Words of Wisdom -– Some are Deep… Others Not So Much

Let's start off the New Year with some words of wisdom. Here is an update to my collection of quotable quotes. Some are deep. Others not so much...

 

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My Favorite Words of Wisdom – Some are Deep… Others Not So Much

 
“Your smartphone has already replaced your camera, your TV, your radio, your wristwatch, your calendar, your GPS, your credit cards, your newspaper, your magazines, and your local library... Maybe you should lift up your head, look away from the screen, and engage your family and friends in some face-to-face conversation -- Before your smartphone replaces them too.”

- Guy J. Pirro

 

 

"Science is built up of facts as a house is with stones... But a collection of facts is no more a science than a heap of stones is a house."
- Henri Poincare

 

 

“You see things (that are) and say Why? But I dream things that never were and say Why not?”

- George Bernard Shaw

 

 

 “In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice… While in practice, there is.”
- Benjamin Brewster, Yale University, 1882

 

 

"After all is said and done, more is said than done."
- Aesop

 

 

"A problem well stated is a problem half solved."
- Charles Kettering


"Those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the music."
- Friedrich Nietzsche

 

 

"Nothing can stop the man with the right mental attitude from achieving his goal... Nothing on earth can help the man with the wrong mental attitude."
- Thomas Jefferson

 

 

"Pray as if everything depended on God and work as if everything depended on you."
- St. Ignatius of Loyola, founder of the Jesuits (aka "God's Marines")


"People may doubt what you say, but they will believe what you do."
- Lewis Cass


 “Why shouldn't truth be stranger than fiction? Fiction, after all, has to make sense.”

- Samuel Clemens (aka Mark Twain)

 

 

“The pure and simple truth is rarely pure… And never simple.”

- Oscar Wilde

 

 

"Talent hits a target no one else can hit... Genius hits a target no one else can see."
- Arthur Schopenhauer

 

“Choose being kind over being right and you'll be right every time.”

- Richard Carlson

 

 

 “Don't judge each day by the harvest you reap… But by the seeds that you plant.”

- Robert Louis Stevenson

 

"To the man who only has a hammer, everything he encounters begins to look like a nail."
- Abraham H. Maslow

 

 

“Life is a journey, not a destination.”

- Lynn H. Hough

 

 “There’s more to the truth than just the facts.”

- James Clerk Maxwell

 

 

"Statistics are no substitute for judgment."
- Henry Clay

 

 

“Good judgment comes from experience… And a lot of that comes from bad judgment.”

- Will Rogers

 

 

“Most of the problems in life are because of two reasons -- We act without thinking or we keep thinking without acting.”

- Zig Ziglar

 

 

“Experience is what you get when you didn’t get what you wanted."

- Randy Pausch

 

 

"When all men think alike, no one thinks very much."

- Walter Lippmann

 

 

"Too often we... enjoy the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought."
- John F. Kennedy

 
“An optimist is one who sees an opportunity in every difficulty… A pessimist is one who sees a difficulty in every opportunity.”

- Lawrence P. Jacks

 

 

“Two things are infinite, the Universe and human stupidity… And I am not yet completely sure about the Universe.”
- Albert Einstein

 

 

"Artificial intelligence is no match for natural stupidity."
- Anonymous

 

 

"Formal education will earn you a living... Self-education will make you a fortune."

- Jim Rohn

 

 

"There is nothing in a caterpillar that tells you it's going to be a butterfly."
- R. Buckminster Fuller

 

"Be tolerant with others and strict with yourself."
- Marcus Aurelius

 

 “History is recorded by a series of observers, none of whom is impartial.”

- Frank Herbert

"A luxury, once sampled, becomes a necessity."
- Andrew Tobias

 

 

“I used to be indecisive, but now I am not quite sure.”

- Thomas F. Cooper

 

 

"Enjoy the little things in life because one day you'll look back and realize they were the big things."
- Kurt Vonnegut

 

 

“Doing what you like is freedom… Liking what you do is happiness.”

- Frank Tyger

 

 

“Sometimes the questions are complicated and the answers are simple.”

- Theodor Seuss Geisel (aka Dr. Seuss)

 

 

"One who thinks by the inch and talks by the mile should be kicked by the foot."

- Anonymous

 

 

 “Life is like a coin -- You can spend it any way you wish, but you only spend it once.”

- Lillian Dickson

 

 

"The worst enemy of life, freedom, and the common decencies is total anarchy... The second worst enemy is total efficiency."
- Aldous Huxley

 

 

“It's hard to be a woman -- You must think like a man, act like a lady, look like a young girl, and work like a horse.”

- Anonymous

 

 

"In today's Internet-based economy, there really is no free lunch... If you aren’t paying for it, then you are the product."
- Anonymous

 

 

“Books are like seeds -- They can lie dormant for centuries and then flower in the most unpromising soil.”

- Carl Sagan

 

 

“I give myself very good advice… But I very seldom follow it.”

- Charles L. Dodgson (aka Lewis Carroll)

 

 

“The oldest, shortest words -- Yes and No -- are those which require the most thought.”

- Pythagoras of Samos

 

"Measure twice, cut once."
- Excellent advice from my father, Joseph A. Pirro, a master cabinetmaker

“The dignity of work is commensurate with the pride and dignity of the worker.”

- Frederic C. Tourelle (High School Drafting Teacher – Madison, NJ)

"Pleasure in the job puts perfection in the work."
- Aristotle


"The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing."
- Socrates

 

 

"There are no facts, only interpretations."
- Friedrich Nietzsche

 

"The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance -- It is the illusion of knowledge."
- Stephen Hawking

“Not ignorance, but ignorance of ignorance is the death of knowledge.”

- Alfred N. Whitehead

 

 

"To be conscious that you are ignorant of the facts is a great step to knowledge."
- Benjamin Disraeli

 

 

"No man should escape our universities without knowing how little he knows."
- J. Robert Oppenheimer

 

 

"The fewer the facts, the stronger the opinion."
- Arnold H. Glasow

 

 

"It is better to remain silent and be thought a fool, than to open your mouth and remove all doubts."
- Abraham Lincoln

 

 

"Science is the father of knowledge… But opinion breeds ignorance."
- Hippocrates of Kos


"The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves... And wiser people so full of doubts."
- Bertrand Russell

 

 

"Never ascribe to malice that which can be adequately explained by ignorance."

- Oscar Wilde

"Courage is what it takes to stand up and speak... Courage is also what it takes to sit down and listen."
- Winston Churchill

 

 
"Courage is not the absence of fear, but the capacity for action despite our fears.”
- John McCain

 

"We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark... The real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light."
- Plato

"The secret of getting ahead is getting started."
- Samuel Clemens (aka Mark Twain)

 

“The secret of your success is found in your daily routine.”

- John C. Maxwell

 

 

“Aim above the mark to hit the mark.”

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

 

 

“If you don't have a competitive advantage, don't compete.”

- Jack Welch

"Study the small print and learn by understanding... Ignore the small print and learn by experience."
- Guy J. Pirro


"Experience is the hardest kind of teacher -- It gives you the test first and the lesson afterward."
- Oscar Wilde

 

"The roots of education are bitter... But the fruit is sweet."
- Aristotle


“Most people do not really want the truth… They just want reassurance that what they believe is the truth.”

- Anonymous 

 

 
“Most of us employ the Internet not to seek the best information, but rather to select information that confirms our prejudices.”

- Nicholas D. Kristof

 

“It’s hard to accept the truth when lies are what you want to hear.”

- Caroline Mitchell

 

 

"Philosophy is common sense with big words."
- James Madison


"Anyone can hold the helm when the sea is calm."
- Publilius Syrus


"It is amazing what you can accomplish if you do not care who gets the credit."
- Harry S. Truman


“The first time you say something, it's heard… The second time, it's recognized… The third time, it's learned.”

- John C. Maxwell

"Making good judgments when one has complete data, facts, and knowledge is not leadership -- It's bookkeeping."
- Dee W. Hock


“Dumb money is only dumb when it listens to the smart money.”
- Peter Lynch

"Society is indeed a contract -- A partnership not only between those who are living, but between those who are living, those who are dead, and those who are to be born."
- Edmund Burke

 

 

“People can be divided into two classes -- Those who go ahead and do something... And those who sit still and inquire why wasn't it done the other way.”

- Oliver Wendell Holmes

 

 

"Real difficulties can be overcome... It is only the imaginary ones that are unconquerable."
- Theodore Vail


"If you want children to keep their feet on the ground, put some responsibility on their shoulders."
- Pauline Phillips (aka Abigail Van Buren -- Dear Abby)

 

 

"I'm a man of simple tastes... I'm always satisfied with the best."

- Oscar Wilde

  

 

"True education is to learn how to think... Not what to think."
- Jiddu Krishnamurti

 

 

"When one door closes, another opens... But we often look so long and so regretfully upon the closed door that we do not see the one that has opened for us."

- Alexander Graham Bell


"I hear and I forget… I see and I remember… I do and I understand."
- Confucius


"A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step."
- Lao Tzu

 

 

“Common sense is not so common.”

- Francois-Marie Arouet (aka Voltaire)

 

 

“Only a fool learns from his own mistakes… The wise man learns from the mistakes of others.”

- Otto von Bismarck

 

 

"Learn from the mistakes of others -- You can't live long enough to make them all yourself."
- Eleanor Roosevelt

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

- Henry Ford

 

 

 “If you do the little jobs well, the big ones will tend to take care of themselves.”

- Andrew Carnegie

 

 

“Nowadays, people know the price of everything and the value of nothing.”

- Oscar Wilde

 

 

"Price is what you pay... Value is what you get."

- Warren Buffet

 

 

"Your income is determined by the scarcity of your contribution, not by how hard you work or your worth as a person."
- Hunter Hastings

 

“Not all those who wander are lost.”

- J. R. R. Tolkien

 

 

“Wise men speak because they have something to say… Fools speak because they have to say something.”

- Plato

 

 

“Always remember that you are absolutely unique -- Just like everyone else.”

- Margaret Mead

 

 

"No one of us is as smart as all of us."

- Ken Blanchard

 

 

“Seek first to understand and then to be understood.”

- Stephen R. Covey

 

 

“If you cannot do great things, do small things in a great way.”

- Napoleon Hill

 

 

“The best preparation for tomorrow is doing your best today.”

- H. Jackson Brown

 

 

“Change your thoughts and you change your world.”

- Norman Vincent Peale

 

 

“By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail.”

- Benjamin Franklin

 

 

“The whole is greater than the sum of the parts.”

- Aristotle

 

 

“Confidence is contagious… So is lack of confidence.”

- Vincent T. Lombardi

 

 

"Intelligence without ambition is a bird without wings."
- Salvador Dali

 

 
"Enthusiasm and ambition mixed with incompetence gets you some pretty interesting results."
- Guy J. Pirro

 

 

“Great minds discuss ideas… Average minds discuss events… Small minds discuss people.”

- Eleanor Roosevelt

 

 

“Never tell people how to do things -- Tell them what to do and they will surprise you with their ingenuity.”

- George S. Patton

 

 

"I have often regretted my speech -- Never my silence."

- Publilius Syrus

 

 

“It takes less time to do a thing right than to explain why you did it wrong.”

- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

 

 

“It is not because things are difficult that we do not dare… But because we do not dare, things are difficult."

- Lucius Annaeus Seneca

 

 

“When they call the roll in the Senate, the Senators do not know whether to answer Present or Not Guilty.”

- Theodore Roosevelt

 

"Show me the man, I'll show you the crime."
- Lavrentiy Beria, Deputy Premier under Joseph Stalin (Immediately executed by Nikita Khrushchev after Stalin's death in 1953)

 

“Anytime you see a turtle up on top of a fence post, you know he had some help.”

- Alexander Haley

 

 

“Don't cry because it's over… Smile because it happened.”

- Ludwig Jacobowski

 

 

“Success is not a destination, it's a journey.”

- Zig Ziglar

 

 

 “If you worry about what might be and wonder what might have been, you will ignore what is.”

- Anonymous

 

 

“Your beliefs don't make you a better person… Your behavior does.”

- Sukhraj S. Dhillon

 

 

“Everyone is entitled to his own opinion -- But not his own facts.”

- Bernard Baruch

 

 

"Get your facts first... Then you can distort them as you please."
- Samuel Clemens (aka Mark Twain)

 

 

 “The classroom should be an entrance into the world… Not an escape from it.”

- John A. Ciardi

 

 

“Success is getting what you want… Happiness is wanting what you get.”

- Dale Carnegie

 

 

“Indecision, with the passing of time, becomes decision.”

- William G. Wilson

 

 

"The world we live in is vastly different from the world we think we live in."
- Nassim Taleb


"Prediction is very difficult -- Especially if it's about the future."
- Niels Bohr


"Good executives never put off until tomorrow what they can get someone else to do today."
- John C. Maxwell

 

 

 "We often do not see what we do not expect to see."

- Alan Lightman

 

 

"When you talk, you are only repeating something you already know... But if you listen, you may learn something new."

- Dalai Lama

 

 

“A lie will gallop halfway round the world before the truth has time to pull its breeches on.”

- Cordell Hull

 

 

“There is nothing worse than a sharp image of a fuzzy concept.”

- Ansel Adams

 

"The happiness of your life depends upon the quality of your thoughts."
- Marcus Aurelius

 

“Most folks are about as happy as they make up their minds to be.”

- Abraham Lincoln

 

 

“The old believe everything… The middle-aged suspect everything… The young know everything.”

- Oscar Wilde

 

 

"It's not what you look at that matters... It's what you see."
- Henry D. Thoreau

 

"One should use common words to say uncommon things."
- Arthur Schopenhauer

“Never confuse motion with action.”

- Benjamin Franklin

 

 

"Any jackass can kick down a barn... But it takes a good carpenter to build one."
- Sam Rayburn


"A very little key will open a very heavy door."
- Charles Dickens

 

"Great acts are made up of small deeds."
- Lao Tzu


"Everything is theoretically impossible -- Until it is done."
- Robert A. Heinlein

 

 

"Chance favors the prepared mind."
- Louis Pasteur

"Clarity of  mind inspires confidence in execution."
- Guy J. Pirro


"It is better to be roughly right than precisely wrong."
- John Maynard Keynes

 

 

“Every man is the architect of his own fortune.”

- Gaius Sallustius Crispus

 

“I would rather be lucky than be smart. But you have to be smart enough to put yourself in a position to be lucky.”
- David Tepper

 

 

“It is better to know something about everything than everything about something.”

- Blaise Pascal

 

 

“Educators take something simple and make it complicated… Communicators take something complicated and make it simple.”

- John C. Maxwell

 

 

“God gave us the gift of life… It is up to us to give ourselves the gift of living well.”

- Francois-Marie Arouet (aka Voltaire)

 

 

“There is no philosophical high road in science… We are in a jungle and find our way by trial and error, building our road behind us as we proceed.”

- Max Born

 

 

“We are like butterflies who flutter for a day and think it is forever.”

- Carl Sagan

 

 

“Give me but a firm spot on which to stand and a lever long enough, and I shall move the Earth.”

- Archimedes of Syracuse

 

 

“The laws of nature are but the mathematical thoughts of God.”

- Euclid of Alexandria

 

 

“Everything's got a moral... If only you can find it.”

-Charles L. Dodgson (aka Lewis Carroll)

 

 

“When it is not in our power to determine what is true, we ought to act according to what is most probable.”

- Rene Descartes

 

"We do not operate directly on the world in which we live... We create models or maps of the world and use these maps to guide our behavior."
- John Grinder

 

"The imagination of nature is far, far greater than the imagination of man."
- Richard Feynman

 

 “Not only is the Universe stranger than we think… It is stranger than we can think.”

- Werner Heisenberg

 

 

“Nature is always more subtle, more intricate, more elegant than what we are able to imagine.”

- Carl Sagan

 

 

 “Science attempts to find logic and simplicity in nature… Mathematics attempts to establish order and simplicity in human thought.”

- Edward Teller

 

"Nature is the art of God."
- Dante Alighieri


"Study nature, love nature, stay close to nature -- It will never fail you."
- Frank Lloyd Wright


"Genius is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration."
- Thomas A. Edison


"Research is what I'm doing when I don't know what I'm doing."
- Wernher von Braun

 

“If you copy from one book, that’s plagiarism… If you copy from many books, that’s research.”

- Wallace Notestein, Yale University

"Originality is nothing but judicious imitation."
- Francois-Marie Arouet (aka Voltaire)


"The chains of habit are too weak to be felt, until they are too strong to be broken."

- Samuel Johnson

"Don't talk unless you can improve the silence."
- Jorge Luis Borges


"If I have seen further than others, it is by standing upon the shoulders of giants."
- Isaac Newton


"Sunlight is said to be the best of disinfectants."
- Louis D. Brandeis


"Many people die with their music still in them. Why is this so? Too often it is because they are always getting ready to live... Before they know it, time runs out."
- Oliver Wendell Holmes


"All science is either physics or stamp collecting."
- Ernest Rutherford


“There are no great limits to growth because there are no limits of human intelligence, imagination, and wonder.”
- Ronald Reagan


"The more closely you look at one thing, the less closely can you see something else."
- Werner Heisenberg


"Physics is becoming too difficult for the physicists."
- David Hilbert, Mathematician

 

 

"Policies are many, Principles are few… Policies will change, Principles never do."

- John C. Maxwell

 

 

“You cannot shake hands with a clenched fist.”

- Indira Gandhi

 

 

“As you begin a new venture, make sure you understand the rules of the game, what you are risking, and most importantly, when you will walk away.”

- Guy J. Pirro

 

 

“The first to apologize is the bravest… The first to forgive is the strongest… The first to forget is the happiest.”

- Anonymous

 

 

“There are people who make things happen, there are people who watch things happen, and there are people who wonder what happened.”

- James Lovell

 

 

“We think in generalities, but we live in details.”

- Alfred N. Whitehead

 

 

"Two possibilities exist -- Either we are alone in the Universe or we are not... Both are equally terrifying.

- Arthur C. Clarke

 

 

“A step backward, after making a wrong turn, is a step in the right direction.”

- Kurt Vonnegut

"The most important thing in communication is hearing what isn't being said."

- Peter F. Drucker

 

 
"It's not what you say... It's what people hear."
- Frank Luntz

 

“Early to bed and early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise.”

- Benjamin Franklin

 

 

"In the absence of clearly defined goals, we become strangely loyal to performing daily acts of trivia."

- Robert A. Heinlein

 

 

"Even though you are on the right track, you will get run over if you just sit there."

- Will Rogers

 

 
“I didn’t have time to write a short letter, so I wrote a long one instead.”
- Samuel Clemens (aka Mark Twain)

“With all things being equal, the simplest explanation tends to be the best one.”
- William of Ockham (Ockham's Razor)

 

"Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler."
- Albert Einstein

"Simplicity does not precede complexity, but follows it."

- Alan Perlis


"Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication."
- Leonardo da Vinci


"The meaning of life is to find your gift... The purpose of life is to give it away."
- Pablo Picasso

 

 
"All truth passes through three stages -- First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident."
- Arthur Schopenhauer

 

“Do not follow where the path may lead… Go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.”

- Muriel Strode

 

 
“Paths are made by walking."
- Franz Kafka

 

"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."
- George Santayana

 

 
"Look back over the past, with its changing empires that rose and fell, and you can foresee the future."
- Marcus Aurelius

 

“Si vis pasem, para bellum." -- "If you want peace, prepare for war."

- Publius Flavius Vegetius Renatus

 

 
"I cannot choose the hand that I am dealt... I can only choose whether or not to play the game."
- Guy J. Pirro

 

 

“When in doubt, leave it out.”

- Joshua Bloch

 

"An investment in knowledge pays the best interest."
- Benjamin Franklin


"The great tragedy of Science -- The slaying of a beautiful hypothesis by an ugly fact."
- Thomas Huxley

 

"You only find out who is swimming naked when the tide goes out."
- Warren Buffet

 

"Start with what is right rather than what is acceptable."
- Franz Kafka

 

“When the going gets tough, the tough get going.”

- Joseph P. Kennedy

 

 

“Never trouble trouble, till trouble troubles you.”

- John Adams

 

 

“Different strokes for different folks.”

- Clarence Darrow

 

 

“The first step to getting anywhere is deciding you’re no longer willing to stay where you are.”

- Anonymous

 

 

“Hard work beats talent when talent doesn’t work hard.”

- Tim Notke

 

 

“If you don’t build your dream, someone will hire you to help build theirs.”

- Tony Gaskins

 

 

“Happy wife -- Happy life.”

- Anonymous

 

 

“The pen is mightier than the sword.”

- Edward Bulwer-Lytton

 

 

“A picture is worth a thousand words.”

- Arthur Brisbane

 

 

"He who laughs last, thinks slowest"

- Anonymous


"The early bird gets the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese."
- Anonymous


"An optimist builds castles in the sky... A dreamer lives there... A realist collects rent from both of them."
- Anonymous

 

 

“The difference between men and boys is the price of their toys.”

- Anonymous

"A camel is a horse designed by committee."
- Anonymous


Six Phases of a Project - Anonymous
1. Enthusiasm
2. Disillusionment
3. Panic and hysteria
4. Search for the guilty
5. Punishment of the innocent
6. Praise and honor for the non-participants

 

 

"When choosing a career, the conventional wisdom is to simply follow your passion. But I say no -- Pick a career that provides financial security and stability and earns you a good living... Then you can follow your passions through hobbies that you can actually afford."
- Guy J. Pirro

 

 

“A computer is almost human… Except that it does not blame its mistakes on another computer.”

- Anonymous

"Where a calculator on the ENIAC is equipped with 18,000 vacuum tubes and weighs 30 tons, computers in the future may have only 1000 vacuum tubes and perhaps weigh 1.5 tons."
- Popular Mechanics, March 1949


"I do not think that the radio waves I have discovered will have any practical application."
- Heinrich Hertz, 1890

 

 

“Radio has no future… Heavier-than-air flying machines are impossible… X-rays will prove to be a hoax.”

- William Thomson (aka Lord Kelvin), 1895

 

 

"We don't like their sound… And groups of guitars are on the way out."

- Dick Rowe, Decca Records – on their decision to not sign the Beatles, March 1962

 

 
"If a cluttered desk is a sign of a cluttered mind, then what is an empty desk a sign of?"
- Anonymous

 

“It’s always in the last place you look… Of course it is -- Why would you keep looking after you found it?”

- George Carlin

 

 

“A clear conscience is usually the sign of a bad memory.”

- Steven Wright

 

 

“An army of sheep led by a lion is better than an army of lions led by a sheep.”

- Alexander the Great

 

 

“There is just one thing that makes your dream become impossible -- The fear of failure."

- Paulo Coelho

 

 

“Those who look only to the past or present are certain to miss the future."

-  John F. Kennedy

 

 

"Life is ten percent what happens to you and ninety percent how you respond to it."

- Lou Holtz

 

 

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