If you never budge, don’t expect a push.
—MALCOLM S. FORBES
You must get involved to have an impact. No one is impressed with the won-lost record of the referee.
—JOHN H. HOLCOMB
The Militant Moderate
Swing hard, in case they throw the ball where you’re swinging.
—DUKE SNIDER
Life is a great big canvas, and you should throw all the paint on it you can.
—DANNY KAYE
Success is a ladder that cannot be climbed with your hands in your pockets.
—AMERICAN PROVERB
Few wishes come true by themselves.
—JUNE SMITH
in Sentinel (Orlando, Florida)
Dig the well before you are thirsty.
—CHINESE PROVERB
Have you considered that if you “don’t make waves,” nobody, including yourself, will know that you are alive?
—THEODORE ISAAC RUBIN, MD
Many a man with no family tree has succeeded because he branched out for himself.
—LEO AIKMAN
God gives every bird his worm, but he does not throw it into the nest.
—SWEDISH PROVERB
Ask God’s blessing on your work, but don’t ask him to do it for you.
—DAME FLORA ROBSON
on Friends, BBC
It is easy to sit up and take notice. What is difficult is getting up and taking action.
—AL BATT
Not everything that is faced can be changed. But nothing can be changed until it is faced.
—JAMES BALDWIN
Our dilemma is that we hate change and love it at the same time; what we really want is for things to remain the same but get better.
—SYDNEY J. HARRIS
Just as iron rusts from disuse, even so does inaction spoil the intellect.
—LEONARDO DA VINCI
Men may doubt what you say, but they will believe what you do.
—LEWIS CASS
If your ship doesn’t come in, swim out to it!
—JONATHAN WINTERS
Sow an act, and you reap a habit. Sow a habit, and you reap a character. Sow a character, and you reap a destiny.
—CHARLES READE
BE BOLD IN WHAT YOU STAND FOR . . .
Be bold in what you stand for and careful what you fall for.
—RUTH BOORSTIN
in The Wall Street Journal
Don’t believe that winning is really everything. It’s more important to stand for something. If you don’t stand for something, what do you win?
—LANE KIRKLAND
Never give in—in nothing, great or small, large or petty—except to convictions of honor and good sense.
—WINSTON CHURCHILL
The quality of a man’s life is in direct proportion to his commitment to excellence, regardless of his chosen field of endeavor.
—VINCE LOMBARDI
A good resolution is like an old horse which is often saddled but rarely ridden.
—MEXICAN PROVERB
Compromise makes a good umbrella, but a poor roof.
—JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
A thing moderately good is not so good as it ought to be. Moderation in temper is always a virtue; but moderation in principle is always a vice.
—THOMAS PAINE
He that always gives way to others will end in having no principles of his own.
—AESOP
Middleness is the very enemy of the bold.
—CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER
You’ve got to stand for somethin’ or you’re gonna fall for anything.
—JOHN COUGAR MELLENCAMP
“You’ve Got to Stand for Somethin’”
Learn to say no. It will be of more use to you than to be able to read Latin.
—CHARLES HADDON SPURGEON
One-half the troubles of this life can be traced to saying yes too quickly and not saying no soon enough.
—JOSH BILLINGS
It’s important that people should know what you stand for. It’s equally important that they know what you won’t stand for.
—MARY H. WALDRIP
Standing in the middle of the road is very dangerous; you get knocked down by the traffic from both sides.
—MARGARET THATCHER
—SYDNEY J. HARRIS
The most prominent place in hell is reserved for those who are neutral on the great issues of life.
—REV. BILLY GRAHAM
Never “for the sake of peace and quiet” deny your own experience or convictions.
—DAG HAMMARSKJOLD
When something important is going on, silence is a lie.
—A. M. ROSENTHAL
in The New York Times
Please all and you please none.
—AESOP
He who turns the other cheek too far gets it in the neck.
—H. HERT
You can lean over backward so far that you fall flat on your face.
—BEN H. BAGDIKIAN
In the end it will not matter to us whether we fought with flails or reeds. It will matter to us greatly on what side we fought.
—G. K. CHESTERTON
A man’s judgment is best when he can forget himself and any reputation he may have acquired and can concentrate wholly on making the right decisions.
—ADM. RAYMOND A. SPRUANCE
OPPORTUNITIES ARE NEVER LOST . . .
Opportunities are never lost. The other fellow takes those you miss.
—ANONYMOUS
Not many sounds in life, and I include all urban and all rural sounds, exceed in interest a knock at the door.
—CHARLES LAMB
The world is before you, and you need not take it or leave it as it was when you came in.
—JAMES BALDWIN
Opportunity is often difficult to recognize; we usually expect it to beckon us with beepers and billboards.
—WILLIAM ARTHUR WARD
If opportunity doesn’t knock, build a door.
—MILTON BERLE
It is often hard to distinguish between the hard knocks in life and those of opportunity.
—FREDERICK PHILLIPS
Life is always walking up to us and saying, “Come on in, the living’s fine,” and what do we do? Back off and take its picture.
—RUSSELL BAKER
Opportunity is sometimes hard to recognize if you’re only looking for a lucky break.
—MONTA CRANE
Opportunity’s favorite disguise is trouble.
—FRANK TYGER
in Rotary “Scandal Sheet” (Graham, Texas)
Opportunities are often things you haven’t noticed the first time around.
—CATHERINE DENEUVE
Wherever we look upon this earth, the opportunities take shape within the problems.
—NELSON A. ROCKEFELLER
If a window of opportunity appears, don’t pull down the shade.
—TOM PETERS
The Pursuit of Wow!
A problem is a chance for you to do your best.
—DUKE ELLINGTON
Jumping at several small opportunities may get us there more quickly than waiting for one big one to come along.
—HUGH ALLEN
Problems are only opportunities with thorns on them.
—HUGH MILLER
Snow on the Wind
Opportunity is a bird that never perches.
—CLAUDE MCDONALD
One of the secrets of life is to make stepping stones out of stumbling blocks.
—JACK PENN
Today’s opportunities erase yesterday’s failures.
—GENE BROWN
in News-Times (Danbury, Connecticut)
I make the most of all that comes and the least of all that goes.
—SARA TEASDALE
“The Philosopher,” in Poems That Touch the Heart, edited by A. L. Alexander
OUT ON A LIMB . . .
Why not go out on a limb? Isn’t that where the fruit is?
—FRANK SCULLY
All growth, including political growth, is the result of risk-taking.
—JUDE WANNISKI
What isn’t tried won’t work.
—CLAUDE MCDONALD
in The Christian Word
What is more mortifying than to feel that you have missed the plum for want of courage to shake the tree?
—LOGAN PEARSALL SMITH
It is not because things are difficult that we do not dare; it is because we do not dare that they are difficult.
—SENECA
What would life be if we had no courage to attempt anything?
—VINCENT VAN GOGH
A coward meets his fate in his own hideout.
—JORGE SALVADOR LARA
El Comercio
All serious daring starts from within.
—EUDORA WELTY
One Writer’s Beginnings
If you risk nothing, then you risk everything.
—GEENA DAVIS
Worry is like a rocking chair. It will give you something to do, but it won’t get you anywhere.
—The United Church Observer
Progress always involves risks. You can’t steal second base and keep your foot on first.
—FREDERICK B. WILCOX
Yes, risk-taking is inherently failure-prone. Otherwise, it would be called sure-thing-taking.
—TIM MCMAHON
Take a chance! All life is a chance. The man who goes furthest is generally the one who is willing to do and dare.
—Dale Carnegie’s Scrapbook, edited by Dorothy Carnegie
People wish to learn to swim and at the same time to keep one foot on the ground.
—MARCEL PROUST
Remembrance of Things Past
High expectations are the key to everything.
—SAM WALTON
If you’re never scared or embarrassed or hurt, it means you never take any chances.
—JULIA SOREL
When you’re skating on thin ice, you may as well tap-dance.
—BRYCE COURTENAY
It’s better to plunge into the unknown than to try to make sure of everything.
—GERALD LESCARBEAULT
Take calculated risks. That is quite different from being rash.
—GEN. GEORGE S. PATTON JR.
We cannot become what we need to be by remaining what we are.
—MAX DE PREE
Leadership Is an Art
When you reach for the stars, you may not quite get one, but you won’t come up with a handful of mud either.
—LEO BURNETT
In skating over thin ice, our safety is in our speed.
—RALPH WALDO EMERSON
You are permitted in time of great danger to walk with the devil until you have crossed the bridge.
—BULGARIAN PROVERB
If you don’t place your foot on the rope, you’ll never cross the chasm.
—LIZ SMITH
Necessity is the mother of taking chances.
—MARK TWAIN
If necessity is the mother of invention, discontent is the father of progress.
—DAVID ROCKEFELLER
Sometimes the fool who rushes in gets the job done.
—AL BERNSTEIN
A man sits as many risks as he runs.
—HENRY DAVID THOREAU
A ship in harbor is safe—but that is not what ships are for.
—JOHN A. SHEDD
A ROAD TWICE TRAVELED . . .
A road twice traveled is never as long.
—ROSALIE GRAHAM
The meaning of life cannot be told; it has to happen to a person.
—IRA PROGOFF
The Symbolic & the Real
The winds and waves are always on the side of the ablest navigators.
—EDWARD GIBBON
The person who has had a bull by the tail once has learned 60 or 70 times as much as a person who hasn’t.
—MARK TWAIN
The work will teach you how to do it.
—ESTONIAN PROVERB
Sometimes you earn more doing the jobs that pay nothing.
—TODD RUTHMAN
When you fall in a river, you’re no longer a fisherman; you’re a swimmer.
—GENE HILL
in Field & Stream
Believe one who has tried it.
—VIRGIL
Information’s pretty thin stuff unless mixed with experience.
—CLARENCE DAY
The Crow’s Nest
Only the wearer knows where the shoe pinches.
—PROVERB
A man begins cutting his wisdom teeth the first time he bites off more than he can chew.
—HERB CAEN
The value of experience is not in seeing much, but in seeing wisely.
—SIR WILLIAM OSLER
One thing about experience is that when you don’t have very much you’re apt to get a lot.
—FRANKLIN P. JONES
in Quote
Experience is a wonderful thing; it enables you to recognize a mistake every time you repeat it.
—The Associated Press
We learn to walk by stumbling.
—BULGARIAN PROVERB
I have never let my schooling interfere with my education.
—MARK TWAIN
People learn something every day, and a lot of times it’s that what they learned the day before was wrong.
—BILL VAUGHAN
Just when you think you’ve graduated from the school of experience, someone thinks up a new course.
—MARY H. WALDRIP
Experience is what you get when you don’t get what you want.
—DAN STANFORD
Anybody who profits from the experience of others probably writes biographies.
—FRANKLIN P. JONES
If we could sell our experiences for what they cost us, we’d all be millionaires.
—ABIGAIL VAN BUREN
Half, maybe more, of the delight of experiencing is to know what you are experiencing.
—JESSAMYN WEST
Hide and Seek
Perhaps the angels who fear to tread where fools rush in used to be fools who rushed in.
—FRANKLIN P. JONES
HE WHO HESITATES . . .
He who hesitates is last.
—The Wit and Wisdom of Mae West
edited by Joseph Weintraub
He who hesitates is sometimes saved.
—JAMES THURBER
Fables for Our Time
These things are good in little measure and evil in large: yeast, salt and hesitation.
—The Talmud
The man who insists upon seeing with perfect clearness before he decides, never decides.
—HENRI FRÉDÉRIC AMIEL
A man would do nothing if he waited until he could do it so well that no one could find fault.
—JOHN HENRY CARDINAL NEWMAN
It’s better to be boldly decisive and risk being wrong than to agonize at length and be right too late.
—MARILYN MOATS KENNEDY
Across the Board
If all difficulties were known at the outset of a long journey, most of us would never start out at all.
—DAN RATHER WITH PETER WYDEN
I Remember
Decision is a sharp knife that cuts clean and straight. Indecision is a dull one that hacks and tears and leaves ragged edges behind.
—JAN MCKEITHEN
The chief danger in life is that you may take too many precautions.
—ALFRED ADLER
You have to be careful about being too careful.
—BERYL PFIZER
If you wait, all that happens is that you get older.
—LARRY MCMURTRY
Some Can Whistle