The Minute You Think You've Got It, You've Lost It

Image by stuant63 via FlickrMan’s highest merit always is, as much as possible, to rule external circumstances and as little as possible to let himself be ruled by them. – Johann wolfgang von Goethe




All cruelty springs from weakness. – Seneca



One time it pays to have a firm hand is when it shakes hands with a firmer one. – O.A. Battista



Our strength is often composed of the weakness we’re damned if we’re going to show. – Mignon McLaughlin



The greatest weakness of all is the great fear of appearing weak. – Jacques Benigne Boussuet



Humility is a strange thing. The minute you think you’ve got it, you’ve lost it. – E.D. Hulse



Let the meek inherit the earth – they have it coming to them. – James Thurber

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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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More Hatched than come to Perfection

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All professional men are handicapped by not being allowed to ignore things which are useless. – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe




No man can be a pure specialist without being in a strict sense an idiot. – Geroge Bernhard Shaw



The professional mind is so microscopic that it sometimes ceases to be binocular. – Bernard De Voto



The priest’s friend loses his faith, the doctor’s his health. – Venetian proverb



Lawyers, preachers and tomtit’s eggs. There are more of them hatched than come to perfection. – Benjamin Franklin



Professions, like nations, are civilized to the degree to which they can satirise themselves. – Peter de Vries



It is good for a professional to be reminded that his professionalism is only a husk, the real person must remain an amateur, a lover of the work. – May Sarton

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Sorry We Couldn’t Wait - Pressing Business Elsewhere

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Nikolai Gogol – Russian novelist
"And I shall laugh a bitter laugh."

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe – German Romantic poet
"More light! More Light!"

Oliver Goldsmith – English writer on being asked whether his mind was at ease
"No, it is not."

Joseph Green – a surgeon checking his own pulse -
"Congestion --- stopped."

Seaman Grontoft – Norwegian wireless operator
"We are sinking stern first. The boats are smashed. Can’t hold out longer. The skipper dictated that. He ought to know. Where did I put my hat? Sorry, we couldn’t wait for you. Pressing business elsewhere. Skaal."

Richard Halliburton – writer, explorer, adventurer
His last message from the Pacific
"Southerly gales, squalls, lee rail under water, wet bunks, hard tack, bully beef, wish you were here – instead of me."

Mozart (referring to a musical score on which he was working)
"Did I not tell you that I was writing this for myself?"

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A Tragedy for Those Who Feel

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The world is a vast temple dedicated to Discord. – Voltaire

In this world, nothing is certain but death and taxes. – Benjamin Franklin

We do not have to visit a madhouse to find disordered minds; our planet is the mental institution of the universe. – Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

In the fight between you and the world, back the world. – Frank Zappa

The world is a comedy for those who think and a tragedy for those who feel. – Horace Walpole

The world is a funny paper read backwards—and that way it isn’t so funny. – Tennessee Williams

If the world was a logical place, men would ride side-saddle. – Rita Mae Brown

Maybe this world is another planet’s hell. – Aldous Huxley

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Dog’s Ideal of What God Should Be

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Man is a dog’s ideal of what God should be – Holbrook Jackson

I love mankind; it’s people I can’t stand. – Charles Schultz

To succeed in the world it is not enough to be stupid, you must also be well-mannered. – Voltaire

I couldn’t see tying myself down to a middle-aged woman with four children, even though the woman was my wife and the children were my own. – Joseph Heller

The chain of wedlock is so heavy that it takes two to carry it – sometimes three. – Alexandre Dumas

Marriage is the only adventure open to the cowardly. – Voltaire

I got married the second time in the way that, when a murder is committed, crackpots turn up at the police station to confess the crime. – Delmore Schwartz

Love is an ideal thing, marriage is a real thing; a confusion of the real with the ideal never goes unpunished. – Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

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