Most of these quotes are serious, others are humorous. Some I agree with, some I disagree with.

"A total abstainer is one who abstains from everything but abstention, and especially from inactivity in the affairs of others." - Ambrose Bierce

"Even a child is known by his actions, by whether his conduct is pure and right." - Proverbs 20:11

"All hard work brings a profit, but mere talk leads only to poverty." - Proverbs 14:23

"The reward of a thing well done, is to have done it." - Emerson, Essays : New England Reformers

"The superiority of virtues and talents has not, even upon those who acknowledge that superiority, the same effect with the superiority of achievements." - Adam Smith

"'Tis well said again,  /  And 'tis a kind of good deed to say well,  /  And yet words are no deeds." - Shakespeare, King Henry VIII, act 3, scene 2

"We are always getting ready to live, but never living." - Emerson, Journals

"Stonewall Jackson had an old bridge-builder, Miles.  Once the Union troops had retreated and burned a bridge over the Shenandoah.  Jackson determined to follow them and summoned Miles  'You must put all your men on that bridge.  It must be completed by daybreak.  My engineer will furnish you with a plan and you can go right ahead.'  Early the next morning Jackson met Miles.  'Did the engineer give you a plan of the bridge?'  'General,' Miles said slowly, 'the bridge is done; I don't know whether the picture is or not.'  We need more men like Miles." - from the files of Jim McManus

"Admire as much as you can; most people do not admire enough." - Vincent Van Gogh

"If month after month with a thousand offerings for a hundred years one should sacrifice; and another only for a moment paid reverence to a self-conquering man, this moment would have greater value than a hundred years of offerings." (Dhammapada verse 106)

"Man does not live by bread alone, but by faith, by admiration, by sympathy." - Emerson, The Sovereignty of Ethics

"When I was young, I admired clever people. Now that I am old, I admire kind people." - Abraham Joshua Heschel

"Stanley Ketchel (heavyweight boxer) was 24 years old when he was fatally shot in the back by the common-law husband of the lady who was cooking his breakfast." - John "Ring" Lardner in TIME magazine, 6/27/88 p. 67

"Adventure is just a romantic name for trouble." - Louis L'Amour

"It was a high speech of Seneca (after the manner of the Stoics) that, 'the good things which belong to prosperity are to be wished, but the good things that belong to adversity are to be admired.'" - Francis Bacon

"For truly in adverse fortune the worst sting of misery is to have been happy." - Boethius

"The bitter past, more welcome is the sweet." - Shakespeare, All's Well That Ends Well, act 5, scene 3

"One woe doth tread upon another's heel, So fast they follow." - Shakespeare, Hamlet, act 4, scene 7

"What moulting time is for the birds - the time when they change their feathers - so adversity or misfortune is the difficult time for human beings. One can stay in it, in that time of moulting, one can also come out of it renewed, but anyhow it must not be done in public, and it is not at all amusing." - Vincent Van Gogh

"Whoever lives sincerely and encounters much trouble and disappointment, but is not bowed down by them, is worth more than one who has always sailed before the wind and has known only relative prosperity.  One must never trust the occasion when one is without difficulties." - Vincent Van Gogh

"The gods are well pleased when they see great men contending with adversity." - Robert Burton

"The lips of the righteous nourish many, but fools die for lack of judgment." - Proverbs 10:21

"For lack of guidance a nation falls, but many advisers make victory sure." - Proverbs 11:14

"He who rebukes a man will in the end gain more favor than he who has a flattering tongue." - Proverbs 28:23

"He who listens to a life-giving rebuke will be at home among the wise." - Proverbs 15:31

"Perfume and incense bring joy to the heart, and the pleasantness of one's friend springs from his earnest counsel." - Proverbs 27:9

"Good advice is something a man gives when he is too old to set a bad example." - La Rouchefoucauld

"Look upon the man who tells thee thy faults as if he told thee of a hidden treasure, the wise man who shows thee the dangers of life.  Follow that man: he who follows him will see good and not evil.  Let him admonish and let him instruct, and let him restrain what is wrong.  He will be loved by those who are good and hated by those who are not." - Dhammapada 76-77

"Who cannot give good counsel?  /  'tis cheap, it costs them nothing." - Robert Burton

"When we ask for advice, we are usually looking for an accomplice." - Marquis de la Grange

"Who supplies another with a constructive thought has enriched him forever." - A.A. Montapert

"Advice is what we ask for when we already know the answer but wish we didn't." - Erica Jong

"The best advice yet given is that you don't have to take it." - Libbie Fudim

"Advice should always be consumed between two thick slices of doubt." - Walt Schmidt

"Gray hair is a crown of splendor; it is attained by a righteous life." - Proverbs 16:21

"A man is not old and venerable because gray hairs are on his head. If a man is old only in years then he is indeed old in vain. But a man is a venerable 'elder' if he is in truth free from sin, and if in him there is truth and righteousness, non-violence, moderation and self-control." (Dhammapada 260-1)

"For my own part, I do not find that I grow any older.  Being arrived at seventy, and considering that by travelling further in the same road I should probably be led to the grave, I stopped short, turned about, and walked back again; which having done these four years, you may now call me sixty-six.  Advise those old friends of ours to follow my example; keep up your spirits, and that will keep up your bodies; you will no more stoop under the weight of age, than if you had swallowed a hand-spike." - Benjamin Franklin, letter to Thomas Bond, 3/16/1780

"It seemed to him he was broken at last.  And like a man bound treacherously while he sleeps, he woke up fettered by the long chain of disregarded years.  He had to take up at once the burden of all his existence, and found it almost too heavy for his strength." - Joseph Conrad, TNOTN

"I am ashes where once I was fire." - Lord Byron

"The years teach much which the days never know." - Emerson, Essays xiv. Experience

"Grow old along with me!  /  The best is yet to be,  /  The last of life, for which the first was made:  /  Our times are in His hand  /  Who saith, "A whole I planned,  /  Youth shows but half; trust God: see all, nor be afraid!" - Robert Browning, "Rabbi ben Ezra"

"The arrogance of age must submit to be taught by youth." - Edmund Burke, letter to Fanny Burney

"To me, old age is always 15 years older than I am." - Bernard Baruch, on his 85th birthday

"He who for the sake of happiness hurts others who also want happiness, shall not hereafter find happiness." - Dhammapada 131

"Men in great place are thrice servants: servants of the sovereign or state, servants of fame, and servants of business." "Chiefly the mould of a man's fortune is in his own hands." "All rising to great place is by a winding stair." "The rising unto place is laborious, and by pains men come to greater pains; and it is sometimes base, and by indignities men come to dignities. The standing is slippery, and the regress is either a downfall, or at least an eclipse." "Caesar, when he went first into Gaul, made no scruple to profess 'That he had rather be first in a village than second at Rome'." "He that plots to be the only figure among ciphers, is the decay of the whole age." - Francis Bacon

"Well is it known that ambition can creep as well as soar." "It is a general popular error to imagine the loudest complainers for the public to be the most anxious for its welfare." - Edmund Burke

"Hail horrors, hail Infernal world, and thou profoundest Hell receive thy new Possessor: one who brings a mind not to be chang'd by Place or Time. The mind is its own place, and in itself can make a Heav'n of Hell, a Hell of Heav'n. To reign is worth ambition though in Hell: Better to reign in Hell, than serve in Heav'n." - Milton, Paradise Lost, book 1, lines 250-263

"Argue for your limitations and, sure enough, they're yours." - Richard Bach, Illusions

"Hitch your wagon to a star." - Emerson, Civilization

"A fool shows his annoyance at once, but a prudent man overlooks an insult." - Proverbs 12:16

"An angry man stirs up dissension, and a hot-tempered one commits many sins." - Proverbs 29:22

"Do not make friends with a hot-tempered man, do not associate with one easily angered, or you may learn his ways and get yourself ensnared." - Proverbs 22:24-5

"Anger seems to be the only passion (emotion) for which no opposite can be given." - from the files of James McManus

"Not the fastest horse can catch a word spoken in anger." - Chinese saying

"Come not within the measure of my wrath." - Shakespeare, The Two Gentlemen of Verona, act 5, scene 4

"He who can control his rising anger as a coachman controls his carriage at full speed, this man I call a good driver: others merely hold the reins." - Dhammapada 222

For every minute of anger, sixty seconds of happiness are lost.

"The tigers of wrath are wiser than the horses of instruction." - William Blake, Proverbs of Hell

"An anxious heart weighs a man down, but a kind word cheers him up." - Proverbs 12:25

"Anxiety is not the same as depression; while anxiety is helplessness, depression is hopelessness. But helplessness unendurably prolonged leads inevitably to hopelessness." - TIME, 3/31/61

"Some of your hurts you have cured,  /  And the sharpest you still have survived,  /  But what torments of grief you endured  /  From evils which never arrived!" - Emerson, Quatrains

"The dev'l hath power  /  T' assume a pleasing shape." - Shakespeare, Hamlet, act 2, scene 2

"Thus ornament is but the guiled shore  /  To a most dangerous sea." - Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice, act 3, scene 2

"O, what may man within him hide,  /  Though angel on the outward side!" - Shakespeare, Measure for Measure, act 3, scene 2

"You know that I have often neglected my appearance; this I admit, and I admit that it is shocking. But look you, poverty and want have their share in the cause, and a deep discouragement comes in too for a part, and then it is sometimes a good way to assure oneself the necessary solitude for concentration on some study that preoccupies one." - Vincent Van Gogh

"Pride only breeds quarrels, but wisdom is found in those who take advice." - Proverbs 13:10

"Pride goes before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall." - Proverbs 16:18

"There was never miracle wrought by God to convert an atheist, because the light of nature might have led him to confess a God." "I had rather believe all the fables in the legend, and the Talmud, and the Alcoran, than that this universal frame is without a mind." "They that deny a God destroy man's nobility; for certainly man is of kin to the beasts by his body; and, if he be not of kin to God by his spirit, he is a base and ignoble creature." - Francis Bacon

"He who overcomes the evil he has done with the good he afterwards does, he sheds a light over the world like that of the moon when free from clouds." - Dhammapada 173

"He who even in this life knows the end of sorrow, who has laid down his burden and is free - him I call a Brahmin." "He who is free from the bondage of men and also from the bondage of the gods: who is free from all things in creation - him I call a Brahmin." - Dhammapada 402, 417

"Be self-controlled and alert. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour." (1 Peter 5:8)

"The man who lives in watchfulness considers it his greatest treasure." - Dhammapada Verse 26

"A leading authority is anyone who has guessed right more than once." - Frank A. Clark

"Belief consists in accepting the affirmations of the soul; Unbelief, in denying them." - Emerson, Representative Men: Montaigne

"The integrity of the upright guides them, but the unfaithful are destroyed by their duplicity." - Proverbs 11:3

"A gossip betrays a confidence, but a trustworthy man keeps a secret." - Proverbs 11:13

"If a man pays back evil for good, evil will never leave his house." - Proverbs 17:13

"...those whose teeth are swords and whose jaws are set with knives..." - Proverbs 30:14

"When you betray somebody else, you also betray yourself." - Isaac Bashevis Singer

"Thy friendship oft has made my heart to ache:  /  Do be my enemy - for friendship's sake." - William Blake

"All at once they leave you, and you know them!" - Robert Browning

"Cosmus duke of Florence was want to say of perfidious friends: 'That we read that we ought to forgive our enemies; but we do not read that we ought to forgive our friends.'" - Francis Bacon

"A wise man may frequently neglect praise, even when he has best deserved it; but, in all matters of serious consequence, he will most carefully endeavour so to regulate his conduct as to avoid, not only blame-worthiness, but, as much as possible, every probable imputation of blame." - Adam Smith, The Theory of Moral Sentiments, III.2.29

"I would much rather think that he had never been my enemy and consider it a misunderstanding, of which I take all the fault on myself, than argue about how much of it really is my fault, for I have not time left for such things." - Vincent Van Gogh

"Is there in this world a man so noble that he ever avoids all blame, even as a noble horse avoids the touch of the whip?" "This is an old saying, Atula, it is not a saying of today: 'They blame the man who is silent, they blame the man who speaks too much, and they blame the man who speaks too little.' No man can escape blame in this world." "But who would dare to blame the man whom the wise praise day after day, whose life is pure and full of light, in whom there is virtue and wisdom, who is pure as a pure coin of gold of the Jambu river? Even the gods praise that man, even Brahma the Creator praises him." - Dhammapada 143, 227, 229-230

"Do not boast about tomorrow, for you do not know what a day may bring forth." - Proverbs 27:1

the Body:

"Consider this body!  A painted puppet with jointed limbs, sometimes suffering and covered with ulcers, full of imaginings, never permanent, for ever changing."  "A house of bones is this body, bones covered with flesh and with blood.  Pride and hypocrisy dwell in this house and also old age and death." - Dhammapada 147, 150

"A bore is a fellow talker who can change the subject to his topic of conversation faster than you can change it back to yours." - Laurence Peter

Borrowing:

"Neither a borrower nor a lender be,  /  For loan oft loses both itself and friend,  / And borrowing dulleth the edge of husbandry." - Shakespeare, Hamlet, act 1, scene 3

"Neither will it be, that a people overlaid with taxes should ever become valiant and martial." - Francis Bacon

"The better part of valor is discretion." - Shakespeare, King Henry IV, act 5, scene 4

"Tis not too late to-morrow to be brave." - John Armstrong

"The great scientist Alexis Carrel once said that the whole human race is carried on the backs of a few heroes.  Almost every one of us is alive today only because, somewhere along his genealogical line, there was a hero: someone who in a pinch was brave beyond the call of duty, outstanding in patience or courage or the heroism of sticking-to-it." - Alan Devane, Minneapolis Sunday Tribune, 11/7/54

"Brevity is the soul of wit." - Shakespeare, Hamlet, Act 2, scene 2

"A man ought warily to begin charges which once begun will continue." - Francis Bacon

"If only we try to live sincerely, it will go well with us, even though we are certain to experience real sorrow and great disappointments, and also will probably commit great faults and do wrong things, but it certainly is true that it is better to be high-spirited, even though one makes more mistakes, than to be narrow-minded and all too prudent." - Vincent Van Gogh

Celibacy:

John Cardinal O'Connor, Archbishop of New York, in "Vanity Fair" (August 1990) on the subject of celibacy: "The only way I think a normal human being can do it is by prayer and discipline and trying to absorb yourself in your work.  The difficulty lies less in the flesh than in loneliness; every day is a battle with loneliness.  I think discouragement is probably the most fierce of all the temptations that priests are confronted with, but second only to the temptation of discouragement is the feeling of loneliness, which I think is the essential challenge of celibacy.  Every day you begin all over again.  At times it's not difficult at all.  At times it's very difficult."

"The trouble with the world is that the stupid are cocksure and the intelligent full of doubt." - Bertrand Russell, Autobiography

Positive: Mistaken at the top of one's voice

"Might she have loved me? just as well  /  She might have hated, who can tell?" - Robert Browning

Change:

"Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose."  "The more things change, the more they are the same." - Alphonse Karr, "Les Guêpes", January 1849 vi.

"Nothing in progression can rest on its original plan.  We may as well think of rocking a grown man in the cradle of an infant." - Edmund Burke

"For men to plunge headlong into an undertaking of vast change, they must be intensely discontented yet not destitute, and they must have the feeling that by the possession of some potent doctrine, infallible leader or some new technique they have access to a source of irresistible power. They must also have an extravagant conception of the prospects and potentialities of the future. Finally, they must be wholly ignorant of the difficulties involved in their vast undertaking. Experience is a handicap."  - Eric Hoffer, The True Believer

"That all things are changed, and that nothing really perishes, and that the sum of matter remains exactly the same, is sufficiently certain." - Francis Bacon

" 'All is transient'.  When one sees this, he is above sorrow.  This is the clear path."  "Better than a hundred years not considering how all things arise and pass away is one single day of life if one considers how all things arise and pass away." - Dhammapada 277, 113

"If you want truly to understand something, try to change it." - Kurt Lewin

"Change, like sunshine, can be a friend or a foe, a blessing or a curse, a dawn or a dusk." - William Arthur Ward

In Sir James M. Barrie's domestic drama "What Every Woman Knows", charm is said to be "a sort of bloom on a woman. If you have it you don't need to have anything else, and if you don't have it, it doesn't matter much what else you have."

"Train a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not turn from it." - Proverbs 22:6

"Be wise, my son, and bring joy to my heart; then I can answer anyone who treats me with contempt." - Proverbs 27:11

"A wise son brings joy to his father, but a foolish son grief to his mother." - Proverbs 10:1

"My son, if your heart is wise, then my heart will be glad; my inmost being will rejoice when your lips speak what is right." - Proverbs 23:15-16

"The joys of parents are secret, and so are their griefs and fears."  "Children sweeten labours, but they make misfortunes more bitter." - Francis Bacon

"The noblest works and foundations have proceeded from childless men, which have sought to express the images of their minds where those of their bodies have failed." - Francis Bacon

"Sir Walter, being strangely surprised and put out of his countenance at so great a table, gives his son a damned blow over the face.  His son, as rude as he was, would not strike his father, but strikes over the face the gentleman that sat next to him and said, 'Box about; 'twill come to my father anon.'" - John Aubrey, Brief Lives: Walter Raleigh

"How sharper than a serpent's tooth it is  /  To have a thankless child!" - Shakespeare, King Lear, act 1, scene 4

"I am glad I never had any children.  This house seems to me just perfect.  If I had brought children up in this atmosphere and permitted them all the luxuries I enjoy, they might have been worthless.  If I had enjoyed this luxury myself but deprived them of it, they would have hated me." - George Eastman

Children seldom misquote you.  In fact, they usually repeat word for word what you shouldn't have said.

"You don't raise heroes; you raise sons.  And if you treat them like sons, they'll turn out to be heroes, even if it's just in your own eyes." - Walter Schirra, Sr.

"It is in life as it is in ways, the shortest way is commonly the foulest, and surely the fairer way is not much about." - Francis Bacon

Clarity:

"I see but one rule: to be clear.  If I am not clear, all my world crumbles to nothing." - Stendhal

"Never say 'In other words'.  That will force you to clarify your statement."

23^rd Psalm in jargon-speak: "The Lord is my external-internal integrative mechanism.  I shall not be deprived of gratification for my viscerogenic hungers or my need-dispositions.  He motivates me to orient myself towards a nonsocial object with effective significance.  He positions me in a nondecisional situation.  He maximizes my adjustment." - from TIME magazine, 12/30/66

Cleverness:

"If ever to his own harm the fool increases in cleverness, this only destroys his own mind and his fate is worse than before." - Dhammapada 72

"You, for example, clever to a fault,  /  The rough and ready man that write apace,  /  Read somewhat seldomer, think perhaps even less." - Robert Browning

One reason a dog can be such a comfort when you're feeling blue is that he doesn't try to find out why.

Commitment:

Bertoldo de Giovanni, pupil of Donatello, teacher of Michelangelo, after finding Michelangelo toying with a sculpture far beneath his abilities: "Michelangelo, talent is cheap; dedication is costly!"

"Nothing astonishes men so much as common sense and plain dealing." - Emerson, Essays xii. Art

"Horse sense is the thing a horse has which keeps it from betting on people." - W.C. Fields

"The Lord is full of compassion and mercy." -James 5:11

"The Lord is gracious and righteous; our God is full of compassion." - Psalm 116:5

In Matthew 7:12, we find the Golden Rule: "So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets."

"Even in darkness light dawns for the upright, for the gracious and compassionate and righteous man." (Psalm 112:4)

"Clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience." (Colossians 3:12)

"If a man shuts his ears to the cry of the poor, he too will cry out and not be answered." (Proverbs 21:13)

"And often did beguile her of her tears,  /  When I did speak of some distressful stroke  /  That my youth suffer'd. My story being done,  /  She gave me for my pains a world of sighs." - Shakespeare, Othello, act 1, scene 3

"It is not good to eat too much honey, nor is it honorable to seek one's own honor." - Proverbs 25:27

"We are delighted to find a person who values us as we value ourselves, and distinguishes us from the rest of mankind, with an attention not unlike that with which we distinguish ourselves." - Adam Smith

"Because you are a great lord, you believe yourself to be a great genius!  You took the trouble to be born, but no more." - Beaumarchais, The Marriage of Figaro

"Why then the world's mine oyster,  /  Which I with sword will open." - Shakespeare, The Merry Wives of Windsor, act 2, scene 2

Second Law of Frisbee: Never precede any maneuver by a comment more predictive than "Watch this!"

"Health is the greatest possession. Contentment is the greatest treasure. Confidence is the greatest friend. Nirvana is the greatest joy." - Dhammapada 204

"Progress, far from consisting in change, depends on retentiveness. Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." - George Santayana

"He who mocks the poor shows contempt for their Maker; whoever gloats over disaster will not go unpunished." - Proverbs 17:5

I would like to give credit to my Uncle James McManus, who first encouraged me to start a filing system which would allow me to keep facts and quotes in good order. Uncle Jim's files gave me my first batch of quotes, and I've used some of them here.