165 Great Quotes

compiled by Oh Teik Theam

For Free Distribution

Never let success go to your head, or failure to your heart.

- Dr. Mardy Grothe

* * *

Failure is an event, never a person.

- William D. Brown

* * *

A good deed is the best prayer.

- Robert Green Ingersoll

* * *

Love is that condition in which the happiness of another person is essential to your own.

- Robert A. Heinlein

* * *

An angry man is again angry with himself when he returns to reason.

- Publilius Syrus

* * *

If I had eight hours to chop down a tree, I’d spend six sharpening my axe.

- Abraham Lincoln

* * *

What you do not want done to yourself, do not do to others.

- Confucius

* * *

Hatred is self-punishment.

- Hosea Ballou

* * *

A nail is driven out by another nail; habit is overcome by habit.

- Desiderius Erasmus

* * *

Little strokes fell great oaks.

- Benjamin Franklin

* * *

Life must be lived with love and humour: love to understand it, and humour to put up

with it.

- Carlos Fisas

* * *

Failure is success if we learn from it.

- Malcolm Forbes

* * *

Success is not the key to happiness. Happiness is the key to success. If you love what you

are doing, you will be successful.

- Albert Schweitzer

* * *

Take rest; a field that has rested gives a bountiful crop.

- Ovid

* * *

What upsets me is not that you lied to me, but that from now on I can no longer believe

you.

- Friedrich Nietzsche

* * *

Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity.

- Seneca

* * *

The poorest man would not part with health for money, but the richest would gladly part

with all his money for health.

- Charles Caleb Colton

* * *

A candle loses nothing by lighting another candle.

- James Keller

* * *

There is no pillow so soft as a clear conscience.

- French Proverb

* * *

Little things affect little minds.

- Benjamin Disraeli

* * *

Kindness is difficult to give away because it keeps coming back.

- Author Unknown

* * *

Let the sole worry of your parents be that you might become ill.

- Confucius

* * *

It is not how old you are but how you are old.

- Jules Renard

* * *

Men are not punished for their sins, but by them.

- Elbert Hubbard

* * *

It is one of the most beautiful compensations of life that no man can sincerely try to help

another without helping himself.

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

* * *

The best way to cheer yourself up is to try to cheer someone else up.

- Mark Twain

* * *

You can be happy if you know this secret: Some things are within your power to control

and some things are not.

- Epictetus

* * *

I failed my way to success.

- Thomas Edison

* * *

You cannot prevent the birds of sorrow from flying over your head, but you can prevent

them from building nests in your hair.

- Chinese Proverb

* * *

The trouble you brew today, you will drink tomorrow.

- From the 1949 movie Samson and Delilah

* * *

Goodness is the only investment that never fails.

- Henry David Thoreau

* * *

A friend is a gift you give yourself.

- Robert Louis Stevenson

* * *

Yesterday is history. Tomorrow is a mystery. And today? Today is a gift. That’s why we

call it the present.

- Babatunde Olatunji

* * *

A man’s life is what his thoughts make it.

- Marcus Aurelius

* * *

The more you recognize and express gratitude for the things you have, the more things

you will have to express gratitude for.

- Zig Ziglar

* * *

No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.

- Eleanor Roosevelt

* * *

The tragedy of life is not that it ends so soon, but that we wait so long to begin it.

- W. M. Lewis

* * *

The bad news is time flies. The good news is you’re the pilot.

- Michael Altshuler

* * *

I have lived in this world just long enough to look carefully the second time into things

that I am most certain of the first time.

- Josh Billings

* * *

Men do not realize how great an income thrift is.

- Cicero

* * *

Make the best use of what is in your power, and take the rest as it happens.

- Epictetus

* * *

To err is human; to forgive, divine.

- Alexander Pope

* * *

Whatever you think you can do or believe you can do, begin it—for action has magic

grace and power in it.

- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

* * *

Never use money to measure wealth.

- From the 2006 miniseries Broken Trail

* * *

Worry often gives a small thing a big shadow.

- Swedish Proverb

* * *

What we do best or most perfectly is what we have most thoroughly learned by the

longest practice, and at length it falls down from us without our notice, as a leaf from a

tree.

- Henry David Thoreau

* * *

Do not save what is left after spending, but spend what is left after saving.

- Warren Buffet

* * *

We never know the love of a parent till we become parents ourselves.

- Henry Ward Beecher

* * *

No man is so foolish but he may sometimes give another good counsel, and no man is so

wise that he may not easily err if he takes no other counsel but his own. He that is taught

only by himself has a fool for a master.

- Ben Jonson

* * *

There is no fun in medicine, but there’s a heck of a lot of medicine in fun.

- Josh Billings

* * *

Revenge does us more harm than the injury itself.

- John Lubbock

* * *

Loneliness is the poverty of self; solitude is the richness of self.

- May Sarton

* * *

Blessed are those who can give without remembering and take without forgetting.

- Elizabeth Bibesco

* * *

Life commences not with birth, but with the onslaught of awareness.

- Frank Yerby

* * *

Never let the seeds stop you from enjoying the watermelon.

- From the 1939 movie Made for Each Other

* * *

Contentment is the only real wealth.

- Alfred Nobel

* * *

The greatest pleasure I know is to do a good action by stealth, and have it found out by

accident.

- Charles Lamb

* * *

Not the cry but the flight of the wild duck leads the flock to fly and follow.

- Chinese Proverb

* * *

It is not because things are difficult that we do not dare; it is because we do not dare that

they are difficult.

- Seneca

* * *

Our hopes, often though they deceive us, lead us pleasantly along the path of life.

- Francois de La Rochefoucauld

* * *

One of the best rules in conversation is, never to say a thing which any of the company

can reasonably wish had been left unsaid.

- Jonathan Swift

* * *

If a profound gulf separates my neighbour’s belief from mine, there is always the golden

bridge of tolerance.

- Author Unknown

* * *

Patience is bitter, but its fruit is sweet.

- Aristotle

* * *

Choose a job you love and you will never have to work a day in your life.

- Confucius

* * *

Humility is not thinking less of yourself, it’s thinking of yourself less.

- Rick Warren

* * *

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

- Benjamin Franklin

* * *

Don’t let what you cannot do interfere with what you can do.

- John Wooden

* * *

Laughter is the sensation of feeling good all over, and showing it principally in one spot.

- Josh Billings

* * *

It takes less time to do a thing right than it does to explain why you did it wrong.

- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

* * *

Your thoughts are seeds; your words water them; what are you growing today?

- Joseph Arazashvili

* * *

The best part of beauty is that which no picture can express.

- Francis Bacon

* * *

One day in retrospect the years of struggle will strike you as the most beautiful.

- Sigmund Freud

* * *

Optimism is the faith that leads to achievement. Nothing can be done without hope or

confidence.

- Helen Keller

* * *

Daring ideas are like chessmen moved forward. They may be beaten, but they may start a

winning game.

- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

* * *

A bit of fragrance always clings to the hand that gives roses.

- Chinese Proverb

* * *

It’s not what happens to you but how you react to it that matters.

- Epictetus

* * *

Life is a long lesson in humility.

- James M. Barrie

* * *

A candle burnt at both ends may shed a brighter light, but the darkness that follows is for

a longer time.

- Coco Chanel

* * *

Anger: an acid that can do more harm to the vessel in which it is stored than to anything

on which it is poured.

- Seneca

* * *

A person who deserves my loyalty receives it.

- Joyce Maynard

* * *

Love is not finding someone to live with. It’s finding someone you can’t live without.

- Rafael Ortiz

* * *

Believe you can and you’re halfway there.

- Theodore Roosevelt

* * *

Solitude: a good place to visit, but a poor place to stay.

- Josh Billings

* * *

Curiosity is the wick in the candle of learning.

- William Arthur Ward

* * *

You should never try to be better than someone else, but you should never cease trying to

be the best that you can be.

- John Wooden

* * *

Real generosity is doing something nice for someone who will never find it out.

- Frank A. Clark

* * *

The important thing is being capable of emotions, but to experience only one’s own

would be a sorry limitation.

- Andre Gide

* * *

A show of envy is an insult to oneself.

- Yevgeny Yevtushenko

* * *

The measure of a man’s real character is what he would do if he knew he would never be

found out.

- Thomas Babington Macaulay

* * *

He who angers you conquers you.

- Elizabeth Kenny

* * *

Character is destiny.

- Heraclitus

* * *

Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever.

- Mahatma Gandhi

* * *

Perfection is not attainable, but if we chase perfection we can catch excellence.

- Vince Lombardi

* * *

A quitter never wins, and a winner never quits.

- Napoleon Hill

* * *

The first and the best victory is to conquer self.

- Plato

* * *

Honesty is the best policy.

- Miguel de Cervantes

* * *

Better a diamond with a flaw than a pebble without.

- Confucius

* * *

A man should never be ashamed to own that he has been in the wrong, which is but

saying, in other words, that he is wiser today than he was yesterday.

- Alexander Pope

* * *

The difficulties of life are intended to make us better, not bitter.

- Author Unknown

* * *

Let us not look back in anger, nor forward in fear, but around in awareness.

- James Thurber

* * *

Feed your faith, and your fears will starve to death.

- Author Unknown

* * *

Silence is the sleep that nourishes wisdom.

- Francis Bacon

* * *

What is the difference between an obstacle and an opportunity? Our attitude toward it.

Every opportunity has a difficulty, and every difficulty has an opportunity.

- J. Sidlow Baxter

* * *

It is not so much our friends’ help that helps us as the confident knowledge that they will

help us.

- Epicurus

* * *

The past is a nice place to visit, but you don’t want to live there.

- Dr. Mardy Grothe

* * *

Nothing can bring you peace but yourself.

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

* * *

Confidence comes not from always being right but from not fearing to be wrong.

- Peter T. McIntyre

* * *

We teach others how to treat us.

- Author Unknown

* * *

You can give without loving, but you can never love without giving.

- Robert Louis Stevenson

* * *

No one has become poor by giving.

- Anne Frank

* * *

If you want to be happy, be.

- Leo Tolstoy

* * *

An investment in knowledge pays the best interest.

- Benjamin Franklin

* * *

Giving is better than receiving because giving starts the receiving process.

- Jim Rohn

* * *

Cease to inquire what the future has in store, and take as a gift whatever the day brings

forth.

- Horace

* * *

If you’re looking for perfection, look in the mirror. If you find it there, expect it

elsewhere.

- Malcolm Forbes

* * *

Never trust someone who lies to you. Never lie to someone who trusts you.

- Author Unknown

* * *

There is only one thing about which I am certain, and this is that there is very little about

which one can be certain.

- W. Somerset Maugham

* * *

There are some defeats more triumphant than victories.

- Michel de Montaigne

* * *

Failure is the mother of success.

- Chinese Proverb

* * *

Perhaps the best question that you can memorize and repeat, over and over, is, what is the

most valuable use of my time right now?

- Brian Tracy

* * *

Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a

lifetime.

- Chinese Proverb

* * *

Blessed is the person who is too busy to worry in the daytime and too sleepy to worry at

night.

- Author Unknown

* * *

Live to learn and you will learn to live.

- Portuguese Proverb

* * *

Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow. The important thing is not to

stop questioning.

- Albert Einstein

* * *

The price of hating other human beings is loving oneself less.

- Eldridge Cleaver

* * *

Being defeated is often a temporary condition. Giving up is what makes it permanent.

- Marilyn vos Savant

* * *

Concentrate all your thoughts upon the work in hand. The sun’s rays do not burn until

brought to a focus.

- Alexander Graham Bell

* * *

Every man is guilty of all the good he did not do.

-Voltaire

* * *

What hunger is in relation to food, zest is in relation to life.

- Bertrand Russell

* * *

From the errors of others, a wise man corrects his own.

- Publilius Syrus

* * *

Don’t be afraid to take big steps. You can’t cross a chasm in small jumps.

- David Lloyd George

* * *

I keep six honest serving-men

(They taught me all I knew);

Their names are What and Why and When

And How and Where and Who.

- Rudyard Kipling

* * *

Failure is the condiment that gives success its flavour.

- Truman Capote

* * *

It matters not what you are thought to be, but what you are.

- Publilius Syrus

* * *

The secret of a successful relationship is avoiding the unforgivable and forgiving the

unavoidable.

- Dr. Mardy Grothe

* * *

No one knows what he can do till he tries.

- Publilius Syrus

* * *

The rays of happiness, like those of light, are colourless when unbroken.

- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

* * *

No man is useless in this world who lightens the burden of it for anyone else.

- Charles Dickens

* * *

Formidable is that enemy that lies hid in a man’s own heart.

- Publilius Syrus

* * *

Success usually comes to those who are too busy to be looking for it.

- Henry David Thoreau

* * *

The best way to succeed in life is to act on the advice we give to others.

- Author Unknown

* * *

Never forget what is worth remembering or remember what is best forgotten.

- Anonymous

* * *

You never fail until you stop trying.

- Albert Einstein

* * *

The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.

- Lao Tzu

* * *

A successful marriage requires falling in love many times, always with the same person.

- Germaine Greer

* * *

Forgive all who have offended you, not for them, but for yourself.

- Harriet Nelson

* * *

Hard work beats talent, when talent doesn’t work hard.

- Author Unknown

* * *

The way I see it, if you want the rainbow, you gotta put up with the rain.

- Dolly Parton

* * *

Rudeness is the weak man’s imitation of strength.

- Eric Hoffer

* * *

Love all, trust a few, do wrong to none.

- William Shakespeare

* * *

And in the end, it’s not the years in your life that count. It’s the life in your years.

- Abraham Lincoln

* * *

When our hatred is too bitter, it places us below those whom we hate.

- Francois de la Rochefoucald

* * *

The tragedy of life is not death, but what we let die inside of us while we live.

- Norman Cousins

* * *

A smooth sea never made a skilful mariner.

- English Proverb

* * *

It’s a funny thing about life; if you refuse to accept anything but the best, you very often

get it.

- W. Somerset Maugham

* * *

I wept because I had no shoes until I met a man who had no feet.

- Persian Proverb

* * *

The heights by great men reached and kept

Were not attained by sudden flight,

But they, while their companions slept,

Were toiling upward in the night.

- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

* * *

Winning isn’t getting ahead of others. It’s getting ahead of yourself.

- Roger Staubach

* * *

If you want to understand the meaning of happiness, you must see it as a reward and not

as a goal.

- Antoine de Saint-Exupery

* * *

Those who are happiest are those who do the most for others.

- Booker T. Washington

* * *

Too many people overvalue what they are not and undervalue what they are.

- Malcolm Forbes

* * *

It is literally true that you can succeed best and quickest by helping others to succeed.

- Napoleon Hill

* * *

Strengthen your mind, and circumstances will yield to your desires.

- Mark Fisher

* * *

If you are afraid of your future, you don’t have a present.

- James Petersen

* * *

Talk doesn’t cook rice.

- Chinese Proverb

* * *

The compiler is the author of Laugh Your Head Off! Funny Jokes and Stories with Idioms, which

is published by The Inspiration Hub, Malaysia (check out www.thebookzhub.com).

December 2014