As I have discovered, there are no disasters, only opportunities. And, indeed, opportunities for fresh disasters - Boris Johnson, MP, after being sacked from Tory front bench (2004)

Tell me, what is it that you plan to do with your one wild and precious life? - Mary Oliver

If you're in a good state, old age can be the most beautiful time in your life - it's only then that you are aware how extraordinary it all is - Alice Herz-Sommer, pianist and Theresienstadt concentration camp holocaust survivor, aged 104, Sunday Times (27 January 2008)

Every night, when I go to sleep, I think I've had another wonderful day, and tomorrow I will repeat it all over again - Alice Herz-Sommer, pianist and Theresienstadt concentration camp holocaust survivor, aged 104, Sunday Times (27 January 2008)

Life is too short to dwell on every bump in the road. Try to take pleasure in the simple things - Frasier (US TV sitcom)

I think ageing is cool: we should all aspire to carry on doing what we love, and stop complaining about getting older - Slash, rock guitarist, from interview with Sunday Times 'Style' magazine (25 November 2007)

I've always counted on having a modern life span, I counted on learning things as I went along - Thomas William Gunn, poet (1929 - 2004)

To do nothing but grumble, and not to act – that is throwing away one’s life - William Morris

Optimists live longer and achieve more - Martin Seligman, psychologist

There is a time when panic is the appropriate response - Eugene Kleiner

Sometimes the only way to conquer the pull of power is to set it down - Tony Blair (resignation speech as British Prime Minister, 10 May 2007)

Form is temporary, class is permanent - sporting proverb

The head cannot take in more than the seat can endure – Winston Churchill

As I hurtled through space, one thought kept crossing my mind - every part of this rocket was supplied by the lowest bidder - John Glenn

We didn't lose the game. We just ran out of time - Vince Lombardi

To work well is to live well - Thomas Aquinas (13th Century theologian)

...one of the few things in life over which we have total control is our own attitude...our attitude determines whether we love or hate, tell the truth or lie, act or procrastinate, advance or recede, and by our own attitude we, and we alone, actually decide whether we succeed or fail - Jim Rohn, business philosopher

If not us, who? If not now, when? - anonymous

Maybe you should be satisfied with what you've got. Your best bet is to try to be happy, satisfying relationships with your partner, family and friends and enjoy yourself - Oliver James, psychologist and author of 'Affluenza' which examines the role our consumerist aspirations play in making us miserable (from interview in 'Metro' 12 February 2007)

We don't need to increase our goods nearly as much as we need to scale down our wants. Not wanting something is as good as possessing it - Donald Horban

When there are so many positive things in life, why concentrate on the negatives? - Michael Watson, former boxer, 2005 (suffered serious brain damage that left him paralysed in 1991)

Doing a job you like not only delivers its own reward, but the chances are you'll do it well, and so be recognised and make progress - Jeremy Bullmore, 'Management Today' (January 2006)

I've always been an optimist and I believe laughter is a wonderful thing - Alice Herz-Sommer, pianist and Theresienstadt concentration camp holocaust survivor, aged 104, Sunday Times (27 January 2008)

The 10 steps to happiness:
Plant something and nurture it
Count your blessings - at least five - at the end of each day
Take time to talk - have an hour-long conversation with a loved one each week
Phone a friend whom you have not spoken to for a while and arrange to meet up
Give yourself a treat every day and take the time to really enjoy it
Have a good laugh at least once a day
Get physical - exercise for half an hour three times a week
Smile at and/or say hello to a stranger at least once each day
Cut your TV viewing by half
Spread some kindness - do a good turn for someone every day
– BBC 2 documentary series 'Making Slough Happy' (November 2005)

All human actions have one or more of these seven causes: chance, nature, compulsion, habit, reason, passion and desire - Aristotle

Yesterday is dead, tomorrow hasn't arrived yet. I have just one day, today, and I'm going to be happy in it - Groucho Marx

It is better to have a permanent income than be fascinating - Oscar Wilde

The values we live by are worth more when we pass them on - unattributable

The most essential quality when confronting difficult issues, either in ourselves or with others, is humility - Selwyn Hughes

I only get the points because I have team-mates who do the work and put me in the position to get them - Jonny Wilkinson, Fly-Half, England Rugby World Cup team, November 2003

How soon 'not now' becomes never - Martin Luther, reformer and teacher (1483 - 1546)

It's easy to tick the box but miss the point - unattributable

We talk on principle, but we act on interest - Walter Savage Landor

Everybody talks about the weather, but nobody does anything about it - Charles Warner

One moment of patience may ward off great disaster. One moment of impatience may ruin a whole life - Chinese proverb

Time is the most valuable thing a man can spend - Theophrastus, Greek philosopher

A sense of humour comes from a real sense of perspective - unattributable

Humour is not inherited but is moulded by our individual experiences - psychologist Richard Wiseman (2006)

There is a foolish corner in the brain of the wisest man - Aristotle

The team on top of the mountain didn't fall there - unattributable

Are you climbing the right hill today? - unattributable

Every now and then go away and have a little relaxation. To remain constantly at work will diminish your judgment. Go some distance away, because work will be in perspective and a lack of harmony is more readily seen – Leonardo da Vinci

Criticism is something we can avoid easily by saying nothing, doing nothing, and being nothing - Aristotle

If you're going through hell, keep going - Winston Churchill

No matter how great your triumphs or how tragic your defeats remember that approximately one billion Chinese people couldn't care less - Abraham Lazlo

The greater danger for most of is not that our aim is too high and we miss it, but that it is too low and we reach it - Michelangelo

We know what we are, but know not what we may be - William Shakespeare

A public-opinion poll is no substitute for thought - Warren Edward Buffet (US stock broker, US representative, self-made billionnaire and philanthropist)

Ambition should be made of sterner stuff - William Shakespeare

If a man is gracious and courteous to strangers, it shows he is a citizen of the world - Sir Francis Bacon (1597)

Life is a mystery to be lived, not a problem to be solved - unattributable

You have to learn from everything you experience in life...thinking about the past is a waste of energy - Ron Dennis, Team Principal, McLaren Mercedes Formula One team (March 2008)

I learnt in the jungle that there is a great tranquility associated with having nothing of value - Jenny Bond, broadcaster (2004)

Live simply, laugh often, love deeply - unattributable

Reduce the complexity of life by eliminating the needless wants of life, and the labours of life reduce themselves - Edwin Way Teale (1899-1980)

What is this life if, full of care, we have no time to stand and stare? - W H Davies

What nature requires is obtainable and within easy reach. It is for the superfluous we sweat - ancient proverb (Senecca, Epistles, 1st Century)

When I look back on all these worries I remember the story of the old man who said on his deathbed that he had had a lot of trouble in his life, most of which never happened - Winston Churchill

To sit back hoping that someday, some way, someone will make things right is to go on feeding the crocodile, hoping he will eat you last - but eat you he will - Ronald Reagan (1911 - 2004)

Energy is equal to desire and purpose - Sheryl Adams

You don't know who's swimming naked until the tide goes out - Warren Edward Buffet (US stock broker, US representative, self-made billionnaire and philanthropist)

I not only use all the brains that I have, but all the brains I can borrow - Woodrow Wilson

The measure of a true leader: "Is anyone following?" - unattributable

We cannot become what we need to be by remaining what we are - Max DePree

When the winds of change blow, some people build walls and others build windmills - Chinese proverb

If you want things to stay the same, they are going to have to change - Lampedusa's The Leopard

If past history was all there was to the game, the richest people would be librarians - Warren Edward Buffet (US stock broker, US representative, self-made billionnaire and philanthropist)

Change your thoughts and you change your world - Norman Vincent Peale (1898 - 1993), preacher and author of The Power of Positive Thinking

The art of progress is to preserve order amid change and to preserve change amid order - Alfred North Whitehead

Don't judge each day by the harvest you reap, but by the seeds you plant - Robert Louis Stevenson

It's a fine thing to be honest but it is also important to be right - Winston Churchill

A good example is the best sermon - Herbert J Taylor

The policy of being too cautious is the greatest risk of all - Jawaharlal Nehru, 1st prime minister of India (1889 - 1964)

There are two methods of curing the mischiefs of faction: the one by removing its causes, the other by controlling its effects - James Madison et al, The Federalist Papers

Do just once what others say you can't do, and you will never pay attention to their limitations again - Arthur C Clarke

'Tis better to suffer wrong than do it - Thomas Fuller

Right is right, even if nobody does it. Wrong is wrong, even if everybody is wrong about it - G K Chesterton (1874-1936)

A professional is someone who can do his best work when he doesn't feel like it - Alistair Cooke, broadcaster (1908 - 2004)

It is the quality of our work which will please God and not the quantity - Gandhi

You do not really understand something unless you can explain it to your grandmother - Albert Einstein

Quote me as saying I was misquoted - Groucho Marx

There is a misleading, unwritten rule that states if a quote giving advice comes from someone famous, very old, or Greek, then it must be good advice - Bo Bennett

Those who mind don't matter, and those who matter don't mind - old maxim

I don't make mistakes. I make prophesies which immediately turn out to be wrong - Murray Walker (motor racing commentator)

Any experience is good experience, except bad experience - Murray Walker (motor racing commentator)

I don't normally do requests, unless I'm asked to - Richard Whiteley, TV presenter (1943 - 2005)

Purchased experiences don't count - Douglas Coupland, author

We live in a society exquisitely dependent on science and technology, in which hardly anyone knows anything about science and technology - Carl Sagan

Perhaps it is better to be irresponsible and right, than to be responsible and wrong - Winston Churchill

To doubt everything or to believe everything are two equally convenient solutions; both dispense with the necessity of reflection - Henri Poincare

Imagination is more important than knowledge - Albert Einstein

The object of art is to give life a shape - William Shakespeare

Where is all the knowledge we lost with information? - T S Elliot

Democracy must be something more than two wolves and a sheep voting on what to have for dinner - James Bovard, Civil Libertarian (1994)

Don't argue about the difficulties. The difficulties will argue for themselves - Winston Churchill

I am giving you the right answers! You're just asking the wrong questions - Dennis the Menace (cartoon character, created by Hank Ketcham)

It is easy to propose impossible remedies - Aesop

Nothing is impossible for the person who doesn't have to do it - unattributable

It is much easier to be critical than to be correct - Benjamin Disraeli

Anything is possible if you don't know what you're talking about - Green's Law of Debate

The important thing is not to stop questioning - Albert Einstein

Now and then it's good to pause in our pursuit of happiness and just be happy - Guillaume Apollinaire

Good apple pies are a considerable part of our domestic happiness - Jane Austin (novelist)

Now that we have everything we need, we discover that there is almost nothing that we have that we want - John Cage

To be envious is to lessen oneself - motto

How many things are there which I do not want - Socrates (469 - 399 BC)

How many things I can do without! - Socrates (469 - 399 BC)

That man is the richest whose pleasures are the cheapest - Henry David Thoreau

What leads to unhappiness, is making pleasure the chief aim - William Shenstone

Practically everything else is more important than yourself - Sir Bob Geldof, musician and anti-poverty campaigner (2005)

Money never did buy happiness; and credit cards aren't doing much better - unattributable

Most of the important things I have don't actually cost anything, such as appreciating art and nature, and the kindness of other people - Patrick Jephson, private secretary to Princess Diana

Poor and content is rich, and rich enough - William Shakespeare

Oh, for the good old days when people would stop Christmas shopping when they ran out of money - unattributable

Never invest your money in anything that eats or needs painting – Billy Rose

Beware the hobby that eats - Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790)

There are no pockets in a shroud - unattributable

The best way for a person to have happy thoughts is to count his blessings and not his cash - unattributable

I am not interested in money. I just want to be wonderful - Marilyn Monroe

To be clever enough to get all the money, one must be stupid enough to want it - G K Chesterton (1874-1936)

The only point in making money is, you can tell some big shot where to go - Humphrey Bogart

Before borrowing money from a friend, decide which you need most - American proverb

The more money someone accumulates, the less interesting that person becomes - unattributable

He who knows he has enough is rich - Tao Te Ching

Receive wealth or prosperity without arrogance; and be ready to let it go - Emperor Marcus Aurelius (A.D. 121 - 180)

A rich man is nothing but a poor man with money - W C Fields

Attitude is more important than the past, than education, than money, than circumstances, than what people do or say. It is more important than appearance, giftedness, or skill - W C Fields

He who dies rich dies disgraced - Andrew Carnegie, industrialist, millionaire, and philanthropist (1835 - 1919)

Generosity with strings is not generosity; it is a deal - Marya Mannes

I resolved to stop accumulating and begin the infinitely more serious and difficult task of wise distribution - Andrew Carnegie, industrialist, millionaire, and philanthropist (1835 - 1919)

That which seems to be wealth may in verity be only the gilded index of far reaching ruin - John Ruskin (1819-1900)

It is not wealth that stands in the way of liberation but the attachment to wealth, not the enjoyment of pleasurable things but the craving for them - Fritz Schumacher

The wise man is informed in what is right. The inferior man is informed in what will pay - Confucius

To be happy, do not add to your possessions but subtract from your desires - unattributable

What one generation sees as a luxury, the next sees as a necessity - Anthony Crossland (1975)

Simplicity is making the journey of this life with just enough baggage - Charles Dudley Warner

Many who find the day too long, think life is too short - Charles Caleb Colton, English clergyman

It doesn't work to leap a twenty-foot chasm in two ten-foot jumps - American proverb

I've been told I'll go far in life. I hope I'm on the right route - bumper sticker

The last of the human freedoms is to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances - Viktor Frankl

You can't always get what you want, but if you try sometime you just might find, you get what you need - The Rolling Stones

Abundance, like want, ruins many - Romanian proverb

At the end of your life, it's not what you have that counts but what you have done - Rheinhold Messner

The less routine the more life - Amos Bronson Alcott

It takes a real storm in the average person's life to make him realise how much worrying he has done over the squalls - Heartland Advisor

I don't worry about a thing because I know nothing's gonna turn out right - Van Morrison song 'Don't worry about a thing'

The essential conditions of everything you do must be choice, love, passion - Nadia Boulanger

Be happy while you're living, for you're a long time dead - Scottish proverb

In three words I can sum up everything I've learned about life: it goes on - Robert Frost (American Poet 1875 - 1963)

We do not stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing - unattributable

Anyone who stops learning is old, whether at 20 or 80. Anyone who keeps learning stays young - Henry Ford

Happiness is a state from within, not affected by anything you can buy - Debra Veal (solo cross-Atlantic rower)

Blessed is he who expects nothing, for he shall never be disappointed - Jonathon Swift

The best things, the special moments, usually happen spontaneously, when you least expect them - Marion Montgomery, jazz singer

Joie de Vivre - French expression meaning joy of living, live life with gusto, making the most of every moment

I am an optimist. It does not seem too much use being anything else - Winston Churchill

I am neither an optimist nor a pessimist. I am a possibilitist - Max Lerner

Optimism is my best defence - Rod Stewart (Baby Jane)

The fragrance always stays in the hand that gives the rose - Hada Bejar

Beauty can't amuse you, but brainwork: reading, writing, thinking, can - Helen Gurley Brown

Beauty is whatever gives joy - Hugh Nibley

Expect nothing. Live frugally on surprise - Alice Walker

Work joyfully and peacefully, knowing that right thoughts and right efforts inevitably bring about right results - James Allen

A great many people think they are thinking when they are merely rearranging their prejudices - William James

I have noted that persons with bad judgment are most insistent that we do what they think best - Lionel Abel

If, at first, you do succeed, try to hide your astonishment - Los Angeles Times Syndicate

The men who try to do something and fail are infinitely better than those who try to do nothing and succeed - Lloyd Jones

Not everything that can be counted counts; and not everything that counts can be counted - Albert Einstein

There are only two tragedies in life: one is not getting what one wants, the other is getting it - Oscar Wilde

All mankind is divided into three classes: Those that are immovable, those that are movable, and those that move - Arab proverb

It's easy to be a starter but very few finish. Successful people are finishers - unattributable

The three signs of great men are -- generosity in the design, humanity in the execution, moderation in success - Otto von Bismarck

Einstein's three rules of work: 1) Out of clutter find simplicity; 2) From discord find harmony; 3) In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity - Albert Einstein

It is better to ask some of the questions than know all the answers - James Thurber

'It can't happen here' is number one on the list of famous last words - David Crosby

I have had a perfectly wonderful evening, but this wasn't it - Groucho Marx

Absence of proof is not proof of absence - Michael Crichton

Age is strictly a case of mind over matter. If you don’t mind, it doesn’t matter - Jack Benny

I don't believe in ageing. I believe in forever altering one's aspect to the sun. Hence my optimism - Virginia Woolf

You end up as you deserve. In old age you must put up with the face, the friends, the health, and the children you have earned - Judith Viorst

Broad-minded is just another way of saying a fellow is too lazy to form an opinion - Will Rogers (1879 - 1935)

One accurate measurement is worth a thousand expert opinions - Admiral Grace Hopper

Whatever you are, be a good one - Abraham Lincoln

It's not what you've got, it's what you use that makes a difference - Zig Ziglar

When it's all over, it's not who you were, it's whether you made a difference - Bob Dole

A celebrity is a person who works hard all his life to become well known, then wears dark glasses to avoid being recognised - Fred Allen

Eating words has never given me indigestion - Winston Churchill

All lies and jest, still, a man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest - Simon and Garfunkel (The Boxer)

I don't like to employ anyone who never makes mistakes, because that means they take their decisions too late - Sir John Harvey-Jones, former ICI Chairman

We may choose our friends rather than our relatives but our relatives will always be our relatives (so it makes sense to get on with them) - anonymous

Contrary to general belief, I do not believe that friends are necessarily the people you like best, they are merely the people who got there first - Peter Ustinov, actor, writer and raconteur (1921-2004)

By the time a man realizes that maybe his father was right, he usually has a son who thinks he is wrong - Charles Wadworth

A person who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new - Albert Einstein

There is nothing wrong with making mistakes. Just don't respond with encores - anonymous

Admit your errors before someone else exaggerates them - Andrew V Mason

I don't want to make the wrong mistake - Yogi Berra (American baseball player)

A good scare is worth more to a man than good advice - Edgar Watson Howe

Organisation exists mostly in the eye of the beholder - W Ross Ashby

Smooth seas do not make skillful sailors - African proverb

Take this tip from nature: The woods would be a very silent place if no birds sang except those who sang best - Bernard Meltzer

Mountains should have holes in, to see the other side.
By observing the view thru this aperture, would save a considerable ride - Spike Milligan

I told you I was ill - Spike Milligan's choice of epitaph

Don't send me flowers when I'm dead. If you like me, send them while I'm alive - Brian Clough, football player and manager (1935 - 2004)

Even if you fall on your face, you're still moving forward - Robert C Gallagher

In America the young are always ready to give to those who are older than themselves the full benefits of their inexperience - Oscar Wilde

Ask the experienced rather than the learned - Arab proverb

It is not what we read, but what we remember that makes us learned. It is not what we intend but what we do that makes us useful. And, it is not a few faint wishes but a lifelong struggle that makes us valiant - Henry Ward Beecher

The lesson is in the struggle, not in the victory - anonymous

We learn fastest when we're vulnerable - unattributable

What keeps me going is goals - Muhammad Ali

Thinking is the best way of travelling - The Moody Blues

We must find our duties in what comes to us, not in what might have been - George Eliot

It pays to be obvious, especially if you have a reputation for subtlety - Isaac Asimov

Never let your sense of morals get in the way of doing what's right - Isaac Asimov

If knowledge can create problems, it is not through ignorance that we can solve them - Isaac Asimov

Knowledge is of two kinds: We know a subject ourselves, or we know where we can find information about it - Samuel Johnson (1709-1784)

Thinking is one of the most important weapons in dealing with problems - Nelson Mandela

If you want peace with your enemy, you have to work with your enemy. Then he becomes your partner - Nelson Mandela

If the only tool you have is a hammer, you tend to see every problem as a nail - Abraham H Maslow

The greater part of our happiness or misery depends on our character and not our circumstances - Nelson Mandela

Life is too long to be miserable. Every day is a terrific day; if you don't believe that, just try missing one - unattributable

The greatest of all faults, I should say, is to be conscious of none - Thomas Carlyle

All blame is a waste of time. No matter how much fault you find with another, and regardless of how much you blame him, it will not change you - Dr. Wayne Dyer

Our destiny is shaped by our thoughts and our actions. We cannot direct the wind but we can adjust the sails - unattributable

Never mistake motion for action - Ernest Hemingway

I do not believe in a fate that falls on men however they act; but I do believe in a fate that falls on them unless they act - G K Chesterton (1874-1936)

We can believe what we choose. We are answerable for what we choose to believe - John Henry Newman

One must be aware of the Richard III syndrome: one has to be wary of people who can't live without power; i.e. the drive for power without purpose - Warren Bennis, Professor of Business Administration, University of Southern California

The masses are far more likely to believe a big lie than several small ones - Adolf Hitler

The truth is not always the same as the majority decision - Pope John Paul II (1920 - 2005)

Truth is not determined by a majority vote - Pope Benedict XVI

God provides the wind but man must raise the sails - St Augustine

If it is to be, it is up to me - William Johnsen

A philospher sees the Earth as a large planet, travelling through the heavens, covered with fools - Bernard de Fontenelle, 17th Century French philosopher

Sometimes I think the surest sign that intelligent life exists elsewhere in the universe is that none of it has tried to contact us - unattributable

Personally, I don't think there's intelligent life on other planets. Why should other planets be any different from this one? - Bob Monkhouse

The intelligence of the planet is constant and the population is growing - Arthur C Clarke

The man who moves a mountain begins by carrying small stones - Chinese proverb

Behind an able man there are always other able men - Chinese proverb

The best armour is to keep out of range - Italian proverb

The man who strikes first admits that his ideas have given out - Chinese proverb

What you do speaks so loudly that I cannot hear what you say - Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882)

Listen or your tongue will make you deaf - Native American proverb

Knowledge speaks, but wisdom listens - Jimi Hendrix

Nine-tenths of wisdom is being wise in time - Theodore Roosevelt (US President 1901-1909)

All wisdom is wisdom after the event - W Ross Ashby

If you want people to think you're wise, just agree with them - Leo Roston

Now all my teachers are dead except silence - W S Merwin

Don't speak unless you can improve on the silence - Spanish proverb

If a man empties his purse into his head, no man can take it away from him. An investment in knowledge always pays the best interest - Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790)

To know the road ahead, ask those coming back - Chinese proverb

We know what happens to people who stay in the middle of the road. They get run over - Aneurin Bevan

While we may not be able to control all that happens to us, we can control what happens inside us - Benjamin Franklin (1706 - 1790)

Ye can lead a man up to the university, but ye can't make him think - Finley Peter Dunne (1867-1936)

If you are stimulated by what you do, you never get tired - Nelson Mandela

It is never too late to be what you might have been - George Eliot

Great things are not done by impulse, but by a series of small things brought together - Vincent van Gogh

If you think you're too small to make a difference, you've obviously never been in bed with a mosquito - Michelle Walker

Always do more than is required of you - George Patton

Affliction comes to us, not to make us sad but sober; not to make us sorry but wise - Henry Ward Beecher

Have no fear of perfection, you'll never reach it - Salvador Dali

Perfection is a trifle dull. It is not the least of life's ironies that this, which we all aim at, is better not quite achieved - W Somerset Maugham

If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they don't want to hear - George Orwell

Freedom consists not in doing what we like, but in having the right to do what we ought - Pope John Paul II (1920 - 2005)

It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it - Aristotle

Genius is one per cent inspiration, ninety-nine per cent perspiration - Thomas Alva Edison (1847-1931)

I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work - Thomas Alva Edison (1847-1931)

If we did all the things we are capable of doing, we would literally astound ourselves - Thomas Alva Edison (1847-1931)

If you always do what you've always done, then you'll always get what you've always got - anonymous

Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result - Albert Einstein

However beautiful the strategy, you should occasionally look at the results - Winston Churchill

You were born an original. Don't die a copy - John Mason

I believe in getting into hot water; it keeps you clean - G K Chesterton (1874-1936)

Never mistake endurance for hospitality - anonymous

In an ideal world I would like to be alive until I am dead - Sir John Harvey-Jones, former ICI Chairman

I want to grow old without facelifts. I want to have the courage to be loyal to the face I have made - Marilyn Monroe

Cheerfulness and contentment are great beautifiers, and are famous preservers of youthful looks - Charles Dickens

Never argue with a fool. People might not know the difference - unattributable

As a rule, man's a fool. When it's hot, he wants it cool. When it's cool, he wants it hot. Always wanting what is not - Nat King Cole song 'Wild is love'

Nothing is so simple it cannot be misunderstood - Freeman's Law

Out of intense complexities intense simplicities emerge - Winston Churchill

The average person thinks he isn't - Father Lorenzoni

Small deeds done are better than great deeds planned - Peter Marshall

Our deeds determine us as much as we determine our deeds - George Eliot

The art of being wise is the art of knowing what to overlook - William James

If you chase two rabbits, both will escape - ancient proverb

I base my fashion sense on what doesn't itch - Gilda Radner

The fashion wears out more apparel than the man - William Shakespeare (Much Ado About Nothing)

There's more to life than increasing its speed - Ghandi

The solution to the population problem is....more monks - Dalai Lama

Life is like a sewer. What you get out of it depends on what you put into it - Tom Learer, Harvard University

Life's like a play: it's not the length, but the excellence of the acting that matters - Seneca

Life is the art of drawing without an eraser - unattributable

Life is the art of drawing sufficient conclusions from insufficient data - Samuel Butler (1835 - 1902)

Life is like playing a violin solo in public and learning the instrument as one goes on - Samuel Butler

Life must be lived forwards, but it can only be understood backwards - Soren Kierkegaard

The great use of life is to spend it for something that outlasts it — William James

What you have to do in life is not look back at all the grievances but look forward to what is ahead - Terry Waite, former hostage for 5 years in Beirut

Life is a succession of lessons which must be lived to be understood - Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882)

The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there - L P Hartley (1895 - 1972)

It is better to give than to lend, and its costs about the same - Philip Gibbs

Luck never gives: it only lends - Chinese proverb

An education isn't how much you have committed to memory, or even how much you know. It's being able to differentiate between what you know and what you don't - Anatole France

It is only too easy to see what you half expect to see - Patrick Moore (astronomer)

Seize opportunity by the beard, for it is bald behind - Bulgarian proverb

The optimist sees opportunity in every danger; the pessimist sees danger in every opportunity - Winston Churchill

The point of living and of being an optimist, is to be foolish enough to believe the best is yet to come - Peter Ustinov, actor, writer and raconteur (1921-2004)

Failure is the opportunity to begin again more intelligently - Henry Ford

Failure prepares us for success - manager's proverb

Many of life's failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up - Thomas Alva Edison (1847-1931)

If you don't fail now and again, it's a sign you're playing it safe - Woody Allen

Eighty percent of success is showing up - Woody Allen

Activity is not achievement - unattributable

Success is going from failure to failure without losing enthusiasm - Winston Churchill

Success is a journey, not a destination - unattributable

You have succeeded in life when all you really want is only what you really need - Vernon Howard

Success is a lousy teacher. It seduces smart people into thinking they can't lose - Bill Gates

Time is not measured by the passing of years but by what one does, what one feels, and what one achieves - Jawaharlal Nehru, 1st prime minister of India (1889 - 1964)

Do something worth remembering - Elvis Presley

Never fear the event - Horatio Nelson

Don’t follow trends, start trends - Frank Capra

Just don't give up trying to do what you really want to do. Where there is love and inspiration, I don't think you can go wrong - Ella Fitzgerald

Never, never, never, never give up - Winston Churchill

It is high time that the ideal of success should be replaced by the ideal of service - Albert Einstein

Don't curse the darkness, light a candle - unattributable

I am always doing things I can't do, that's how I get to do them - Pablo Picasso

When anger rises, think of the consequences - Confucius

Always forgive your enemies, nothing annoys them so much - Oscar Wilde

Some cause happiness wherever they go; others, whenever they go - Oscar Wilde

Happiness is nothing more than good health and a bad memory - Albert Schweitzer

You win some, you lose some, and some get rained out, but you gotta suit up for them all - J Askenberg

First they ignore you.Then they ridicule you.Then they attack you. Then you win - Gandhi

Too many people miss the silver lining because they're expecting gold - Maurice Seitter

When one door closes another door opens; but we often look so long and so regretfully upon the closed door that we do not see the ones which open for us - Alexander Graham Bell

Only dead fish float with the current. Live fish swim against it - unattributable

Life consists not in holding good cards but in playing those you hold well - Josh Billings

Vision without action is dreaming, action without vision is a nightmare - unattributable

Never underestimate the power of stupid people in large groups – unattributable

Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, German poet and natural philosopher (1749-1832)

Follow where your enthusiasm takes you - unattributable

I think all great innovations are built on rejections - Louis-Ferdinand Céline

There are two ways of meeting difficulties. You alter the difficulties or you alter yourself to meet them - unattributable

The surest path to happiness is in losing yourself in a cause greater than yourself - unattributable

The obvious path is not always the right path - Warren Jung, Arizona hiking guide

The world is full of obvious things which nobody by any chance ever observes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, The Hound of the Baskervilles

Uncertainty and mystery are energies of life. Don't let them scare you unduly, for they keep boredom at bay and spark creativity - R I Fitzhenry

You may never know what results come from your action, but if you do nothing, there will be no result - Gandhi

The only thing necessary for evil to survive is for good men to do nothing - Edmund Burke, Whig MP for Bristol 1774-80

Don't let what you do define what you want to be - unattributable

The indispensable first step to getting what you want out of life is this: decide what you want - Ben Stein

If you limit yourself only to what seems possible or reasonable, you disconnect yourself from what you truly want, and all that is left is a compromise - Robert Fritz: Author of The Path of Least Resistance

Let's not be narrow, nasty, and negative - Vernon Grounds

Attitudes are contagious....is yours worth catching? - unattributable

Attitudes are much more important than aptitudes - unattributable

The more I want to get something done, the less I call it work - Richard Bach

Our greatest glory consists not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall - Confucious

Choose a job you love and you will never have to work a day in your life - Confucious

Make room in your life for your life - Ford advertisement, 1997

Simplicity of character is the most natural result of profound thought - Chinese proverb

He who makes the most noise usually has the least to say - orator's proverb

The empty vessel makes the loudest sound - William Shakespeare

Give every man thy ear, but few thy voice - William Shakespeare

An inferiority complex would be a blessing, if only the right people had it - Alan Reed

If you believe everything you read, you better not read - Japanese proverb

Principle without practice is useless but practice without principle is dangerous - Japanese proverb

Gentlemen, those are my principles and if you don't like them....I've got others - Cecil B De Mille

To err is human, to forgive divine - Alexander Pope

To err is human, to forgive takes restraint. To forget you forgave is the mark of a saint - Suzanne Douglas

Forgiveness does not change the past, but it does enlarge the future - Paul Boese

A cheerful heart is good medicine - Proverbs 17:22

Laughter is the shortest distance between two people - Victor Borge

Comedy is simply a funny way of being serious - Peter Ustinov, actor, writer and raconteur (1921-2004)

A day without laughter is a day wasted - Charlie Chaplin

I have seen what a laugh can do. It can transform almost unbearable tears into something bearable, even hopeful - Bob Hope

The time you enjoy wasting is not wasted time - Bertrand Russell

A little nonsense now and then is relished by the wisest men - Willy Wonka

Truth never damages a cause that is just - Ghandi

If you always tell the truth you never have to remember anything - Mark Twain

Truth is stranger than fiction, to some people - Mark Twain

All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident - Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860)

A man cannot be comfortable without his own approval - Mark Twain

To be good is noble, but to teach others how to be good is nobler, and less trouble - Mark Twain

The way out of trouble is never as easy as the way in - Edgar Watson Howe

What is written without effort is in general read without pleasure - Samuel Johnson (1709-1784)

People who throw kisses are hopelessly lazy - Bob Hope

The wise man points to the moon, the fool looks at the finger - Chinese proverb

If you can't be an athlete at least be an athletic supporter - Eve Arden

When we see men of a contrary character, we should turn inwards and examine ourselves - Confucius

We make a living by what we get, we make a life by what we give - Winston Churchill

The reward of a thing well done, is to have done it - Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882)

Enthusiasm is the height of man. It is the passing from the human to the Divine - Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882)

A man can succeed at almost anything for which he has unlimited enthusiasm - Charles M Schwab

A fanatic is one who can’t change his mind and won’t change the subject - Winston Churchill

A sceptic is a person who, when he sees the handwriting on the wall, claims it is a forgery - Morris Bender

It is not enough to have a good mind. The main thing is to use it well - Rene Descartes, French Philosopher and Scientist (1596-1650)

They always say time changes things, but you actually have to change them yourself - Andy Warhol

At first people refuse to believe that a strange new thing can be done. Then they begin to hope that it can be done. Then they see it can be done. Then it is done and the world wonders why it was not done centuries ago - Frances Hodgson Burnett (author)

It often takes more courage to change one's opinion than to stick to it - Geoffrey Abert

Is anyone afraid of change? What then is more pleasing to the universal nature? Can anything that is useful be accomplished without change? - Emperor Marcus Aurelius (A.D. 121 - 180)

It is only the wisest and stupidest who never change - Confucius

If it is not necessary to change, it is necessary not to change - Alan Bennett

The easier it is to do, the harder it is to change - Eng's Principle

The main dangers in this life are the people who want to change everything or nothing - Lady Nancy Astor

If you're not riding the wave of change, you'll find yourself beneath it - unattributable

The more things change, the more they are the same - Alphonse Karr (1808-1890)

Every calling is great when greatly pursued - Oliver Wendell Holmes

The voyage of discovery is not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes - Marcel Proust

Life is what happens while you're planning something else - unattributable

Life's fast, we see so much, but notice so little - Chris Scantlebury

We spend our lives on the run: we get up by the clock, eat and sleep by the clock, get up again, go to work - and then we retire. And what do they give us? A clock - Dave Allen, stand up comedian (1936 - 2005)

We grow neither better nor worse as we get old, but more like ourselves - Mary Lamberton Becker

If I had known I was going to live so long I would have taken better care of myself - Leon Eldred

Every man is the architect of his own fortune - Appius Claudius

I am a great believer in luck, and I find the harder I work, the more I have of it - Stephen Leacock

The difference between perseverance and obstinacy is that one often comes from a strong will, and the other from a strong won't - Henry Ward Beecher

Oh, people can come up with statistics to prove anything. 14% of people know that - Homer Simpson

There are two kinds of statistics, the kind you look up and the kind you make up - Rex Stout

Statistics - the only science that enables different experts using the same figures to draw different conclusions - Evan Esar (1899-1995)

I started out with nothing. I still have most of it - Michael Davis

The person who knows HOW will always have a job. The person who knows WHY will always be his boss - Diane Ravitch

A good plan executed today is better than a perfect plan executed next week - General George Patton (1944)

Plans are useless, but the act of planning is invaluable - Napoleon

We haven't got a plan so nothing can go wrong! - Spike Milligan

One day the "Don't Knows" will get in and then where will we be? - Spike Milligan

The penalty good people pay for not being interested in politics is to be governed by people worse than themselves - Plato

The trouble with being punctual is that nobody’s there to appreciate it - Franklin P Jones

Efficiency is intelligent laziness - David Dunham

I have never known any trouble that an hour's reading didn't assuage - Charles de Secondat

Good communication is as stimulating as black coffee, and just as hard to sleep after - Anne Morrow Lindbergh

In communications, familiarity breeds apathy - William Bernbach

When a man tells you that he got rich through hard work, ask him: 'Whose? - Don Marquis (1878 - 1937)

Opportunity may knock only once, but temptation leans on the doorbell - anonymous

Opportunities are usually disguised as hard work, so most people don't recognise them - Ann Landers

Getting caught is the mother of invention - Robert Byrne

Research is what I'm doing when I don't know what I'm doing - Wernher von Braun

If we knew what it was we were doing, it would not be called research, would it? - Albert Einstein

Whatever hits the fan will not be evenly distributed - Law of Probable Disposal

Sometimes the most urgent and vital thing you can possibly do is take a complete rest - Ashleigh Brilliant

I don't have any solution but I certainly admire the problem - Ashleigh Brilliant

A problem shared is a problem halved, so is your problem really yours or just half of someone elses? - unattributable

To beat the bureaucracy, make your problem their problem - principle of displaced hassle

The greatest lesson in life is to know that even fools are right sometimes - Winston Churchill

Build a system that even a fool can use, and only a fool will want to use it - George Bernard Shaw

The world contrived to get on before I was born (I don't quite know how) and I dare say it will make some sort of lame shift after I am dead - George Bernard Shaw

Let us be thankful for the fools. But for them the rest of us could not succeed - Mark Twain

Better a witty fool than a foolish wit - William Shakespeare

A child of five could understand this. Fetch me a child of five - Groucho Marx

It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it - Upton Sinclair

You can fool too many of the people too much of the time - James Thurber

There are no foolish questions and no man becomes a fool until he has stopped asking questions - Saul Steinberg

The fool wonders, the wise man asks - Benjamin Disraeli

Any fool can criticize, condemn, and complain; and most fools do - Dale Carnegie

Critics search for ages for the wrong word, which, to give them credit, they eventually find - Peter Ustinov, actor, writer and raconteur (1921-2004)

Talk sense to a fool and he calls you foolish - Euripides (c.485-406 BC)

To mobilise we must develop a technique and methods so simple that the citizen of good common sense can readily grasp the idea - General George C Marshall

Soap and water and common sense are the best disinfectants - William Osler

In theory there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice there is - Yogi Berra (American baseball player)

A theory must be tempered with reality - Jawaharlal Nehru, 1st prime minister of India (1889 - 1964)

Facts are facts and will not disappear on account of your likes - Jawaharlal Nehru, 1st prime minister of India (1889 - 1964)

If the facts don't fit the theory, change the facts - Albert Einstein

It's not that I'm so smart, it's just that I stay with problems longer - Albert Einstein

The fact that no one understands you doesn't mean you're an artist - unattributable

There are no stupid questions, but there are a lot of inquisitive idiots - unattributable

It's better to keep your mouth shut and give the impression that you're stupid than to open it and remove all doubt - Rami Belson

Better to keep your mouth shut and be thought a fool than open it and remove all doubt - Denis Thatcher

I love argument, I love debate. I don't expect anyone to agree with me, that's not their job - Margaret Thatcher

The farther backward you can look, the farther forward you are likely to see - Winston Churchill

What we learn from history is that man can never learn anything from history - Heger

News is the first rough draft of history - Philip L Graham

Personally, I'm always ready to learn, although I do not always like being taught - Winston Churchill

Reactionary: A man walking backwards with his face to the future - Aneurin Bevan

The trouble with the future is that it usually arrives before we're ready for it - Arnold Glasgow

A speculator is a man who observes the future, and acts before it occurs - Bernard M Baruch

The future starts today, not tomorrow - Pope John Paul II (1920 - 2005)

All things good to know are difficult to learn - Greek proverb

One of the lessons of history is that nothing is often a good thing to do and always a clever thing to say - Will Durant, American historian (1885-1981)

Thinking's the hardest work, that's why so few engage in it - Henry Ford

If you cannot convince them, confuse them - Harry S. Truman, 33rd U.S. President

I have found the best way to give advice to your children is to find out what they want and then advise them to do it - Harry S. Truman, 33rd U.S. President

Advice is what we ask for when we already know the answer but wish we didn't - Erica Jong

When the mouse laughs at the cat, there is a hole nearby - Nigerian proverb

Accept that some days you are the pigeon and some days you are the statue - unattributable

The wise man doesn’t give the right answers, he poses the right questions - Claude Levi Strauss

Be wiser than other people, if you can, but don't tell them so - Lord Chesterfield

You are only as wise as others perceive you to be - M Shawn Cole

A conclusion is simply the place where someone got tired of thinking - Arthur Block

Courage is what it takes to stand up and speak, courage is also what it takes to sit down and listen - Winston Churchill

Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake - Napoleon

If you think the problem is bad now, just wait until we've solved it - Arthur Kasspe

Things are never so bad they can't be made worse - Humphrey Bogart

If you're in a hole, stop digging - Denis Healey

When you lose, don't lose the lesson - Dalai Lama

I found out that if you are going to win games, you had better be ready to adapt - Scotty Bowman

You must do things you think you cannot do - Eleanor Roosevelt

The one who says it cannot be done should not interrupt the one doing it - Roman rule

They can because they think they can - Virgil (70 BC - 19 BC)

Committee: where minutes are kept and hours lost - unattributable

The best kind of committee is a committee of three where the other two members are absent - unattributable

Show me someone who goes to a lot of committee meetings and I'll show you someone who doesn't have a proper job - Jeremy Clarkson writing in the Sunday Times, 13 August 2006

If Moses had been a committee, the Israelites would still be in Egypt - anonymous

If a committee is allowed to discuss a bad idea long enough, it will inevitably vote to implement the idea simply because so much work has already been done on it - Ken Cruickshank

Committeeship is the art of coming into a discussion without actually understanding a word of what anybody is talking about - Stephen Potter (1900 - 1969), journalist and author of 'One-upmanship'

I've searched all the parks in all the cities and found no statues of committees - G K Chesterton (1874-1936)

To laugh often and much. To win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children. To earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends. To appreciate beauty, to find the best in others. To leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch, or a redeemed social condition. To know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded - Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882)

Man does not live by words alone, despite the fact that sometimes he has to eat them - Adlai Stevenson

All philosophy lies in two words, sustain and abstain - Epictetus

Every year is getting shorter, never seem to find the time. Plans that either come to naught or half a page of scribbled lines. Hanging on in quiet desperation is the English way. The time is gone the song is over, thought I'd something more to say - 'Time' by Pink Floyd

When all is said and done, a lot more is said than done - unattributable

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