'Words of Wisdom' - some 'unforgettable' quotes......

I have put some of my favorite quotes here, and I will try to update with new quotations often. I have tried to be selective in picking quotes, including only those quotes that I find inspiring or interesting - in other words, reflecting my own tastes and philosophy.

Here are some 'unforgettable' quotes. Food for thought! Read on.........

1) "Democracy is a process by which the people are free to choose the man who will get the blame." - Laurence J. Peter.

2) "When one door closes another door opens; but we so often look so long and so regretfully upon the closed door, that we do not see the one which open for us." - Alexandar Graham Bell.

3) "God, grant me the strength to change that I need to change, the patience to accept that which I cannot change, and above all, the wisdom to know the difference." - St. Francis of Assisi.

4) "Success is based on imagination plus ambition and the will to work." - Thomas Edison.

5) "Minds are like parachutes, they only work when open." - Anonymous.

6) "The best way to predict the future is to create it." - Peter F. Drucker.

7) "It is no use saying, we are doing our best. You have got to succeed in doing what is necessary." -Sir Winston Churchill.

8) "Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new" - Albert Einstein.

9) "A life without cause is a life without effect" - Barbarella.

10) "A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every dificulty" - Sir Winston Churchill.

11) "You see things; and you say "Why?" But I dream things that never were; and I say "Why not" -George Bernard Shaw.

12) "Love all. Trust a few. Do wrong to none. This above all: to thine own self be true. No legacy is so rich as honesty. Brevity is the soul of wit" - William Shakespeare.

13) "Democracy does not guarantee equality of conditions - it only guarantees equality of opportunity." - Irving Kristol.

14) "Patriotism is your conviction that this country is superior to all others because you were born in it." - George Bernard Shaw.

15) "You have to live before you die, or you'll die before you live." - Peter Sellers.

16) "It is an unfortunate fact that we can secure peace only by preparing for war." - John F. Kennedy.

17) "Gossip is a sort of smoke that comes from the dirty tobacco-pipes of those who defuse it; it proves nothing but the bad taste of the smoker." - George Eliot.

18) "Any relic of the dead is precious, if they were valued living." - Emily Bronte.

19) "We have forty million reasons for failure, but not a single excuse." - Rudyard Kipling.

20) "Tradition is a guide and not a jailer." - W. Somerset Maugham.

21) "Living is having ups and downs and sharing them with friends." - Trey Parker and Matt Stone.

22) "One of the greatest victories you can gain over someone is to beat him at politeness." - Josh Billings.

23) "Hope is only the love of life." - Henri-Frédéric Amiel.

24) "A moment’s insight is sometimes worth a lifetime’s experience." - Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.

25) "A true friend is the greatest of all blessings, and that which we take the least care of all to acquire." - Francois de La Rochefoucauld.

26) "When you encounter difficulties and contradictions, do not try to break them, but bend them with gentleness and time." - Saint Francis de Sales.

27) "Everyday I remind myself that my inner and outer life are based on the labours of other men, living and dead, and that I must exert myself in order to give in the same measure as I have received and am still receiving." - Albert Einstein.

28) "Readers are plentiful; thinkers are rare." - Harriet Martineau.

29) "A little learning is a dangerous thing but a lot of ignorance is just as bad." - Bob Edwards.

30) "However beautiful the strategy, you should occasionally look at the results." - Winston Churchill.

31) "Some mornings, it's just not worth chewing through the leather straps." - Emo Philips.

32) "The secret to staying young is to live honestly, eat slowly, and lie about your age." - Lucille Ball.

33) "If it weren’t for electricity we’d all be watching television by candlelight." - George Gobol.

34) "It’s better to be looked over than overlooked." - Mae West.

35) "Cheer up. The worst is yet to come." - Mark Twain.

36) "There's so much pollution in the air now that if it weren't for our lungs there'd be no place to put it all." - Robert Orben.

37) "Have no fear of perfection - you'll never reach it." - Salvador Dali.

38) "Always be sincere, even if you don’t mean it." - Harry S. Truman.

39) "I am a democrat only on principle, not by instinct -- nobody is that. Doubtless some people say they are, but this world is grievously given to lying." - Mark Twain.

40) "Democracy is a charming form of government, full of variety and disorder, and dispensing a sort of equality to equals and unequal alike." - Plato.

41) "No man is good enough to govern another man without that other's consent." - Abraham Lincoln.

42) "When people put their ballots in the boxes, they are, by that act, inoculated against the feeling that the government is not theirs. They then accept, in some measure, that its errors are their errors, its aberrations their aberrations, that any revolt will be against them. It's a remarkably shrewd and rather conservative arrangement when one thinks of it." - John Kenneth Galbraith.

43) "When great changes occur in history, when great principles are involved, as a rule the majority are wrong." - Eugene V. Debs.

44) "The ship of Democracy, which has weathered all storms, may sink through the mutiny of those aboard." - Grover Cleveland.

45) "Nothing can be more abhorrent to democracy than to imprison a person or keep him in prison because he is unpopular. This is really the test of civilization." - Winston Churchill.

46) "It has been said that Democracy is the worst form of government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time." - Winston Churchill.

47) "The best defense against usurpatory government is an assertive citizenry." - William F. Buckley.

48) "We once worried that democracy could not survive if an undereducated populace knew too little. Now we worry if it can survive us knowing too much." - Robert Bianco.

49) "The Silent majority is silent, and that is best for everybody." - Gerhard Kocher.

50) "Forgive your enemies, but never forget their names." - John F. Kennedy.

51) "If we cannot end now our differences, at least we can help make the world safe for diversity - John F. Kennedy.

52) "The time to repair the roof is when the sun is shining." - John F. Kennedy.

53) "We must use time as a tool, not as a crutch." - John F. Kennedy.

54) "I have never let my schooling interfere with my education." - Mark Twain.

55) "And so, my fellow americans: ask not what your country can do for you - ask what you can do for your country. My fellow citizens of the world: ask not what America will do for you, but what together we can do for the freedom of man." - John F. Kennedy, Inaugural address, January 20, 1961.

56) "We need men who can dream of things that never were." - John F. Kennedy, speech in Dublin, Ireland, June 28, 1963.

57) "It's not the size of the dog in the fight, it's the size of the fight in the dog." - Mark Twain.

58) "A banker is a fellow who lends you his umbrella when the sun is shining, but wants it back the minute it begins to rain." - Mark Twain.

59) "Facts are stubborn things, but statistics are more pliable." - Mark Twain.

60) "I have a higher and grander standard of principle than George Washington. He could not lie; I can, but I won't." - Mark Twain.

(More to follow)

Photograph: "Let your life lightly dance on the edges of Time like dew on the tip of a leaf." - "Kabiguru" Rabindranath Tagore (1861 - 1941), Indian poet and polymath; awarded the 'Nobel prize in Literature,' in 1913.