The No Man's Land Between Two Stools

Image via WikipediaDo you have trouble making up your mind? Well – yes and no. – Herbert V. Prochnow




I must have a prodigious quantity of mind; it takes me as much as a week sometimes, to make it up. – Mark Twain



Like all weak men he laid an exaggerated stress on not changing one’s mind. – William Somerset Maugham



There are men who would even be afraid to commit themselves on the doctrine that castor oil is a laxative.



It’s no good saying, “Hold it” to a moment of real life. – Lord Snowdon



When we are not sure we are alive. – Graham Greene



Between two stools one falls to the ground. – proverb

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Even a Bad Decision Trumps Chronic Indecision

Image via WikipediaThere are three ways to get something done: do it yourself, employ someone or forbid your children to do it. – Monta Crand




Never confuse motion with action. – Ernest Hemingway



Most people do things because they have to. Those that get ahead do things because they don’t have to. – anonymous



Everybody ought to do at least two things each day that he hates to do, just for practice. – William James



In action, be primitive, in foresight, a strategist. – Rene Char



According to a study of unsuccessful executives, inability to make decisions is one of the principal reasons of failure. – Herman w. Steinkraus



The only thing worse than a bad decision is indecision. – Professor Ray E. Brown

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Don't Sell the Bear's Skin before you've Caught Him

Image via WikipediaSell not the bear’s skin before you have caught him. – Thomas Fuller




We should lay up in peace what we shall need in war. – Publius Syrus



Admire a little ship, but put your cargo in a big one. – Hesiod



Better have one plough going than two cradles. – Edmund Fuller



Butter spoils no meat and moderation no cause. – Danish Proverb



Keep a thing for seven years and you’ll find use for it. – Irish Proverb



What’s not worth doing is not worth doing well. – Don Hebb

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Never Insult an Alligator

Image by Chickenboots via FlickrTell not all you know, believe not all you hear, do not all you are able. – Italian Proverb




There is no way to catch a snake that is as safte as not catching him. -–Jacob M Braude



Never insult an alligator until after you have crossed the river. – Cordell Hull



I had rather ride on an ass that carries me than a horse that throws me. – George Herbert



It is best to read the weather forecasts before we pray for rain. – Mark Twain



When you have got an elephant by the hind leg, and he is trying to run away, it’s best to let him run. – Abraham Lincoln



Dig a well before you are thirsty. – Chinese Proverb

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Pogo - We are Confronted with Insurmountable Opportunities

Image by elycefeliz via FlickrIt is no disgrace to start all over. It is usually an opportunity. – George M. Adams




We are confronted with insurmountable opportunities. – Pogo



The secret of happiness in life, is for a man to be ready for his opportunity when it comes. – Benjamin Disraeli



For the highest task of intelligence is to grasp and recognize opportunity, possibility. – John Dewey



God’s best gift to us is not things, but opportunities. – Alice W. Rollins



No one tests the depth of a river with both feet. – Ashanti Proverb



With a relation eat and drink; but conduct no business with him. – Greek proverb

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Virgin Territory for Whorehouses

Image via WikipediaThe opportunity that God sends does not wake up him who is asleep. – Sengalese Proverb




There is no security on this earth; there is only opportunity. - Douglas MacArthur



This is virgin territory for whorehouses. – Al Capone



Everything comes to the man who does not need it. – French Proverb



Do not suppose opportunity will knock twice at our door. – Sebastian Roch Nicolas



An optimist sees an opportunity in every calamity; a pessimist sees a calamity in every opportunity. – Sir Winston Churchill



One thing life taught me: if you are interested, you never have to look for new interests. They come to you. When you are genuinely interested in one thing, it will always lead to something else. – Eleanor Roosevelt

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The Right Moment for Grasping a Disappointment

Image by zyphichore via FlickrA whole bushel of wheat is made up of single grains. – Thomas Fuller




The mightiest rivers lose their force when split up into several streams. – Publius Ovid

While we stop to think, we often miss our opportunity. – Publius Syrus



An opportunity is picking the right moment for grasping a disappointment. – anonymous



The world is an oyster but you don’t crack it open on a mattress. – Arthur Miller


Opportunity is closest when everyone is against taking advantage of it. – anonymous



An opportunist counts his fingers after shaking hands with another opportunist. - anonymous

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Around the World in Seven Years

Image by Garry - www.visionandimagination.com via FlickrLet me tell you the secret that has led me to my goal. My strength lies solely in my tenacity. – Louis Pasteur




Great works are performed, not by strength, but by perseverance. He that shall walk, with vigor, three hours a day, will pass, in seven years, a space equal to the circumference of the globe. – Samuel Johnson



Fall seven times, stand up eight. – Japanese Proverb



To persevere trusting in what hopes he has is courage in a man. The coward despairs. – Euripides



There is nothing in the world I wouldn’t do for Hope, and there is nothing he wouldn’t do for me. We spend our lives doing nothing for each other. – Bing Crosby



There are black sheep in every flock. – Proverb



Men do not change their characters by uniting with one another, nor does their patience in the presence of obstacles increase with their strength. – Alexis de Tocqueville

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A Rat May Drown a Nation

Image via WikipediaPerseverance is the most overrated of traits, if it is unaccompanied by talent: beating your head against a wall is more likely to produce a concussion in the head than a hole in the wall. – Sydney Harris




I’m a slow walker, but I never walk back. – Abraham Lincoln



When you get into a tight place and everything goes against you, till it seems ou could not hold on a minute longer, never give up then, for that is just the place and time that the tide will turn. – Harriet Beecher Stowe



One may go a long way after one is tired. – French proverb



Perseverance is a silent power that grows irresistibly greater with time. – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe



By gnawing through a dyke, even a rat may drown a nation. – Edmund Burke



‘Tis known by the name of perseverance in a good cause, and obstinacy is a bad one. – Laurence Sterne

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How Did the Snail Reach the Ark?

Image via WikipediaPerseverance is another name for success. – Anonymous




When you get to the end of your rope, tie a knot and hang on. – Franklin D. Roosevelt



One becomes more interested in a job of work after the first impulse to drop it has been overcome. – Fulton J. Sheen



The last key in the bunch is often the one to open the lock. – Anonymous



Perseverance is not a long race; it is many short races one after another. – Walter Elliott



One of the first rules of perseverance is to know when to stop persevering. – Carolyn Wells



By perseverance the snail reached the Ark. - Charles Spurgeon

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Death by Creeping Common Sense

Image by doug88888 via FlickrMy mother’s favorite Chinese Proverb: Never do anything standing that you can do siting, or anything sitting that you can do lying down.




The philosophy of one century is the common sense of the next. – Henry Ward Beecher



Common sense is the wick of the candle. – Ralph Waldo Emerson



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. – Oscar Wilde



Common sense is the knack of seeing things as they are, and doing things as they ought to be done. – Calvin Ellis Stowe



The crown of all faculties is common sense. It is not enough to do all the right things: it must be done at the right tie and place. – william Matthews

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The End of Thought as We Know It

Image by swanksalot via FlickrIf I wished to punish a province, I would have it governed by philosophers. – Frederick the Great




Men are much more apt to agree in what they do than in what they think. – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe



Dogma does not mean the absence of thought, but the end of thought. – Gilbert Keith Chesterton



Every man is encompassed by a cloud of comforting convictions, which move with him like flies on a summer day. – Bertrand Russell



Common sense is the collection of prejudices by the age of eighteen. – Albert Einstein



Nothing astonishes men so much as common sense and plain dealing. – Ralph Waldo Emerson



Common sense in an uncommon degree is what the world calls wisdom. – Samuel Taylor Coleridge

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Image by danpeters via FlickrPerhaps the most valuable result of all education is the ability to make yourself do the thing you have to do, when it ought to be done, whether you like it or not; it is the first lesson that ought to be learned, and however early a man’s training begins, it is probably the last lesson that he learns thoroughly. – Thomas Henry Huxley




Human history becomes more and more a race between education and catastrophe. – Herbert George Wells



A first-rate theory predicts: a second-rate theory forbids: and a third-rate theory explains after the event. – A.I. Kitaigorodskii



But I hang onto my prejudices. They are the testicles of my mind. – Eric Hoffer

Action will remove the doubt that theory cannot solve. – Tehyi Hsieh

No theory is good except on condition that one use it to go beyond. – Andre Gide
First a new theory is attacked as absurd: then it is admitted to be true, but obvious and insignificant: finally, it is seen to be so important that its adversaries claim that they themselves discovered it. – William James

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Image via WikipediaThe finished man of the world must eat of every apple once. -–Ralph Waldo Emerson




For the maintenance costs of one horse, you could send two kids to Harvard. – Mike McGrady



A modern college is a place where 2,000 can be seated in the classrooms and 50,000 in the stadium. – anonymous



“Whom are you?” he asked, for he had been to night school. – George Ade



Education is a method whereby one acquires a higher grade of prejudices. – Laurence J. Peter



I am still of the opinion that only two topics can be of the least interest to a serious and studious mind – sex and the dead. – William Butler Yeats


Fathers send their sons to college, either because they went to college, or because they didn’t. – L.L. Henderson

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Do I Cross this Bridge or Burn It?

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I am always ready to learn but I do not always like being taught. – Winston Churchill




The hardest thing to learn in life is which bridge to cross and which to burn. – David Russell



Never seem more learned than the people you are with. Wear your learning like a pocket watch and keep it hidden. Do not pull it out to count the hours, but give the time when you are asked. – Lord Chesterfield



The three foundations of learning: seeing much, suffering much, and studying much. – Catherall



The most beautiful thing in the world is, precisely, the conjunction of learning and inspiration. - Wanda Landowska



Learning is learning what you didn’t even know you didn’t know. – Ralph Waldo Emerson



One of the few things a person is willing to pay for and not get. – (education) – William L. Bryan

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Our Ignorance Must Necessarily be Infinite

Image by TheAlieness GiselaGiardino²³ via FlickrWe often forgive those who bore us, but we cannot forgive those who find us boring. – Francois Duc de la Rochefoucauld




As we grow older, our bodies get shorter and our anecdotes longer. – Robert Quillen



Perhaps the world’s second worst crime is boredom. The first is being a bore. – Cecil Beaton



The law of Raspberry Jam. The wider any culture is spread, the thinner it gets. – Alvin Toffler



To know that we know what we know, and that we do not know what we do not know, that is true knowledge. – Henry David Thoreau



Our knowledge can only be finite, while our ignorance must necessarily be infinite. – Sir Karl Popper



It’s what you learn after you know it all that counts. – Jo

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Milking the Greedy Pauses Until they're Udderless

Image via WikipediaThe human brain starts working the moment you are born and never stops until you stand up to speak in public. – Sir George Jessel




The broad masses of the people can be moved only by the power of speech. – Adolf Hitler



Lecturer: One with his hand in your pocket, his tongue in your ear and his faith in your patience. – Ambrose Bierce



The best impromptu speeches are the ones written well in advance. – Ruth Gordon



If you are offered an honorarium for a speech, you can be sure the money is of no consequncium. – Merle Miller’



All the great speakers were bad speakers at first. – Ralph Waldo Emerson



I’m going to milk those greedy pauses till they’re udderless. – Richard Burton

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A Refuge from the Miseries of Life

Image by MookieLuv via FlickrTo acquire the habit of reading is to construct for yourself a refuge from almost all the miseries of life. – W. Somerset Maugham




A library is thought in cold storage. – Herbert Samuel



The worst thing about new books is that they keep us from reading the old ones. – Joseph Joubert



Never read a book through merely because you have begun it. – John Whitherspoon



Readers are of two sorts: one who carefully goes through a book, and the other who as carefully lets the book go through him. – Douglas Jerrold



He picked something valuable out of everything he read. – Pliny the Younger



The reading of all good books is like a conversation with the finest men of past centuries. – Rene Descartes

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It's Bad for the Mind to Always be part of a Unanimity

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It is well to read everything of something and something of everything. – Lord Brougham

Reading after a certain age, diverts the mind too much from its creative pursuits. Any man who reads too much and uses his own brain too little falls into lazy habits of thinking. – Albert Einstein

Reading should be in proportion to thinking, and thinking in proportion to reading. – Nathaniel Emmons

Reading makes a full man, meditation a profound man, discourse a clear man. – Benjamin Franklin

We must form our minds by reading deep rather than wide. – Marcus Favius Quintilianus

I read for three things: first to know what the world has done during the last twenty-four hours, and is about to do today; second, for the knowledge that I specifically want in my work; and third, for what will bring my mind into a proper mood. – Henry Ward Beecher

Read every day something no one else is reading. Think every day something no one else is thinking. It is bad for the mind to be always a part of a unanimity. – Christopher Morley

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Eating Without Degesting is Like Reading Without Reflecting

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Some people read because they are too lazy to think. – Georg Christoph Lichtenberg



If you believe everything you read, better not read. – Japanese proverb



Reading made Don Quixote a gentelman, but believing what he read made him mad. – George Bernard Shaw



My brother cuts the time it takes to read a newspaper by skipping everything in the future tense; and it’s amazing what he doesn’t miss.



Reading means borrowing. – Georg Christoph Lichtenberg



Integrity is the thing which keeps you from looking ahead to see how the story ends. – Jacob M Braude



Reading without reflecting is like eating without digesting. – Edmund Burke

Dyslexia Rules! - K.O.?

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Reading is sometimes an ingenious device for avoiding thought. – Arthur Helps




I am part of all that I have read. – John Kieran



Dyslexia Rules – K.O.? – Graffiti



I read part of it all the way through. – Samuel Goldwyn



Reading is seeing by proxy. – Herbert Spencer



Every man has one thing he can o better than anyone else – and usually it’s reading his own handwriting. – G. Norman Collie



I’m not a speed reader. I’m a speed understander. – Isaac Asimov

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One Disloyal Subject Keeps the Despot Sane

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Every despot must have one disloyal subject to keep him sane. – George Bernard Shaw




He who requires much from himself and little from others, will keep himself from being the object of resentment. – Confucius



A true leader always keeps an element of surprise up his sleeve, which others cannot grasp but which keeps his public excited and breathless. – Charles de Gaulle



Dictators ride to and fro upon tigers from which they dare not dismount. – Hindu Proverb



Kindness the most unkindest thing of all. – Edna O’Brien



Really great men have a curious feeling that the greatness is not in them but through them. – John Ruskin



The winds and waves are always on the side of the ablest navigators. – Edward Gibbon



A leader or a man of action in a crisis almost always acts subconsciously and then thinks of the reasons for his action. – Jawaharlal Nehru

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To Rule Quietly, Keep them Amuses

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Never tell people how to do things. Tell them what to do and they will surprise you with their ingenuity. – George S. Patton




Leadership is the ability to get men to do what they don’t want to do and like it. – Harry Truman



If you would rule the world quietly, you must keep it amused – Ralph Waldo Emerson



The real leader has no need to lead – he is content to point the way. – Henry Miller



You don’t have to be intellectualy bright to be a competent leader. – Sir Edmund Hillary



I have an absolute rule. I refuse to make a decision that somebody else can make. The first rule of leadership is to save yourself for the big decision. Don’t allow your mind to become cluttered with the trivia. Don’t let yourself become the issue. – Richard Nixon



The art of leadership consists in consolidating the attention of the people against a single adversary and taking care that nothing will split up that attention. – Adolf Hitler

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Power is Always Insolent

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What you cannot enforce, do not demand. – Sophocles

You only have power over people so long as you don’t take everything away from them. But when you’ve robbed a man of everything he’s no longer in your power – he’s free again. – Alexander Solzhenitsyn

Power acquired by guilt has seldom been directed to any good end or useful purpose. – Cornelius Tacitus

Power is always right, weakness always wrong. Power is always insolent an despotic. – Noah Webster

If you don’t drive your business, you will be driven out of business. – B.C. Forbes

In the simplest terms, a leader is one who knows where he wants to go, and gets up and goes. – John Erskine

Henry Ford could get anything out of men because he just talked and would tell them stories. He’d never say, “I want this done!” He’d say, “I wonder if we can do it.” – George Brown

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Weakness Corrupts the Many

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The measure of a man is what he does with power. – Pittacus

The great secret of power is never to will to do more than you can accomplish. – Henrik Ibsen

Power corrupts the few, while weakness corrupts the many. – Eric Hoffer

It is a paradox that every dictator has climbed to power on the ladder of free speech. Immediately on attaining power each dictator has suppressed all free speech except his own. – Herbert Hoover

Knowledge! Money! Power! That’s the cycle democracy is built on. – Tennessee Williams

If you are a terror to many, then beware of many. – Ausonius



Use power to curb power. – Chinese proverb

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