Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed
by the things you didn't do than by the ones you did do.
So throw off the bowlines.
Sail away from the safe harbor.
Catch the trade winds in your sails.
Explore. Dream. Discover.
- widely misattributed to Mark Twain
Inside every cynical person,
there is a disappointed idealist.
- George Carlin
A pessimist is never disappointed.
- Jack Cleary
The more you expect, the more you get disappointed in life.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
Love comes to those who still hope
even though they've been disappointed,
to those who still believe
even though they've been betrayed,
to those who still love
even though they've been hurt before.
- Anonymous
Blessed is he who expects nothing,
for he shall never be disappointed.
- Alexander Pope
Friendship is certainly the finest balm
for the pangs of disappointed love.
- Jane Austen
You may be disappointed if you fail,
but you are doomed if you don't try.
- Beverly Sills
Anger is something that each one of us has experienced -
some of us only occasionally, some almost daily.
Can we eliminate all anger? Probably not.
We will always have expectations,
and those expectations will often be unmet.
Disappointment is the principle cause of anger.
When we are disappointed, we look for someone to blame.
Declaring someone to be at fault is the nature of anger.
Anger is always directed at someone -
possibly toward God or the non-specific "they,"
but at some animate entity.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
Pitiful is the person who is afraid of taking risks.
Perhaps this person will never
be disappointed or disillusioned;
perhaps she won't suffer the way
people do when they have a dream to follow.
But when the person looks back -
and at some point everyone look back -
she will hear her heart, saying,
"What have you done with the miracles
that God planted in your days?
What have you done with the talents
God bestowed on you?"
- Paulo Coelho
It is much more painful to have lost
something you thought you had,
than never to have had it at all.
If feels as if our trust was dashed.
We are disappointed and we are angry;
but not quite sure at who to direct our anger.
Someone, perhaps "the system," perhaps God,
should have done better.
Most of all we are angry at ourselves -
even though we did our best -
and we are afraid.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
Our desires always disappoint us;
for though we meet with something that gives us satisfaction,
yet it never thoroughly answers our expectation.
- Elbert Hubbard
Pleasure disappoints, possibility never
- Soren Kierkegaard
If I were to wish for anything,
I should not wish for wealth and power,
but for the passionate sense of potential -
for the eye which, ever young and ardent, sees the possible.
Pleasure disappoints; possibility never.
- Soren Kierkegaard
Do not bite at the bait of pleasure,
till you know there is no hook beneath it.
- Thomas Jefferson
There is no pleasure in having nothing to do;
the fun is in having lots to do and not doing it.
- Mary Wilson Little
Appreciate again and again, freshly and naively,
the basic goods of life, with awe,
pleasure, wonder and even ecstasy,
however stale these experiences may have become to others.
- Abraham Maslow
It gives me great pleasure indeed to see the stubbornness
of an incorrigible nonconformist warmly acclaimed.
- Albert Einstein
My definition of success is to live your life in a way
that causes you to feel a ton of pleasure and very little pain -
and because of your lifestyle, have the people around you feel
a lot more pleasure than they do pain.
- Tony Robbins
Most men pursue pleasure with such breathless haste
that they hurry past it.
- Soren Kierkegaard
A new friend is like new wine;
when it has aged you will drink it with pleasure.
- Ecclesiastes 9:10
To give pleasure to a single heart by a single act
is better than a thousand heads bowing in prayer.
- Mohandas (Mahatma) Gandhi
Only he is successful in his business who makes that pursuit
which affords him the highest pleasure sustain him.
- Henry David Thoreau
I believe that every human mind feels pleasure
in doing good to another.
- Thomas Jefferson
The great pleasure in life is doing
what people say you cannot do.
- Walter Bagehot
Music produces a kind of pleasure
which human nature cannot do without.
- Confucius
The noblest pleasure is the joy of understanding.
- Leonardo da Vinci
Liberty is to the collective body,
what health is to every individual body.
Without health no pleasure can be tasted by man;
without liberty, no happiness can be enjoyed by society.
- Thomas Jefferson
When one has the feeling of dislike for evil,
when one feels tranquil,
one finds pleasure in listening to good teachings;
when one has these feelings and appreciates them,
one is free of fear.
- The Buddha
Allow the president to invade a neighboring nation,
whenever he shall deem it necessary to repel an invasion,
and you allow him to do so whenever he may choose
to say he deems it necessary for such a purpose -
and you allow him to make war at pleasure.
- Abraham Lincoln
There are nine requisites for contented living:
HEALTH enough to make work a pleasure;
WEALTH enough to support your needs;
STRENGTH enough to battle with difficulties and forsake them;
GRACE enough to confess your sins and overcome them;
PATIENCE enough to toil until some good is accomplished;
CHARITY enough to see some good in your neighbor;
LOVE enough to move you to be useful and helpful to others;
FAITH enough to make real the things of God;
HOPE enough to remove all anxious fears concerning the future.
- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
The greatest battle of all is simply... Life.
This is no child's game. This is the big one -
the Super Bowl - the Game of all games.
The rules of Life are unwritten and unknown.
Perhaps, one could say that there are no rules.
The Judge has ultimate power.
She can call the game at any time - for any reason.
The penalties in the Game are completely arbitrary -
in both timing and severity.
Penalty for what, we ask?
The Judge is silent.
How can I win the Game?
"You can never win," comes the answer,
"So just take pleasure in playing the Game."
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
Man can never know the kind of loneliness a woman knows.
Man lies in a woman's womb only to gather strength,
he nourishes himself from this fusion,
and then he rises and goes into the world,
into his work, into battle, into art.
He is not lonely. He is busy.
The memory of the swim in amniotic fluid gives him energy, completion.
The woman may be busy too, but she feels empty.
Sensuality for her is not only a wave of pleasure
in which she has bathed,
and a charge of electric joy at contact with another.
When man lies in her womb, she is fulfilled,
each act of love a a taking of man within her,
an act of birth and rebirth, of child-bearing and man-bearing.
Man lies in her womb and is reborn each time anew
with a desire to act, to BE.
But for woman, the climax is not in the birth,
but in the moment the man rests inside of her.
- Anais Nin
False facts are highly injurious to the progress of science,
for they often endure long; but false views,
if supported by some evidence, do little harm,
for every one takes a salutary pleasure in proving their falseness.
- Charles Darwin
Why does a woman work ten years to change a man's habits
and then complain that he's not the man she married?
- Barbra Streisand
Live life on the edge, not with an edge.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
If you are not one of us, you are one of them.
- the movie The Matrix (1999)
"It's not that important,
don't worry about it" is the answer,
now what was the question?
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
Be careful not to do your good deeds
when there's no one watching you.
- Tom Lehrer
It's not the size of the dog in the fight,
it's the size of the fight in the dog.
- Mark Twain
Yeah I called her up. She gave me a bunch of ...
about me not listening to her, or something.
I don't know, I wasn't really paying attention.
- the movie Dumb & Dumber (1994)
Gravitation is not responsible for people falling in love.
- Albert Einstein
Damn it boss, I like you too much not to say it.
You've got everything except one thing: madness!
- the movie Zorba The Greek
Personally, I'm always ready to learn,
although I do not always like being taught.
- Winston Churchill
I'm not a complete idiot, some parts are missing.
- Anonymous
Mr. President, I'm not saying we wouldn't get our hair mussed.
But I do say no more than ten to twenty million killed, tops.
Uh, depending on the breaks.
- the movie Dr. Strangelove
The key is, to not think of death as an end,
but as more of a very effective way to cut down on your expenses.
- the movie Love and Death
No man is truly married until he understands
every word his wife is NOT saying.
- Anonymous
Do not marry a man to reform him.
That is what reform schools are for.
- Mae West
I care not much for a man's religion
whose dog and cat are not the better for it.
- Abraham Lincoln
It's not the men in your life that counts,
it's the life in your men.
- Mae West, in the movie I'm No Angel
It's not as great a day for the bride as she thinks.
She's not marrying the best man.
- Anonymous
Never argue at the dinner table, for the one who is not hungry
always gets the best of the argument.
- Voltaire
Be thankful we're not getting all the government we're paying for.
- Will Rogers
DON'T get officious.
You're not yourself when you're officious -
That is the curse of a government job.
- the movie Harold and Maude (1971)
In order to be happy with a man,
you must understand him a lot and love him a little.
To be happy with a woman, you must love her a lot
and not try to understand her at all.
- Helen Rowland
The most important words in the English language
are not "I love you" but "It's benign."
- the Woody Allen movie Deconstructing Harry
I'm not talking about lust.
A woman in lust wants chocolate.
A woman in love wants diamonds.
- the movie How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days
Two things are infinite:
the universe and human stupidity;
and I'm not sure about the universe.
- Albert Einstein
Marriage is a fine institution -
but I'm not ready for an institution yet.
- Mae West
If at first you don't succeed,
skydiving is not for you.
- Anonymous
Women marry men hoping they will change.
Men marry women hoping they will not.
- Albert Einstein
Yield to temptation. It may not pass your way again.
- Robert A. Heinlein
One does not leave a convivial party before closing time.
- Winston Churchill
I'm not used to feeling so human.
Is it always like this?
- Edward, from Twilight Saga by Stephenie Meyer
When you fish for love, bait with your heart, not your brain.
- Mark Twain
My advice to you is get married:
if you find a good wife you'll be happy;
if not, you'll become a philosopher.
- Socrates
Life is never fair, and perhaps it is a good thing
for most of us that it is not.
- Oscar Wilde
Too often the strong, silent man is silent only because
he does not know what to say, and is reputed strong
only because he has remained silent.
- Winston Churchill
One minute you're in the lunchroom at Glenwood High
and you ... blink and you're 40,
you blink again and you can see movies
at half price on a senior citizen's pass.
Ask not for whom the bell tolls, or to put it more accurately,
ask not for whom the toilet flushes.
- the Woody Allen movie Celebrity
The most difficult phase of life
is not when no one understands you,
it is when you don't understand yourself.
- Anonymous
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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.