Nothing in the world can take the place of persistance.
Talent will not; nothing is more common that unsuccessful men with talent.
Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb.
Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts.
Persistance and dedication alone are omnipotent.

It wasn't raining when Noah built the ark.

I studied the lives of great men and famous women, and I found that the men and women who got to the top were those who did the jobs they had in hand, with everything they had of energy and enthusiasm and hard work.
- Harry S. Truman

See WHY? WHY? WHY? in the Humor section. (Just click here)

The game of life is not so much in holding a good hand as playing a poor hand well.
- H.T. Leslie

There is no abstract art. You must start with something.
- Pablo Picasso

Luck never gives, it only lends.
- Swedish Proverb

Nothing lasts forever - not even your troubles.
- Arnold H. Glasow

Nothing in fine print is ever good news.
- Andy Rooney

Comedy is tragedy, plus time.
- Carol Burnett

Irony is when you buy a suit with two pairs of pants and then burn a hole in the coat.

Few things are more satisfying than seeing your children have teenagers of their own.
- Doug Larson

Nationalism is an infantile disease. It is the measles of mankind.
- Albert Einstein , attributed

Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind.
- Albert Einstein , Out of My Later Years

The whole of science is nothing more than a refinement of everyday thinking.
- Albert Einstein , Out of My Later Years

The eternal mystery of the world is its comprehensibility.
- Albert Einstein , quoted in Daniel J. Boorstin, The Discoverers

It ain't over till it's over.
- Yogi Berra

You can observe a lot just by watching.
- Yogi Berra

Every animal leaves traces of what it was; man alone leaves traces of what he created.
- Jacob Bronowski , The Ascent of Man

Life can be lived serendipitously. Look for a serendipitious moment and be surprised by what comes.

Attending to symptoms,we lose our purpose.
- Shoma Morita

You can fool too many of the people too much of the time.
- James Thurber

Don't waste a good imagination on worrying.

Reality leaves a lot to the imagination.
- John Lennon

The most common of all follies is to believe passionately in the palpably not true. It is the chief occupation of mankind.
- H.L. Mencken

Women who seek to be equal with men lack ambition.
- Timothy Leary

Patriotism: the willingness to kill and be killed for trivial reasons.
- Bertrand Russell

Patriotism: the virtue of the vicious.
- Oscar Wilde

Life has a value only when it has something valuable as an object.
- Hegel

Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent.
- Salvador Hardin

We have met the enemy and he is us.
- Walt Kelly

The Earth does not belong to man, man belongs to the Earth. All things are connected like the blood that unites us all. Man did not weave the web of life, he is merely a strand in it. Whatever he does to the web, he does to himself.
- Chief Seattle, leader of the Suquamish and Duwamish tribes of the Puget Sound

Humans are the only creatures on earth that allow their children to come back home.

- Bill Cosby

A radical is a man with both feet planted firmly in the air.
- Franklin Delano Roosevelt

A child prodigy is usually one with highly imaginative parents.

A fanatic is one who can't change his mind and won't change the subject.
- Sir Winston Churchill

Sleep, riches and health, to be truly enjoyed, must be interrupted.
- Jean Paul Richter

Too bad that all the people who know how to run the country are busy driving taxicabs and cutting hair.
- George Burns

When we ask for advice, we are usually looking for an accomplice.
- Marquis De La Grange

Don't write a check with your mouth that your body can't cash.

The time comes in every life when you feel like you are bowling from behind a curtain.

There are no free throws in life, even when you get fouled.
- Deborah Miller Palmore, Olympian, Basketball

One of my favorite sayings I got off a soda bottle: "No deposit, no return." To me that means that you'll get out of life about what you're willing to put into it.
- John Naber, Four-Time Olympic Gold Medalist, Swimming

Too much of a good thing is wonderful.

After you've heard two eyewitness accounts of an accident, it makes you wonder about our history.

When everybody owns it, nobody takes care of it.

What matters is not the size of the dog in the fight, but the size of the fight in the dog.
- Coach Paul "Bear" Bryant

Every day, try to help someone who can't reciprocate your kindness.
- Philosophy of Coach John Wooden

Joy is not in things, it is in us.
- Benjamin Franklin

The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched. They must be felt with the heart.

The heart has its reasons which reason knows nothing of.
- Pascal

We know the truth, not only by the reason, but by the heart.
- Pascal

In order to make a difference, you must first be able to tell the difference.
- Stuart Heller

Sometimes a thoroughbred has to do the work of a mule.

Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.
- Theodore Roosevelt

I claim not to have controlled events, but confess plainly that events have controlled me.
- Abraham Lincoln

A stern discipline pervades all nature, which is a little cruel that it may be kind.
- Herbert Spenser

If you cannot find the truth right where you are, where else so you expect to find it?
- Dogden

The price of greatness is responsibility
- Winston Churchill

All motion is cyclic. It circulates to the limits of its possibilities and then returns to its starting point.
- Robert Collier

A small town is a place where there's no place to go where you shouldn't.
- Burt Bacharach

Everything that is done in the world, is done by hope.
- Martin Luther

Common sense is genius dressed in its working clothes.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

Supply always comes on the heels of demand.
- Robert Collier

The trees that bend a little to the harmless breeze,
Will later grow to withstand the wild wind.

If there is no wind, row.

Good things happen when you make sure good things happen.

A little bird was flying south for the winter. It got so cold it froze up and fell to the ground in a large field. While it was lying there, a cow came by and dropped some manure on it. As it lay there in the pile of manure, it began to realize how warm it was. The manure was actually thawing him out! He lay there all warm and happy, and soon began to sing for joy. A passing cat heard the little bird singing and came to investigate. Following the sound, the cat discovered the bird under the pile of manure and promptly dug him out - and then ate him!
The morals of the story are:
1. Not everyone who drops manure on you is your enemy.
2. Not everyone who digs you out of a pile of manure is your friend
3. When you are in manure, keep your mouth shut!

Knowledge is the only instrument of production that is not subject to diminishing returns.
- J.M. Clark

The only completely consistent people are dead.
- Aldous Huxley

There is nothing to scratch but the surface.

You stand in your own light.
- John Heywood

As long as we have friendship, today is beautiful.
As long as we have memories, yesterday remains.
As long as we have hope, tomorrow awaits.

No job is too small to botch.

Take care of the beginning and the end will take care of itself.

Duty makes us do things well.
Love makes us do thing beautifully.

Don't let yesterday use up too much of today.
- Will Rogers

There are two kinds of cleverness. One consists of thinking of a bright remark in time to say it. The other consists of thinking of it in time not to say it.

What I can do, you cannot do. What you can do, I cannot do.
- Mother Teresa

Many a man in love with a dimple makes the mistake of marrying the whole girl.

Nothing is impossible for those who don't have to do it themselves.

To look up and not down,
to look forward and not back,
to look out and not in; and
to lend a hand.
- Hale

Average is the best of the worst and the worst of the best.

Things not worth doing, are not worth doing well.
- Kenneth Blanchard

But is an acronym for Behold the Underlying Truth.
- John Roger & Peter McWilliams

Suits, ties, and panty hose are not how you dress for adventure.
- Peter Block

You can't tell which way the train went by looking at the tracks.

Nostalgia isn't what it used to be.

Someone who thinks logically provides a nice contrast to the real world.

Friends may come and friends may go, but enemies accumulate.

The more you run over a dead cat, the flatter it gets.

No matter how thin you make a pancake, it always has two sides.

A man's main job is to become supremely aware of and intimately involved in the great issues of his time.

Don't complain that you are not getting what you want,
Just be glad you are not getting what you deserve!

A wise man doesn't just wait for the right opportunity,
He creates the right opportunity.

There are two educations. One should teach us how to make a living and the other how to live.
- John Truslow Adams

You never know how many apples there are in a seed.

The one who complains about the way the ball bounces is likely the one who dropped it.

One gift creates appreciation, many gifts create expectation.
- Tony & Grant Bright

Things are more like they used to be than they are now.

Things are more like they are today than they ever were before.

When people are free to do as they please, they usually imitate each other.
- Eric Hoffer

You can pick your friends; you can pick your nose; but don't try to pick your friend's nose!

Time is nature's way of making sure that everything doesn't happen at once.

You can't depend on your eyes when your imagination is out of focus.
- Mark Twain

It is impossible to make anything foolproof because fools are so ingenious.

It is much easier to suggest solutions when you know nothing about the problem.

Power doesn't corrupt people, people corrupt power.
- William Gaddis

The highest happiness of man is to have probed what is knowable and quietly to revere what is unknowable.
- Goethe

If you can spend a perfectly useless afternoon in a perfectly useless manner, you have learned how to live.
- Lin Yutang

No individual raindrop ever considers itself responsible for the flood.

No man can think clearly when his fists are clenched.
- George Hean Nathan

It is not only what we do, but also what we do not do for which we are accountable.
- Moliere

Hindsight is an exact science.

A man may imagine things that are false, but he can only understand things that are true, for if the things be false, the apprehension of them is not understanding.
- Sir Isaac Newton

No generalization is true... including this one.

Don't wrestle a pig in a mud hole. You both get all dirty, and the pig enjoys it.

Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak and remove all doubt.

An adventure is only an inconvenience rightly considered. An inconvenience is only an adventure wrongly considered.
- G. K. Chesterson

The nice thing about standards is that there are so many of them to choose from.

Furious activity is no substitute for understanding.
- H. H. Williams

CYNIC: One who not only reads bitter lessons from the past, but who is prematurely disappointed with the future.

One person's constant is another person's variable.
- Susan Gerhart

I tried gardening once. My garden was one hundred percent natural. It had no pesticides, no chemicals, no additives ... and no vegetables, no fruits and no flowers.

Pandora's Rule: Never open a box you didn't close.

Anytime you demonstrate something, the number of faults is proportional to the number of viewers.

Carelessly planned projects take three times longer to complete than expected; carefully planned projects only twice as long.

If all economists were laid end to end they would not reach a conclusion.
- George Bernard Shaw

We have two ends,
With a common link;
With one we sit,
With one we think.
Success depends on what we use
Heads we win; tails we lose!

Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans.
- John Lennon

In an avalanche, each snowflake will claim its innocence.

White man builds big fire, stands back. Indian builds little fire, huddles close.

It's what you learn after you know it all that counts.
- John Wooden

If you took all the economists in the world and laid them end-to-end, they couldn't reach a conclusion.

Ignorance doesn't kill you, but it makes you sweat a lot.
- Haitian Proverb

Injustice is relatively easy to bear; what stings is justice.
- H. L. Mencken

He who knows only his own generation remains forever a child.

If you have your sight, you are blessed. If you have insight, you are a thousand times blessed.

Past experience should be a guidepost, not a hitching post.

If one person calls you an ass, don't worry about it. But if four people call you an ass, you had better go out and buy yourself a saddle.

A bird doesn't sing because it has an answer, it sings because it has a song.
- Anglund

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

You will not be punished FOR your anger. You will be punished BY your anger.

Circumstances do not make a man - they reveal him.

Few people know how to take a walk. The qualifications ... are endurance, plain clothes, old shoes, an eye for nature, good humor, vast curiosity, good speech, good silence and nothing too much.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

Everything should be as simple as possible, but not simpler.
- Einstein

FANATIC: Someone who redoubles his effort when he has forgotten his aim.

There is one thing to admire about TV-sitcom families - they never waste time watching television!

Empty wagons make the most noise.
- Mrs. Dukes, Nick's 8th grade teacher

You can see a lot by observing.
- Yogi Berra

I first learned the concepts of non-violence in my marriage.
- Ghandhi

Age is a high price to pay for maturity.

Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once he grows up.
- Pablo Picasso

Everything must degenerate into work if anything is to happen.
- Peter Drucker

Experience is not what happens to a man. It's what a man does with what happens to him.
- Aldous Huxley

We're all in this alone.
- Lily Tomlin

The real problem is not whether machines think but whether men do.
- B.F. Skinner

Life is complicated ... that's why it is fun!

Your children need your presence more than your presents.
- Jesse Jackson

There is no mechanical problem so difficult that it cannot be solved by brute force and ignorance.

Never disagree with anyone who buys ink by the barrel.

It's hard to be nostalgic when you can't remember anything.

No job is too small to botch.

Albert Einstein when asked what he considered to be the most powerful force in the universe answered: "Compound interest!"

There is nothing to scratch but the surface.

If crime doesn't pay ... and if we don't get paid for overtime ... isn't working overtime a crime?

What you have become is the price you paid to get what you used to want.
- Mignon McLaughlin

Without discipline, there is no life at all.
- Katharine Hepburn

Remember, we're all in this alone.

It's hard to be nostalgic when you can't remember anything.

No job is too small to botch.

It is not the ship in the water but the water in the ship that sinks it. (I'm not exactly sure what this means or how it can be used but it sounds significant!)

Consider not how to work to make a living, but how to make a living work.

It takes both rain and sunshine to make a rainbow.

Pray as if it was all up to God. Work as if it was all up to you.

Some cause happiness wherever they go, others whenever they go.

A hundred years from now it will not matter what my bank account was, the sort of house I lived in, or the kind of car I drove - BUT, the world may be different because I was important in the life of a child.

When the teacher is ready, the learners will come.

When the learner is ready, the teacher will come.

Experience is not what happens to you; it is what you do with what happens to you. - A. Huxley

If someone says that you are a "model" instructor, husband or whatever, just remember that a "model" is defined as "a small replica of the real thing"!

The whole theory of the universe is directed unerringly to one single individual.
- Walt Whitman

You have to take life as it happens, but you should try to make it happen the way you want to take it.

Power is like being a lady ... if you have to tell people you are, you aren't.
- Margaret Thatcher

The most beautiful experience we can have is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion which stands at the cradle of true art and true science.
- Albert Einstein

Some days you're the bug. Some days you're the windshield.

I wonder WHY.
I WONDER why.
I wonder why I wonder.
I wonder why I wonder why I wonder why I wonder.
- Richard Feynman, Nobel prize-winning physicist

According to your beliefs, so it is done unto you.
- Ancient Text

When a man is wrapped up in himself he makes a very small package.

Today's laurels are tomorrow's compost.

LIFE:
1. You do some stuff.
2. Some works.
3. You do more of the stuff that works.
4. What works is copied by others.
5. Go to step 1.

Every morning in Africa, a Gazelle wakes up. It knows it must run faster than the fastest lion or it will be killed ... Every morning a Lion wakes up. It knows it must outrun the slowest Gazelle or it will starve to death. It doesn't matter whether you are a Lion or a Gazelle ... when the sun comes up, you'd better be running.

Courage is not limited to the battlefield or the Indianapolis 500 or bravely catching a thief in your house. The real tests of courage are much quieter. They are the inner tests, like remaining faithful when nobody's looking, like enduring pain when the room is empty, like standing alone when you're misunderstood.

Publishing a book on poetry ... (substitute any other appropriate expression) ... is like dropping a rose petal down the Grand Canyon and waiting for the echo.

The world is moved not only by the mighty shoves of the heroes but also by the aggregate of the tiny pushes of each honest worker.
- Helen Keller

Life is raw material. We are artisans. We can sculpt our existence into something beautiful, or debase it into ugliness. It's in our hands.
- Cathy Better

Some people forget to plant in the spring, idle away the summer hours and then expect to reap in the fall.

People are most lovable when they allow themselves to be vulnerable.

Cynicism is the protection of the mind against threatening thoughts, ideas and concepts.
Sarcasm is the protection of the tongue against threatening thoughts, ideas and concepts.

When man discovered the mirror (the social mirror of what others think of us), he began to lose his soul.

The art of becoming wise is the art of knowing what to overlook.
- William James

Only the most foolish of mice would hide in a cat's ear. But only the wisest of cats would think to look there.

Experience is a hard teacher because she gives the test first, the lesson afterwards.

A critic is usually a person who knows the way but can't drive the car.

The middle of the road is where the white line is - and that's the worst place to drive.
- Robert Frost

If your efforts are sometimes greeted with indifference, don't lose heart. The sun puts on a wonderful show at daybreak, yet most of the people in the audience go on sleeping.
- Ada Teixeira

Paradox: If you give up the need for security, you will be secure.

Learn to pause...or nothing worthwhile will catch up to you.
- Doug King

The child is the father of the man.
- William Wordsworth

A winner loses more often than losers.

Never try to take a sip through a fire hose.

If you rest, you rust.

I'd rather know some of the questions than all of the answers.
- James Thurber

The trouble with self-made men is that they tend to worship their creator.

You only have power over people so long as you don't take everything away from them. But when you've robbed a man of everything, he's no long in your power - he's free again.

Whatever you resist, persists.

I tell you Wellington is a bad general, the English are bad soldiers; we will settle this matter by lunch time.
- Napoleon Bonaparte

Looks like the upper hand is on the other foot.
- Leslie Nielsen ("Hotshots! Part Deaux")

Patient, heal thyself!

Half the harm that is done in this world is due to people who want to feel important.
- T.S. Eliot

This life is a test; it is only a test. If it were a real life, you would have received instructions on where to go and what to do.
- Unknown

This life is a test! It is only a test. If it had been a real life I would have been given instructions on where to go and what to do.
- Anonymous

Sometimes I get the feeling that the whole world is against me, but deep down inside I know that's not true. There are a few people who are probably neutral.

The future influences the present just as much as the past.
- Nietzche

The reason lightening doesn't strike twice in the same place is that the same place isn't there the second time.
- Willie Tyler

Emotion is not something shameful, subordinate, second-rate; It is a supremely valid phase of humanity at its noblest and most mature.

The young man who has not wept is a savage, and the old man who will not laugh is a fool.
- George Santayana

It is the dim haze of mystery that adds enchantment to pursuit.
- Antoine Rivarol

While grief is fresh, every attempt to divert only irritates. You must wait till it be digested, and then amusement will dissipate the remains of it.
- Samuel Johnson

Caresses, expressions of one sort or another, are necessary to the life of the affections as leaves are to the life of the tree. If they are wholly restrained, love will die at the roots.
- Nathaniel Hawthorne

If the people don't want to come out to the park, nobody's gonna stop them.
- Yogi Berra

Sometimes when you rationaLIZE what you are really doing is making up rational LIES.

You belong to a small, but select group of confused people.
- Message in fortune cookie

You can't have everything. Where would you put it?
- Stephen Wright

Reality is something you rise above.
- Liza Minnelli

Never do card tricks for the group you play poker with.

Every act of creation is first of all an act of destruction.
- Picasso

You REAP what You SOW: Life is like a boomerang. Our thoughts, deeds and words return to us sooner or later, with astounding accuracy.

It's what you learn AFTER you think you know it all that counts.

The squeaking wheel doesn't always get the grease. Sometimes it gets replaced.

The grand essentials to happiness in this life are something to do, something to love and something to hope for.
- Joseph Addison

Time is a trick of nature, designed to prevent everything from happening at once.

In times like these it helps to recall there have always been times like these.
- P. Harvey

The child is constantly confronted with the nagging question: "What are you going to be?" Courageous would be the youngster who could look the adult squarely in the face and say, "I'm not going to BE anything; I already am." We adults would be shocked by such an insolent remark, for we have forgotten, if indeed we ever knew, that a child is an active, participating and contributing member of society from birth. Childhood isn't a time when he is molded into a human who will then live life; he is a human who is living life. No child will miss the zest and joy of living unless these are denied him by adults who have convinced themselves that childhood is a period of preparation.

Knowing is not enough; we must apply. Willing is not enough; we must do.
- Goethe

It's the little things in life that can "eat you alive": How many people here have ever been bitten by an elephant? How many people here have ever been bitten by a mosquito?

Al Juodikis's Rules of Life