CAPSULE WISDOM

A life spent making mistakes is more useful than a life doing nothing.

Only those who dare to fail miserably can achieve greatly.

He who wishes to be obeyed must know how to command.

Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide.

Where books are burned, soon people will be burned.

When government provides something for free, demand for it always exceeds supply and rationing is inevitable.

If two people think exactly alike, only one is thinking.

Every fraud is a big lie buried in a huge mound of truth.

Pacifists can survive only if brave men will fight to save them from extinction.

Even if you're on the right track, you'll get run over if you just sit there.

Economics-challenged socialists don’t realize socialism will kill “the goose that lays the golden eggs” (The entrepreneurs who, under socialism, will no longer create the new wealth the socialists plan to redistribute.).

Words without actions are ear candy.

Imagination is more important than knowledge.

The cock may crow, but it’s the hen that lays the eggs.

Anyone who thinks the average person is rational -- isn’t.

If your wife can’t trust you, why should I?

No one can make you feel inferior without your permission.

Most hateful people hate themselves; they just don’t realize it.

Don’t allow your past to control your future.

Few think with their own minds; most allow others to think for them.

You can't fix stupid.

Most people will believe anything if it's repeated often enough.

May your position in life never exceed your capabilities.

Many people can’t find truth even when it slaps their face.

If your prose facilitates fast reading, trash it.

The pinnacle of stupidity is not to recognize it in yourself.

Be very careful that you don't make the wrong mistake.

Evil triumphs when good men to do nothing.

People who have kept on trying when there seemed to be no hope have accomplished most of the important things in the world.

Civilization is in peril when young people compete to show how stupid they can act.

Mercy to the guilty is cruelty to the victims.

Just because someone is good doesn't mean they cannot be wrong.

Youth is a wonderful thing. Too bad it’s wasted on the young.

The doctor can't make you immortal, but with good luck, he can extend your suffering indefinitely.

The only way to get Americans to wake up is if their collective asses are on fire.

You have my sympathy but not my approval.

When you change your perspective, you change what you see.

Don't look for ways to be offended.

Stop yourself from feeling superior.

Be careful what you wish for; you may get it.

Every saint has a past; every sinner has a future.

Exchanging ideas with some people is like talking to a tree.

Reality is the refuge of people without imagination.

The only defense against the world is a thorough knowledge of it.

Nothing is impossible for the man who doesn't have to do it himself.

A nation's ideals are exposed by its advertising.

Many people are ready to carry the stool when a piano has to be moved.

To dream of the person you'd like to be wastes the person you are.

Money doesn't just talk, it roars.

The purpose of life is to be defeated by greater and greater things.

A poem is a beautiful thought expressed with beautiful words.

Health is merely the slowest possible rate at which one can die.

If you have health, a full belly and a warm place to sleep, all else is details.

What you are speaks so loudly I can't hear what you're saying.

Talking to yourself is OK; but it's dangerous if you listen.

I love mankind; it's people I can't stand.

Dull people go to heaven. The fun people go to hell.

In heaven all the interesting people are missing.

Experience is the comb life gives you after you've lost your hair.

Work fascinates me; I can watch it for hours.

It's better to create than to be learned. Creating is the true essence of life.

Great minds have purposes; others have wishes.

Nothing is really work unless you'd rather be doing something else.

Sometimes the light at the end of the tunnel has a train attached.

If an idiot's talk flaunts his stupidity, don't bother to correct him.

No businessman ever went broke by overestimating the stupidity of the American public.

Don't compromise by moving halfway in the wrong direction.

Compromise is like mixing ice cream and manure. It doesn't improve the manure very much, and it completely ruins the ice cream.

Why does anyone purchase products that a celebrity is paid to endorse?

Too many people spend their lives worshiping other people's lives.

Spectator sports is the modern opiate for the useless.

TV's main purpose is to publicize and make acceptable the basest behaviors.

TV's repetition makes depravity appear normal.

Everything that's popular isn't right.

Humanity’s greatest threat is its own stupidity.

Cruel statements are never justified even if true.

Real thinking is hard. That’s why few people will do it.

Communism and socialism work well only when members of the group share the same worldview as in monasteries, convents, and nations with culturally uniform citizens.

Some cause happiness wherever they go; others, whenever they go

Always forgive your enemies; nothing annoys them so much.

Sometimes it’s not possible to simplify a complex subject such that it’s understandable to non-thinkers.

Justice delayed is justice denied.

Happiness is for pigs.

The cheapest resource an organization can buy is brains.

Discipline is remembering what you want.

The only way for a rich person to be healthy is by exercise and abstinence - that is to live like a poor person.

If you need many words to say something, rethink it.

Forgiveness without atonement encourages more abuse.

No good deed should go unpunished.

I have thought too much to stoop to action.

Everyone cheats to the best of their ability.

Surprise is the compensation for ignorance.

Most folks are as happy as they decide to be.

Ignorance means you are never bored.

Diplomacy is saying "nice doggy" until you can find a stick.

Teaching dependency is easy; teaching freedom is hard because people don't want responsibility.

If you love peace more than freedom, you will lose freedom.

Nobody spends someone else's money as wisely as his or her own.

Conservatives fear the public won't understand; liberals fear they will.

Time is a great teacher. Unfortunately, it kills all its pupils.

Why are you still working? Because it's more fun than loafing!

Rules for living:

1. He who has the gold makes the rules.

2. The cruelest thing you can do to your children is to raise them rich.

3. If you're born a fox, don't try to be a bear.

4. Never explain; never complain.

5. A man should never get into a pissing contest with a skunk.

6. Never wrestle with a pig. You both get dirty, but the pig enjoys it.

7. Know when to stop thinking and start doing.

It's the start that stops most people.

It wasn't raining when Noah built the Ark.

Never rain on another's parade.

Once you learn to fake sincerity, everything else is easy.

Everything is harder to do than you first think.

Everything takes longer to do than you planned.

If you want something done right, do it yourself.

To most people, appearances are more important than reality.

You can get by on charm for about fifteen minutes. After that, you'd better know something.

Don't insult an alligator until you've crossed the river.

It's amazing how the public honors the screen pretensions of movie stars

more than real heroes. Obviously, perceptions and appearances are far more important than reality.

When overwhelmed by an opponent's logic, a juvenile resorts to insulting the opponent.

If you can't win an argument based on the evidence, deny the evidence. If that doesn't work, attack your opponent's motives and character.

Even when you have a right to be angry, you haven't a right to be cruel, only to be just.

Don't supply the rocks that will be thrown at you.

No matter how much you care, some people just won't care back.

You can't change people's minds by yelling at them.

Never stand in the way of a person determined to be a fool.

Either you control your attitude or it controls you.

Never get between a dog and its bone.

Every rule has its exceptions including this one.

You can't make someone love you. All you can do is be someone who can be loved. The rest is up to them.

It takes years to build up trust, and only seconds to destroy it.

It's not what you have in your life but whom you have in your life that counts.

You shouldn't compare yourself to the best others can do but to the best you can do.

It's not what happens to people that's important. It's what they do about it.

No matter how thin you slice it, there are always two sides.

It's taking me a long time to become the person I want to be.

It's a lot easier to react than it is to think.

You should always leave loved ones with loving words. It may be the last time you see them.

You can keep going long after you think you can't.

We are responsible for what we do, no matter how we feel.

Heroes are the people who do what has to be done when it needs to be done, regardless of the consequences.

Learning to forgive takes practice.

There are people who love you dearly, but just don't know how to show it.

Money is a lousy way of keeping score.

Sometimes the people you expect to kick you when you're down will be the ones to help you get back up.

Just because someone doesn't love you the way you want them to doesn't mean they don't love you with all they have.

Maturity has more to do with what types of experiences you've had and what you've learned from them and less to do with how many birthdays you've celebrated.

Telling a child her dreams are unlikely is humiliating, and a tragedy if she believes it.

It isn't always enough to be forgiven by others. Sometimes you have to learn to forgive yourself.

No matter how bad your heart is broken the world doesn't stop for your grief.

Our background and circumstances may have influenced who we are, but we are responsible for whom we become.

Just because two people argue, it doesn't mean they don't love each other. And just because they don't argue, it doesn't mean they do.

Sometimes you have to put the individual ahead of their actions.

We don't have to change friends if we understand that friends change.

Two people can look at the same thing and see two different things.

No matter how you try to protect your children, they will eventually get hurt and you will hurt in the process.

Credentials on the wall do not make you a decent human being.

The people you care most about in life are taken from you too soon.

It's hard to determine where to draw the line between being nice and

not hurting people's feelings, and standing up for what you believe.

There are some folks that if they don't know, you can't tell them.

Oh what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive.

Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence.

Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent.

Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb.

Education alone will not; the world is full of educated derelicts.

Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent.

Perseverance wins over genius 99% of the time.

Don't approach a goat from the front, a horse from the rear, or a fool from either side.

A sin repeated seems permitted.

Who said the following:

"The victor will never be asked if he told the truth."

"What luck for the rulers that men do not think."

"Strength lies not in defense but in attack."

"Success is the sole earthly judge of right and wrong."

"The great masses of the people ... will more easily fall victims to a big lie than to a small one."

The answer is Adolph Hitler.

Only a fool tests the depth of the water with both feet.

A bore is someone who opens his mouth and puts his feats in it.

We spend much time searching for security - then hate it when we get it.

Reality is the leading cause of stress - for those in touch with it.

The road to Hell is paved with good intentions.

The significant problems we face cannot be solved by the same kind of thinking that created them.

A stupid question deserves a stupid answer.

No one likes to have his nose rubbed into the truth.

Here lies one who meant well, tried a little, and failed much.

When you discover you're in a hole, stop digging.

We are what we repeatedly do.

In seeking wisdom, the first step is silence; the second, listening; the third, remembering; the fourth, practicing and the fifth, teaching others.

Wisdom is understanding what you know and what you don't know.

Wisdom in living consists in getting close enough to the fire to be warmed, but not so close as to be burned.

Age doesn't always bring wisdom. Sometimes it comes alone.

Wisdom is understanding how to use knowledge.

Wisdom is rejecting all thoughts that weaken you.

Give me the fortitude to endure the things that cannot be changed, the courage to change the things that can be changed and the wisdom to know one from the other.

Idiots are never confused. It takes wisdom to be confused.

Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.

No organization of humans can be perfect.

All great truths begin as blasphemies.

History is a pack of lies agreed upon.

Everyone has a photographic memory. Some just don't have film.

You can't convince a herd of pigs to give up their slop to maintain justice.

Only talk when it improves the silence.

A courtroom is a place where Jesus Christ and Judas Iscariot would be equals, with the odds favoring Judas.

Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

An idealist is someone very distant from reality.

Only politics and academia can survive idealism.

The central problem of life is to transform finite resources into valuable products and services for a profit.

Even a pig finds an acorn once in a while.

If a bad guy and a good guy compete, and each follows his own version of the "rules," the good guy will lose.

Reach for the stars but keep your feet on the ground.

It's so liberating to be irrelevant.

Courage is the greatest of all virtues, because it alone makes all the others possible.

What's the difference between ignorance and indifference?

I don't know and I don't care.

Loyalty is a virtue peculiar to those who are about to be betrayed.

Any indispensable person should be fired as soon as possible.

Whoever falls in love with himself has no rivals.

If I'd been present at creation, I would have given some useful hints.

If God didn't exist, then Man would have had to invent Him.

It is the final proof of God's omnipotence that He need not exist in order to save us.

When men cease to believe in God they'll believe in anything.

Man is certainly stark mad. He cannot make a worm, and yet he makes gods by the dozens.

Some people can’t be happy unless they have something to hate.

Under certain circumstances, profanity provides a relief denied even to prayer.

There is more to life than increasing its speed.

Life is what happens while you're making other plans.

I'm not afraid to die; I just don't want to be there when it happens.

The most certain way to get praise is to die.

There is no such thing as inner peace. There is only nervousness and death.

Most people would rather die than think; in fact they do.

One murder makes a villain, millions of murders makes a hero.

There is no money in poetry, but then there is no poetry in money either.

A key difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits.

The only reason most people get lost in thought is because it's unfamiliar territory.

Only the mediocre are always at their best.

Wit is educated insolence.

Seriousness is the only refuge of the shallow.

Don't be humble; you're not that great.

When turkeys mate, they think of swans.

There's nothing wrong with teenagers that reasoning with them won't aggravate.

Familiarity breeds attempt.

Sex is the most fun you can have without smiling.

The orgasm has replaced the Cross as the focus of longing and the image of fulfillment.

Sex is like gas -- it's disturbing until released.

Sex is like an itch you have to scratch.

Sex advice from an 17th century English lord to his son:

The pleasure is momentary.

The position is ridiculous.

The expense is damnable.

When the cat and mouse agree, the grocer is ruined.

Nobody has ever bet enough on the winning horse.

It is morally wrong to allow suckers to keep their money.

There is no glory in outstripping donkeys.

Democracy substitutes election by the incompetent many for appointment by the corrupt few.

A government that robs Peter to pay Paul can always count on the vote of Paul.

He can compress the most words into the smallest idea of any man I ever met.

In every fat book there is a thin book trying to get out.

When men are pure, laws are unnecessary; when men are corrupt, laws are broken.

The only reason I still jog is so I can hear heavy breathing again.

A closed mouth gathers no feet.

You learn more with your mouth closed than with it open.

Few people know how to be old.

I've always been interested in people, but I've never liked them.

Talk is cheap because supply exceeds demand.

A liberated woman is one who has sex before marriage and a job after.

If you haven't anything nice to say about somebody, come sit next to me.

Husbands are like fires; they go out if unattended.

It is easier to stay out than to get out.

The biggest sin is sitting on your ass.

Forgive your enemies, but never forget their names.

Moderation is a virtue only in those who are thought to have an alternative.

Never give up.

Don't fear speaking up.

Don't waste time. Make the most of every minute.

Contact with customers and good service are what separate winners from losers.

Losers blame fate for their failures, but credit themselves for successes.

Integrity is doing the proper thing even when nobody is watching.

The past happened but history is what someone wrote.

The study of history is a powerful antidote to contemporary arrogance. It is humbling to discover how many of our glib assumptions, which seem to us novel and plausible, have been tested before, not once but many times and in innumerable guises; and discovered to be, at great human cost, wholly false.

The American people always will do the right thing, but only after they have exhausted all the other possibilities.

Only in America do people admire shrewd lawyers who outwit foolish juries to get acquittals for murderers.

An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.

Buying stocks is like visiting the casino, but without the cocktail service.

Thinking is what many people believe they are doing when they are merely rearranging their prejudices.

Economics is the science of telling you things you've known all your life, but in a language you can't understand.

Ecstasy is discovering a second layer of chocolates under the first.

A perfectionist is a person who takes great pains - and gives them to others.

Criticism comes often, enthusiastically, quickly and exhaustively. Praise comes rarely, grudgingly, slowly and incompletely.

Always talk half as much at you want.

Once you have them by the balls, their hearts and minds will follow.

The man who regards his own life and that of his fellow creatures as meaningless is not merely unhappy but hardly fit for life.

When in doubt, tell the truth. It will confound your enemies and astound your friends.

Like fire and weapons, money itself is neither good nor bad. Its character is determined by the hand of the user.

God gave us memory so that we could have roses in December.

The only job security in the world is to be more talented tomorrow than you are today.

Things don't change. You change your way of looking, that's all.

It's impossible to learn what you think you already know.

In modern society, the person with the biggest megaphone (compliant media) wins.

The best things in life aren't things.

Trophy wife's motto: I am worthy of the very best in life.

You cannot get respect from someone who has none to give, but you may be able to buy their allegiance.

If your best friend isn't yourself, you need a personal makeover.

Justice needn't be perfect, just reasonable.

He who laughs last thinks slowest.

A day without sunshine is like, well, night.

Change is inevitable, except from a vending machine.

I just got lost in thought. It was unfamiliar territory.

Seen it all, done it all, can't remember most of it.

In a courtroom, the best story wins.

With age comes a much more relaxed and comfortable attitude towards life that young folk wouldn't understand.

Honesty and integrity are vital, especially in today's conniving world.

Ideas are cheap. People who implement ideas are priceless.

It's amazing what you can accomplish if you don't care who gets the credit.

There is no limit to what a man can do or where he can go if he doesn't mind who gets the credit.

You'll be remembered for two things: the problems you solve and the problems you create.

Many people make rules to avoid making decisions.

Every person should have the right to pursue happiness.

And no person should be allowed to steal another's happiness away.

Those whom historians glorify often don't deserve it.

The pursuit of truth is like picking raspberries. You miss a lot if you approach it from only one angle.

Women who toss their cheese out on the floor shouldn't be surprised when a rat pounces.

Women respond to words; men respond to images.

The best way to change a person's view is with affection, not argument.

Fight the tendency to quit when you're behind.

A person who wants to do something will find a way; a person who doesn't will find an excuse.

The enemy of my enemy is my ally.

You live your life forward and understand it backwards.

A good scare teaches a man much more than good advice.

If you must make mistakes, it will be more to your credit if you make a new one each time.

Try to live your life the way you wish other people would live theirs.

Everyone is trying to accomplish something big, not realizing that life consists of many little things.

To whom much is given, much is required.

If you got a lot, you should give a lot.

If you believe in something, try very hard to understand it.

Two kinds of people fail: Those who listen to nobody, and those who listen to everybody.

If your arguments made sense you wouldn't have to scream them at me.

Talk, without action, is just hot air.

Nothing is interesting when you have it, only when you haven't it.

In life we make the best mistakes we know how to make.

Then, with luck, we go out and make new ones.

It hurts when you realize you've never been pleased with yourself even once.

Really knowing something, anything, takes a lot of hard work.

Man's capacity for justice makes diversity possible.

Man's capacity for injustice makes diversity necessary.

Democracy's greatest strength and its greatest weakness is its tolerance for diversity of thought. If that is lost, democracy is lost.

The road to success passes by many tempting parking places.

The difference between a wise man and a clever man is that the clever man can extricate himself from a situation that a wise man would never have gotten himself into in the first place.

Too many beliefs are weakly based but adamantly held.

Chaos in the midst of chaos is not humorous, but chaos in the midst of order is humorous.

Chaos is the law of nature; order is the dream of man.

Discipline without freedom is tyranny; freedom without discipline is chaos.

Work is a slice of your life; it's not the whole pizza.

Creativity can't be consumed. The more you use the more you have.

I'm tired of people who publicly flaunt their fake concern for the unfortunate.

Many people will walk in and out of your life, but only true friends will leave footprints in your heart.

To handle yourself, use your head; to handle others, use your heart.

Anger is only one letter short of danger.

If anyone can anger you, he controls you.

If someone betrays you once, it is his fault. If he betrays you twice, it is your fault.

Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people.

He who loses money, loses much; he, who loses a friend, loses much more; he, who loses faith, loses all.

Beautiful young people are accidents of nature, but beautiful old people are works of art.

Learn from the mistakes of others. You can't live long enough to make them all yourself.

Yesterday is history. Tomorrow is mystery.

The moment of victory is much too short to live for that and nothing else.

If you aren't being criticized, you must not be doing much.

An advantage unused is a disadvantage.

A pessimist is a well-informed optimist.