Archive for category: People

Elegance is not to be noticed, it’s to be remembered.

attributed to Giorgio Armani – Italian fashion designer (b. 1934)

L’eleganza non è farsi notare, ma farsi ricordare.

attribuita a Giorgio Armani – stilista italiano (*1934)

Счастье не в том, чтобы делать всегда, что хочешь, а в том, чтобы всегда хотеть того, что делаешь.

Лев Николаевич Толстой – русский писатель (1828-1910), котировки выпуска 2018

Life, liberty, and property do not exist because men have made laws. On the contrary, it was the fact that life, liberty, and property existed beforehand that caused men to make laws in the first place.

Frédéric Bastiat – French economist and journalist (1801-1850)

Go placidly amid the noise and haste, and remember what peace there may be in silence. As far as possible, without surrender, be on good terms with all persons. Speak your truth quietly and clearly; and listen to others, even to the dull and ignorant; they too have their story. Avoid loud and aggressive persons; they are vexations to the spirit. If you compare yourself with others, you may become vain or bitter, for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself.

Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans. Keep interested in your own career, however humble, it’s a real possession in the changing fortunes of time.

Exercise caution in your business affairs, for the world is full of trickery. But let this not blind you to what virtue there is; many persons strive for high ideals, and everywhere life is full of heroism. Be yourself. Especially do not feign affection. Neither be cynical about love; for in the face of all aridity and disenchantement, it is as perrenial as the grass.

Take kindly the counsel of the years, gracefully surrendering the things of youth. Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune. But do not distress yourself with dark imaginings. Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness. Beyond a wholesome discipline, be gentle with yourself. You are a child of the universe no less than the trees and the stars; you have a right to be here. And wh

ether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.Therefore be at peace with God, whatever you conceive him to be. And whatever your labors and aspirations, in the noisy confusion of life, keep peace in your soul. With all its sham, drudgery and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world. Be cheerful. Strive to be happy.

Max Ehrmann – American lawyer and author (1872-1945), written in 1927

It is precisely the organization that is the means to multiply the ability of the individuals.

Prof. Guido Stein – Professor of managing at IESE Business School, University of Navarra, Madrid (b. 1964), in “Managing People and Organizations: Peter Drucker’s Legacy” (2010)

People are unreasonable,
illogical and self-centered,
LOVE THEM ANYWAY!

If you do good,
people will accuse you of selfish,
ulterior motives,
DO GOOD ANYWAY!

If you are successful,
you win false friends and true enemies,
SUCCEED ANYWAY!

The good you do today
will be forgotten tomorrow,
DO GOOD ANYWAY!

Honesty and frankness
make you vulnerable,
BE HONEST AND FRANK ANYWAY!

What you spent years building
may be destroyed overnight,
BUILD ANYWAY!

People who really need help
but may attack you if you help them,
HELP PEOPLE ANYWAY!

Give the world your best
and you’ll get kicked in the teeth,
GIVE THE WORLD YOUR BEST ANYWAY!

from a boeard in Sishu Bhavan, a children’s home in Calcutta, where Mother Teresa (Albanian nun, 1910-1997) used to work. “Anyway”) is a text from eight of the “Paradoxical Commandments” by Dr. Kent M. Keith (see below), Quotations book 2002

Original PARADOXICAL COMMANDMENTS

1. People are illogical, unreasonable, and self-centered. Love them anyway.
2. If you do good, people will accuse you of selfish ulterior motives. Do good anyway.
3. If you are successful, you win false friends and true enemies. Succeed anyway.
4. The good you do today will be forgotten tomorrow. Do good anyway.
5. Honesty and frankness make you vulnerable. Be honest and frank anyway.
6. The biggest men with the biggest ideas can be shot down by the smallest men with the smallest minds. Think big anyway.
7. People favor underdogs, but follow only top dogs. Fight for a few underdogs anyway.
8. What you spend years building may be destroyed overnight. Build anyway.
9. People really need help but may attack you if you do help them. Help people anyway.
10. Give the world the best you have and you’ll get kicked in the teeth. Give the world the best you have anyway.
Additional to “Paradoxical Commandments” at  “The Final Analysis”: You see, in the final analysis, it is all between you and God; I was never between you and them anyway.

If you wait for a perfect church, you must wait until you get to heaven; and even if you could find a perfect assenbly on earth, I am sure they would not admit you to their fellowship, for you are not perfect yourself.

Charles Haddon Spurgeon – English baptist pastor (1834-1892), from “Additions to the Church”, Predigt 1167 (1874)

Anyone taken as an individual is tolerably sensible and reasonable – as a member of a crowd, he at once becomes a blockhead.

Friedrich Schiller – German writer (1759-1805)

The first thing is character. Before money or anything else. Money cannot buy it. … A man I do not trust could not get money from me on all the bonds in Christendom. I think that is the fundamental basis of business.

John Pierpont Morgan – American banker (1837-1913), from a statement before a Congressional committee (1912),  Quotations book 2006

Since half the people are not going to like me anyway, they may as well not like me for the right reason.

Patrick Morley – English auhor and former BBC journalist

Men are willing to forego the old for the sake of the new. But commonly it is found in theology that that which is true is not new, and that which is new is not true.

Robert Shindler – American Baptist priest, close friend to preacher Charles Haddon Spurgeon (c. 1824-1903), from his article “The Down Grade “, published in “Sword and the Trowel” (March 1887), Quotations book 2019

When an election is passed, it is altogether befitting a free people, that until the next election, they should be as one people.

Abraham Lincoln – American politician, 1861-65 16th president (1809-1865), abolished slavery in 1863, to New York Governor E. D. Morgan and his delegation in Albany, New York, 18th February 1861

When you look for the good in others, you discover the best in yourself.

attributed to Martin Walsh – English film cutter (b. 1955), Quotations book 2013

We shape our buildings, and afterwards our buildings shape us.

Sir Winston L. Churchill – British politician, 1940-45 and 1951-55 Prime Minister, Nobel Prize in literature 1953 (1874-1965), in his speech to the reconstruction of the House of Commons, Quotations book 2009

If you want happiness for an hour, take a nap. If you want happiness for a day, go fishing. If you want happiness for a year, inherit a fortune. If you want happiness for a lifetime, help somebody.

Chinese wisdom, said by Prem Watsa – Canadian investor, chairman and founder of Fairfax Financial Holdings (b. 1950), Quotations book 2013

To me, old age is always fifteen years older than I am.

Bernard M. Baruch – American financier, advisor to several American presidents (1870-1965), at his 85th birthday, quoted in “The Observer”, August 21st, 1955, Quotations book 2012

The opposite of courage in our society is not cowardice, it is conformity.

Rollo May – American existential psychologist (1909-1994), alongside Viktor E. Frankl, was a major proponent of existential psychotherapy, following a passage from “Man’s Search for himself” (1953), Quotations book 2018

Love sees people – not as problems, better as possibilities.

Dr. Robert H. Schuller – Americanisch evangelist and reformed priest (1926-2015)

The church is a hospital for sinners, not a museum for saints.

attributed to Abigail van Buren – born Pauline Esther Friedman, American advice columnist

(1918-2013), Quotations book 2010

Kind words do not cost much, yet they accomplish much.

attributed to Blaise Pascal – French mathematician and philosopher (1623-1662)

Frequently, we act as arbiters of grace rather than its facilitators. But the Church is not a tollhouse; it is the house of the Father, where there is a place for everyone, with all their problems.

Pope Francis – born Jorge Mario Bergoglio, since 2013 Holy Father (b. 1936), from the Apostolic Exhortation “Evangelii Gaudium”, N° 47 (2013), Quotations book 2015

Free people make mistakes and willingly take risks. If we hold politicians responsible for everything that goes wrong, they will take away our liberty so that nothing can go wrong. They will do this not for our protection against risk, but for their own protection against criticism.

Jonathan Philip Chadwick Sumption, Lord Sumption – British author, medieval historian and judge, 2012-2018 Justice of the Supreme Court (b. 1948), from the interview “Set us free from lockdown, ministers, and stop covering your backs.” in “The Sunday Times” (May 17th, 2020)

Strong beliefs win strong men, and then make them stronger.

Walter Bagehot – English economist and author, editor in chief of “The Economist” (1826-1877), from “Physics and Politics Or Thoughts on the Application of the Principles of Natural Selection and Inheritance to Political Society” (1872), Quotations book 2020

I have rarely if ever found anyone out of whom I could not extract amusement or edification.

Sir Walter Scott – Scottish historical novelist, playwright, poet and historian (1771-1832), from his diary, published as “The Journal of Sir Walter Scott”, volume 1 (1890)

We have two ears, but one mouth so that we may hear more but speak less.

διὰ τοῦτο … δύο ὦτα ἔχομεν, στόμα δὲ ἕν, ἵνα πλείονα μὲν ἀκούωμεν, ἥττονα δὲ λέγωμεν.

Zeno of Citium – Greek philosopher (c. 333-c. 261 BC), from “Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers” (book seven, Zeno of Citium) by Diogenes Laërtius (Greek historian and doxographer, 3rd century)

Every child has its own statistic:

Wise medical doctors answer to the question of worried parents what survivial chance percentage their child would have: The child is well and alive today.

said at the Ira W. Sohn Conference for Tomorrows Childrens Fund – Quotations book 2005

A dream you dream alone is only a dream.
A dream you dream together is reality.

Yōko Ono – American artist and musicien (b. 1933), quoted by husband John Lennon (British musician and composer, 1940-1980) in an interview in December 1980, published in “All We Are Saying: The Last Major Interview with John Lennon and Yoko Ono” (2000)

Sometime they’ll give a war and nobody will come.

Carl Sandburg – American poet and historian (1878-1967), from “The People, Yes” (1936), was used by the Peace movement and changed into “Imagine, it is war and nobody goes there.” These words were falsely attributed to Bertolt Brecht..

What is thought is not said.
What is said is not heard.
What is heard is not understood.
What is understood is not believed.
What is believed is not yet advocated.
What is advocated is not yet acted on.
What is acted on is not yet completed.

scheme from communication research, falsely attributed to Konrad Lorenz – Austian zoologist and ethologist, Nobel Prize in Medicine 1973 (1903-1989)

If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.

George Orwell – British writer and journalist (1903-1950), from an unused preface to “Animal Farm” (1945)

Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in nature, nor do the children of men as a whole experience it. Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. Life is either a daring adventure, or nothing.

Helen Keller – American deaf-blind writer (1880-1968), from “The Open Door” (1957), Quotations book 2018

In the end, all business operations can be reduced to three words, people, product and profits. Unless you’ve got a good team, you can’t do much with the other two.

Lee Iacocca – American entrepreneur, savior of Chrysler (1924-2019), Quotations book 2016

It isn’t what you have or who you are or where you are or what you are doing that makes you happy or unhappy. It is what you think about it.

Dale Carnegie – born Dale Carnagey, American author and personality coach (1888-1955), from “How to Win Friends and Influence People” (1936), Quotations book 2019

Reputation is what others think of us; character is what God and the angels know of us.

Thomas Paine – American independece fighter and human rights activist, known as “voice of the American revolution” (1737-1809), Quotations book 2005

Give people freedom and they’ll amaze you.

Frank Kohl-Boas – German lawyer, Human Resources Manager at Google (b. 1969), about his company’s philosophy on human resources, Quotations book 2015

Habit is habit, and not to be flung out of the window by any man, but coaxed down-stairs a step at a time.

Mark Twain – born Samuel Langhorne Clemens, American writer (1835-1910), from “Pudd’nhead Wilson and Those Extraordinary Twins” (Chapter VI, 1884)

Bonum vero commune summam complectitur earum vitae socialis condicionum, quibus homines, familiae et consociationes, suam ipsorum perfectionem plenius atque expeditius consequi possint.

Indeed, the common good embraces the sum of those conditions of the social life whereby men, families and associations more adequately and readily may attain their own perfection.

Second Vatican Council – from the Pastoral Constitution “Gaudium et Spes – On the Church in the modern World” promulgated by His Holiness, pope Paul VI (Chapter IV, 74, December 7th, 1965)

It is much more easy to have sympathy with suffering, than it is to have sympathy with thought. Accordingly, with admirable though misdirected intentions, they very seriously and very sentimentally set themselves to the task of remedying the evils that they see. But their remedies do not cure the disease, they merely prolong it. Indeed, their remedies are part of the disease..

Oscar Wilde – Irish writer (1854-1900), from “The Soul of Man under Socialism” (1891), Quotations book 2004

For attractive lips, speak words of kindness.
For lovely eyes, seek out the good in people.
For a slim figure, share your food with the hungry.
For beautiful hair, let a child run his/her fingers through it once a day.
For poise, walk with the knowledge that you never walk alone.
People, even more than things, have to be restored, renewed, revived, reclaimed, and redeemed; never throw out anyone.
Remember, if you ever need a helping hand, you will find one at the end of each of your arms.
As you grow older, you will discover that you have two hands; one for helping yourself, and the other for helping others.

Audrey Hepburn – American actress (1929-1993), Quotations book 2005

Freedom means responsibility; that is the reason why most people are afraid of it.

George Bernard Shaw – Irish writer, Nobel Prize in literature 1925 (1856-1950), Quotations book 2005

If you want the cooperation of humans around you, you must make them feel they are important, and you do that by being genuine and humble.

Nelson Mandela – South African anti-apartheid activist and politician, 1994-99 president, Nobel Peace Prize (1918-2013), from an interview with Oprah Winfrey for the “O magazine” (April 2001)

The highest Test of the civilization of any race is in its willingness to extend a helping hand to the less fortunate. A, race like an individual, lifts itself up by lifting others up.

Booker T. Washington – American educator, social reformer and civil rights activist (1856-1915), Quotations book 2011

When a man’s ways are pleasing to the Lord, he makes even his enemies live at peace with him.

The Bible, Proverbs 16:7 (NIV) – Quotations book 2011

No animal but man ever laughs.

Aristoteles – Greek philosopher (384-322 B.C.), in “De partibus animalium” (4th century B.C.), Quotations book 2014

When the people fear the government you have tyranny.
When the government fears the people you have liberty.

John Basil Barnhill – American writer (1864-1929), Quotations book 2012

Believing in our hearts that who we are is enough is the key to a more satisfying and balanced life.

Ellen Sue Stern – American life advisor and author (b. 1954)

You must, therefore, live with your enemies, as you cannot always live with your friends.

Alexis de Tocqueville – French publisher and politician (1805-1859), from a letter to Eugène Stoffels, September 16th, 1823, Quotations book 2011

Extraordinary people need extraordinary conditions.

Melker Schörling – Swedish businessman and investor (Securitas AB, Assa Abloy, b. 1947)

Utomordentliga personer behöver utomordentliga förutsättningar.

Melker Schörling – svensk affärsman och investerare (Securitas AB, Assa Abloy, f. 1947)

In youth we learn; in age we understand.

Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach – Austrian writer (1830-1916), from her “Aphorisms”, published in “Collected Works”, book 1 (1893)

The greatest good you can do for another is not just to share your riches but to reveal to him his own.

attributed to Benjamin Disraeli – English writer and politician, 1868 and 1874-80 Prime Minister (1804-1881)

I have seen no trend towards value investing in the 35 years that I’ve practiced it. There seems to be some perverse human characteristic that likes to make easy things difficult.

Warren Buffett – American value investor, Chairman of Berkshire Hathaway (b. 1930)

A good leader inspires men to have confidence in him; a great leader inspires them to have confidence in themselves.

Wisdom – Quotations book 2015

Respect people for who they are, not for what their titles are.

Herbert D. “Herb” Kelleher – American entrepreneur, co-founder of Southwest Airlines (1931-2019)

Det Store er ikke at være Dette eller Hiint, men at være sig selv.

The greatness is not to be this or that but to be oneself.

Søren Aabye Kierkegaard – Danish Protestant theologian an philosopher (1813-1855), known as one of the most important academics in Denmark; from “Either – Or. A Life Fragment” (1843), Quotations book 2016

We don’t see things as they are, we see them as we are.

wisdom

What a curious phenomenon it is that you can get men to die for the liberty of the world who will not make the little sacrifice that is needed to free themselves from their own individual bondage.

Bruce Barton – American author and Advertising expert (1886-1967), Quotations book 2006

Generosity is taking care of the others.

Jean-Pascal Bobst – Swiss mechanical engineer and manager (b. 1965), Quotations book 2019

Nothing great is done without great men, an they are great because they are determined to be so.

Charles de Gaulle – French politician, 1959-69 president of the Fifth Republic (1890-1970), from “The Army of the future” (“Vers l’armée de métier”, 1934), Quotations book 2011

All geniusses are leeches, so to speak. They feed from the same source – the blood of life … We all derive from the same source. There is no mystery about the origin of things. We are all part of creation, all kings, all poets, all musicians; we have only to open up, only to discover what is already there.

Henry Miller – American writer and painter  (1891-1980), from “Sexus” (1949)

Celui qui se juge trop important pour de petits travaux est souvent trop petit pour les travaux importants.

attribué à Jacques Tati – né Jacques Tatischeff, réalisateur et acteur français (1907-1982)

It is never too late to give up our prejudices.

Henry David Thoreau – American writer (1817-1862), from “Walden” (1854)

Men make decisions, boys want it all.

English proverb – Quotations book 2020