Quotation Saturday

PEOPLE

Who is wise?  He that learns from everyone.  Who is powerful?  He that governs his passions.  Who is rich?  He that is content.  Who is that?  Nobody. 

~Benjamin Franklin

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

~Winston Churchill

If we had no faults of our own, we would not take so much pleasure in noticing those of others.  

~Francois duc de la Rochefoucauld

Why are there men and women that while they are nigh me the sunlight expands my blood?  Why when they leave me do my pennants of joy sink flat and lank?  
~Walt Whitman

PATIENCE

How can a society that exists on instant mashed potatoes, packaged cake mixes, frozen dinners, and instant cameras teach patience to its young? 

~Paul Sweeney

Patience and perseverance have a magical effect before which difficulties disappear and obstacles vanish. 

~John Quincy Adams

One moment of patience may ward off great disaster.  One moment of impatience may ruin a whole life. 

~Chinese Proverb

Experience has taught me this, that we undo ourselves by impatience.  Misfortunes have their life and their limits, their sickness and their health.  ~Michel de Montaigne

PROMISES

Promises are the uniquely human way of ordering the future, making it predictable and reliable to the extent that this is humanly possible. 

~Hannah Arendt

When a man takes an oath... he's holding his own self in his own hands.  Like water.  And if he opens his fingers then - he needn't hope to find himself again.  

~Robert Bolt

Not the maker of plans and promises, but rather the one who offers faithful service in small matters.  This is the person who is most likely to achieve what is good and lasting. 

~Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Promises are like crying babies in a theater, they should be carried out at once.  

~Norman Vincent Peale

TRUST

One must be fond of people and trust them if one is not to make a mess of life.  

~E.M. Forster

You may be deceived if you trust too much, but you will live in torment unless you trust enough.  

~Frank Crane

Every two years the American politics industry fills the airwaves with the most virulent, scurrilous, wall-to-wall character assassination of nearly every political practitioner in the country - and then declares itself puzzled that America has lost trust in its politicians. 

~Charles Krauthammer

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

~William Shakespeare