Some quotes that have been inspiring to me.

If i am not for myself... who will be?
If i am only for myself... what am i?
If not now... when?
    - Rabbi Hillel

Start Where You Are
    - My favorite book title - from some guru

Service to others is the rent you pay for your room here on earth.
    - Muhammad Ali, in Time, 1978

Fools you are. To say you learn by your experience. I prefer to profit by others' mistakes and avoid the price of my own.
    - Otto von Bismarck

Even the most sublime ideas sound ridiculous if heard too often.

Be the change that you want to see in the world.
    - M. K. Gandhi

...the neurotic has problems, the psychotic has solutions.
    - Thomas Szasz

What is the most important for democracy is not that great fortunes should not exist, but that great fortunes should not remain in the same hands.
    - Alexis de Tocqueville

If I die, I forgive you; if I live, we shall see....
    - Spanish Proverb

The world is a comedy to those that think, a tragedy to those that feel.

The world most often rewards the appearances of merit than merit itself.
    - La Rochefoucauld

There are two ways of spreading light: to be the candle or the mirror that reflects it.
    - Edith Wharton

It's not rebels that make trouble, but trouble that makes rebels.
    - Ruth MESSINGER

Those who make peaceful revolution impossible make violent revolution inevitable.
    - JFK

We make a living by what we get, but a life by what we give.
    - Winston CHURCHILL

If you want peace, work for justice.

All cruelty springs from weakness.
    - Seneca

There is only one good, knowledge;
one evil, ignorance.
    - Socrates

Tit for tat

    - This is the winning strategy in a book called The Evolution of Cooperation, which i think is a very important and optimistic book (strange for me to enjoy optimism). It's a mathematical description in terms of Game Theory (a branch of mathematics) that explain why people eventually begin to cooperate with each other. Basically the Tit for Tat strategy is: in your first interaction with a new player (another person) you should be cooperative; then see what the other person's reaction is and do the same back to them, forever. So if someone cooperates back (is nice to you) you should cooperate back to them. If they are uncooperative you should immediately be uncooperative back to them. So good and bad behavior are immediately rewarded or punished. But it's not meant to be long term retribution. You have to wait to see if the other person learns to be cooperative again. It's not an easy strategy to live by, but if everyone did, it would eventually lead to a totally cooperative society. (It's more complex than that, but that's the simple description.) It's mind boggling to me.

The first job of a government is to maintain justice (not order).
    - Allan BOESAK

We don't inherit the world from the past.
We borrow it from the future.
    - paraphrase of Chief Seattle (?)
And if you call me brother now,
Forgive me if i ask,
    According to whose plan?
For when all has come to dust
I will kill you if i must
    I will love you if i can.
    - Leanord COHEN Story of Isaac made famous by Joni MITCHELL

You might as well fall flat on your face as lean over too far backward.
    - James THURBER

It is with life as with a play; it matters not how long it is, but how good it is.
    - Seneca

We are faced with insurmountable opportunities.
    - Pogo

Men always want to be a woman's first love;
Women have a more subtle instinct;
what they like is to be a man's last romance.
    - Oscar WILDE

The people I admire most are those who are sensitive and want to create something or discover something, and do not see life in terms of power.
    - E. M. FORSTER

Is it true?
Is it necessary?
Is it kind?
    - Buddha

The 3 most important things in the world are first Honesty, then Goodness, then Beauty.
    - Ho Dixiang (?)

The ideals that have lighted my way, and time after time have given me courage to face life cheerfully have been kindness, beauty and truth.
    - EINSTEIN

If i'm correct they'll call me a German.
If i'm wrong, they'll call me a Jew.
    - EINSTEIN

The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good people to do nothing.
    - Edmund BURKE

Trends will come and trends will go, but
meeting the needs of your customer,
taking care of your employees,
and being responsible to the communities in which we live and work
are basic values that will never go out of style.
    - Brian D. PERKINS as quoted by Faith POPCORN The Popcorn Report, 1991, p.239

Du militas, tria profitas. (in Esperanto)
(Two fight, a third profits.)
    - proverb

Our age is characterized by a perfection of means and a confusion of ends.
    - EINSTEIN

Believe those who are seeking truth.
Don't believe those who have found it.
    - Andre GIDE

Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful committed citizens can change the world: indeed it's the only thing that ever has.
    - Margaret MEAD

In Germany they first came for the communists
and i didn't speak up because i was not a communist.
Then they came for the Jews
and i didn't speak up because i was not a Jew.
Then they came for the Trade Unionists
and i didn't speak up because i was not a Trade Unionist.
Then they came for the Catholics
and i didn't speak up because i was a Protestant.
Then they came for me
and by that time no one was left to speak up.
    - Pastor Martin NIEMOLLER

Your silence will not protect you.
    - Audre LOURDE


The heaviest penalty for declining to rule is to be ruled by someone inferior to yourself.
    - Plato
My creed is that:
Happiness is the only good.
The place to be happy is here.
The time to be happy is now.
The way to be happy is to make others so.
    - Robert G. INGERSOLL

Treat your enemy today as if he might be your ally tomorrow.


I'm not okay.
You're not okay.
But that's okay.
    - me

We judge ourselves by our motives,
Others by their actions.
    - i forgot to write down who said this

It's not philanthropy. It's a clever stroke of business..
    - Andrew CARNEGIE when asked why he gave money to build free public libraries

You are
what you do
when it counts.
In matters of principle, stand like a rock.
In matters of taste, swim with the current.
    - Thomas JEFFERSON

Mortigu kokon por timigi simion. (in Esperanto)
(Kill a cock to intimidate a monkey.)
    - Chinese proverb

It will not end soon!
Take time now!
(pace yourself)

To know how to free oneself is nothing, the arduous thing is to know what to do with one's freedom.
    - Andre GIDE

The "seven social sins" that can destroy a nation:
- politics without principle
- wealth without work
- commerce without morality
- pleasure without conscience
- education without character
- science without humanity
- worship without sacrifice
    - Mohandas GANDHI

As far as i'm concerned,
being any gender is a drag.
    - Patti SMITH


Nothing will content him who is not content with a little.
    - Greek proverb

He who sees a need and waits to be asked for help is as unkind as if he had refused it.
    - Dante

How to give charity, from the most meritorious to the least meritorious:
                    1. Enabling the recipient to become self-reliant
                    2. Giving when neither party knows the other's identity
                    3. Giving when you know the recipient's identity, but the recipient doesn't know your identity
                    4. Giving when you do not know the recipient's identity, but the recipient knows your identity
                    5. Giving before being asked
                    6. Giving after being asked
                    7. Giving less than you should, but giving it cheerfully
                    8. Giving begrudgingly
    - I read that for the Jews there are levels of charity. This is a description i found on the 'net. I think the original is better.

Circumstance has made us neighbors;
let justice make us friends.

Do something, even if it's wrong.
    - Marie (she meant "get off your butt")
Don't just stand there, do something!
    - common phrasing
Don't just do something. sit there!
    - Zen call for meditation

The purpose of freedom is to create it for others.
    - Bernard MALAMUD

Life is complex - part real, part imaginary.
    - math joke

The true meaning of life is to plant trees, under whose shade you do not expect to sit.
    - Nelson Henderson

Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the judgment that something else is more important than fear.
    - Ambrose Redmoon

You can discover what your enemy fears most by observing the means he uses to frighten you.
    - Eric Hoffer

If we do not maintain Justice, Justice will not maintain us.
    - Francis Bacon

It is better that ten guilty escape than one innocent suffer.
    - William Blackstone

Whenever a separation is made between liberty and justice, neither, in my opinion, is safe.
    - Edmund Burke

Justice consists in doing no injury to men; decency in giving them no offense.
    - Marcus Tullius Cicero De Officiis

There is no such thing as justice--in or out of court.
    - Clarence Darrow

Justice is incidental to law and order.
    - J. Edgar Hoover !


Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.
    - Martin Luther King, Jr.

You can tell whether a man is clever by his answers. You can tell whether a man is wise by his questions.
    - Naguib, Mahfouz

It requires wisdom to understand wisdom: the music is nothing if the audience is deaf.
    - Walter Lippman

If you tell the truth, you don't have to remember anything.
    - Mark Twain

When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.
    - Conan Doyle

It is hard to believe that a man is telling the truth when you know that you would lie if you were in his place.
    - H. L. Mencken

The truth shall make you free, but first it shall make you angry.
    - Anon.

Be true to your work, your word, and your friend.
    - Henry David Thoreau

All great truths begin as blasphemies.
    - George Bernard Shaw


No one is entitled to the truth.
    - E. Howard Hunt

Once the toothpaste is out of the tube, it's hard to get it back in!
    - H.R. Haldeman


Eighty percent of success is showing up.
    - Woody Allen

Success always occurs in private, and failure in full view.
    - Anon.

Men are born to succeed, not to fail.
    - Henry David Thoreau

You may be disappointed if you fail, but you are doomed if you don't try.
    - Beverly Sills

The only time you don't fail is the last time you try anything -- and it works.
    - William Strong

Defeat is not the worst of failures. Not to have tried is the true failure.
    - George E. Woodberry

If you find it in your heart to care for somebody else, you will have succeeded.
    - Maya Angelou

Try not to become a man of success, but rather try to become a man of value.
    - Albert Einstein

Sometimes I worry about being a success in a mediocre world.
    - Lily Tomlin

The supreme happiness of life is the conviction of being loved for yourself, or more correctly, being loved in spite of yourself.
    - Victor HUGO

The thermometer of success is merely the jealousy of the malcontents.
    - Salvador Dali

Success in almost any field depends more on energy and drive than it does on intelligence. This explains why we have so many stupid leaders.
    - Sloan Wilson

To laugh often and much; to win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children; to earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends; to appreciate beauty, to find the best in others; to leave the world a little better; whether by a healthy child, a garden patch or a redeemed social condition; to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is the meaning of success.
    - Ralph Waldo Emerson


A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.
    - Confucius

From each, according to his ability; to each, according to his need.
    - Karl Marx

The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings; the inherent virtue of socialism is the equal sharing of miseries.
    - Winston Churchill - i'm sure he meant this as a criticism of socialism, but i take it as a compliment

The greatest part of what we say and do is really unnecessary. If a man takes this to heart, he will have more leisure and less uneasiness.
    - Marcus Aurelius

Always design a thing by considering it in its next larger context - a chair in a room, a room in a house, a house in an environment, an environment in a city plan.
    - Eliel SANRINEN

Trust in Allah, but tie your camel.
    - Arabic proverb

The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong.
    - Mahatma GANDHI

A Galileo could no more be elected president of the United States than he could be elected Pope of Rome. Both high posts are reserved for men favored by God with an extraordinary genius for swathing the bitter facts of life in bandages of self-illusion.
    - H. L. MENCKEN

Happiness isn't something you experience; it's something you remember.
    - Oscar LEVANT

Some people think that it's holding on that makes one strong. Sometimes it's letting go.
    - Sylvia ROBINSON

Don't mourn. Organize!
    - Joe HILL

An injustice to one is an injustice to all!
    - union slogan

Unions: the people who brought you the weekend.
    - bumper sticker

The executive exists to make sensible exceptions to general rules.
    - Elting E. MORISON

Success is a journey, not a destination.
    - Ben SWEETLAND

It's not that i'm afraid to die, I just don't want to be there when it happens.
    - Woody ALLEN

The art of teaching is the art of assisting discovery.
    - Mark VAN DOREN

If you are patient in one moment of anger, you will escape a hundred days of sorrow.
    - Chinese proverb

The great end of life is not knowledge but action.
    - Thomas Henry HUXLEY

If you want children to improve, let them hear the nice things you say about them to others.
    - Dr. Haim GINOTT

If the only tool you have is a hammer, you tend to see every problem as a nail.
    - Abrahm MASLOW

It is not doing the thing we like to do, but liking the thing we have to do that makes life blessed.
    - GOETHE

One of the advantages of being disorderly is that one is constantly making exciting discoveries.
    - A. A. MILNE

By appreciation, we make excellence in others our own property.
    - VOLTAIRE
Age is a high price to pay for maturity.
    - Tom STOPPARD

Not everything that counts can be counted, and not everything that can be counted counts.
    -Albert EINSTEIN

Talent develops in tranquillity, character in the full current of human life.
    -Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Indifference will certainly be the downfall of mankind, but who cares?

Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you feel that you, too, can become great.
    - Mark Twain

I am somehow less interested in the weight and convolutions of Einstein's brain than in the near certainty that people of equal talent have lived and died in cotton fields and sweatshops.
    - Jay Gould

The most serious threat to democracy is the notion that it has already been achieved.
    - Author unknown

Democracy is not something you have, it's something you do!

OPINIONS
We must love them both --
those whose opinions we share, and
those whose opinions we reject.
For both have labored in the search for TRUTH
and both have helped us in the FINDING of it.
    - St. Thomas Aquinas

El pueblo unido jamas sera' vencido! (Spanish)
La unuighinta popolo neniam estos venkita! (Esperanto)
The people, united, will never be defeated.

Only those who risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go.
    - T. S. Eliot

It is well to remember that the entire universe, with one trifling exception, is composed of others.
    - John Andrew Holmes

I'm astounded by people who want to 'know' the universe when it's hard enough to find your way around Chinatown.
    - Woody Allen

In the beginning the Universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move.
    - Douglas Adams

The crux... is that the vast majority of the mass of the universe seems to be missing.
    - William J. Broad

Programming today is a race between software engineers striving to build bigger and better idiot-proof programs, and the Universe trying to produce bigger and better idiots. So far, the Universe is winning.
    - Rich Cook

The surest sign that intelligent life exists elsewhere in the universe is that it has never tried to contact us.
    - Calvin and Hobbes (Bill Watterson)

When Buddha was first enlightened, those around him questioned him on his behavior.
"Are you a god?", they said.
"No.", he replied.
"Are you a saint?", they asked.
"No.", he replied.
"What _are_ you?", they inquired.
He thought about this for a moment, and said, "I am awake."

We are convinced that freedom without Socialism is privilege and injustice, and that Socialism without freedom is slavery and brutality
    - Mikhail Bakunin

Beauty is nature's way of dealing you an extra ace.

A man is only as good as what he loves.
    - Saul Bellow
You never know what is enough unless you know what is more than enough
    - Proverbs of Hell: Wm Blake

Es mejor prender una vela que maldecir la oscuridad
(It's better to light a candle than curse the darkness)

I see no problem with legal prostitution. In the words of George Carlin "Selling is legal. F**king is legal. Why isn't selling f**king legal?"

    - I self censored this because i found that this page was listed very highly in some search engines. I'm against censorship, but i have no control over who accesses this page and i believe it is useful to people of all ages. So, what to do...

It's not the repression by the bad people that hurts- it's the silence of the good
    - Martin Luther KING Jr

The lesson is simple, the truth is complicated, the path is always open.

Some fear death, they hope to avoid it.
Some bring death, they hope to control it.
Some chase death, they hope to confront it.
Some live life, they understand the nature of death.
    - some Zen thing

Work like hell
Tell everyone everything you know
Close a deal with a handshake
Have fun
    - Doc Edgerton 1903-1990

One is not born a woman, one becomes one.
    - Simone de Beauvoir

Little girls shouldn't treat
Little boys they happen to meet
Like little Gods.
    - Voice of the Beehive

When a true genius appears in the world, you may know him by this sign, that the dunces are all in confederacy against him.
    - Jonathan Swift

Courage is the price that Life exacts for granting peace, The soul that knows it not, knows no release from little things..
    - Amelia Earhart

Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, and expecting different results.
    - paraphrasing Einstein

It is not enough for a handful of experts to attempt the solution of a problem, to solve it and then to apply it. The restriction of knowledge to an elite group destroys the spirit of society and leads to its intellectual impoverishment.
    - Albert EINSTEIN

If you fail to plan, you plan to fail!
    - Karen KREJCHA

Throughout the history of mankind there have been murderers and tyrants; and while it may seem momentarily that they have the upper hand, they have always fallen. Always.
    - M.K. GANDHI

The unreasonable man persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.
    - G.B. SHAW

Sometimes, even a blind chicken finds the corn
    - German proverb

The probability that we might fail in the struggle ought not to deter us from the support of a cause we believe to be right.
    -Abraham LINCOLN

If you take a starving dog and make him prosperous, he will not bite you. This is the principal difference between dog and man.
    - Mark TWAIN

Morality in sexual situations, when it is free from superstitions, consists essentially of respect for the other person, and unwillingness to use that person solely as a means of personal gratification, without regard to his or her desires.
    - Bertrand RUSSELL

In New York City in 1985, 311 people were bitten by rats...
1,519 were bitten by other people!

Don't worry. Be happy!
    - Meher BABA (made famous by the Bobby MCFERREN song)
Do your best! Don't worry. Be happy!
    - my improvement

The proper function of man is to live, not to exist. I shall not waste my days in trying to prolong them. I shall use my time.
    - Jack LONDON

Those who think they have not time for bodily exercise will sooner or later have to find time for illness.
    - Edward STANLEY, the Earl of Derby, 1873

A society with too few independent thinkers is vulnerable to control by disturbed and opportunistic leaders. A society which wants to create and maintain a free and democratic social system must create responsible independence of thought among its young.
    - John DEWEY

I do not feel obliged to believe that same God who endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect, had intended for us to forgo their use.
    - Galileo

There are really not many jobs that actually require a penis or a vagina, and all other occupations should be open to everyone.
    - Gloria STEINEM

We don't waste people the way white society does. Every person has their gift.
    - Crow Indian

... I was reminded of a remark of Willa Cather's, that you can't paint sunlight, you can only paint what it does with shadows on a wall. If you examine a life, as Socrates has been so tediously advising us to do for so many centuries, do you really examine a life, or do you examine the shadows it casts on other lives? Entity or relationships? Objective reality or the vanishing point of a multiple perspective exercise? Prism or the rainbows it refracts? And what if you're the wall? What if you never cast a shadow or rainbow of your own, but have only caught those cast by others?
    - from The Spectator Bird de Wallace STEGNER p. 162

I may not believe in what you say, but I will fight to the death for your right to say it.
    - Voltaire

When i give food to the poor they call me a saint.
When i ask why the poor have no food they call me a communist.
    - Dom Helder CAMARA Brazil

He prayed - it wasn't my religion.
He ate - it wasn't what i ate.
He spoke - it wasn't my language.
He dressed - it wasn't what i wore.
He took my hand - it wasn't the color of mine.
But when he laughed - it was how i laughed,
and when he cried - it was how i cried.
    - Amy MADDOX, 16, Underneath We're All the Same

...
Each time you love
love as deeply
as if it were
forever
only nothing is
eternal.
...
Speak proudly to your children
wherever you may find them
tell them
you are the offspring of slaves
and your mother was
a princess
in darkness.
    - Audre LOURDE

There are those who eat and those who sleep.
    - dad
Who is a rich man?
He who is happy with his lot.
    - Perke Aboth (The Wisdom of the Fathers - as quoted often by dad)

Be quick to praise,
slower to criticize.

And,
in the end,
the love you take
is equal to the love
you make.
    - The Beatles