Public opinion is like the castle ghost; no one has ever seen it, but everyone is scared of it.
—SIGMUND GRAFF
Every conviction was a whim at birth.
—HEYWOOD BROUN
Refusing to have an opinion is a way of having one, isn’t it?
—LUIGI PIRANDELLO
Each in His Own Way
Saying what we think gives a wider range of conversation than saying what we know.
—CULLEN HIGHTOWER
To disagree, one doesn’t have to be disagreeable.
—BARRY M. GOLDWATER WITH JACK CASSERLY
Goldwater
There’s a difference between opinion and conviction. My opinion is something that is true for me personally; my conviction is something that is true for everybody—in my opinion.
—SYLVIA CORDWOOD
Every new opinion, at its starting, is precisely in a minority of one.
—THOMAS CARLYLE
ADMIRABLE ADVICE . . .
I sometimes give myself admirable advice, but I am incapable of taking it.
—MARY WORTLEY MONTAGU
To profit from good advice requires more wisdom than to give it.
—JOHN CHURTON COLLINS
You don’t need to take a person’s advice to make him feel good—just ask for it.
—LAURENCE J. PETER
Peter’s Almanac
A knife of the keenest steel requires the whetstone, and the wisest man needs advice.
—ZOROASTER
Advice is an uncertain gift.
—WHITNEY JEFFERY
Expert advice is a great comfort, even when it’s wrong.
—Quoted by ELLEN CURRIE in The New York Times
When we ask for advice, we are usually looking for an accomplice.
—MARQUIS DE LA GRANGE
Advice is what we ask for when we already know the answer but wish we didn’t.
—ERICA JONG
Most of us ask for advice when we know the answer but want a different one.
—IVERN BALL
in National Enquirer
Express an opinion, but send advice by freight.
—CHARLES CLARK MUNN
Good advice usually works best when preceded by a bad scare.
—AL BATT
Of the few innocent pleasures left to men past middle life, the jamming of common sense down the throats of fools is perhaps the keenest.
—T. H. HUXLEY
When we are well, we all have good advice for those who are ill.
—TERENCE
We are never so generous as when giving advice.
—FRANÇOIS DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD
People who have what they want are fond of telling people who haven’t what they want that they really don’t want it.
—OGDEN NASH
We give advice by the bucket but take it by the grain.
—WILLIAM ALGER
The thing to do with good advice is to pass it on. It is never any good to oneself.
—OSCAR WILDE
Advice should always be consumed between two thick slices of doubt.
—WALT SCHMIDT
in Parklabrea News
The best advice yet given is that you don’t have to take it.
—LIBBIE FUDIM
Don’t be troubled if the temptation to give advice is irresistible; the ability to ignore it is universal.
—Planned Security
USE SOFT WORDS . . .
Use soft words and hard arguments.
—ENGLISH PROVERB
A good indignation makes an excellent speech.
—RALPH WALDO EMERSON
There is nothing in the world like a persuasive speech to fuddle the mental apparatus.
—MARK TWAIN
If you have an important point to make, don’t try to be subtle or clever. Use a pile driver. Hit the point once. Then come back and hit it again. Then hit it a third time a tremendous whack.
Charm is a way of getting the answer yes without asking a clear question.
—ALBERT CAMUS
The Fall
Praise, like gold and diamonds, owes its value only to its scarcity.
—SAMUEL JOHNSON
Sandwich every bit of criticism between two layers of praise.
—MARY KAY ASH
Mary Kay on People Management
One thought driven home is better than three left on base.
—JAMES LITER
in National Enquirer
Example is not the main thing in influencing others. It is the only thing.
—ALBERT SCHWEITZER
THE GREAT CHARM IN ARGUMENT . . .
The great charm in argument is really finding one’s own opinions, not other people’s.
—EVELYN WAUGH
It is better to debate a question without settling it than to settle a question without debating it.
—JOSEPH JOUBERT
Nothing can keep an argument going like two persons who aren’t sure what they’re arguing about.
—O. A. BATTISTA
A single fact will often spoil an interesting argument.
—Selected Cryptograms III
You have not converted a man because you have silenced him.
—JOHN MORLEY
It is impossible to defeat an ignorant man in an argument.
—WILLIAM G. MCADOO
In quarreling, the truth is always lost.
—PUBLILIUS SYRUS
Never answer an angry word with an angry word. It’s the second one that makes the quarrel.
—W. A. NANCE
People generally quarrel because they cannot argue.
—G. K. CHESTERTON
More Quotable Chesterton
The difficult part in an argument is not to defend one’s opinion but rather to know it.
—ANDRÉ MAUROIS
Quarrels would not last long if the fault were on one side only.
—FRANÇOIS DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD
Violence in the voice is often only the death rattle of reason in the throat.
—JOHN F. BOYES
Whether on the road or in an argument, when you see red it’s time to stop.
—JAN MCKEITHEN
Anybody who thinks there aren’t two sides to every argument is probably in one.
—The Cockle Bur
An apology is the superglue of life. It can repair just about anything.
—LYNN JOHNSTON
The man who offers an insult writes it in sand, but for the man who receives it, it’s chiseled in bronze.
—GIOVANNI GUARESCHI
An ounce of apology is worth a pound of loneliness.
—JOSEPH JOUBERT
An apology is a good way to have the last word.
—Dell Crossword Puzzles
PRAYER IS WHEN YOU TALK TO GOD . . .
Prayer is when you talk to God; meditation is when you listen to God.
—Quoted by DIANA ROBINSON in The People’s Almanac
Prayer is the key of the morning and the bolt of the evening.
—MOHANDAS K. GANDHI
The greatest prayer is patience.
—GAUTAMA BUDDHA
What we usually pray to God is not that His will be done, but that He approve ours.
—HELGA BERGOLD GROSS
The object of most prayers is to wangle an advance on good intentions.
—ROBERT BRAULT
Certain thoughts are prayers. There are moments when, whatever be the attitude of t
he body, the soul is on its knees.
—VICTOR HUGO
If you begin to live life looking for the God that is all around you, every moment becomes a prayer.
—FRANK BIANCO
Our prayers are answered not when we are given what we ask but when we are challenged to be what we can be.
—MORRIS ADLER
Any concern too small to be turned into a prayer is too small to be made into a burden.
—CORRIE TEN BOOM
Clippings from My Notebook
If we could all hear one another’s prayers, God might be relieved of some of his burden.
—ASHLEIGH BRILLIANT
Serving God is doing good to man. But praying is thought an easier service and is therefore more generally chosen.
—BENJAMIN FRANKLIN
God is like a mirror. The mirror never changes but everybody who looks at it sees something different.
—Quoted by RABBI HAROLD KUSHNER in Ultimate Issues
Prayer is less about changing the world than it is about changing ourselves.
—DAVID J. WOLPE
Teaching Your Children About God
Get down on your knees and thank God you are on your feet.
—IRISH SAYING
Never trust someone who has to change his tone to ask something of the Lord.
—ROBERTA A. EVERETT
Call on God, but row away from the rocks.
—ROBERT M. YOUNG
Trust in God—but tie your camel tight.
—PERSIAN PROVERB
GREAT IDEAS NEED LANDING GEAR . . .
Great ideas need landing gear as well as wings.
—C. D. JACKSON
The history of mankind is the history of ideas.
—LUDWIG VON MISES
Socialism: An Economic and Sociological Analysis
A man is but a product of his thoughts; what he thinks, that he becomes.
—MOHANDAS K. GANDHI
An invasion of armies can be resisted, but not an idea whose time has come.
—VICTOR HUGO
It is useless to send armies against ideas.
—GEORG BRANDES
Good ideas are not adopted automatically. They must be driven into practice with courageous impatience.
—ADM. HYMAN G. RICKOVER
A cup is useful only when it is empty; and a mind that is filled with beliefs, with dogmas, with assertions, with quotations is really an uncreative mind.
—J. KRISHNAMURTI
The man with a new idea is a crank until the idea succeeds.
—MARK TWAIN
The greatest discovery of my generation is that a human being can alter his life by altering his attitude.
—WILLIAM JAMES
Thought is action in rehearsal.
—SIGMUND FREUD
Change your thoughts and you change your world.
—REV. NORMAN VINCENT PEALE
He who cannot change the very fabric of his thought will never be able to change reality.
—ANWAR EL-SADAT
The mind is its own place, and in itself can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven.
—JOHN MILTON
If most of us are ashamed of shabby clothes and shoddy furniture, let us be more ashamed of shabby ideas and shoddy philosophies.
—ALBERT EINSTEIN
Civilization is a movement and not a condition, a voyage and not a harbor.
—ARNOLD TOYNBEE
Good thoughts bear good fruit, bad thoughts bear bad fruit—and man is his own gardener.
—JAMES ALLEN
Bring ideas in and entertain them royally, for one of them may be the king.
—MARK VAN DOREN
The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function.
—F. SCOTT FITZGERALD
I like to have a man’s knowledge comprehend more than one class of topics, one row of shelves. I like a man who likes to see a fine barn as well as a good tragedy.
—RALPH WALDO EMERSON
Learning is not attained by chance. It must be sought for with ardor and attended to with diligence.
—ABIGAIL ADAMS
What we learn with pleasure we never forget.
—ALFRED MERCIER
Most people are willing to pay more to be amused than to be educated.
—ROBERT C. SAVAGE
Life Lessons
Education is not training but rather the process that equips you to entertain yourself, a friend and an idea.
—WALLACE STERLING
Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire.
—WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS
There are two ways of spreading light: to be the candle or the mirror that reflects it.
—EDITH WHARTON
An education is like a crumbling building that needs constant upkeep with repairs and additions.
—LOUIS DUDEK
A master can tell you what he expects of you. A teacher, though, awakens your own expectations.
—PATRICIA NEAL WITH RICHARD DENEUT
As I Am: An Autobiography
A great teacher never strives to explain his vision—he simply invites you to stand beside him and see for yourself.
—REV. R. INMAN
If you would thoroughly know anything, teach it to others.
—TRYON EDWARDS
To teach is to learn twice.
—JOSEPH JOUBERT
Good education is the essential foundation of a strong democracy.
—BARBARA BUSH
in a preface to America’s Country Schools by Andrew Gulliford
Education is more than a luxury; it is a responsibility that society owes to itself.
—ROBIN COOK
Coma
Education is learning what you didn’t even know you didn’t know.
—DANIEL J. BOORSTIN
Democracy and Its Discontents
Without education, we are in a horrible and deadly danger of taking educated people seriously.
—G. K. CHESTERTON
It is not the business of science to inherit the earth, but to inherit the moral imagination; because without that, man and beliefs and science will perish together.
—JACOB BRONOWSKI
Science has made us gods even before we are worthy of being men.
—JEAN ROSTAND
An age is called Dark, not because the light fails to shine, but because people refuse to see it.
—JAMES A. MICHENER
Space
In every work of genius, we recognize our own rejected thoughts; they come back to us with a certain alienated majesty.
—RALPH WALDO EMERSON
If you are seeking creative ideas, go out walking. Angels whisper to a man when he goes for a walk.
—RAYMOND INMAN
An idea can turn to dust or magic, depending on the talent that rubs against it.
—WILLIAM BERNBACH
Be curious always! For knowledge will not acquire you; you must acquire it.
—SUDIE BACK
Curiosity is the wick in the candle of learning.
—WILLIAM A. WARD
The little I know, I owe to my ignorance.
—SACHA GUITRY
Curiosity is a willing, a proud, an eager confession of ignorance.
—S. LEONARD RUBINSTEIN
Writing: A Habit of Mind
A sense of curiosity is nature’s original school of education.
—SMILEY BLANTON,
MD
Love or Perish
The human mind is as driven to understand as the body is driven to survive.
—HUGH GILMORE
in The Philadelphia Inquirer Magazine
If a man had as many ideas during the day as he does when he has insomnia, he’d make a fortune.
—GRIFF NIBLACK
in News (Indianapolis, Indiana)
Ideas are like rabbits. You get a couple and learn how to handle them, and pretty soon you have a dozen.
—JOHN STEINBECK
All my best thoughts were stolen by the ancients.
—RALPH WALDO EMERSON
A new idea is delicate. It can be killed by a sneer or a yawn; it can be stabbed to death by a quip, and worried to death by a frown on the right man’s brow.
—CHARLIE BROWER
Man’s mind stretched to a new idea never goes back to its original dimensions.