A leader is most effective when people barely know he exists.
When his work is done, his aim fulfilled,
his troops will feel they did it themselves.
- Lao Tzu
A leader is best when people barely know he exists;
when his work is done, his aim fulfilled,
they will say: we did it ourselves.
- Lao Tzu
A leader is best when people barely know he exists,
not so good when people obey and acclaim him,
worst when they despise him.
But of a good leader, who talks little,
when his work is done, his aim fulfilled,
they will say, "We did this ourselves."
- Lao Tzu
A honeymoon should be like a table:
four bare legs and no drawers.
- Anonymous
"Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!"
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away.
- Percy Bysshe Shelley
We are stripped bare by the curse of plenty.
- Winston Churchill
And on the pedestal these words appear:
`My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings:
'Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!'
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away.
- Percy Bysshe Shelley
Religion is the masterpiece of the art of animal training,
for it trains people as to how they should think.
- Arthur Schopenhauer
However beautiful the strategy,
you should occasionally look at the results.
- Winston Churchill
I was married by a judge.
I should have asked for a jury.
- Groucho Marx
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)
Everyone should have at least two friends -
one to talk to and one to talk about.
- Anonymous
Husbands should be like Kleenex:
soft, strong, and disposable.
- the movie Clue (1985)
Procrastination is the bad habit of putting off
until the day after tomorrow what should
have been done the day before yesterday.
- Napoleon Hill
All discarded lovers should be given a second chance,
but with somebody else.
- Mae West
The universe we observe has precisely
the properties we should expect
if there is, at bottom, no design,
no purpose, no evil, no good,
nothing but blind, pitiless indifference.
- Charles Darwin
The physician can bury his mistakes,
but the architect can only advise his client to plant vines -
so they should go as far as possible from home
to build their first buildings.
- Frank Lloyd Wright
Two things a man should never be angry at:
what he can help,
and what he cannot help.
- Thomas Fuller
One should never know too precisely
whom one has married
- Friedrich Nietzsche
One should always be in love.
That is the reason one should never marry.
- Oscar Wilde
Bad taste is simply saying the truth before it should be said.
- Mel Brooks
It is an open question whether any behavior
based on fear of eternal punishment
can be regarded as ethical
or should be regarded as merely cowardly.
- Margaret Mead
If I knew for a certainty that a man was coming to my house
with the conscious design of doing me good,
I should run for my life.
- Henry David Thoreau
People who say it cannot be done should not
interrupt those who are doing it.
- George Bernard Shaw
I will far rather see the race of man extinct
than that we should become less than beasts
by making the noblest of God's creation,
woman, the object of our lust.
- Mohandas (Mahatma) Gandhi
A benevolent man should allow a few faults in himself,
to keep his friends in countenance.
- Benjamin Franklin
One should never trust a woman who tells her real age.
If she tells that, she'll tell anything.
- Oscar Wilde
The person who says it cannot be done
should not interrupt the person who is doing it.
- Chinese proverb
The Ought-To Need-To Tango:
I am racked with the guilt and the pain of I should,
and I ought, and I can't, but I must.
I can't rest; I can't sleep; I'm just not understood,
and I hate that the world is unjust.
I have work; I have woes; I have troubles for life;
but I don't have a ME that I trust.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
The truth. It is a beautiful and terrible thing,
and should be treated with caution.
- J. K. Rowling
Laugh when you can,
apologize when you should,
and let go of what you can't change.
Life's too short to be anything... but happy.
- Anonymous
The best remedy for those who are afraid, lonely or unhappy
is to go outside, somewhere where they can be quiet,
alone with the heavens, nature and God.
Because only then does one feel that all is as it should be.
- Anne Frank
Maybe I could have loved you better.
Maybe you should have loved me more.
Maybe our hearts were just next in line.
Maybe everything breaks sometime.
- Jewel
Old age has deformities enough of its own.
It should never add to them the deformity of vice.
- Eleanor Roosevelt
Everyone should carefully observe
which way his heart draws him,
and then choose that way with all his strength.
- Hasidic Proverb
Man should forget his anger before he lies down to sleep.
- Mohandas (Mahatma) Gandhi
The formula for achieving a successful relationship is simple:
you should treat all disasters as if they were trivialities
but never treat a triviality as if it were a disaster.
- Quentin Crisp
Those who have come here to hate should leave now;
for in their hate, they only betray themselves.
- Terry Goodkind
Life is a great big canvas,
and you should throw all the paint you can on it.
- Danny Kaye
I've learned that you should always
leave loved ones with loving words.
It may be the last time you see them.
- Anonymous
If a man is proud of his wealth,
he should not be praised until it is known how he employs it.
- Socrates
You either do it completely and utterly,
or you should stop doing it.
- Bono (paraphrase)
If a man is called to be a street sweeper,
he should sweep streets even as Michelangelo painted,
or Beethoven composed music, or Shakespeare wrote poetry.
He should sweep streets so well that all the hosts
of heaven and earth will pause to say,
here lived a great street sweeper who did his job well.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
What people often mean by getting rid of conflict
is getting rid of diversity,
and it is of the utmost importance
that these should not be considered the same.
- M. P. Follett
Every man should have a fair-sized cemetery
in which to bury the faults of his friends.
- Henry Brooks Adams
No one has yet realized the wealth of sympathy,
the kindness and generosity hidden in the soul of a child.
The effort of every true education should be to unlock that treasure.
- Emma Goldman
How often I found where I should be going
only by setting out for somewhere else.
- R. Buckminster Fuller
Don't seek God in temples.
He is close to you.
He is within you.
Only you should surrender to Him
and you will rise above happiness and unhappiness.
- Leo Tolstoy
Form follows function - that has been misunderstood.
Form and function should be one, joined in a spiritual union.
- Frank Lloyd Wright
Things should be made as simple as possible, but not any simpler.
- Albert Einstein
The essence of philosophy is that a man should so live
that his happiness shall depend
as little as possible on external things.
- Epictetus
No idea is so outlandish that it should not be considered
with a searching but at the same time a steady eye.
- Winston Churchill
Each contact with a human being is so rare, so precious,
one should preserve it.
- Anais Nin
He who would pass his declining years with honor and comfort,
should, when young, consider that he may one day become old,
and remember when he is old, that he has once been young.
- Joseph Addison
Many people excuse their own faults
but judge other persons harshly.
We should reverse this attitude
by excusing others' shortcomings
and by harshly examining our own.
- Paramahansa Yogananda
There should be an honest attempt at the reconciliation
of differences before resorting to combat.
- Jimmy Carter
We should not pretend to understand the world
only by the intellect.
The judgment of the intellect
is only part of the truth.
- Carl Jung
To sin by silence when they should protest makes cowards of men.
- Abraham Lincoln
Do not do unto others
as you expect they should do unto you.
Their tastes may not be the same.
- George Bernard Shaw
One that desires to excel
should endeavor in those things
that are in themselves most excellent.
- Epictetus
We should not moor a ship with one anchor,
or our life with one hope.
- Epictetus
The only way to store information is by agreement.
The belief system is like a Book of Law that rules our mind.
Our biggest fear is taking the risk to be alive.
Humans punish themselves endlessly
for not being what they believe they should be.
We have the need to be accepted and to be loved by others,
but we cannot accept and love ourselves.
- don Miguel Ruiz
Do not worry if you have built your castles in the air.
They are where they should be.
Now put the foundations under them.
- Henry David Thoreau
We may have our private opinions
but why should they be a bar to the meeting of hearts?
- Mohandas (Mahatma) Gandhi
No house should ever be on a hill or on anything.
It should be of the hill. Belonging to it.
Hill and house should live together
each the happier for the other.
- Frank Lloyd Wright
If you have built castles in the air,
your work need not be lost;
that is where they should be.
Now put foundations under them.
- Henry David Thoreau
The battle for the individual rights of women is one of long standing
and none of us should countenance anything which undermines it.
- Eleanor Roosevelt
Treat a man as he is and he will remain as he is.
Treat a man as he can and should be,
and he will become as he can and should be.
- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
No partner in a love relationship...
should feel that he has to give up
an essential part of himself to make it viable.
- May Sarton
Every citizen should be a soldier.
This was the case with the Greeks and Romans,
and must be that of every free state.
- Thomas Jefferson
I soothe my conscience now with the thought that
it is better for hard words to be on paper
than that Mummy should carry them in her heart.
- Anne Frank
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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.