; it asks to be surpassed and outdated. (Methodology of the Social Sciences)

  • 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)


Weber, Nadia Bolz

  • I have to look at how much I too need my enemies to stay my enemies, like it’s hard to know who I am if I don’t know who I’m against. ... But maybe our need for enemies is so that we can neatly avoid the ways in which we too are enemies – enemies of grace, enemies of forgiveness, enemies of those we harm. ... Showing up with a bullhorn to cry out against someone else is seriously the best way for me to avoid being the one being cried out against. ("Enemies, Retribution and Women Giving Birth – a Sermon on Jonah")


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.

  • Wisdom begins at the end.


Weideger, Paula

  • I was my father's daughter… I am many things besides, but I am daddy's girl too, and so I will remain - all the way to the old folk's home.


Weil, Simone

  • The future is made of the same stuff as the present.

  • 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.

  • Time rends the soul. Through the rent, eternity enters. (Gravity and Grace)


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.


Weisberg, S.

  • Tall in the saddle we spend Christmas day
    Driving the cattle on the snow-covered plains.
    All of the good gifts given today;
    Ours is the sky and the wide open range. ("Christmas For Cowboys")


Weiskott, Gerald N.

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


Weiss, Fritz

  • We find meaning in the season of Advent, a time when Christians await the birth of new Life in a suffering world. As darkness in our region deepens and the nights grow long and cold, Advent calls us to trust and participate anew in the coming of the Light. ("Choosing Love in a Season of Fear")


Weitzman, Geri

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


Weick, Carl

  • Chaotic action is preferable to orderly inaction.


Welch, Jack

  • Before you are a leader, success is all about growing yourself. When you become a leader, success is all about growing others.


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.


Weldon, Frank, see Redmond, John


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.

  • We must not allow the clock and the calendar to blind us to the fact that each moment of life is a miracle and mystery.

  • 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.


Wells, Sam (Dr.)

  • If people of faith want respect they have to allow others to believe differently or not at all, and learn from, not blow up, the stranger. ("Thought for the Day," November 5, 2015)


Wellstone, Paul

  • Successful organizing is based on the recognition that people get organized because they, too, have a vision.


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.

  • Make all you can. Save all you can. Give all you can.

  • Though we cannot think alike, may we not love alike? May we not be of one heart, though we are not of one opinion? Without all doubt, we may. Herein all the children of God may unite, notwithstanding these smaller differences.


West, Cornel

  • Liberty, which means resisting all forms of cultural authoritarianism, be it from the right wing church, black ideologues, black nationalists, or mainstream white media. We have to accent liberty and freedom of expression and thought in all their forms.

  • Never forget that justice is what love looks like in public.

  • We have to recognize that there cannot be relationships unless there is commitment, unless there is loyalty, unless there is love, patience, persistence. (Breaking Bread: Insurgent Black Intellectual Life)


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)

  • A religious awakening which does not awaken the sleeper to love has aroused him in vain.

  • 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.


Westcott, Brooke Foss

  • Great occasions do not make heroes or cowards; they simply unveil them...


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.


Westlake, Diane

  • Whatever the struggle, continue the climb. It may be only one step to the summit.


Westmayer, H. U.

  • The Pilgrims made seven times more graves than huts. No Americans have been more impoverished than these who, nevertheless, set aside a day of Thanksgiving.


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)


Whedon, Josh

  • The thing about a hero, is even when it doesn't look like there's a light at the end of the tunnel, he's going to keep digging, he's going to keep trying to do right and make up for what's gone before, just because that's who he is.


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...


Whipp, Deborah

  • Like snowflakes, my Christmas memories gather and dance - each beautiful, unique and too soon gone.


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.


Whitcomb, Holly W.

  • Bingo halls and casinos often post the sign, "You must be present to win." In order to convert the inescapable lessons of waiting into deliberate spiritual gifts, we, too, have to be present; we need to pay attention. (Seven Spiritual Gifts of Waiting)


White, Betty

  • Keep the other person's well being in mind when you feel an attack of soul purging truth coming on.


White, E. B.

  • Analyzing humor is like dissecting a frog. Few people are interested and the frog dies of it.

  • Books hold most of the secrets of the world, most of the thoughts that men and women have had. And when you are reading a book, you and the author are alone together---just the two of you. A library is a good place to go when you feel unhappy, for there, in a book, you may find encouragement and comfort. A library is a good place to go when you feel bewildered or undecided, for there, in a book, you may have your question answered. Books are good company, in sad times and happy times, for books are people---people who have managed to stay alive by hiding between the covers of a book. (letter to Troy Michigan library April 4, 1971)

  • Children hold spring so tightly in their brown fists - just as grownups, who are less sure of it, hold it in their hearts. ("A Report in Spring" Essays of E. B. White)

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

  • A library is many things. It's a place to go, to get in out of the rain. It's a place to go if you want to sit and think. But particularly it is a place where books live, and where you can get in touch with other people, and other thoughts, through books. If you want to find out about something, the information is in the reference books---the dictionaries, the encyclopedias, the atlases. If you like to be told a story, the library is the place to go. (letter to Troy Michigan library April 4, 1971)

  • 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, Kiersten

  • Christmas Eve is my favorite... We make it special. Not just for ourselves, but for others. (My True Love Gave to Me: Twelve Holiday Stories)


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 Stewart E.

  • Do not attempt to do a thing unless you are sure of yourself; but do not relinquish it simply because someone else is not sure of you.


White, Theodore H.

  • To go against the dominant thinking of your friends, of most of the people you see every day, is perhaps the most difficult act of heroism you can perform.


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)

  • Ideas won't keep; something must be done about them.

  • 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.

  • Seeing, hearing and feeling are miracles, and each part and tag of me is a miracle.

  • Strong and content I travel the open road.

  • To me every hour of the day and night is an unspeakably perfect miracle.

  • Women sit or move to and fro, some are old, some young. The young are beautiful - but the old are more beautiful then the young.


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.


Whittemore, Flora

  • The doors we open and close each day decide the lives we live.


Whittier, John Greenleaf

  • Of all sad words of tongue or pen,
    The saddest are these: "It might have been!"

  • 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.


Wieder, Marcia

  • Commitment leads to action. Action brings your dream closer.

Wiederkehr, Macrina, see, Rupp, Joyce


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.

  • The opposite of love is not hate, it's indifference. The opposite of art is not ugliness, it's indifference. The opposite of faith is not heresy, it's indifference. And the opposite of life is not death, it's indifference.

  • 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.


Wigglesworth, Smith

  • Fear looks; faith jumps. Faith never fails to obtain its object. ... I am not here to entertain you, but to get you to the place where you can laugh at the impossible.


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)


Wilber, Ken

  • Authentic spirituality is revolutionary. It does not console the world, it shatters it.


Wilbur, Richard

  • Caught summer is always an imagined time.
    Time gave it, yes, but time out of any mind.
    There must be prime
    In the heart to beget that season, to reach past rain and find
    Riding the palest days
    Its perfect blaze. (The Beautiful Changes)

  • Hot summer has exhausted her intent
    To the last rose and roundelay seed.
    No leaf has changed, and yet these leaves now read
    Like a love-letter that's no longer meant. (Advice to a Prophet)


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.

  • One ship drives east and another drives west
    With the selfsame winds that blow.
    ’Tis the set of the sails
    And not the gales
    Which tells us the way to go.

  • Talk health. The dreary, never-changing tale
    Of mortal maladies is worn and stale.
    You cannot charm, or interest, or please
    By harping in that minor chord, disease.
    Say you are well, or all is well with you,
    And God shall hear your words and make them true.

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

  • When Christmas bells are swinging above the fields of snow, we hear sweet voices ringing from lands of long ago, and etched on vacant places are half-forgotten faces of friends we used to cherish, and loves we used to know.

  • 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, Larry

  • Never worry about the size of your Christmas tree. In the eyes of children, they are all 30 feet tall. (The Merry Book of Christmas)


Wilde, Oscar

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

  • Discontent is the first step in the progress of a man or a nation.

  • 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 one thing you can't get for nothing.

  • Experience is simply the name we give our mistakes.

  • Few parents nowadays pay any regard to what their children say to them. The old-fashioned respect for the young is fast dying. (The Importance of Being Earnest, 1899)

  • I always pass on good advice. It's the only thing to do with it. It is never any use to oneself. (An Ideal Husband)

  • I have found that all ugly things are made by those who strive to make something beautiful, and that all beautiful things are made by those who strive to make something useful.

  • If they have not opened the eyes of the blind, they have at least given great encouragement to the short-sighted, and while their leaders may have all the inexperience of old age, their young men are far too wise to be ever sensible.

  • 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)

  • It is what you read when you don't have to that determines what you will be when you can't help it.

  • 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.

  • No man is rich enough to buy back his past.

  • Nowadays most people die of a sort of creeping common sense, and discover when it is too late that the only things one never regrets are one's mistakes.

  • 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)

  • The true perfection of man lies not in what man has, but in what man does.

  • 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

  • All those golden autumn days the sky was full of wings. Wings beating low over the blue water of Silver Lake, wings beating high in the blue air far above it ... bearing them all away to the green fields in the South.

  • 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.

  • Our hearts grow tender with childhood memories and love of kindred, and we are better throughout the year for having, in spirit, become a child again at Christmas-time.

  • The real things haven't changed. It is still best to be honest and truthful; to make the most of what we have; to be happy with simple pleasures; and have courage when things go wrong.

  • 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.


Wilkinson, Bruce

  • You are not an accident. You are one of a kind. Your big dream is from God, and its irreplaceable. And you were born to seize it and celebrate it every day of your life! (You Were Born for This)


Will, George F.

  • Baseball, it is said, is only a game. True. And the Grand Canyon is only a hole in Arizona. Not all holes, or games, are created equal. (Men at Work: The Craft of Baseball)

  • 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)


Willey, Charlie

  • Make one person happy each day and in forty years you will have made 14,600 human beings happy for a little time at least.


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

  • Americans are optimists. They hope they'll be wealthy someday - and they're positive they can get one more brushful of paint out of an empty can.

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

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

  • Talent is a flame. Genius is a fire.

  • 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, Paul

  • It is the season of the heart
    A special time of caring
    The ways of love made clear
    It is the season of the spirit
    The message, if we hear it
    Is make it last all year ("It Feels Like Christmas," The Muppet Christmas Carol)

  • There's magic in the air this evening
    Magic in the air
    The world is at her best, you know
    When people love and care
    The promise of excitement
    Is one the night will keep
    After all there's only one more sleep 'til Christmas ("One More Sleep 'Til Christmas," The Muppet Christmas Carol)


Williams, Robin

  • Spring is nature's way of saying, "Let's party!"


Williams, Sarah

  • Though my soul may set in darkness,
    It will rise in perfect light,
    I have loved the stars too fondly
    To be fearful of the night.


Williams, Tennessee

  • The future is called "perhaps," which is the only possible thing to call the future. And the only important thing is not to allow that to scare you. (Orpheus Descending)

  • Make voyages. Attempt them. There's nothing else.

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


Williams, Tenrry Tempest

  • This is my living faith, an active faith, a faith of verbs: to question, explore, experiment, experience, walk, run, dance, play, eat, love, learn, dare, taste, touch, smell, listen, speak, write, read, draw, provoke, emote, scream, sin, repent, cry, kneel, pray, bow, rise, stand, look, laugh, cajole, create, confront, confound, walk back, walk forward, circle, hide, and seek. (Leap)

  • To hear something asks very little of us. To listen places our entire being on notice.


Williams, Thomas J.

  • Crater Lake must be seen to be appreciated properly. Photographs simply cannot depict the majesty of the lake in its setting, the depth of the blue.


Williams, Thomas D.

  • Humility is a funny virtue because we love it in others but have a hard time practicing it ourselves. We like to be appreciated. We like to be right. (The Sacred Heart for Lent: Daily Meditations)


Williams, Venus

  • Reality is a product of our dreams, decisions and actions, you have to believe in yourself when no one else does. That makes you a winner right there.


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.

  • Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented and fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God! Your playing small doesn't' serve the world. There's nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it is in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.

  • 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.

  • The time to show up fully for life is right now, whatever the circumstances. (Everyday Grace)

  • 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")


Willson, Meredith

  • It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas;
    Soon the bells will start,
    And the thing that will make them ring
    Is the carol that you sing
    Right within your heart.-Meredith Willson ("It's Beginning To Look A Lot Like Christmas")


Wilson, Amy

  • What gets written has always depended on who is doing the writing. And what they see. Men have traditionally written history. They have seen what they wanted.


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

  • It struck me that the popularity of Christmas is a matter of web-like consciousness. Childhood conditions us to relax and expand at Christmas, to forget petty worries and irritations and think in terms of universal peace. And so Christmas is the nearest to mystical experience that most human beings ever approach, with its memories of Dickens and Irving's Bracebridge Hall. (The Philospher's Stone)

  • 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, David L.

  • War creates peace like hate creates love.


Wilson, Edward O.

  • We are drowning in information, while starving for wisdom. The world henceforth will be run by synthesizers, people able to put together the right information at the right time, think critically about it, and make important choices wisely.


Wilson, Eugene S.

  • Only the curious will learn and only the resolute overcome the obstacles to learning. The quest quotient has always excited me more than the intelligence quotient.


Wilson, Frank T.

  • Churches will take longer to achieve integration because they are undertaking a much greater accomplishment. Worshiping together is a more personal thing than riding trains or attending movies together. Tolerance is not enough; it must be real brotherhood or nothing.


Wilson, N. T.

  • Sometimes standing against evil is more important than defeating it. The greatest heroes stand because it is right to do so, not because they believe they will walk away with their lives. Such selfless courage is a victory in itself. (Dandelion Fire)


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)

  • There's no future in spending our present worrying about our past.

  • 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.

  • Friendship is the only cement that will ever hold the world together.

  • 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.

  • Work is the keystone of a perfect life. Work and trust in God.

  • 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.


Wiman, Erastus

  • Nothing is ever lost by courtesy. It is the cheapest of the pleasures; costs nothing and conveys much. It pleases him who gives and him who receives, and thus, like mercy, it is twice blessed.


Winchell, Walter

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


Winder, Barbara

  • As our knowledge is converted to wisdom, the door to opportunity is unlocked. (from The Quotable Teacher, comp. by Howe)


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.

  • The biggest adventure you can take is to live the life of your dreams.

  • Devote today to something so daring even you can't believe you're doing it.

  • 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.

  • The more you praise and celebrate your life, the more there is in life to celebrate.

  • 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.

  • Real integrity is doing the right thing, knowing that nobody’s going to know whether you did it or not.

  • There is no such thing as failure – failure is just life trying to move us in another direction.

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

  • Turn your wounds into wisdom.


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)

  • People hate the truth. Luckily, the truth doesn't care.


Winkett, Lucy

  • Being afraid to fail is what prevents many of us from trying something new, putting ourselves out on a limb. It often stops us singing, running, working for an exam or telling a joke in company. Fear of failure can also stop us trying to pray. Just in case nothing happens. Just in case we feel foolish. Just in case we make a mess of it. ("Thought for the Day," August 16, 2016)


Winnemucca, Sarah

  • The saddest day has gleams of light,
    The darkest wave hath bright foam beneath it.
    There twinkles o'er the cloudiest night,
    Some solitary star to cheer it.


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.


Winspear, Jacqueline

  • One always has riches when one has a book to read. (A Lesson in Secrets)


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)

  • I know now, after fifty years, that the finding/losing, forgetting/remembering, leaving/returning, never stops. The whole of life is about another chance, and while we are alive, till the very end, there is always another chance.

  • 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

  • Humor is not a mood but a way of looking at the world.

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


Wodehouse, P. G.

  • I always advise people never to give advice.

  • I know I was writing stories when I was five. I don't know what I did before that. Just loafed I suppose.

  • 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

  • All things on earth point home in old October: sailors to sea, travellers to walls and fences, hunters to field and hollow and the long voice of the hounds, the lover to the love he has forsaken. (Of Time and the River)

  • 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.


Wolfe, W. Beran

  • The truly happy person is always a fighting optimist. Optimism includes not only altruism but also social responsibility, social courage and objectivity.


Wolff, Ruth

  • Spring is shoving up the front windows and resting your elbows on the sill, the sum burning your nose a little. (A Crack in the Sidewalk)


Wolff, Victoria

  • So-called good advice is always served with compliments and sprinkled with sugar. I don't like sugar.


Wollstonecraft, Mary, see, Shelley, Mary Wollstonecraft


Womack, James

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


Womer, Ralph

  • Grief, like love, is seldom diminished by sharing it, but it is ultimately necessary to do so.

  • It's not difficult to predict tomorrow when you do the same things today that you did yesterday.


Wood, Douglas

  • On a hilltop you can see a long way and think long thoughts about How and What and Why. (A Quiet Place)

  • You could go to a secret corner of the library where the only people talking are between the covers of books. They speak so softly that you can only hear them in your head as you read about forests and oceans and deserts and caverns and museums and a thousand other things. (A Quiet Place)

  • You could look in the desert [for a quiet place], where Old Man Saguaro reaches for the sky, and far-off thunderheads bloom like sky-flowers over the mesas. (A Quiet Place)

  • You could look in the woods [for a quiet place]. You might find an old stump for a chair or a mossy log for a couch in a green mansion of shadows and sunbeams. It’s not really quiet, of course. BLue jays scream warnings, and wind sings in the leaves. But it feels quiet. (A Quiet Place)


Woodard, Alfre

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


Wooden, John

  • Ability may get you to the top, but it takes character to keep you there.

  • 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.

  • It's what you learn after you know it all that counts.

  • Make each day your masterpiece.

  • 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.

  • Talent is God given. Be humble. Fame is man-given. Be grateful. Conceit is self-given. Be careful.

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

  • When opportunity comes it is too late to prepare.


Woodlock, Thomas F.

  • Times of stress and difficulty are seasons of opportunity when the seeds of progress are sown.


Woodman, Marion

  • Discipline is a bad word in our culture. People associate it with having to do what they're told. But discipline is quite a lovely word. It comes from the same root as disciple, and it means seeing yourself through the eyes of the teacher who loves you. We have that teacher within ourselves; we also have the wild animal that needs to be disciplined with love. We need all its instinctual energy and wisdom.

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


Woods, Harriet

  • You can stand tall without standing on someone. You can be a victor without having victims.


Woods, John A.

  • The world is exactly like you think it is, and that's why.


Woods, Sherryl

  • The light of the Christmas star to you.
    The warmth of home and hearth to you.
    The cheer and goodwill of friends to you.
    The hope of a child-like heart to you.
    The joy of a thousand angels to you.
    The love of the Son and God's peace to you. (An O'Brien Family Christmas)


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.


Woodward, Joanne

  • Which Christmas is the most vivid to me? It's always the next Christmas.


Woodward, Mary Dodge

  • It is shovel, shovel, snow,
    Shovel everywhere you go,
    Shovel high and shovel low,
    Shovel, shovel, shovel snow. (The Checkered Years)


Woolcott, Alexander

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


Woolf, Virginia

  • The beauty of the world, which is so soon to perish, has two edges, one of laughter, one of anguish, cutting the heart asunder.

  • Each has his past shut up in him like the leaves of a book known to him by his heart, and his friends can only read the title.

  • I ransack public libraries and find them full of sunk treasure.

  • 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)

  • One must learn to be silent just as one must learn to talk.

  • 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, Dorothy

  • It is a pleasure to a real lover of Nature to give winter all the glory he can, for summer will make its own way, and speak its own praises. (The Journals of Dorothy Wordsworth, v. 1)


Wordsworth, William

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

  • The little unremembered acts of kindness and love are the best parts of a person's life.

  • 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.

  • Small service is true service. ... The daisy, by the shadow that it casts, protects the lingering dewdrop from the sun.

  • 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.


Worthington, Robin

  • The battle to keep up appearances unnecessarily, the mask - whatever name you give creeping perfectionism - robs us of our energies.


Wotton, Henry

  • How happy is he born or taught,
    That serveth not another's will;
    Whose armour is his honest thought,
    And simple truth his utmost skill! ("The Character of a Happy Life")

  • 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.


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.


Wroe Martin

  • For the practicing Christian or practicing Moslem, for the practicing agnostic or practicing atheist, the practice of forgiveness is one way to break free of a past which wants to trap us. Forgiveness ... can bring freedom. ("Thought for the Day," January 7, 2017) New! as of 04/01/17

  • Forgiveness can be the WD40 that oils the creaking hinges of our friendships and, sometimes, keeps the doors from falling off altogether. ("Thought for the Day," January 7, 2017) New! as of 04/01/17

  • Forgiveness is as mysterious as love or compassion, it won’t be forced and isn’t compulsory. Even for those who choose forgiveness, it’s not a momentary decision but a resolution to weave this new thread into the ragged fabric of our everyday relationships. Less of an act and more of an attitude. ("Thought for the Day," January 7, 2017) New! as of 04/01/17


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)


Wyle, George, see, Knight, Peter Norman


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)

  • The only people in the whole world who can change things area those who can sell ideas. (The Rosemary Touch)

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