American author quotes Quotes

“I have heard of a minister, who had been a fisherman, being settled in Bridgewater for as long a time as he could tell a cod froma haddock. Generous as it seems, this condition would empty most country pulpits forthwith, for it is long since the fishers of men were fishermen.”

“Five years of Prohibition have had, at least, this one benign effect: they have completely disposed of all the favorite arguments of the Prohibitionists. None of the great boons and usufructs that were to follow the passage of the Eighteenth Amendment has come to pass. There is not less drunkenness in the Republic, but more. There is not less crime, but more. There is not less insanity, but more. The cost of government is not smaller, but vastly greater. Respect for law has not increased, but diminished.”

“The true'to put it very briefly, is only the expedient in the way of our thinking, just as 'the right' is only the expedient in the way of our behaving.”

“My strong preference has always been to legislate when I can get legislation done.”

“It's your life - but only if you make it so. The standards by which you live must be your own standards, your own values, your own convictions in regard to what is right and wrong, what is true and false, what is important and what is trivial. When you adopt the standards and the values of someone else . . . you surrender your own integrity. You become, to the extent of your surrender, less of a human being.”

“Just trust your instincts. There's an old saying in golf, you've studied the swing many times, and you practice and practice, but when you stand over the ball, you just have to trust your swing. And you trust it. And if you don't trust it, you'll ruin it; your brain will take over.”

“If you put a chain around the neck of a slave, the other end fastens itself around your own.”

“Every adversity, every failure, and every heartache, carries with it the Seed of an equivalent or greater Benefit.”

“The single biggest way to impact an organization is to focus on leadership development. There is almost no limit to the potential of an organization that recruits good people, raises them up as leaders and continually develops them.”

“I was elected a Captain of Volunteers--a success which gave me more pleasure than any I have had since.”

“Perpetual modernness is the measure of merit, in every work of art; since the author of it was not misled by anything short- livedor local, but abode by real and abiding traits.”

“The lakes are something which you are unprepared for; they lie up so high, exposed to the light, and the forest is diminished to a fine fringe on their edges, with here and there a blue mountain, like amethyst jewels set around some jewel of the first water, - so anterior, so superior, to all the changes that are to take place on their shores, even now civil and refined, and fair as they can ever be.”

“It is pitiful when a man bears a name for convenience merely, who has earned neither name nor fame.”

“The cruelest foe is a masked benefactor. The wars which make history so dreary have served the cause of truth and virtue.”

“I definitely feel that we cannot do the fantastic things based on the real, unless we first know the real.”

“Fear comes from uncertainty; we can eliminate the fear within us when we know ourselves better.”

“I’ve been really fortunate in that I guess I was hired to do A Cook’s Tour, I was already a known quantity, meaning I had written a really obnoxious book and nobody expected me to be anyone that I wasn’t already.”

“An answer to a question no one asked is a wasted answer.”

“The achievements of an organization are the results of the combined effort of each individual.”

“Knowledge fueled by emotion equals action.”

“If you are influenced by the opinions of others, you will have no DESIRE of your own.”

“No experiment can be more interesting than that we are now trying, and which we trust will end in establishing the fact, that man may be governed by reason and truth. Our first object should therefore be, to leave open to him all the avenues to truth. The most effectual hitherto found, is the freedom of the press. It is, therefore, the first shut up by those who fear the investigation of their actions.”

“Pressure makes diamonds”

“Autumn leaves falling down like pieces into place, and I can picture it after all these days.”

“What is that you express in your eyes? It seems to me more than all the print I have read in my life.”

“The key to immortality is first living a life worth remembering.”

“Operation Iraqi Freedom is over, and the Iraqi people now have lead responsibility for the security of their country”

“The surest way to be happy is to seek happiness for others.”

“Peace does not rest in the charters and covenants alone. It lies in the hearts and minds of all people. So let us not rest all our hopes on parchment and on paper, let us strive to build peace, a desire for peace, a willingness to work for peace in the hearts and minds of all of our people. I believe that we can. I believe the problems of human destiny are not beyond the reach of human beings.”

“This year I am choosing to live beyond my wildest dreams. I wonder where they'll take me.”

“The processes of growth are gradual, bearing fruit in a decade, not a day.”

“Life's not about expecting, hoping and wishing. It's about doing, being and becoming. It's about t Learn from the mistakes of others. You can't live long enough to make them all yourself.”

“I was like, "If I don't change my mind, if I don't change my heart, if I don't develop some skill, I'm always going to be sleeping in my car."”

“We are most alive when we're in love.”

“It doesn't matter how much you get; you are left wanting more.”

“From the greatest to the smallest, happiness and usefulness are largely found in the same soul, and the joy of life is won in its deepest and truest sense only by those who have not shirked life's burdens.”

“Who needs action when you got words?”

“The United States must be neutral in fact as well as in name.... We must be impartial in thought as well as in actiona nationthat neither sits in judgment upon others nor is disturbed in her own counsels and which keeps herself fit and free to do what is honest and disinterested and truly serviceable for the peace of the world.”

“Let us draw a lesson from nature, which always works by short ways. When the fruit is ripe, it falls.”

“I think that each of us is so much alike, and yet at the same time we are so different, and I have a feeling that if you encountered difficulty, and I with my age encountered the same difficulty, I would respond one way, and you would respond another. Neither would be right or wrong. It's just that each of us is courageous, and that's what I encourage, courage, and the courage to see, and the courage to say to oneself what one has seen. Don't be in denial.”

“I've always taken men just as I found 'em, and thank heavens I've been able to find 'em.”

“. . . but mostly, given another shot at life, I would seize every minute - look at it and really see it - live it - and never give it back.”

“I always like to look on the optimistic side of life, but I am realistic enough to know that life is a complex matter. With the laugh comes the tears and in developing motion pictures or television shows, you must combine all the facts of life - drama, pathos and humor.”

“An idea is worthless unless you use it.”

“The more you think, the more time you have.”

“I am not afraid of a person who knows 10000 kicks. But I am afraid of a person who knows one kick but practices it for 10000 times.”

“Happiness is intrinsic, it's an internal thing. When you build it into yourself, no external circumstances can take it away.”

“Someone's sitting in the shade today because someone planted a tree a long time ago. The person sitting in the shade now should be grateful for the person who planted and tended that tree. That includes all those benefactors of humanity throughout history that created, invented, financed, produced, maintained and improved all that we enjoy today.”

“There's power in looking silly and not caring that you do.”

“A common and natural result of an undue respect for law is, that you may see a file of soldiers, colonel, captain, corporal, privates, powder-monkeys, and all, marching in admirable order over hill and dale to the wars, against their wills, ay, against their common sense and consciences, which makes it very steep marching indeed, and produces a palpitation of the heart.”