Wednesday, March 18, 2009

My little sayings - III

Here are some more of my aphorisms - enjoy!

If priesthood were perfect, all the world would be converted. - from Piers Plowman, ca 1340, John Langeland

I have nothing but contempt for the kind of governor who is afraid for whatever reason to follow the course that he knows is best for the state; and as for the man who sets private friendship above the public welfare - I have no use for him, either. - Sophocles, 495-505 BCE

A man need not extol his virtues nor comment on his failings; his friends know the former and his enemies will search out the latter. - Charles B. Rogers

Praise is like perfume: it's fine if you don't swallow it. - Dwight D. Eisenhower

Pollution is of three types: 1 - Actual, 2 - Political, 3 - Emotional

Essential steps in any program:
  1. Wild enthusiasm
  2. Disillusionment
  3. Panic
  4. Search for the guilty
  5. Punish the innocent
  6. Reward and promote non-participants

Reading with reflecting is like eating without digesting. - Edmund Burke

Unlike the movies, real life provides no musical background to help us recognize the climactic moments.

We are judged by what we do - not what we claim we do. - William Feather

The inevitable law of results: Cheap, Quick, Good - pick any two

Repentance makes a man live longer. - The Talmud

The problem is not shortage of data, but rather our inability to perceive the consequences of the information we already possess. - Jay W. Forrester

If resolutely people do what is right, in time they come to like doing it. - John Ruskin

I forget the greater part of what I read, but all the same it nourishes my mind. - Georg C. Lichtenberg

The real steps of research:
  1. Interest
  2. Preparation
  3. Incubation
  4. Illumination
  5. Verification
  6. Exploitation
We keep saying that Johnny doesn't read because he's deprived, hunger, and discriminated against. However, one of the biggest reasons Johnny doesn't read well is because Johnny doesn't practice reading. - Rev. Jesse Jackson

Children see major events reported in 90 seconds of a newscast. If a shooting war can be covered in less than two minutes, then a 200-page book seems just too long to read. - Dr. Nicholas Long

The price of greatness is responsibility. - Winston Churchill

All that mankind has done, thought, gained, or been - it is lying as in magic preservation in the pages of books. - Thomas Carlyle

Facts are of slight value unless they are intelligently interpreted. - William Feather

It is no paradox to say that in our most theoretical moods we may be nearest to our most practical applications. - Alfred North Whitehead

Knowledge is the only instrument of production that is not subject to diminishing returns. - J.M.Clark

The element of the unexpected and the unforeseeable is what gives some of its relish to life and saves us from falling into the mechanical thralldom of the logicians. - Winston Churchill

Reverence for life does not allow the scholar to live for his science alone. Reverence for life does not permit the artist to exist only for his art, even if he gives inspiration to many by its means. Reverence for life refuses to let the businessman imagine that he fulfills all legitimate demands in the course of his business activities. Reverence for life demands for all that they should sacrifice a portion of their own lives for others. - Albert Schweitzer

A team is where a boy can prove his courage on his own; a gang is where a coward goes to hide. - Mickey Mantle

One of the charms of the scientific enterprise is how deficient we can be and still play some meaningful part in it. - Robert Oppenheimer

Science has its cathedrals, built by a few architects and many workmen. - G.N.Lewis

Sleep is the golden chain that ties health and our bodies together. - Thomas Dekker

Whatever one may call the Creator, his only authentic revelation is the universe. Science is the study of the work of the Creator, a kind of divine service, a search for truth, searched with uncompromising honesty. - Albert Szent-Gyorgi

History shows that, no matter how generous others may be, those who have been helped the most are those who have helped themselves. - William Simon

Man seeks his own good at the whole world's cost. - Robert Browning

Failure is harder than success. Who works harder, the man who saunters down to the train ahead of time, or the one who misses it by 15 seconds after running three blocks? - William Feather

It took TV soap operas to get sex education out of the schools and into the home, where it belongs. - Linda Ellerbee

Seriousness is the final refuge of the shallow intellect.

The only conquests that are permanent and leave no regrets are our conquests over ourselves. - Napoleon Bonaparte

The most significant data are the most elusive. - Hugh D. Crone

Science is a process that seeks truth;
politics is a process that seeks survival.

There are seven sins in the world:
wealth without work
pleasure without conscience
knowledge without character
commerce without morality
science without humility
worship without sacrifice
politics without principle
- Mahatma Gandhi

There are hundreds who can stand failure to one who can stand success; the good loser is far more common than the good winner. - Franklin P. Adams

Endurance is the best success insurance. - Arnold Glascow

He who is master of himself will soon be master of others. - H.G. Bohn

Only a few men can be counted on to rise to the occasion. Even fewer know when to sit down.

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