The Quotation Index

“Life wastes itself while we are preparing to live.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson · Prudence, 1841 · Primary source

“Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do.”

Steve Jobs · Stanford Commencement Address, 2005 · Primary source

“Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson · Circles, 1841 · Primary source

“The world is a fine place and worth the fighting for and I hate very much to leave it.”

Ernest Hemingway · For Whom the Bell Tolls, 1940 · Primary source

“Human felicity is produced not so much by great pieces of good fortune that seldom happen, as by little advantages that occur every day.”

Benjamin Franklin · The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin, 1771-1790 · Primary source

“Early to bed, early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise.”

Benjamin Franklin · Poor Richard’s Almanack, 1732-1758 · Primary source

“Never give in—never, never, never, never, in nothing great or small, large or petty, never give in except to convictions of honour and good sense.”

Winston Churchill · Never give in, never, 1941 · Primary source

“Trust thyself: every heart vibrates to that iron string.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson · Self-Reliance, 1841 · Primary source

“The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.”

Franklin D. Roosevelt · First Inaugural Address of Franklin D. Roosevelt, 1933 · Primary source

“It is far easier to start something than it is to finish it.”

Amelia Earhart · 20 Hrs. 40 Min., 1928 · Primary source

“But man is not made for defeat. A man can be destroyed but not defeated.”

Ernest Hemingway · The Old Man and the Sea, 1952 · Primary source

“If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away.”

Henry David Thoreau · Walden, 1849 · Primary source

“When the odds are hopeless, when all seems to be lost, then is the time to be calm, to make a show of authority—at least of indifference.”

Ian Fleming · On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, 1963 · Primary source

“Think in the morning, act in the noon, eat in the evening, sleep in the night.”

William Blake · The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, 1790 · Primary source

“All men dream: but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds wake in the day to find that it was vanity, but the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act their dream with open eyes, to make it possible. This I did.”

T. E. Lawrence · Seven Pillars of Wisdom, 1926 · Primary source

“Life is either a daring adventure or nothing.”

Helen Keller · The Open Door, 1957 · Primary source

“Never to go on trips with anyone you do not love.”

Ernest Hemingway · A Moveable Feast, 1964 · Primary source

“I have no special talents. I am only passionately curious.”

Albert Einstein · Letter to Carl Seelig, 1952 · Primary source

“If anything, I now believe even more strongly that reliability is essential for progress in life and while quantum mechanics is unlearnable for a vast majority, reliability can be learned to great advantage by almost anyone.”

Charlie Munger · Poor Charlie’s Almanack, 2005 · Primary source

“Concerning all acts of initiative (and creation) there is one elementary truth, the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then Providence moves too. All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred.”

W. H. Murray · The Scottish Himalayan Expedition, 1951 · Primary source

“Diligence is the mother of good luck.”

Benjamin Franklin · Poor Richard’s Almanack, 1732-1758 · Primary source

“Never say ‘no’ to adventures.”

Ian Fleming · Chitty-Chitty-Bang-Bang, 1964 · Primary source

“One never notices what has been done; one can only see what remains to be done.”

Marie Curie · Madame Curie: A Biography, 1938 · Secondary source

“Life is not easy for any of us. But what of that? We must have perseverance and above all confidence in ourselves. We must believe that we are gifted for something, and that this thing, at whatever cost, must be attained.”

Marie Curie · Madame Curie: A Biography, 1938 · Secondary source

“Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.”

Steve Jobs · Stanford Commencement Address, 2005 · Primary source

“I learned this, at least, by my experiment; that if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours.”

Henry David Thoreau · Walden, 1849 · Primary source

“But I have found out that though the ways in which I can make myself useful are few, yet the work open to me is endless.”

Helen Keller · Optimism, 1903 · Primary source

“I fight for my corner. I leave when the pub closes.”

Winston Churchill · Churchill is Dead at 90; The World Mourns Him; State Funeral Saturday, 1965 · Secondary source

“One can never consent to creep when one feels an impulse to soar.”

Helen Keller · The Story of My Life, 1903 · Primary source

“If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them.”

Henry David Thoreau · Walden, 1849 · Primary source

“The world breaks every one and afterward many are strong at the broken places.”

Ernest Hemingway · A Farewell to Arms, 1929 · Primary source

“There is nothing noble in being superior to your fellow man; true nobility is being superior to your former self.”

Ernest Hemingway · A Man’s Credo, 1963 · Primary source

“You only live twice:
Once when you’re born,
Once when you look death in the face.”

Ian Fleming · You Only Live Twice, 1964 · Primary source

“There never has been security. No man has ever known what he would meet around the next corner; if life were predictable it would cease to be life, and be without flavor.”

Eleanor Roosevelt · Tomorrow is Now, 1963 · Primary source

“I may not be as strong as I think. But I know many tricks and I have resolution.”

Ernest Hemingway · The Old Man and the Sea, 1952 · Primary source

“Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life.”

Steve Jobs · Stanford Commencement Address, 2005 · Primary source

“Anticipation, I suppose, sometimes exceeds realization.”

Amelia Earhart · Last Flight, 1937 · Primary source

“As I ate the oysters with their strong taste of the sea and their faint metallic taste that the cold white wine washed away, leaving only the sea taste and the succulent texture, and as I drank their cold liquid from each shell and washed it down with the crisp taste of the wine, I lost the empty feeling and began to be happy and to make plans.”

Ernest Hemingway · A Moveable Feast, 1964 · Primary source

“Let me tell you the secret that led me to my success. My only strength is my tenacity.”

Louis Pasteur · Oeuvres de Pasteur, 1922 · Primary source

“‘This case isn’t ripe yet. Until it is, our policy with Mr Big is “live and let live’.
Bond looked quizzically at Captain Dexter.
‘In my job,’ he said, ‘when I come up against a man like this one, I have another motto. It’s 'live and let die'.’”

Ian Fleming · Live and Let Die, 1954 · Primary source

“Most people rush after pleasure so fast that they rush right past it.”

Søren Kierkegaard · Either/Or, 1843 · Primary source

“Little strokes fell great oaks.”

Benjamin Franklin · The Way to Wealth, 1758 · Primary source

“Hope of gain lessens pain.”

Benjamin Franklin · Poor Richard’s Almanack, 1732-1758 · Primary source

“There are particular occasions when one may be most painfully moved to see a person standing utterly alone in the world. The other day I saw a poor girl walking utterly alone to church to be confirmed.”

Søren Kierkegaard · Either/Or, 1843 · Primary source

“Every day above earth is a good day.”

Ernest Hemingway · The Old Man and the Sea, 1952 · Primary source

“Nature arms each man with some faculty which enables him to do easily some feat impossible to any other, and thus makes him necessary to society.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson · Wealth, 1860 · Primary source

“The maxim Nothing avails but perfection may be spelt shorter: Paralysis.”

Winston Churchill · The Second World War, 1948-1953 · Primary source

“I shall not waste my days in trying to prolong them. I shall use my time.”

Ian Fleming · You Only Live Twice, 1964 · Primary source

“A friend is a person with whom I may be sincere.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson · Friendship, 1841 · Primary source

“Preparation, I have often said, is rightly two-thirds of any venture.”

Amelia Earhart · Last Flight, 1937 · Primary source

“Courage is the price that Life exacts for granting peace.”

Amelia Earhart · 20 Hrs. 40 Min., 1928 · Primary source

“Pride costs us more than hunger, thirst and cold.”

Thomas Jefferson · Letter to Thomas Jefferson Smith, 1825 · Primary source

“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, and comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.”

Theodore Roosevelt · Citizenship in a Republic, 1910 · Primary source

“That is just it, work is my element; I was born and made for it. I have found the limits of my legs; I have found the limits of my eyes; but I have never been able to find the limits of my labour.”

Napoleon Bonaparte · The Memorial of Saint Helena, 1824 · Secondary source

“When one door of happiness closes, another opens; but often we look so long at the closed door that we do not see the one which has been opened for us.”

Helen Keller · We Bereaved, 1929 · Primary source

“I felt as if I were walking with Destiny, and that all my past life had been but a preparation for this hour and for this trial.”

Winston Churchill · The Second World War, 1948-1953 · Primary source

“Never trouble another for what you can do yourself.”

Thomas Jefferson · Letter to Thomas Jefferson Smith, 1825 · Primary source

“He that falls in love with himself, will have no rivals.”

Benjamin Franklin · Poor Richard’s Almanack, 1732-1758 · Primary source

“It is a mistake to look too far ahead. Only one link in the chain of destiny can be handled at a time.”

Winston Churchill · The Second World War, 1948-1953 · Primary source

“Don’t think to hunt two hares with one dog.”

Benjamin Franklin · Poor Richard’s Almanack, 1732-1758 · Primary source

“Diligence overcomes difficulties, sloth makes them.”

Benjamin Franklin · Poor Richard’s Almanack, 1732-1758 · Primary source

“There is a time in every man’s education when he arrives at the conviction that envy is ignorance; that imitation is suicide.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson · Self-Reliance, 1841 · Primary source

“It is easier to forgive an Enemy than to forgive a Friend.”

William Blake · Jerusalem: The Emanation of The Giant Albion, 1804 · Primary source

“A life which does not go into action is a failure.”

Arnold J. Toynbee · A Study of History, 1934-1961 · Primary source

“Good luck is another name for tenacity of purpose.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson · Wealth, 1860 · Primary source

“The time to worry is three months before a flight. Decide then whether or not the goal is worth the risks involved. If it is, stop worrying. To worry is to add another hazard. It retards reactions, makes one unfit. Hamlet would have been a bad aviator. He worried too much.”

Amelia Earhart · Last Flight, 1937 · Primary source

“It is a paradoxical but profoundly true and important principle of life that the most likely way to reach a goal is to be aiming not at that goal itself but at some more ambitious goal behind it.”

Arnold J. Toynbee · A Study of History, 1934-1961 · Primary source

“Sometimes life’s gonna hit you in the head with a brick. Don’t lose faith.”

Steve Jobs · Stanford Commencement Address, 2005 · Primary source

“And people with obsessions, reflected Bond, were blind to danger.”

Ian Fleming · Moonraker, 1955 · Primary source

“I desire that there may be as many different persons in the world as possible; but I would have each one be very careful to find out and pursue his own way, and not his father’s or his mother’s or his neighbor’s instead. The youth may build or plant or sail, only let him not be hindered from doing that which he tells me he would like to do.”

Henry David Thoreau · Walden, 1849 · Primary source

“Although he had not got to bed until two, Bond walked into his headquarters punctually at ten the next morning.”

Ian Fleming · Moonraker, 1955 · Primary source

“Bond didn’t defend the practice. He simply maintained that the more effort and ingenuity you put into gambling, the more you took out.”

Ian Fleming · Casino Royale, 1953 · Primary source

“Above all, he liked it that everything was one’s own fault. There was only oneself to praise or blame. Luck was a servant and not a master. Luck had to be accepted with a shrug or taken advantage of up to the hilt. But it had to be understood and recognized for what it was and not confused with a faulty appreciation of the odds, for, at gambling, the deadly sin is to mistake bad play for bad luck. And luck in all its moods had to be loved and not feared.”

Ian Fleming · Casino Royale, 1953 · Primary source

“I have no dress except the one I wear. If you are going to be kind enough to give me one [a wedding dress], please let it be practical and dark, so that I can put it on afterwards to go to the laboratory.”

Marie Curie · Madame Curie: A Biography, 1938 · Secondary source

“He was a secret agent, and still alive thanks to his exact attention to the detail of his profession.”

Ian Fleming · Casino Royale, 1953 · Primary source

“Hope makes a good breakfast. Eat plenty of it.”

Ian Fleming · From Russia, with Love, 1957 · Primary source

“Every man alone is sincere. At the entrance of a second person, hypocrisy begins.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson · Friendship, 1841 · Primary source

“I think it’s the same with all relationships between a man and a woman. They can survive anything so long as some kind of basic humanity exists between the two people. When all kindness has gone, when one person obviously and sincerely doesn’t care if the other is alive or dead, then it’s just no good.”

Ian Fleming · For Your Eyes Only, 1960 · Primary source

“It is better to be alone than in bad company.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson · The Transcendentalist, 1842 · Primary source

“Grief too will make us idealists.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson · Experience, 1844 · Primary source

“‘Tomorrow!’ What possibilities there are in that word.”

Helen Keller · We Bereaved, 1929 · Primary source

“Follow your genius closely enough, and it will not fail to show you a fresh prospect every hour.”

Henry David Thoreau · Walden, 1849 · Primary source

“’Tis a shame that your family is an honor to you! You ought to be an honor to your family.”

Benjamin Franklin · Poor Richard’s Almanack, 1732-1758 · Primary source

“The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation.”

Henry David Thoreau · Walden, 1849 · Primary source

“Let us not weep for those who have gone away when their lives were at full bloom and beauty. Who are we that we should mourn them and wish them back? Life at its every stage is good, but who shall say whether those who die in the splendor of their prime are not fortunate to have known no abatement, no dulling of the flame by ash, no slow fading of life’s perfect flower.”

Helen Keller · We Bereaved, 1929 · Primary source

“Would you live with ease, do what you ought, and not what you please.”

Benjamin Franklin · Poor Richard’s Almanack, 1732-1758 · Primary source

“You will never reach your destination if you stop to shy [throw] stones at every dog that barks.”

Winston Churchill · Shy a stone at every dog, 1923 · Primary source

“No, that is the great fallacy; the wisdom of old men. They do not grow wise. They grow careful.”

Ernest Hemingway · A Farewell to Arms, 1929 · Primary source

“But I am greedy for life. I do too much of everything all the time. Suddenly one day my heart will fail. The Iron Crab will get me as it got my father. But I am not afraid of The Crab. At least I shall have died from an honourable disease. Perhaps they will put on my tombstone. ‘This Man Died from Living Too Much’.”

Ian Fleming · From Russia, with Love, 1957 · Primary source

“Tears can only be cured by vision.”

Helen Keller · We Bereaved, 1929 · Primary source

“Nature suffers nothing to remain in her kingdoms which cannot help itself.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson · Self-Reliance, 1841 · Primary source

“For want of a nail the shoe is lost; for want of a shoe, the horse is lost; for want of a horse the rider is lost.”

Benjamin Franklin · Poor Richard’s Almanack, 1732-1758 · Primary source

“Patience serves us against insults precisely as clothes do against the cold. For if you multiply your garments as the cold increases, that cold cannot hurt you; in the same way increase your patience under great offences, and they cannot hurt your feelings.”

Leonardo da Vinci · The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci, 1888 · Primary source

“Why do old men wake so early? Is it to have one longer day?”

Ernest Hemingway · The Old Man and the Sea, 1952 · Primary source

“Life was meant to be lived, and curiosity must be kept alive. One must never, for whatever reason, turn his back on life.”

Eleanor Roosevelt · The Autobiography of Eleanor Roosevelt, 1961 · Primary source

“I find it wholesome to be alone the greater part of the time. To be in company, even with the best, is soon wearisome and dissipating. I love to be alone. I never found the companion that was so companionable as solitude.”

Henry David Thoreau · Walden, 1849 · Primary source

“The man who is good at making an excuse, is seldom good at any thing else.”

Benjamin Franklin · Liber Facetiarum: Being a Collection of Curious and Interesting Anecdotes, 1809 · Secondary source

“The proud hate pride—in others.”

Benjamin Franklin · Poor Richard’s Almanack, 1732-1758 · Primary source

“A vase of unbaked clay, when broken, may be remoulded, but not a baked one.”

Leonardo da Vinci · The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci, 1888 · Primary source

“Many remedies are suggested for the avoidance of worry and mental overstrain by persons who, over prolonged periods, have to bear exceptional responsibilities and discharge duties upon a very large scale. Some advise exercise, and others, repose. Some counsel travel, and others, retreat. Some praise solitude, and others, gaiety. No doubt all these may play their part according to the individual temperament. But the element which is constant and common in all of them is Change.”

Winston Churchill · Painting as a Pastime, 1948 · Primary source

“Time enough always proves little enough.”

Benjamin Franklin · Poor Richard’s Almanack, 1732-1758 · Primary source

“Take this remark from Richard, poor and lame, whatever is begun in anger, ends in shame.”

Benjamin Franklin · Poor Richard’s Almanack, 1732-1758 · Primary source

“Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity! I say, let your affairs be as two or three, and not a hundred or a thousand; instead of a million count half a dozen, and keep your accounts on your thumb nail.”

Henry David Thoreau · Walden, 1849 · Primary source

“When angry, count ten, before you speak; if very angry, an hundred.”

Thomas Jefferson · Letter to Thomas Jefferson Smith, 1825 · Primary source

“Take things always by their smooth handle.”

Thomas Jefferson · Letter to Thomas Jefferson Smith, 1825 · Primary source

“The essence of friendship is entireness, a total magnanimity and trust.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson · Friendship, 1841 · Primary source

“’Tis easier to prevent bad habits than to break them.”

Benjamin Franklin · Poor Richard’s Almanack, 1732-1758 · Primary source

“He was a killer, a thing that preyed, living on the things that lived, unaided, alone, by virtue of his own strength and prowess, surviving triumphantly in a hostile environment where only the strong survived.”

Jack London · The Call of the Wild, 1903 · Primary source

“You never get real adventures without a bit of risk somewhere.”

Ian Fleming · Chitty-Chitty-Bang-Bang, 1964 · Primary source

“Never put off till tomorrow what you can do today.”

Thomas Jefferson · Letter to Thomas Jefferson Smith, 1825 · Primary source

“For my greatest skill has been to want but little.”

Henry David Thoreau · Walden, 1849 · Primary source

“The cat in gloves catches no mice.”

Benjamin Franklin · The Way to Wealth, 1758 · Primary source

“Eaten bread is soon forgotten.”

Winston Churchill · The World Crisis, 1923-1931 · Primary source

“The only way to have a friend is to be one.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson · Friendship, 1841 · Primary source

“I have no luck anymore. But who knows? Maybe today. Every day is a new day. It is better to be lucky. But I would rather be exact. Then when luck comes you are ready.”

Ernest Hemingway · The Old Man and the Sea, 1952 · Primary source

“He that never eats too much, will never be lazy.”

Benjamin Franklin · Poor Richard’s Almanack, 1732-1758 · Primary source

“Always be ready to speak your mind, and a base man will avoid you.”

William Blake · The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, 1790 · Primary source

“For every friend whom he loses for truth, he gains a better.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson · Circles, 1841 · Primary source

“If you have time don’t wait for time.”

Benjamin Franklin · Poor Richard’s Almanack, 1732-1758 · Primary source

“This is a delicious evening, when the whole body is one sense, and imbibes delight through every pore.”

Henry David Thoreau · Walden, 1849 · Primary source

“Now is no time to think of what you do not have. Think of what you can do with what there is.”

Ernest Hemingway · The Old Man and the Sea, 1952 · Primary source

“No one comes back from the dead; no one has come into the world without weeping. No one asks when one wants to come in; no one asks when one wants to go out.”

Søren Kierkegaard · Either/Or, 1843 · Primary source

“Drink does not drown care, but waters it, and makes it grow faster.”

Benjamin Franklin · Poor Richard’s Almanack, 1732-1758 · Primary source

“Half Friendship is the bitterest Enmity”

William Blake · Jerusalem: The Emanation of The Giant Albion, 1804 · Primary source

“The sting of a reproach is the truth of it.”

Benjamin Franklin · Poor Richard’s Almanack, 1732-1758 · Primary source

“Where should we go? I don’t care. Anywhere you want. Anywhere we don’t know people.”

Ernest Hemingway · A Farewell to Arms, 1929 · Primary source

“He that lies down with dogs, shall rise up with fleas.”

Benjamin Franklin · Poor Richard’s Almanack, 1732-1758 · Primary source

“Flying might not be all plain sailing, but the fun of it is worth the price.”

Amelia Earhart · The Fun of It, 1932 · Primary source

“Love your enemies, for they tell you your faults.”

Benjamin Franklin · Poor Richard’s Almanack, 1732-1758 · Primary source

“Up, sluggard, and waste not life; in the grave will be sleeping enough.”

Benjamin Franklin · Poor Richard’s Almanack, 1732-1758 · Primary source

“He that can have patience can have what he will.”

Benjamin Franklin · Poor Richard’s Almanack, 1732-1758 · Primary source

“We never repent of having eaten too little.”

Thomas Jefferson · Letter to Thomas Jefferson Smith, 1825 · Primary source

“Have you felt it, too? Have you seen how your best friends love everything about you—except the things that count? And your most important is nothing to them, nothing, not even a sound they can recognize.”

Ayn Rand · The Fountainhead, 1943 · Primary source

“It is better to be making the news than taking it; to be an actor rather than a critic.”

Winston Churchill · The Story of the Malakand Field Force, 1898 · Primary source

“Love, cough, and a smoke, can’t well be hid.”

Benjamin Franklin · Poor Richard’s Almanack, 1732-1758 · Primary source

“One today is worth two tomorrows.”

Benjamin Franklin · Poor Richard’s Almanack, 1732-1758 · Primary source

“Love the day.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson · Behavior, 1841 · Primary source

“We talk of choosing our friends, but friends are self-elected.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson · Friendship, 1841 · Primary source

“If you stop complaining and asking for what you never will get, you will have a good life. A good life is not measured by any biblical span.”

Ernest Hemingway · For Whom the Bell Tolls, 1940 · Primary source

“Go out into the sunlight and be happy with what you see.”

Winston Churchill · Painting as a Pastime, 1948 · Primary source

“Employ thy time well, if thou meanest to gain leisure.”

Benjamin Franklin · Poor Richard’s Almanack, 1732-1758 · Primary source

“Promises may get thee friends, but non-performance will turn them into enemies.”

Benjamin Franklin · Poor Richard’s Almanack, 1732-1758 · Primary source

“As a well-spent day brings happy sleep, so a life well used brings happy death.”

Leonardo da Vinci · The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci, 1888 · Primary source

“For those who live with God there is no last meeting.”

Helen Keller · We Bereaved, 1929 · Primary source

“Grace under pressure.”

Ernest Hemingway · The Artist’s Reward, 1929 · Secondary source

“The most important thing in any relationship is not what you get but what you give.”

Eleanor Roosevelt · The Autobiography of Eleanor Roosevelt, 1961 · Primary source

“Character is higher than intellect.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson · The American Scholar, 1837 · Primary source

“Everything tells me I shall succeed.”

Napoleon Bonaparte · Letter to Joseph Fesch, 1791 · Primary source

“You can’t get away from yourself by moving from one place to another.”

Ernest Hemingway · The Sun Also Rises, 1926 · Primary source

“There was never a good knife made of bad steel.”

Benjamin Franklin · Poor Richard’s Almanack, 1732-1758 · Primary source

“The value of the goal lies in the goal itself; and therefore the goal cannot be attained unless it is pursued for its own sake.”

Arnold J. Toynbee · A Study of History, 1934-1961 · Primary source

“If you’d have a servant that you like, serve yourself.”

Benjamin Franklin · Poor Richard’s Almanack, 1732-1758 · Primary source

“I had three chairs in my house; one for solitude, two for friendship, three for society.”

Henry David Thoreau · Walden, 1849 · Primary source

“Love, genuine passionate love, was his for the first time.”

Jack London · The Call of the Wild, 1903 · Primary source

“A full belly makes a dull brain.”

Benjamin Franklin · Poor Richard’s Almanack, 1732-1758 · Primary source

“The worst wheel of the cart makes the most noise.”

Benjamin Franklin · Poor Richard’s Almanack, 1732-1758 · Primary source

“Well done is better than well said.”

Benjamin Franklin · Poor Richard’s Almanack, 1732-1758 · Primary source

“Genius is one percent inspiration, ninety-nine percent perspiration.”

Thomas Edison · Professor gets Many Autographs: Edison, Other Great Men Respond, 1932 · Secondary source

“Let him think I am more man than I am and I will be so.”

Ernest Hemingway · The Old Man and the Sea, 1952 · Primary source

“We are taxed twice as much by our idleness, three times as much by our pride, and four times as much by our folly.”

Benjamin Franklin · The Way to Wealth, 1758 · Primary source

“All the greatest men are maniacs. They are possessed by a mania which drives them forward towards their goal. The great scientists, the philosophers, the religious leaders—all maniacs. What else but a blind singleness of purpose could have given focus to their genius, would have kept them in the groove of their purpose? Mania, my dear Mister Bond, is as priceless as genius. Dissipation of energy, fragmentation of vision, loss of momentum, the lack of follow-through—these are the vices of the herd.”

Ian Fleming · Dr. No, 1958 · Primary source

“I don’t want to be your friend, baby. I am your friend.”

Ernest Hemingway · A Farewell to Arms, 1929 · Primary source

“Either write things worth reading, or do things worth writing.”

Benjamin Franklin · Poor Richard’s Almanack, 1732-1758 · Primary source

“You have no responsibility to live up to what other people think you ought to accomplish. I have no responsibility to be like they expect me to be. It’s their mistake, not my failing.”

Richard Feynman · Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!, 1985 · Primary source

“This wine is too good for toast-drinking, my dear. You don’t want to mix emotions up with a wine like that. You lose the taste.”

Ernest Hemingway · The Sun Also Rises, 1926 · Primary source

“If you fail at the large things it means you have not large ambitions. Concentration, focus—that is all. The aptitudes come, the tools forge themselves. ‘Give me a fulcrum and I will move the world’—but only if the desire to move the world is there.”

Ian Fleming · Dr. No, 1958 · Primary source

“My life is for itself and not for a spectacle.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson · Self-Reliance, 1841 · Primary source

“To be great is to be misunderstood.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson · Self-Reliance, 1841 · Primary source

“Every path but your own is the path of fate. Keep on your own track, then.”

Henry David Thoreau · Walden, 1849 · Primary source

“Nothing can bring you peace but yourself. Nothing can bring you peace but the triumph of principles.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson · Self-Reliance, 1841 · Primary source

“’'Tis easier to suppress the first desire, than to satisfy all that follow it.”

Benjamin Franklin · Poor Richard’s Almanack, 1732-1758 · Primary source

“Without imagination not much can be done.”

Winston Churchill · Never give in, never, 1941 · Primary source

“Well done is twice done.”

Benjamin Franklin · Poor Richard’s Almanack, 1732-1758 · Primary source

“Let every new year find you a better man.”

Benjamin Franklin · Poor Richard’s Almanack, 1732-1758 · Primary source

“Dying is only bad when it takes a long time and hurts so much that it humiliates you.”

Ernest Hemingway · For Whom the Bell Tolls, 1940 · Primary source

“Drunkenness, that worst of evils, makes some men fools, some beasts, some devils.”

Benjamin Franklin · Poor Richard’s Almanack, 1732-1758 · Primary source

“If you are lucky enough to have lived in Paris as a young man, then wherever you go for the rest of your life, it stays with you, for Paris is a moveable feast.”

Ernest Hemingway · A Moveable Feast, 1964 · Primary source

“However mean your life is, meet it and live it; do not shun it and call it hard names.”

Henry David Thoreau · Walden, 1849 · Primary source

“Sloth (like rust) consumes faster than labor wears. The used key is always bright.”

Benjamin Franklin · Poor Richard’s Almanack, 1732-1758 · Primary source

“Never leave till tomorrow what you can do today.”

Benjamin Franklin · The Way to Wealth, 1758 · Primary source

“The busy man has few idle visitors; to the boiling pot the flies come not.”

Benjamin Franklin · Poor Richard’s Almanack, 1732-1758 · Primary source

“Happy is the house that shelters a friend!”

Ralph Waldo Emerson · Friendship, 1841 · Primary source

“Be of good cheer. Do not think of today’s failures, but of the success that may come tomorrow. You have set yourselves a difficult task, but you will succeed if you persevere; and you will find a joy in overcoming obstacles. Remember, no effort that we make to attain something beautiful is ever lost.”

Helen Keller · The Story of My Life, 1903 · Primary source

“Laziness travels so slowly, that poverty soon overtakes him.”

Benjamin Franklin · Poor Richard’s Almanack, 1732-1758 · Primary source

“I couldn’t afford luxuries like embarrassment.”

Andrew S. Grove · Swimming Across, 2001 · Primary source

“Every morning was a cheerful invitation to make my life of equal simplicity, and I may say innocence, with Nature herself.”

Henry David Thoreau · Walden, 1849 · Primary source

“Time is an herb that cures all diseases.”

Benjamin Franklin · Poor Richard’s Almanack, 1732-1758 · Primary source

“The imitator dooms himself to hopeless mediocrity.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson · Harvard Divinity School Address, 1838 · Primary source

“He touched her for the last time and then they turned away from each other and walked off into their different lives.”

Ian Fleming · Moonraker, 1955 · Primary source

“Words may show a man’s wit, but actions his meaning.”

Benjamin Franklin · Poor Richard’s Almanack, 1732-1758 · Primary source

“Haste makes waste.”

Benjamin Franklin · Poor Richard’s Almanack, 1732-1758 · Primary source

“Bond mistrusted anyone who tied his tie with a Windsor knot. It showed too much vanity. It was often the mark of a cad. Bond decided to forget his prejudice.”

Ian Fleming · From Russia, with Love, 1957 · Primary source

“Those whom the Gods wish to destroy, they first make bored.”

Ian Fleming · From Russia, with Love, 1957 · Primary source

“Have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become.”

Steve Jobs · Stanford Commencement Address, 2005 · Primary source

“You may delay, but time will not.”

Benjamin Franklin · Poor Richard’s Almanack, 1732-1758 · Primary source

“In my life I had come to realize that when things were going very well indeed it was just the time to anticipate trouble. And, conversely, I learned from pleasant experience that at the most despairing crisis, when all looked sour beyond words, some delightful break was apt to lurk just around the corner.”

Amelia Earhart · Last Flight, 1937 · Primary source

“If you would be loved, love and be lovable.”

Benjamin Franklin · Poor Richard’s Almanack, 1732-1758 · Primary source

“Thou wilt go now, rabbit. But I go with thee. As long as there is one of us there is both of us.”

Ernest Hemingway · For Whom the Bell Tolls, 1940 · Primary source

“Thou canst not joke an enemy into a friend; but thou may’st a friend into an enemy.”

Benjamin Franklin · Poor Richard’s Almanack, 1732-1758 · Primary source

“I wish we had horses to ride,” Maria said. “In my happiness I would like to be on a good horse and ride fast with thee riding fast beside me and we would ride faster and faster, galloping, and never pass my happiness.”

Ernest Hemingway · For Whom the Bell Tolls, 1940 · Primary source

“Insist on yourself; never imitate.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson · Self-Reliance, 1841 · Primary source

“Peace of mind is the most important prerequisite for creative work.”

Richard Feynman · A Short Talk about Richard Feynman, 2005 · Secondary source

“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 had never happened.”

Winston Churchill · The Second World War, 1948-1953 · Primary source

“To be intimate with a foolish friend, is like going to bed with a razor.”

Benjamin Franklin · Poor Richard’s Almanack, 1732-1758 · Primary source

“The courage, the unconquerable grit and stamina of our people, showed itself from the very outset. Without that all would have failed. Upon that rock, all stood unshakable.”

Winston Churchill · You do your worst—and we will do our best, 1941 · Primary source

“No man had ever a point of pride that was not injurious to him, so no man had ever a defect that was not somewhere made useful to him.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson · Compensation, 1841 · Primary source

“No pessimist ever discovered the secrets of the stars, or sailed to an uncharted land.”

Helen Keller · Optimism, 1903 · Primary source

“The most beautiful time is the first period of falling in love, when, from every encounter, every glance, one fetches home something new to rejoice over.”

Søren Kierkegaard · Either/Or, 1843 · Primary source

“The ideals which have lighted my way, and time after time have given me new courage to face life cheerfully, have been Kindness, Beauty, and Truth.”

Albert Einstein · Ideas and Opinions , 1954 · Primary source

“Ill customs and bad advice are seldom forgotten.”

Benjamin Franklin · Poor Richard’s Almanack, 1732-1758 · Primary source

“Nothing is troublesome that we do willingly.”

Thomas Jefferson · Letter to Thomas Jefferson Smith, 1825 · Primary source

“To be really happy and really safe, one ought to have at least two or three hobbies, and they must all be real.”

Winston Churchill · Painting as a Pastime, 1948 · Primary source

“He that riseth late, must trot all day, and shall scarce overtake his business by night.”

Benjamin Franklin · Poor Richard’s Almanack, 1732-1758 · Primary source

“Tart words make no friends; a spoonful of honey will catch more flies than a gallon of vinegar.”

Benjamin Franklin · Poor Richard’s Almanack, 1732-1758 · Primary source

“It is easy in the world to live after the world’s opinion; it is easy in solitude to live after our own; but the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson · Self-Reliance, 1841 · Primary source

“Have you something to do tomorrow; do it today.”

Benjamin Franklin · Poor Richard’s Almanack, 1732-1758 · Primary source

“Be always ashamed to catch thyself idle.”

Benjamin Franklin · Poor Richard’s Almanack, 1732-1758 · Primary source

“Love seeketh not itself to please,
Nor for itself hath any care,
But for another gives its ease,
And builds a heaven in hell’s despair”

William Blake · Songs of Experience, 1794 · Primary source

“But life isn’t hard to manage when you’ve nothing to lose.”

Ernest Hemingway · A Farewell to Arms, 1929 · Primary source

“The most obvious way of reconciling oneself to death is to make sure of enjoying life before death snatches it from us. The catchwords Carpe diem and Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we shall die are notorious, and Herodotus has preserved an Egyptian folktale in which the Pharaoh Mycerinus, when the gods had sentenced him to die after enjoying only six more years of life, successfully doubled the term arbitrarily allotted to him by turning night into day. This hedonistic solution of the problem of death is, of course, illusory.”

Arnold J. Toynbee · Man’s Concern with Death, 1968 · Primary source

“No matter how dull, or how mean, or how wise a man is, he feels that happiness is his indisputable right.”

Helen Keller · Optimism, 1903 · Primary source

“Fools multiply folly.”

Benjamin Franklin · Poor Richard’s Almanack, 1732-1758 · Primary source

“A false friend and a shadow attend only while the sun shines.”

Benjamin Franklin · Poor Richard’s Almanack, 1732-1758 · Primary source

“Lend money to an enemy, and thou’lt gain him, to a friend and thou’lt lose him.”

Benjamin Franklin · Poor Richard’s Almanack, 1732-1758 · Primary source

“One loses everything when one loses one’s sense of humor.”

Ayn Rand · The Fountainhead, 1943 · Primary source

“Spend each day trying to be a little wiser than you were when you woke up. Discharge your duties faithfully and well. Step by step you get ahead, but not necessarily in fast spurts. But you build discipline by preparing for fast spurts. Slug it out one inch at a time, day by day, and at the end of the day—if you live long enough—like most people, you will get out of life what you deserve.”

Charlie Munger · Poor Charlie’s Almanack, 2005 · Primary source

“No gains without pains.”

Benjamin Franklin · Poor Richard’s Almanack, 1732-1758 · Primary source

“The stars seemed near enough to touch and never before have I seen so many. I always believed the lure of flying is the lure of beauty, but I was sure of it that night.”

Amelia Earhart · Last Flight, 1937 · Primary source

“The bird that sits, is easily shot.”

Benjamin Franklin · Poor Richard’s Almanack, 1732-1758 · Primary source

“Approve not of him that commends all you say.”

Benjamin Franklin · Poor Richard’s Almanack, 1732-1758 · Primary source

“We gain the strength of the temptation we resist.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson · Compensation, 1841 · Primary source

“We must be our own [friend] before we can be another’s.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson · Friendship, 1841 · Primary source

“How much pain have cost us the evils which have never happened!”

Thomas Jefferson · Letter to Thomas Jefferson Smith, 1825 · Primary source

“No man ever was glorious who was not laborious.”

Benjamin Franklin · Poor Richard’s Almanack, 1732-1758 · Primary source

“As pride increases, fortune declines.”

Benjamin Franklin · Poor Richard’s Almanack, 1732-1758 · Primary source

“All things are easy to industry, all things difficult to sloth.”

Benjamin Franklin · Poor Richard’s Almanack, 1732-1758 · Primary source

“I loved you, so I drew these tides of men into my hands and wrote my will across the sky in stars.”

T. E. Lawrence · Seven Pillars of Wisdom, 1926 · Primary source

“Be slow in choosing a friend, slower in changing.”

Benjamin Franklin · Poor Richard’s Almanack, 1732-1758 · Primary source

“True conquest is the causing the calamity to fade and disappear, as an early cloud of insignificant result in a history so large and advancing.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson · Circles, 1841 · Primary source

“Beauty and folly are old companions.”

Benjamin Franklin · Poor Richard’s Almanack, 1732-1758 · Primary source

“A life of leisure, and a life of laziness, are two things.”

Benjamin Franklin · Poor Richard’s Almanack, 1732-1758 · Primary source

“Anger is never without a reason, but seldom with a good one.”

Benjamin Franklin · Poor Richard’s Almanack, 1732-1758 · Primary source

“All would live long, but none would be old.”

Benjamin Franklin · Poor Richard’s Almanack, 1732-1758 · Primary source

“Reprove your friend in secret and praise him openly.”

Leonardo da Vinci · The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci, 1888 · Primary source

“I am a poet in deeds—not often in words.”

Ian Fleming · Goldfinger, 1959 · Primary source

“Observe all men; thyself most.”

Benjamin Franklin · Poor Richard’s Almanack, 1732-1758 · Primary source

“For every minute you are angry you lose sixty seconds of happiness.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson · No reliable source

“A bend in the road is not the end of the road… Unless you fail to make the turn.”

Helen Keller · No reliable source

“To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson · No reliable source

“Adventure is worthwhile in itself.”

Amelia Earhart · No reliable source

“Oh, Jake,” Brett said, “we could have had such a damned good time together.”
Ahead was a mounted policeman in khaki directing traffic. He raised his baton. The car slowed suddenly pressing Brett against me.
“Yes,” I said. “Isn’t it pretty to think so?”

Ernest Hemingway · The Sun Also Rises, 1926 · Primary source

“If you’re going through hell, keep going.”

Winston Churchill · No reliable source

“What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson · No reliable source

“A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.”

Winston Churchill · No reliable source

“Be yourself; no base imitator of another, but your best self. There is something which you can do better than another. Listen to the inward voice and bravely obey that. Do the things at which you are great, not what you were never made for.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson · No reliable source

“The Wild still lingered in him and the wolf in him merely slept.”

Jack London · White Fang, 1906 · Primary source

“Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.”

Thomas Edison · No reliable source

“The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.”

Eleanor Roosevelt · No reliable source

“I think that somehow, we learn who we really are and then live with that decision.”

Eleanor Roosevelt · No reliable source

“Self-pity is our worst enemy and if we yield to it, we can never do anything good in the world.”

Helen Keller · No reliable source

“Success is going from failure to failure without losing your enthusiasm.”

Winston Churchill · No reliable source

“The most difficult thing is the decision to act. The rest is merely tenacity. The fears are paper tigers. You can do anything you decide to do. You can act to change and control your life and the procedure. The process is its own reward.”

Amelia Earhart · No reliable source

“The joy of anticipation is the greatest.”

Søren Kierkegaard · No reliable source

“Painters, writers, musicians are lonely people. So are statesmen and admirals and generals. But then, I added to be fair, so are criminals and lunatics. Let’s just say, not to be too flattering, that true Individuals are lonely.”

Ian Fleming · The Spy Who Loved Me, 1962 · Primary source

“Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.”

Winston Churchill · No reliable source

“He [James Bond] was about six feet tall, slim and fit-looking. The eyes in the lean, slightly tanned face were a very clear gray-blue and as they observed the men they were cold and watchful. The narrowed watchful eyes gave his good looks the dangerous, almost cruel quality that had frightened me when I had first set eyes on him.”

Ian Fleming · The Spy Who Loved Me, 1962 · Primary source

“There are, as is known, insects that die in the moment of fertilization. So it is with all joy: life’s highest, most splendid moment of enjoyment is accompanied by death.”

Søren Kierkegaard · Either/Or, 1843 · Primary source

“We can do anything we want as long as we stick to it long enough.”

Helen Keller · No reliable source

“Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could. Some blunders and absurdities no doubt crept in; forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day. You shall begin it serenely and with too high a spirit to be encumbered with your old nonsense.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson · No reliable source

“I lay no claim to advancing scientific data other than advancing flying knowledge. I can only say that I do it because I want to.”

Amelia Earhart · No reliable source

“Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson · No reliable source

“Never interrupt someone doing something you said couldn’t be done.”

Amelia Earhart · No reliable source

“No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.”

Eleanor Roosevelt · No reliable source

“Without ambition one starts nothing. Without work one finishes nothing. The prize will not be sent to you. You have to win it.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson · No reliable source

“The most effective way to do it is to do it.”

Amelia Earhart · No reliable source

“No loss should hit us which can be avoided with constant care.”

A.P. Møller · Letter to his son Mærsk Mc-Kinney Møller, 1946 · Primary source

“Optimism is the faith that leads to achievement; nothing can be done without hope.”

Helen Keller · Optimism, 1903 · Primary source

“I think a life properly lived is just learn, learn, learn all the time.”

Charlie Munger · 2017 Berkshire Hathaway Annual Meeting, 2017 · Primary source

“For age and want save while you may; no morning sun lasts a whole day.”

Benjamin Franklin · Poor Richard’s Almanack, 1732-1758 · Primary source

“The true test of civilization is, not the census, nor the size of cities, nor the crops—no, but the kind of man the country turns out.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson · Civilization, 1870 · Primary source

“Dost thou love life? Then do not squander time; for that’s the stuff life is made of.”

Benjamin Franklin · Poor Richard’s Almanack, 1732-1758 · Primary source

“Success is a lousy teacher. It seduces smart people into thinking they can’t lose.”

Bill Gates · The Road Ahead, 1995 · Primary source

“The proper function of man is to live, not to exist. I shall not waste my days in trying to prolong them. I shall use my time.”

Jack London · Jack London’s Tales of Adventure, 1906 · Secondary source

“In skating over thin ice, our safety is in our speed.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson · Prudence, 1841 · Primary source

“The years teach much which the days never know.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson · Experience, 1844 · Primary source

“You do your worst—and we will do our best.”

Winston Churchill · You do your worst—and we will do our best, 1941 · Primary source

“Surround yourself with human beings, my dear James. They are easier to fight for than principles.”

Ian Fleming · Casino Royale, 1953 · Primary source

“A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson · Self-Reliance, 1841 · Primary source

“Build, therefore, your own world. As fast as you conform your life to the pure idea in your mind, that will unfold its law, and conduct you to a higher degree of power. You must obey your heart.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson · Nature, 1836 · Primary source

“A Truth thats told with bad intent
Beats all the Lies you can invent.”

William Blake · Auguries of Innocence, 1803 · Primary source

“The reward of a thing well done, is to have done it.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson · New England Reformers, 1844 · Primary source

“The only sin is limitation.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson · Circles, 1841 · Primary source

“We shall never surrender.”

Winston Churchill · We shall fight on the beaches, 1940 · Primary source

“There is an ecstasy that marks the summit of life, and beyond which life cannot rise. And such is the paradox of living, this ecstasy comes when one is most alive, and it comes as a complete forgetfulness that one is alive.”

Jack London · The Call of the Wild, 1903 · Primary source

“In short, the Way to Wealth, if you desire it, is as plain as the Way to Market. It depends chiefly on two Words, Industry and Frugality; i.e. Waste neither Time nor Money, but make the best Use of both. He that gets all he can honestly, and saves all he gets (necessary Expences excepted) will certainly become Rich.”

Benjamin Franklin · Advice to a Young Tradesman, 1748 · Primary source

“The law of nature is, do the thing, and you shall have the power: but they who do not the thing have not the power.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson · Compensation, 1841 · Primary source

“Addiction can happen to any of us through a subtle process where the bonds of degradation are too light to be felt until when they are too strong to be broken.”

Charlie Munger · Poor Charlie’s Almanack, 2005 · Primary source

“Constant care from everyone, in matters great and small and always, is a necessary condition for the company’s success.”

A.P. Møller · Letter to Lindø Shipyard Management, 1964 · Primary source

“Who will let you? That’s not the point. The point is, who will stop me?”

Ayn Rand · The Fountainhead, 1943 · Primary source

“Never buy a what you do not want, because it is cheap; it will be dear to you.”

Thomas Jefferson · Letter to Thomas Jefferson Smith, 1825 · Primary source

“Never spend your money before you have it.”

Thomas Jefferson · Letter to Thomas Jefferson Smith, 1825 · Primary source

“Every thing impossible, until we see a success.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson · Experience, 1844 · Primary source

“Doing an injury puts you below your enemy; revenging one makes you but even with him; forgiving, it sets you above him.”

Benjamin Franklin · Poor Richard’s Almanack, 1732-1758 · Primary source

“For, in the final analysis, our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet. We all breathe the same air. We all cherish our children’s future. And we are all mortal.”

John F. Kennedy · Commencement address at American University, 1963 · Primary source

“God helps them that help themselves.”

Benjamin Franklin · Poor Richard’s Almanack, 1732-1758 · Primary source

“If Jack’s in love, he’s no judge of Jill’s beauty.”

Benjamin Franklin · Poor Richard’s Almanack, 1732-1758 · Primary source

“Remember too that your time is your one finite resource, and when you say yes to one thing you are inevitably saying no to another.”

Andrew S. Grove · High Output Management, 1983 · Primary source

“Hitch your wagon to a star.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson · Civilization, 1870 · Primary source

“Don’t ever get angry at a man for stating the truth.”

Ayn Rand · Atlas Shrugged, 1957 · Primary source

“The muses love the morning.”

Benjamin Franklin · Poor Richard’s Almanack, 1732-1758 · Primary source

“By noon it was clear that the Socialists would have a majority. At luncheon my wife said to me, ‘It may well be a blessing in disguise.’ I replied, ‘At the moment it seems quite effectively disguised.’”

Winston Churchill · The Second World War, 1948-1953 · Primary source

“He that is rich need not live sparingly, and he that can live sparingly, need not be rich.”

Benjamin Franklin · Poor Richard’s Almanack, 1732-1758 · Primary source

“Nothing in life is so exhilarating as to be shot at without result.”

Winston Churchill · The Story of the Malakand Field Force, 1898 · Primary source

“It’s never too early to start winning.”

Ian Fleming · Goldfinger, 1959 · Primary source

“Choose clients as you would friends.”

Charlie Munger · Poor Charlie’s Almanack, 2005 · Primary source

“Men are conservatives when they are least vigorous, or when they are most luxurious. They are conservatives after dinner, or before taking their rest; when they are sick, or aged: in the morning, or when their intellect or their conscience have been aroused, when they hear music, or when they read poetry, they are radicals.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson · New England Reformers, 1844 · Primary source

“The man who never alters his opinion is like standing water, and breeds reptiles of the mind.”

William Blake · The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, 1790 · Primary source

“So convenient a thing is it to be a reasonable creature, since it enables one to find or make a reason for everything one has a mind to do.”

Benjamin Franklin · The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin, 1771-1790 · Primary source

“All things truly wicked start from an innocence.”

Ernest Hemingway · A Moveable Feast, 1964 · Primary source

“None preaches better than the ant, and she says nothing.”

Benjamin Franklin · Poor Richard’s Almanack, 1732-1758 · Primary source

“Biological creatures ordinarily prefer effort minimization in routine activities and don’t like removals of long-enjoyed benefits.”

Charlie Munger · Poor Charlie’s Almanack, 2005 · Primary source

“Success is the result of making many mistakes and learning from experience.”

Winston Churchill · You do your worst—and we will do our best, 1941 · Primary source

“There is no outside, no inclosing wall, no circumference to us.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson · Circles, 1841 · Primary source

“He that has once done you a kindness will be more ready to do you another, than he whom you yourself have obliged.”

Benjamin Franklin · The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin, 1771-1790 · Primary source

“You may be too cunning for one, but not for all.”

Benjamin Franklin · Poor Richard’s Almanack, 1732-1758 · Primary source

“Rather go to bed supperless, than run in debt for a breakfast.”

Benjamin Franklin · Poor Richard’s Almanack, 1732-1758 · Primary source

“Where there’s marriage without love, there will be love without marriage.”

Benjamin Franklin · Poor Richard’s Almanack, 1732-1758 · Primary source

“Virtue and happiness are mother and daughter.”

Benjamin Franklin · Poor Richard’s Almanack, 1732-1758 · Primary source

“In proportion as he simplifies his life, the laws of the universe will appear less complex, and solitude will not be solitude, nor poverty poverty, nor weakness weakness.”

Henry David Thoreau · Walden, 1849 · Primary source

“Take counsel in wine, but resolve afterwards in water.”

Benjamin Franklin · Poor Richard’s Almanack, 1732-1758 · Primary source

“Money and good manners make the gentleman.”

Benjamin Franklin · Poor Richard’s Almanack, 1732-1758 · Primary source

“Nothing is beneath you, if it is in the direction of your life: nothing is great or desirable, if it is off from that.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson · Wealth, 1860 · Primary source

“Vice knows she’s ugly, so puts on her mask.”

Benjamin Franklin · Poor Richard’s Almanack, 1732-1758 · Primary source

“Drive thy business, or it will drive thee.”

Benjamin Franklin · Poor Richard’s Almanack, 1732-1758 · Primary source

“Our spontaneous action is always the best.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson · Intellect, 1841 · Primary source

“Late children, early orphans.”

Benjamin Franklin · Poor Richard’s Almanack, 1732-1758 · Primary source

“When you speak to a man, look on his eyes; when he speaks to thee, look on his mouth.”

Benjamin Franklin · Poor Richard’s Almanack, 1732-1758 · Primary source

“Standing on the bare ground—my head bathed by the blithe air, and uplifted into infinite space—all mean egotism vanishes. I become a transparent eye-ball; I am nothing; I see all; the currents of the Universal Being circulate through me; I am part or particle of God.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson · Nature, 1836 · Primary source

“He who possesses most must be most afraid of loss.”

Leonardo da Vinci · The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci, 1888 · Primary source

“Art is a jealous mistress, and, if a man have a genius for painting, poetry, music, architecture, or philosophy, he makes a bad husband, and an ill provider.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson · Wealth, 1860 · Primary source

“In War: Resolution, In Defeat: Defiance, In Victory: Magnanimity, In Peace: Goodwill.”

Winston Churchill · The Second World War, 1948-1953 · Primary source

“As I look back on the flight I think two questions have been asked me most frequently. First: Was I afraid? Secondly: What did I wear?”

Amelia Earhart · 20 Hrs. 40 Min., 1928 · Primary source

“These Secret Service people always seemed to have time for sex however important their jobs might be.”

Ian Fleming · Moonraker, 1955 · Primary source

“You ought to dream. All our biggest business men have been dreamers.”

Ernest Hemingway · The Sun Also Rises, 1926 · Primary source

“It is better to take many injuries, than to give one.”

Benjamin Franklin · Poor Richard’s Almanack, 1732-1758 · Primary source

“I had learned already never to empty the well of my writing.”

Ernest Hemingway · A Moveable Feast, 1964 · Primary source

“To lengthen thy life, lessen thy meals.”

Benjamin Franklin · Poor Richard’s Almanack, 1732-1758 · Primary source

“Nature always wears the colors of the spirit.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson · Nature, 1836 · Primary source

“Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson · Self-Reliance, 1841 · Primary source

“The bell calls others to church, but itself never minds the sermon.”

Benjamin Franklin · Poor Richard’s Almanack, 1732-1758 · Primary source

“Keep your eyes wide open before marriage, half shut afterwards.”

Benjamin Franklin · Poor Richard’s Almanack, 1732-1758 · Primary source

“People think that a liar gains a victory over his victim. What I’ve learned is that a lie is an act of self-abdication, because one surrenders one’s reality to the person to whom one lies, making that person one’s master, condemning oneself from then on to faking the sort of reality that person’s view requires to be faked.”

Ayn Rand · Atlas Shrugged, 1957 · Primary source

“Marry above thy match, and thou'lt get a master.”

Benjamin Franklin · Poor Richard’s Almanack, 1732-1758 · Primary source

“As we must account for every idle word, so we must for every idle silence.”

Benjamin Franklin · Poor Richard’s Almanack, 1732-1758 · Primary source

“A light purse is a heavy curse.”

Benjamin Franklin · Poor Richard’s Almanack, 1732-1758 · Primary source

“Lost time is never found again.”

Benjamin Franklin · Poor Richard’s Almanack, 1732-1758 · Primary source

“For a poet he threw a very accurate milk bottle.”

Ernest Hemingway · A Moveable Feast, 1964 · Primary source

“He that drinks fast, pays slow.”

Benjamin Franklin · Poor Richard’s Almanack, 1732-1758 · Primary source

“I have noticed that doctors who fail in the practice of medicine have a tendency to seek one another’s company and aid in consultation. A doctor who cannot take out your appendix properly will recommend to you a doctor who will be unable to remove your tonsils with success.”

Ernest Hemingway · A Farewell to Arms, 1929 · Primary source

“A fine genius in his own country, is like gold in the mine.”

Benjamin Franklin · Poor Richard’s Almanack, 1732-1758 · Primary source

“Wish not so much to live long as to live well.”

Benjamin Franklin · Poor Richard’s Almanack, 1732-1758 · Primary source

“It is easier to resist at the beginning than at the end.”

Leonardo da Vinci · The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci, 1888 · Primary source

“Industry pays debts, despair increases them.”

Benjamin Franklin · Poor Richard’s Almanack, 1732-1758 · Primary source

“The honest man takes pains, and then enjoys pleasures; the knave takes pleasures, and then suffers pains.”

Benjamin Franklin · Poor Richard’s Almanack, 1732-1758 · Primary source

“The law holds with equal sureness for all right action. Love, and you shall be loved. All love is mathematically just, as much as the two sides of an algebraic equation.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson · Compensation, 1841 · Primary source

“Tricks and treachery are the practice of fools, that have not wit enough to be honest.”

Benjamin Franklin · Poor Richard’s Almanack, 1732-1758 · Primary source

“The world is not enough.”

Ian Fleming · On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, 1963 · Primary source

“Three may keep a secret, if two of them are dead.”

Benjamin Franklin · Poor Richard’s Almanack, 1732-1758 · Primary source

“Everybody who is adult should save and not be stupidly spending money and defer gratification to get more later.”

Charlie Munger · Daily Journal Corporation Annual Meeting, 2020 · Primary source

“It was the mistakes one made at the beginning of a case that were the worst. They were the irretrievable ones, the ones that got you off on the wrong foot, that gave the enemy the first game.”

Ian Fleming · Dr. No, 1958 · Primary source

“Practice is nine tenths.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson · Power, 1860 · Primary source

“Happy are the painters, for they shall not be lonely. Light and colour, peace and hope, will keep them company to the end, or almost to the end, of the day.”

Winston Churchill · Painting as a Pastime, 1948 · Primary source

“The noblest question in the world is, what good may I do in it?”

Benjamin Franklin · Poor Richard’s Almanack, 1732-1758 · Primary source

“For what are we born if not to aid one another?”

Ernest Hemingway · For Whom the Bell Tolls, 1940 · Primary source

“Today is only one day in all the days that will ever be. But what will happen in all the other days that ever come can depend on what you do today. It’s been that way all this year. It’s been that way so many times. All of this war is that way.”

Ernest Hemingway · For Whom the Bell Tolls, 1940 · Primary source

“Every ship is a romantic object, except that we sail in.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson · Experience, 1844 · Primary source

“The only rational way of educating is to be an example—if one can’t help it, a warning example.”

Albert Einstein · Ideas and Opinions , 1954 · Primary source

“Biologists tell us that animal species which have adapted themselves too nicely to highly specialized environments are at a dead end and have no future in the evolutionary process.”

Arnold J. Toynbee · A Study of History, 1934-1961 · Primary source

“An empty bag cannot stand upright.”

Benjamin Franklin · Poor Richard’s Almanack, 1732-1758 · Primary source

“My time I divide as follows: the one half I sleep; the other half I dream. I never dream when I sleep; that would be a shame, because to sleep is the height of genius.”

Søren Kierkegaard · Either/Or, 1843 · Primary source

“Without contraries is no progression. Attraction and repulsion, reason and energy, love and hate, are necessary to human existence.”

William Blake · The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, 1790 · Primary source

“We may give advice, but we cannot give conduct.”

Benjamin Franklin · Poor Richard’s Almanack, 1732-1758 · Primary source

“To believe your own thought, to believe that what is true for you in your private heart is true for all men—that is genius.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson · Self-Reliance, 1841 · Primary source

“A lie stands on one leg, truth on two.”

Benjamin Franklin · Poor Richard’s Almanack, 1732-1758 · Primary source

“A long life may not be good enough, but a good life is long enough.”

Benjamin Franklin · Poor Richard’s Almanack, 1732-1758 · Primary source

“Real enjoyment consists not in what one enjoys but in the idea.”

Søren Kierkegaard · Either/Or, 1843 · Primary source

“I have never felt that anything really mattered but the satisfaction of knowing that you stood for the things in which you believed, and had done the very best you could.”

Eleanor Roosevelt · My Day, 1935-1962 · Primary source

“You never know what is enough unless you know what is more than enough.”

William Blake · The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, 1790 · Primary source

“For our houses are such unwieldy property that we are often imprisoned rather than housed in them.”

Henry David Thoreau · Walden, 1849 · Primary source

“Recollection is more richly satisfying than all actuality.”

Søren Kierkegaard · Either/Or, 1843 · Primary source

“The wise man draws more advantage from his enemies, than the fool from his friends.”

Benjamin Franklin · Poor Richard’s Almanack, 1732-1758 · Primary source

“At the working man’s house hunger looks in but dares not enter.”

Benjamin Franklin · Poor Richard’s Almanack, 1732-1758 · Primary source

“Don't throw stones at your neighbors, if your own windows are glass.”

Benjamin Franklin · Poor Richard’s Almanack, 1732-1758 · Primary source

“This time, like all times, is a very good one, if we but know what to do with it.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson · The American Scholar, 1837 · Primary source

“Ask advice of him who governs himself well.”

Leonardo da Vinci · The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci, 1888 · Primary source

“There is always room for a man of force, and he makes room for many.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson · Power, 1860 · Primary source

“Pleasure disappoints; possibility does not.”

Søren Kierkegaard · Either/Or, 1843 · Primary source

“To speak well of a base man is much the same as speaking ill of a good man.”

Leonardo da Vinci · The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci, 1888 · Primary source

“That I am a foreigner is not my fault. I would rather have been born here.”

Ernest Hemingway · For Whom the Bell Tolls, 1940 · Primary source

“The soul refuses limits, and always affirms an Optimism, never a Pessimism.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson · Compensation, 1841 · Primary source

“Eat few suppers, and you’ll need few medicines.”

Benjamin Franklin · Poor Richard’s Almanack, 1732-1758 · Primary source

“But I must drop one word of caution; for, next to cowardice and treachery, overconfidence, leading to neglect or slothfulness, is the worst of martial crimes.”

Winston Churchill · Give us the tools, 1941 · Primary source

“In the end self-confidence mostly comes from a gut-level realization that nobody has ever died from making a wrong business decision, or taking inappropriate action, or being overruled. And everyone in your operation should be made to understand this.”

Andrew S. Grove · High Output Management, 1983 · Primary source

“Example is the best lesson there is.”

Eleanor Roosevelt · Tomorrow is Now, 1963 · Primary source

“You will always find those who think they know what is your duty better than you know it.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson · Self-Reliance, 1841 · Primary source

“Things do not change; we change.”

Henry David Thoreau · Walden, 1849 · Primary source

“The eye of a master, will do more work than his hand.”

Benjamin Franklin · Poor Richard’s Almanack, 1732-1758 · Primary source

“No catalogue of horrors ever kept men from war. Before the war you always think that it’s not you that dies. But you will die, brother, if you go to it long enough.”

Ernest Hemingway · Notes on the Next War, 1935 · Primary source

“Fish and visitors stink in three days.”

Benjamin Franklin · Poor Richard’s Almanack, 1732-1758 · Primary source

“Do not worry. You have always written before and you will write now. All you have to do is write one true sentence. Write the truest sentence that you know.”

Ernest Hemingway · A Moveable Feast, 1964 · Primary source

“Do good to thy friend to keep him, to thy enemy to gain him.”

Benjamin Franklin · Poor Richard’s Almanack, 1732-1758 · Primary source

“The President has paid dear for his White House. It has commonly cost him all his peace.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson · Compensation, 1841 · Primary source

“Sleep without supping, and you'll rise without owing for it.”

Benjamin Franklin · Poor Richard’s Almanack, 1732-1758 · Primary source

“It was a bitter moment. Defeat is one thing; disgrace is another.”

Winston Churchill · The Second World War, 1948-1953 · Primary source

“Threats alone are the weapons of the threatened man.”

Leonardo da Vinci · The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci, 1888 · Primary source

“Most marriages don’t add two people together. They subtract one from the other.”

Ian Fleming · Diamonds Are Forever, 1956 · Primary source

“Being ignorant is not so much a shame, as being unwilling to learn.”

Benjamin Franklin · Poor Richard’s Almanack, 1732-1758 · Primary source

“Being able to recognize that you are wrong is a godsend.”

Charlie Munger · Daily Journal Corporation Annual Meeting, 2020 · Primary source

“You did not kill the fish only to keep alive and to sell for food, he thought. You killed him for pride and because you are a fisherman. You loved him when he was alive and you loved him after. It you love him, it is not a sin to kill him. Or is it more?”

Ernest Hemingway · The Old Man and the Sea, 1952 · Primary source

“When the wine enters, out goes the truth.”

Benjamin Franklin · Poor Richard’s Almanack, 1732-1758 · Primary source

“Reading was the only amusement I allowed myself.”

Benjamin Franklin · The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin, 1771-1790 · Primary source

“Those who will not be counselled, cannot be helped.”

Benjamin Franklin · The Way to Wealth, 1758 · Primary source

“What I must do is all that concerns me, not what the people think. This rule, equally arduous in actual and in intellectual life, may serve for the whole distinction between greatness and meanness.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson · Self-Reliance, 1841 · Primary source

“It’s common for men to give pretended reasons instead of one real one.”

Benjamin Franklin · Poor Richard’s Almanack, 1732-1758 · Primary source

“When you’re good to others, you are best to yourself.”

Benjamin Franklin · Poor Richard’s Almanack, 1732-1758 · Primary source

“The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom.”

William Blake · The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, 1790 · Primary source

“The life of man is a self-evolving circle, which, from a ring imperceptibly small, rushes on all sides outwards to new and larger circles, and would embrace at last the universal sphere.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson · Circles, 1841 · Primary source

“You’re an expatriate. You’ve lost touch with the soil. You get precious. Fake European standards have ruined you. You drink yourself to death. You become obsessed by sex. You spend all your time talking, not working. You are an expatriate, see? You hang around cafés”

Ernest Hemingway · The Sun Also Rises, 1926 · Primary source

“Buy what thou hast no need of; and e’er long thou shalt sell thy necessaries.”

Benjamin Franklin · Poor Richard’s Almanack, 1732-1758 · Primary source

“Power is the goal of all ambition.”

Ian Fleming · Live and Let Die, 1954 · Primary source

“Painting is a companion with whom one may hope to walk a great part of life’s journey.”

Winston Churchill · Painting as a Pastime, 1948 · Primary source

“Smoking I find the most ridiculous of all the varieties of human behaviour and practically the only one that is entirely against nature. Can you imagine a cow or any animal taking a mouthful of smouldering straw then breathing in the smoke and blowing it out through its nostrils?”

Ian Fleming · Goldfinger, 1959 · Primary source

“The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life.”

Steve Jobs · Stanford Commencement Address, 2005 · Primary source

“Distrust and caution are the parents of security.”

Benjamin Franklin · Poor Richard’s Almanack, 1732-1758 · Primary source

“It was wonderful to walk down the long flights of stairs knowing that I’d had good luck working. I always worked until I had something done and I always stopped when I knew what was going to happen next. That way I could be sure of going on the next day.”

Ernest Hemingway · A Moveable Feast, 1964 · Primary source

“With consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson · Self-Reliance, 1841 · Primary source

“Do not do that which you would not have known.”

Benjamin Franklin · Poor Richard’s Almanack, 1732-1758 · Primary source

“Genius without education is like silver in the mine.”

Benjamin Franklin · Poor Richard’s Almanack, 1732-1758 · Primary source

“If you would keep your secret from an enemy, tell it not to a friend.”

Benjamin Franklin · Poor Richard’s Almanack, 1732-1758 · Primary source

“To whom thy secret thou dost tell, to him thy freedom thou dost sell.”

Benjamin Franklin · Poor Richard’s Almanack, 1732-1758 · Primary source

“Please know that I am aware of the hazards. I want to do it because I want to do it. Women must try to do things as men have tried. When they fail, their failure must be a challenge to others.”

Amelia Earhart · No reliable source

“Marry, and you will regret it. Do not marry, and you will also regret it. Marry or do not marry, you will regret it either way.”

Søren Kierkegaard · Either/Or, 1843 · Primary source

“SCRAMBLED EGGS ‘JAMES BOND’
For FOUR individualists:

12 fresh eggs
Salt and pepper
5-6 oz. of fresh butter

Break the eggs into a bowl. Beat thoroughly with a fork and season well. In a small copper (or heavy-bottomed saucepan) melt four oz. of the butter. When melted, pour in the eggs and cook over a very low heat, whisking continuously with a small egg whisk.

While the eggs are slightly more moist than you would wish for eating, remove pan from heat, add rest of butter and continue whisking for half a minute, adding the while finely chopped chives or fine herbs. Serve on hot buttered toast in individual copper dishes (for appearance only) with pink champagne (Taittinger) and low music.”

Ian Fleming · Octopussy and The Living Daylights, 1966 · Primary source

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