Michael > Michael's Quotes

“If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants.”
― Isaac Newton, The Correspondence of Isaac Newton: Volume 5, 1709–1713

“A society should be judged not by how it treats its outstanding citizens but by how it treats its criminals.”
― Fyodor Dostoyevsky

“Justice inclines her scales so that wisdom comes at the price of suffering”
― Aeschylus

“The noblest pleasure is the joy of understanding.”
― Leonardo da Vinci

“The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness.”
― John Kenneth Galbraith

“Nobody likes being alone that much. I don't go out of my way to make friends, that's all. It just leads to disappointment. ”
― Haruki Murakami, Norwegian Wood

“Treat people as an end, and never as a means to an end”
― Emmanuel Kant

“Nothing can be loved or hated unless it is first understood.”
― Leonardo da Vinci

“If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien

“The only function of economic forecasting is to make astrology look respectable.”
― John Kenneth Galbraith

“I have always been of opinion that hard work is simply the refuge of people who have nothing whatever to do.”
― Oscar Wilde

“It has always seemed strange to me that in our endless discussions about education so little stress is laid on the pleasure of becoming an educated person, the enormous interest it adds to life. To be able to be caught up into the world of thought—that is to be educated."

[Saturday Evening Post, September 27, 1958]”
― Edith Hamilton

“Above all, do not lose your desire to walk. Everyday, I walk myself into a state of well-being & walk away from every illness. I have walked myself into my best thoughts, and I know of no thought so burdensome that one cannot walk away from it. But by sitting still, & the more one sits still, the closer one comes to feeling ill. Thus if one just keeps on walking, everything will be all right.”
― Søren Kierkegaard

“The conventional view serves to protect us from the painful job of thinking.”
― John Kenneth Galbraith

“The greatest deception men suffer is from their own opinions.”
― Leonardo da Vinci

“Those who deny freedom to others, deserve it not for themselves”
― Abraham Lincoln, Complete Works - Volume XII

“Art is never finished, only abandoned.”
― Leonardo da Vinci

“I, too, sing America.

I am the darker brother.
They send me to eat in the kitchen
When company comes,
But I laugh,
And eat well,
And grow strong.

Tomorrow,
I'll be at the table
When company comes.
Nobody'll dare
Say to me,
"Eat in the kitchen,"
Then.

Besides,
They'll see how beautiful I am
And be ashamed--

I, too, am America.”
― Langston Hughes

“We had to struggle with the old enemies of peace—business and financial monopoly, speculation, reckless banking, class antagonism, sectionalism, war profiteering.

They had begun to consider the Government of the United States as a mere appendage to their own affairs. We know now that Government by organized money is just as dangerous as Government by organized mob.

Never before in all our history have these forces been so united against one candidate as they stand today. They are unanimous in their hate for me—and I welcome their hatred.”
― Franklin D. Roosevelt

“America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves.”
― Abraham Lincoln

“Do I not destroy my enemies when I make them my friends?”
― Abraham Lincoln

“I have a punishing workout regimen. Every day I do 3 minutes on a treadmill, then I lie down, drink a glass of vodka and smoke a cigarette.”
― Anthony Hopkins

“No one is born hating another person because of the color of his skin, or his background, or his religion. People must learn to hate, and if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love, for love comes more naturally to the human heart than its opposite.”
― Nelson Mandela, Long Walk to Freedom

“When I told a senior officer ... that I must have a new head gunner, he remarked that the present man was a delightful person and was also a golf champion. I agreed he was delightful, but added that unfortunately the game we were about to play was not golf.”
― Bernard Montgomery

“All art is quite useless.”
― Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray

“Learning never exhausts the mind.”
― Leonardo da Vinci

“Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.”
― Søren Kierkegaard

“People demand freedom of speech as a compensation for the freedom of thought which they seldom use.”
― Søren Kierkegaard

“If you only read the books that everyone else is reading, you can only think what everyone else is thinking.”
― Haruki Murakami, Norwegian Wood

“O, let my land be a land where Liberty
Is crowned with no false patriotic wreath,
But opportunity is real, and life is free,
Equality is in the air we breathe.”
― Langston Hughes