If I am happy in spite of my deprivations,
if my happiness is so deep that it is a faith,
so thoughtful that it becomes a philosophy of life.
If, in short, I am an optimist,
my testimony to the creed of optimism is worth hearing.
- Helen Keller
...
Helen Keller (1880-1968) overcame being both deaf and blind
to become a famous author, lecturer, and activist
for women's suffrage, workers' rights, and ending war.
Every human being is the author of his own health or disease.
- The Buddha
Quotations are slippery things, really.
A brief sentence or phrase, often repeated -
always completely out of its original context -
and sometimes not an accurate representation
of the author's original words, let alone his intentions.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
Action is the real measure of intelligence.
- Napoleon Hill (author of the classic Think and Grow Rich)
At what point then is the approach of danger to be expected?
I answer, if it ever reach us, it must spring up amongst us.
It cannot come from abroad. If destruction be our lot,
we must ourselves be its author and finisher.
As a nation of freemen, we must live
through all time, or die by suicide.
- Abraham Lincoln
Humility is not thinking less of yourself,
it's thinking of yourself less.
- Rick Warren (author of The Purpose Driven(R) Life)
It is a greater joy to see the author's author, than himself.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
It is a good thing for an uneducated man to read books of quotations...
The quotations, when engraved upon the memory, give you good thoughts.
They also make you anxious to read the authors and look for more.
- Winston Churchill
Authority has every reason to fear the skeptic,
for authority can rarely survive in the face of doubt.
- Robert Lindner
The faith that stands on authority is not faith.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
Nothing strengthens authority so much as silence.
- Leonardo da Vinci
Think for yourself and question authority.
- Timothy Leary
To say that authority, whether secular or religious,
supplies no ground for morality
is not to deny the obvious fact that it supplies a sanction.
- Joseph Addison
The people are hungry:
It is because those in authority
eat up too much in taxes.
- Lao Tzu
No statement should be believed because it is made by an authority.
- Robert A. Heinlein
The ultimate authority must always rest
with the individual's own reason and critical analysis.
- Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama
Leave no authority existing not responsible to the people.
- Thomas Jefferson
Moral authority is never retained by
any attempt to hold on to it.
It comes without seeking and
is retained without effort.
- Mohandas (Mahatma) Gandhi
I do not believe in immortality of the individual,
and I consider ethics to be an exclusively human concern
with no superhuman authority behind it.
- Albert Einstein
Anyone who conducts an argument by appealing to authority
is not using his intelligence; he is just using his memory.
- Leonardo da Vinci
NO ONE has been granted the authority to tell me
how my life should be lived.
I answer only to myself and to Spirit.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
A person acting from a motivation
of contribution and service
rises to such a level of moral authority
that worldly success is a natural result.
- Marianne Williamson
Football is like life - it requires perseverance,
self-denial, hard work, sacrifice,
dedication and respect for authority.
- Vince Lombardi
For those men who, sooner or later, are lucky enough
to break away from the pack, the most intoxicating moment
comes when they cease being bodies in other men's command
and find that they control their own time,
when they learn their own voice and authority.
- Theodore H. White
I was bold in the pursuit of knowledge,
never fearing to follow truth and reason
to whatever results they led,
and bearding every authority which stood in their way.
- Thomas Jefferson
Many of us have been conditioned to trust others' opinions
more than our own, and I believe that sort of trust is excessive.
This is especially true with regard to authority figures -
doctors, lawyers, priests. I trust my doctor's intentions toward me,
but I don't blindly follow his suggestions
without checking other sources also.
He was trained to prescribe a pill for everything,
and does it with the best of intentions,
but I often choose to trust God's quiet voice inside me
rather than my doctor's medical advice.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
You know what? Maybe there's a good reason
donkeys shouldn't talk.
- the movie Shrek (2001)
There's no reason to become alarmed,
and we hope you'll enjoy the rest of your flight.
By the way, is there anyone on board who knows how to fly a plane?
- the movie Airplane!
One good reason to only maintain a small circle of friends
is that three out of four murders
are committed by people who know the victim.
- George Carlin
I don't advise a haircut, man.
All hairdressers are in the employment of the government.
Hairs are your aerials.
They pick up signals from the cosmos,
and transmit them directly into the brain.
This is the reason bald-headed men are uptight.
- the movie Withnail & I
I read that you should never go out with someone
if you can think of three reasons why you shouldn't.
- the movie Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason (2004)
Common looking people are the best in the world:
that is the reason the Lord makes so many of them.
- Abraham Lincoln
One should always be in love.
That is the reason one should never marry.
- Oscar Wilde
The reason I talk to myself is because
I'm the only one whose answers I accept.
- George Carlin
The reason why the world lacks unity,
and lies broken and in heaps,
is, because man is disunited with himself.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
Early in life I had to choose between honest arrogance
and hypocritical humility.
I chose the former and have seen no reason to change.
- Frank Lloyd Wright
Humor is reason gone mad.
- Groucho Marx
Politicians and diapers need to be changed regularly,
usually for the same reason.
- Anonymous
Question with boldness even the existence of a God;
because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason,
than that of blind-folded fear.
- Thomas Jefferson
I would rather trust a woman's instinct than a man's reason.
- Stanley Baldwin
I believe that everything happens for a reason.
People change so that you can learn to let go,
things go wrong so that you appreciate them when they're right,
you believe lies so you eventually learn to trust no one but yourself,
and sometimes good things fall apart so better things can fall together.
- Marilyn Monroe
Customs do not concern themselves
with right or wrong or reason.
But they have to be obeyed;
one reasons all around them until he is tired,
but he must not transgress them, it is sternly forbidden.
- Mark Twain
Believe nothing, no matter where you read it,
or who said it, no matter if I have said it,
unless it agrees with your own reason
and your own common sense.
- The Buddha
I truly believe that happiness is possible...
even when you're thirty-three
and have a bottom the size of two bowling balls.
- the movie Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason
The very essence of instinct is that
it's followed independently of reason.
- Charles Darwin
We are not afraid to follow truth
wherever it may lead,
nor to tolerate any error
so long as reason is left free to combat it.
- Thomas Jefferson
The only reason you suffer is because you choose to suffer.
The only reason you are happy is because you choose to be happy.
Happiness is a choice, and so is suffering.
- don Miguel Ruiz
Do not seek the because -
in love there is no because,
no reason, no explanation, no solutions.
- Anais Nin
Life was meant to be lived,
and curiosity must be kept alive.
One must never, for whatever reason,
turn his back on life.
- Eleanor Roosevelt
Passion rules reason.
- Terry Goodkind
Every formula of every religion has, in this age of reason,
to submit to the acid test of reason and universal assent.
- Mohandas (Mahatma) Gandhi
The important thing is not to stop questioning.
Curiosity has its own reason for existing.
- Albert Einstein
If we would guide by the light of reason
we must let our minds be bold.
- Louis D. Brandeis
We have nearly complete misunderstanding between
people of different faiths in Lake Wobegon,
and that's probably one reason why we get along so very well.
It's when you are trying to convince another person to think
the same way that you do that there is
friction and trouble between people.
But when you feel that the other person is
dumber than dirt, too dumb for words -
why waste your breath - you get along pretty well.
There's no bond between people that's quite so strong as
when people each feel slightly superior towards the other one.
- Garrison Keillor
Only one who devotes himself to a cause
with his whole strength and soul
can be a true master.
For this reason mastery demands all of a person.
- Albert Einstein
There are a hundred valid reasons why something can't be done,
but only one reason, Commitment, why it can.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
When I am getting ready to reason with a man,
I spend one-third of my time thinking about myself
and what I am going to say
and two-thirds about him and what he is going to say.
- Abraham Lincoln
I don't believe in killing whatever the reason!
- John Lennon
It is useless for us to attempt to reason a man
out of a thing he has never been reasoned into.
- Jonathan Swift
Resort is had to ridicule only when reason is against us.
- Thomas Jefferson
Faith consists in believing when it is
beyond the power of reason to believe.
- Voltaire
Once you respect yourself, there is no longer
any reason to disrespect anyone else.
Once you are confident of your own worthiness,
the worthiness of others ceases to be an issue.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
My only reason for not experiencing bliss at this very moment
is thinking about what I don't have.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
The strongest reason for the people
to retain the right to keep and bear arms is,
as a last resort, to protect themselves
against tyranny in government.
- Thomas Jefferson
Let reason trump tradition and the opinions of others,
but let your own sense of what is Right trump even reason.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
Fear cannot be banished, but it can be calm and without panic;
it can be mitigated by reason and evaluation.
- Vannevar Bush
All perception of truth
is the detection of an analogy;
we reason from our hands to our head.
- Henry David Thoreau
It is not what we choose that is important;
it is the reason we choose it.
- Carolyn Myss
Grace defies reason and logic.
- Bono
True courage is not the brutal force of vulgar heroes,
but the firm resolve of virtue and reason.
- Alfred North Whitehead
I reject any religious doctrine that does not appeal
to reason and is in conflict with morality.
- Mohandas (Mahatma) Gandhi
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May the world be kind to you,
and may your own thoughts be gentle upon yourself.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
All materials & writings are copyright © Jonathan Lockwood Huie, except for quotes and other specifically identified material which belong to their respective copyright holders if applicable.