VANGUARD BOOK OF QUOTATIONS……. [A]

VANGUARD BOOK OF QUOTATIONS Compiled by
DR. BAMIDELE A. SOBOWALE
ISBN 978 2197 26 2
978 2197 38 2 (Cased)
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior permission of the publishers.
AiKE BOOKS
An imprint of
Syndicated Communications Ltd.,
Theodolite House,
New Adeoyo State Hospital Road,
Ring Road,
Box 2846 GPO,
Dugbe,
Ibadan,
Oyo State,
Nigeria.
Telephone: +234-803-323 4219
Email: aike@skannet.com
First published in Nigeria in 2007
© Bamidele A. Sobowale
Typeset by Syndicated Communications Ltd./Computek Afrique Systems,
Ibadan: +234-803-323 4219; +234-805-034 5454
Printed by
Newborne-TMC Ltd., Ibadan: +234-802-388 2566
Dedication
Dedicated to Samson Ororo Amuka-Pemu, OON, founder and publisher of VANGUARD newspapers, to commemorate his 70th birthday, July 13.
“A king’s dog is a king among dogs”.
– Sam Amuka
Acknowledgments
A BOOK such as this results from the collaborative effort of several Individuals too numerous to mention. However, the first among those who collaborated with me on this project is unquestionably my senior colleague, Felix A. Adenaike, who edited and published the book. His professional touch has turned what would have remained a jumble of wards into a fine work of art. Next is my former secretary, Miss. Mojisola Awolumate, who painstakingly typed the manuscript, not once nor even twice, but several times. Her encouragement, especially when my zeal began to flag, was perhaps the major reason why this book has become a reality. My editor and friend at the VANGUARD newspapers, Gbenga Adefaye, who has written the Foreword, has, in the years since he became editor, taught me what a good leader could be even when resources are lean. His personal integrity and professional judgment kept the VANGUARD newspapers alive through its darkest hours.
Finally, I must extend
my gratitude to all the people, whose contributions have found their way into
this VANGUARD Book of Quotations.
In virtually every aspect, they have provided useful and, sometimes, controversial
insight into complex subjects and concepts.
Foreword
TWO contrasting quotes about journalists from the VANGUARD Book of Quotations by Bamidele Sobowale naturally catch my fancy. The first by Malvin Kalb, American journalist (1977) says:
“A journalist should be pursuing a fair rendition of truth without regard to popular moods; the journalist should be swayed by public opinion, only by the pursuit of truth, as close as he can get to it.” Absolutely right!
And the second quote from Julien Benda (1857-1952) is:
“Journalists say a thing that they know isn’t true in the hope that if they keep on saying it long enough, it will be true.” False!
For me, there is no dilemma. As a journalist, I know that the quote by Malvin Kalb is the cardinal platform for the practice of the cherished profession of journalism. The quote from Benda, on the contrary, is simply put, about propaganda and not journalism. It is a false definition of journalism. Because in journalism, “facts are sacred, comments (based on facts) are free.” But that is the beauty and fullness of what you find in a book of quotations such as this. Nothing is really new under the Sun. Someone, somewhere, in time has articulated every thought and rendered same. It only takes the studious and imaginative person to discover such and deploy as appropriate for the mood of the moment.
Dr. Sobowale has done a yeoman’s job for a period of over 40 years to collate and put in a handy format, the apt thoughts, philosophical teachings, random musings of sages and fools, experts and charlatans, statesmen and commoners, artists, philosophers, scientists, poets, lawyers, etc., for our ready use, to guide our thoughts. In the VANGUARD Book of Quotations, you easily find the quotes you need to illustrate your points. In this collection, you have an insight into Sobowale’s deep search for knowledge and the depth from where he has drunk- from the West to the East, North to South, White, Black and Coloured, ancient to modem. Take a sample of listings: Edmund Burke, Francis Bacon, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, Jonathan Swift, Samuel Johnson, Alexander Pope, Lord Denning, William Shakespeare, Leo Tolstoy, John F Kennedy, Francois Marie Voltaire, Homer, Winston Churchill, Thomas Paine, Benito Mussolini, Albert Einstein, Lee Kuan Yew, Confucius, Saint Augustine, George Santayana, Bamidele Sobowale, etc. Subjects ranged from sex to succour, peace to war, wisdom to folly, justice, living, death and all that you may imagine. In this book of quotes, there is no barrier to knowledge. Though the VANGUARD Book of Quotations does not provide the context in which the thoughts were rendered on marble, it, however, challenges interested persons – students, scholars, etc. to further seek knowledge. For instance, I now know that the notorious fascist, Benito Mussolini, was a journalist!
Bamidele Sobowale, with a Ph D in Economics, is clearly a reader’s delight. In his years of writing for VANGUARD newspapers, Sobowale has pretended to the ordinary. He identifies with our luckless street urchins called Area Boys. But that is a facade. You may disagree with him, but not his logic. Not his style. A scourge of those in power, he, through his combative style, takes one to the deep with the rich fountain of quotes, and genuinely makes up for the cerebral weakness of many. With this book of quotes, we know better where he was coming from. It is utmost altruism that he is sharing his secrets with us and the upcoming generation by providing this handbook of quotes. Let us share of his gifts.
Gbenga Adefaye
Editor,
VANGUARD Newspapers Lagos,
Nigeria June 2007
Introduction
THE VANGUARD Book of Quotations began in the Summer of 1965. As an undergraduate on holidays, I had travelled to New York City in search of a part-time job. I lodged at the Young Men’s Christian Association Hostel, called the Y, near Time Square. Very soon, I found myself in the midst of half a dozen students also staying at the Y and the topic for discussion was war. Specifically, they were discussing the ’Wet Nam War in which America was engaged with the forces of the North Vietnamese led by their leader, Ho Chin Mihn.
As in all discussions among young men – for it was quickly established that they were all undergraduates in various universities in New York City – there were lots of deviations from the main topic. Everyone was trying to show off his knowledge of History, Philosophy, International Relations, most especially their knowledge of several wars in history; how they were won and lost; the heroes and the villians.
Among the young men was one Mark, whose last name I, regrettably, failed to ask for at the time. Without Mark this book might never have been written. More than all the others, Mark would start each remark with a quotation from some philosopher, famous warrior or even a leading professor. Most of the names dropped at the time were unfamiliar to me -Lenin, Chairman Mao, General Patton, General MacArthur, Plutarch, Edward Gibbons, Samuel Johnson, Ralph Waldo Emerson, etc. A few were recognizable but they assumed a different stature in that playroom. Napoleon Bonaparte, Socrates, Plato, Horatio Nelson, George Washington and Abraham Lincoln were transformed from what little I knew about them a: result of education which was deficient in History in our secondary school even in those glorious days. Mark kept on dropping one observation after another from these eminent men in history until the group was about to break up. I summoned the courage to ask him how he could recollect so much of what was said even 400 years before Christ Then he told me he was a final year student majoring in the History of Ideas. That was definitely a new one. In Nigerian universities in the 1960s and even now, I doubt if there was a university offering the History, of Ideas as a subject. He also told me to read a lot of History, Literature and Philosophy. Then he offered me the first entry into my notebook, which was hurriedly purchased; it was in response to another student’s claim regarding his being patriotic. Mark had replied: “Dr Samuel had warned all of us that: “Patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel”. What? All my life, up to that point, patriotism had been held up as something indisputably admirable. Yet here was a famous person calling that attribute into question. I decided to read more about Dr Samuel Johnson and the VANGUARD Book of Quotations contains a rich harvest of observations credited to the lexicographer from that endeavour.
But, it was not only Johnson that engaged my attention. I read anything and everything I could find time for in History, Philosophy, Literature, Economics, Management, Anthropology, Sociology, Psychology, and Religion. Each time I read with an eye towards finding one sentence at least that would capture the essence of the book. Of course, I was happy to collect whenever a book or writer or thinker offered more than one. All of them were kept in notebooks, exercise books, at the back of novels, even some were scribbled on my shirt sleeves because after a while it became a passion. But, it did not at first cross my mind to have the compilation published.
The first thought of publishing came after four years as a SUNDAY VANGUARD columnist, when my childhood friend Engineer Oluyomi Adeyemi-Wilson, former MOBIL/EXXON External Affairs Manager, one day casually remarked: “ Dele, why don’t you write a book?” Good question, but I could not think of the book to write. But, the idea got stuck in my mind. Earlier, on my first day at work in VANGUARD as a staffer, I had made a promise to myself that I would not leave VANGUARD without leaving a lasting legacy. What the contribution to VANGUARD would be I had no idea, but I was determined not to be just another former columnist or staffer.
Then one Monday, the VANGUARD publisher came in and informed me that he had enjoyed the Italian proverb: “Washing a donkey’s head is a waste of water”, which I had employed to dismiss the military government of the day. He obviously liked that approach. Now here is a man who had made several celebrities in the print media and who has a legendary eye for talent praising my work. So I was convinced there was merit in the pursuit. There and then, I started to search my houses in Lagos, Ibadan, and Kano for every quotation that had been stored away. Within four months, I had collected and re-written over 2,000.1 engaged a typist at Kakawa who worked on nothing else for those four months. Then I realised that 2,000 lines don’t amount to a decent book. There was need for more. So, I plunged again into reading new books, at the rate of four books a week; excluding magazines and newspapers. No student studying for an exam could have been more conscientious.
While thus engaged, it then struck me that I had not even decided the name of the book and to whom it would be dedicated. I could call it Sobowale Book of Quotations. But that to me would have amounted to “vanity upon vanity”. Then I read Joseph Conrad’s NOSTROMO, and came across the line: “ You have given me fame beyond compare, what more can I ask for? Deep gratitude has never been better expressed in fact or fiction. Then everything fell into place because up to the first day, Uncle Sam, the publisher of VANGUARD asked me to start writing for the SUNDAY VANGUARD, I had been living in well-deserved obscurity. Within two years I had fame; or notoriety if you like. VANGUARD and Uncle Sam have given me fame beyond the borders of Nigeria. I knew this when a friend sent me a letter two years after informing me that there is a fan club of my readers in Oklahoma, USA. And for that, VANGUARD and Uncle Sam, who are really Siamese twins and, therefore, inseparable, deserve the benefit of the greatest individual effort in my life. The matter of whom to dedicate it to was clear from that point. It had to be Mr. Samsom Amuka-Pemu, my boss, and benefactor.
The last issue to be decided was when to publish the book. I had hoped to get it published for Uncle Sam’s 70th birthday. But, the ever self-effacing publisher of VANGUARD opted for a celebration devoid of noise. I was at a loss about how to proceed. Fortunately, a group of journalists had twisted Uncle Sam’s arms and they launched a book to mark the 70th birthday. That gave me courage. At any rate, I was getting desperate, because time was running out for both of us. The day after the launching of the book, I went to Uncle Sam with the first draft of the VANGUARD Book of Quotations and received a grudging blessing. At least progress was being made. And, indeed, the book would have been launched earlier if I had my own funds for its production.
However, all my effort would have come to nothing without the encouragement and the support of an elder brother, a great journalist and himself a promoter of talent, Felix A. Adenaike. As if he was reading my mind, he had actually got in touch with me about the same time Engineer Adeyemi-Wilson planted the thought of a book in my mind asking to publish the collection of my SUNDAY VANGUARD columns. I had latched unto that offer to offer the VANGUARD Book of Quotations instead. And he had agreed. He had edited the book with unparalleled professionalism and I can never thank my elder brother enough.
Next to Mr Adenaike, whose contributions can never be overemphasised, is my former secretary, Miss. Mojisola Awolumate. Before the scripts finally landed on Mr Adenaike’s desk, they had undergone four drafts. The young lady who worked like a galley slave throughout, never complaining, but she urging me on, especially when self-doubt about the merits of the book crept in. She confessed to me that she did not understand many of the quotations. Nevertheless, she was certain that it would be a land-mark contribution to VANGUARD and a great way to express appreciation to Uncle Sam. It was a great partnership; I went digging for more entries and she typed them as fast as I could get them. Furthermore, I must mention the role of the Editor of VANGUARD, Mr Gbenga Adefaye, who has kindly written the Foreword. I strongly believe that there is no single editor of a newspaper in Nigeria today who is more professional and who exhibits greater integrity. His leadership since he took over from equally professional Mr. Frank Aigbogun has been exemplary. I was deeply honoured when he agreed to assist with the Foreword. I am also delighted that as long as this book will remain on the shelves, people will always remember that Mr. Adefaye was also here. Finally, this introduction should not close without expressing deep gratitude to all my colleagues in VANGUARD. I am probably one of the most difficult persons to live and work with. But, they have indulged me perhaps because they know that most writers are crazy. VANGUARD, of all the places where I have worked, is the one place where the word family can be used to describe our associations. Yes, we occasionally disagree, even loudly but the sense of family exists all the time. The mutual regard has all been made possible because of the example of the publisher himself. Indeed, Uncle Sam has, by building such an organisation, confirmed that famous observation by Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882): “Every institution is the lengthened shadow of one man”.
I hope the user derives as much pleasure from this book as I have had in compiling it.
Bamidele A. Sobowale
VANGUARD Media Limited,
Kirikiri Canal,
Apapa,
Lagos, Nigeria.
June 2007
A
- ABILITY
High level of ability …. lots of families had that, but the real stars, they might come from anywhere, they are just a gift of fate.
CP Snow
- ABILITY
Only the man who is below average in ability desires equality; those who are conscious of superior ability desire freedom; and in the end superior ability has its way.
Will and Ariel Durant in Rousseau and Revolution c 1972
- ABSENCE
Absence makes the heart grow fonder
Thomas H. Bayly 1797-1839
- ABSENCE
Absence from whom we love is worse than death.
William Cowper 1731-1800
- ABSENTEE
The absent are always in the wrong.
Phillips Destouches, French Writer 1680-1754
- ABUSE
Calumny and abuse are essential parts of triumph.
Edmund Burke 1729- 1797
- ABSURDITIES
Nothing so absurd can be said, that some philosopher has not said it.
Marcus Tullius Cicero, Roman Statesman/Orator 106-43BC
- ACCEPTANCE
To be accepted by the mob doesn’t mean anything to me.
Henry Miller, American Writer 1990s
- ACCIDENTS
Accidents will occur in the best-regulated families.
Charles Dickens 1812-1870
- ACCOMPLISHMENT
No man can hope to accomplish anything great in this world until he throws his whole life, flings the force of his whole life into it.
Nellie Onwucheka, Nigerian Singer 1996
11. ACCOUNTABILITY
When those in office regard the power vested in them as personal prerogative, they inevitably enrich themselves, promote their families, favour their friends. The fundamental structures of the modem state are eroded like the supporting beams of a house after termites have attacked them. Then the people have to pay dearly and long for the sins and crimes of their leaders.
Lee Kuan Yew, Singapore’s Prime Minister c.1988
- ACHIEVEMENTS
It is precisely the most difficult and exceptional achievements which give rise to the most intense jealousies and the most poisonous slanders.
Polybus, The Rise of The Roman Empire c.200-118BC
- ACHIEVER
What are millions of men, who all their lives have not had a single hour like his (Napoleon) compared with this one man.
Wilhelm Heinse, German Philosopher 1749-1803
- ACQUAINTANCE
If a man does not make new acquaintance as he advances through life, he will soon find himself alone. A man, sir, should keep his friendship in constant repair.
Dr. Samuel Johnson 1709-1784
- ACT
And thou wilt give thyself relief, if thou dost every act of thy life as if it were the last.
Marcus Aurelius Antoninus 121-180AD
- ACT
Remember this, that there is a proper value and proportion to be observed in the performance of every act.
Marcus Aurelius Antoninus
- ACT
Some act and think later, and they think more of excuses than consequences. Others think neither before nor after. The whole of life should be spent thinking about how to find the right course to follow. Thought and forethought give counsel both on living and on achieving success.
Professor John Kenneth Galbraith, American economist. c.1964
- ACTION
Action will furnish belief, but will that belief be the true one? This is the point.
Arthur Hugh Clough, English poet and publisher 1819-1861
- ACTION
When the scope for action is greatest knowledge on which to base such action is limited or ambiguous. When knowledge is available, the ability to affect events is usually at a minimum.
Henry Kissinger, American Secretary of State 1970s
- ACTION
It is a universal law – everyone who acts breeds both good and evil. With some it’s more good, with others more evil.
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn c.1974
- ACTION
Action is transitory, a step, a blow. The motion of a muscle, this way or that suffering is permanent, obscure and dark. And shares the nature of infinity.
William Wordsworth 1770-1850
- ACTIONS
In certain circumstances, it is not so much the kind of person a man is, as the kind of situation in which he is placed that determines his actions.
Stanley Milligram in Obedience to Authority 1970s
- ACTIONS
All great and honourable actions are accompanied with great difficulties and must be both enterprised and overcome with answerable courage dangers are great but not desperate;…. difficulties are many but not invincible.
Pilgrims Landing in America.
- ACTIVIST
The activist is not the man who says the river is dirty. The activist is the man who cleans up the river.
Ross Perot c.1996
- ACTIVITY
For a particular activity to remain habitual, it must continue to be reinforced. Anonymous
- ACTS
A man who cherishes great ideas and has performed only small acts.
John Schiller 1759-1787
- ACTS
Familiar acts are beautiful through love
Percy B. Shelley 1792 -1822
- ADAM
Adam and Eve had many advantages, but the principal one was, that they escaped teething.
Mark Twain 1835-1910
- ADMINISTRATION
The art of wise administration consists in making certain concessions and granting that which will please the people while demanding in return obedience and cooperation which will benefit the whole community.
Plutarch, Greek historian 46-120AD
- ADAPTATION
It is not the strongest species that survives, nor the most intelligent; it is the one that is most adaptable to change.
Charles Darwin 1809-1882
- ADMIRALTY
If blood be the price of admiralty, Lord God, we’ve paid in full.
Rudyard Kipling 1865-1936
- ADMIRATION
For fools admire, but men of sense approve
Alexander Pope 1688-1744
- ADULTERY
What men call gallantry and gods call adultery is much more common where the climate’s sultry.
Lord Byron 1788-1824
- ADVANCE
To advance indeed requires courage and firmness, but to retreat is impossible and would be infamy.
Noah Webster 1758-1843
- ADVANCEMENT
All that is human must be retrograde if it does not advance.
Edward Gibbon, English historian 1739-1794
- ADVANTAGE
It’s them that take advantage that get advantage in this world.
George Eliot (Mary Ann Cross) English writer 1819-1880
- ADVENTURE
Why fear death? It is the most beautiful adventure in life.
Charles Frohman, (last words before going down in the
wrecked ship, Lusitania) 1860-1915
- ADVENTURERS
Most of the time we were solitary adventurers in a great land as fresh and new as a spring morning, and we were free and full of the zest of darers.
Charles Goodnight, American essayist
- ADVERSARY
Treating your adversary with respect is giving him an advantage to which he is not entitled.
Dr. Samuel Johnson, English writer and lexicographer 1709-1784
- ADVERSITY
Prosperity doth best discover vice; but adversity doth best discover virtue. Francis Bacon, English philosopher 1561-1626
- ADVERSITY
Adversity will find that I am out of its reach.
Napoleon Bonaparte
- ADVERSITY
A gambler kills himself. A great man faces adversity.
Napoleon Bonaparte
- ADVERSITY
Sweet are the uses of adversity which, like the toad, ugly and venomous
yet a precious jewel in its head.
William Shakespeare 1564
- ADVICE
He that gives good advice builds with one hand. He that gives good
example builds with both hands. But he that gives good admonition
example, builds with one hand and pulls down with the other.
Francis Bacon, English philosopher
- ADVICE
Advice is no commandment in my view.
Geoffrey Chaucer 1342-1400.
- ADVICE
Do all things by advice, and then you’ll have no cause to repent.
Geoffrey Chaucer
- ADVICE
Who takes advice shall never fare the worse.
Geoffrey Chaucer
- ADVICE
Advice is seldom welcome; and those who want it the most always want it the least.
Earl of Chesterfield, British writer 1694-1773
- ADVICE
One gives nothing so freely as advice.
Due De La Rochefoucauld, French philosopher 1613-1680
- ADVICE
We may give advice, but we can never prompt behaviour Due De La Rochefoucauld, French philosopher
- ADVICE
I have found the best way to give advice to your children is to find out what they want and then advise them to do it.
Harry S. Truman, 33rd US President 1884-1972
- AFFECTION
I am certain of nothing but the holiness of the heart’s affection.
John Keats 1795-1821
- AFFECTIONS
Alas! Our young affections run to waste or water but the desert.
Lord Byron 1788-1824
- AFFIRMATION
Everyone thrives on affirmation and praise.
Hans Finzel 1996
- AGE
Grow up as soon as you can. It pays. The only time you really live fully is from thirty to sixty.
Hervey Allen, English writer 1889-1949
- AGE
Years hence, perhaps, may dawn an age. More fortunate, alas, than we, which without hardness, will be sage and gay without frivolity.
Matthew Arnold 1822-1888
- AGE
We will not be defied
Anonymous
- AGE
Every age has its own pleasures, its own wits and customs.
Nicholas Boileau 1636-1711
- AGE
Grow old along with me.
The best is yet to be.
The last of life for which we (were) first made
Robert Browning 1812-1889
- AGE
What is the worst of woes that wait on age?
What stamps the wrinkle deeper on the brow?
To view each loved one blotted from life’s page
And be alone on earth as I am now.
Lord George Gordon Byron 1788-1824
- AGE
And almost every one when age, disease or sorrows strike, inclines to think there is a god; or something very like Him.
Arthur Hugh Clough 1819-1861
- AGE
Ride ten thousand days and nights, till age snow white hairs on thee.
John Donne 1571-1631
- AGE
In every age and clime, two of a trade can ne’er agree
John Gay 1685-1732
- AGE
The obstinacy of age…overmasters its complaisance
Thomas Hardy 1840-1928
- AGE
But a rascally child; that is pitiless age.
Jean De La Fontaine 1621-16
- AGE
Time will run back and fetch the age of gold.
John Milton 1608-1674
- AGE
Age will bring all things, and everyone knows, Madame, that twenty is no age to be a prude.
JB Poquilin called Moliere, French writer 1622-1673
- AGE
He was not of an age but for all time.
Ben Jonson 1573-1637
- AGE
For each age is a dream that is dying, or one that is coming to birth.
Arthur O’ Shaughnessy 1844-1881
- AGE
His helmet now shall make a hive for bees
And lovers sonnets turned to holy psalms
A man-at-arms must now serve on his knees
And feed on prayers which are age alms.
George Peele c1558-c.1596
- AGE
See how the world its veterans reward: a youth of frolics, an old age of cards.
Alexander Pope 1688-1744
- AGE
A good old man, sir, he will be talking; as they say when age is in, the wit is out.
William Shakespeare 1546-1616
- AGE
Age, I do abhor thee; youth I do adore thee.
William Shakespeare
- AGE
Crabbed age and youth cannot live together, youth is full if pleasance, age is full of care.
William Shakespeare
- AGE
Though age from folly could not give me freedom, it does from childishness.
William Shakespeare
- AGE
Gather, therefore, the rose whilst yet in prime, for some comes age that shall her pride deflower
Edmund Spencer 1522-1599
- AGE
In the days of my youth, I remembered my God and he has not forgotten my age. Robert Southey 1744-1843
- AGE
No woman should ever be quite accurate about her age. It looks so calculating. Oscar Wilde 1854-1900
- AGE
For age with stealing steps, hath clawed me with clutch.
Lord Thomas Vaux 1510-1556
- AGE
What shall I do with this absurdity
O heart, 0 troubled heart, this caricature *
Decrepit age has been tied to me As to a dog’s tail.
William Butler Yeats 1865-1939
- AGING
To be seventy years young is sometimes far more hopeful than to be forty years old.
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Snr. US jurist 1809-1994
- AGING
Fresh youth and beauty recede behind us, drouth and wrinkles ban amorous longing and the knack of easily falling asleep.
Horace 65-8BC
- AGREEMENT
Ah! don’t say you agree with me. When people agree with me, I always feel I must be wrong.
Oscar Wilde 1854-1900
- AIRPLANES
Airplanes are interesting toys but they have no military value.
Marshal Ferdinand Foch
- ALE
Ale, man ale’s the stuff to drink, for fellows whom it hurts to think
AE Housman 1859-1936
- ALEHOUSE
It’s the preacher as empties th’ ale house
George Elliot 1819-1880
- ALLIANCES
Alliances are held together by fear not by love.
Harold Macmillan, British Prime Minister c.1964
- AMBASSADOR
An ambassador is an honest man sent to lie abroad for the good of his country.
Sir Henry Wolton, English writer 1568-1639
- AMBITION
….That we may be constant in pursuit of those virtues and excellences to which our ambition prompts us to aspire.
Anonymous American philosopher 1789
- AMBITION
The human system is a machine, ambition the spring that puts it in motion. Anonymous American philosopher
- AMBITION
Ambitious spirits do far more harm than good in a state, unless they can keep aspiration within proper limits.
Plutarch 46-120AD
- AMBITION
How dost thou wear and weary out thy days, restless ambition, never at an end Samuel Daniel 1562-1619
- AMBITION
A great man with a small ambition (description of Daniel Webster)
Ralph Waldo Emerson 1803-1882
- AMBITION
All ambitions are lawful except those which climb upwards on the miseries or credulities of mankind.
Joseph Conrad, English novelist 1857-1924
- AMBITION
Ambition first sprung from your blessed abodes, the glorious fault of angels and of gods.
Alexander Pope 1688-1744
- AMBITION
The soldier’s virtue.
William Shakespeare
- AMERICA
In all that goes to make a nation great materially, commercially, politically and morally, (America) has no peer.
William Hennings Bryan, US preacher 1.860-1925
- AMERICA
What is admirable in America is the government, not society.
Stendhal, French novelist
- AMERICA
The place where miracles not only happen but where they happen all the time. Thomas Wolfe, American essayist and critic c.1968
- AMERICAN
I am willing to love all mankind except an American.
Dr. Samuel Johnson, English writer and philosopher 1709-1783
- AMERICANS
When we Americans are done with the English language it will look as if it has been run over by a musical comedy.
Finley Peter Dunne, Americans humorist 1867-1936
- AMERICAN
American life is a powerful solvent.
George Santayana, Spanish-born US philosopher 1863-1952
- ANCESTORS
Ancestors don’t mean a thing in the human tribe; they’re as unrealiable as a political promise.
Will Rogers 1879-1935
- ANCESTRY
The man who has not anything to boast of but his illustrious ancestors is like a potato, the only good belonging to him is underground.
Sir. Thomas Overbury, English writer 1581-1613
- ANGEL
A beautiful and ineffectual angel beating in this void his huminouse wing in vain. Matthew Arnold 1822-1888
- ANGEL
The angel of death has been abroad throughout the land: you may almost hear the beating of his wings.
John Bright 1811-1889
- ANGEL
Whom but a dusk misfeatured messenger, no other than the angel of this life, Whose care is lest men see too much at once.
Elizabeth Barrett Browning 1806-1861
- ANGEL
The Angel of Death spread his wings on the blast.
Lord George Gordon Byron 1788-1824
- ANGEL
If an angel out of heaven
Brings you other things to drink
Thank him for his kind attentions
Go and pour them down the sink.
Earl of Chesterfield 1694-1773
- ANGEL
He raised a mortal to the skies
She drew an angel down.
John Dryden 1631-1700
- ANGEL
For fools rush in where angels fear to tread Alexander Pope 1688-1744
- ANGEL
Now cracks a noble heart Good night sweet prince.
And flights of angels sing the to thy rest
William Shakespeare 1546-1616
- ANGER
Anger makes dull men witty but it keeps them poor.
Francis Bacon 1561-1626
- ANGER
Anger is one of the sinners of the soul, he that wants it has a maimed mind. Thomas Fuller 1608-1661
- ANGER
It is hard to fight against anger, for whatever it wants, it will pay the price, even at the cost of life itself.
Heraclitus, Greek philosopher, founder of Metaphysics c.470 BC
- ANGER
Anger is a brief madness.
Horace, Greek poet and dramatist 65-8BC
- ANGER
What passing bells for those who die as cattle?
Only die monstrous anger of the guns
Only the stuttering rifle’s rapid rattle.
William Owen 1893-1918
- ANGER
Anger supplies the arms.
Virgil, Roman poet 70-19 BC
- ANSWER
A good answer is like a mini-skirt It must be long enough to cover the subject and short enough to make it interesting.
Anonymous
- ANSWER
When you have all the answers you haven’t asked all the questions.
Anonymous
- APPEARANCE
It is only shallow people who do not judge by appearances.
Oscar Wilde 1854-1900
- APPRENTICE
For an apprentice that’s a reveller
With music, riot, dice or paramour
Will surely cost his shop and master dear
Geoffrey Chaucer 1342-1400
- ARGUING
In arguing, the person owned his skill.
For e’en though vanquished, he could argue still
Oliver Goldsmith 1728-1774
- ARGUMENT
I find you want me to furnish you with argument and intellect too.
Oliver Goldsmith
- ARGUMENT
There is no good arguing with the inevitable. The only argument available with an east wind is to put on your overcoat.
James Russell Lowell 1819-1891
- ARISE
Let us arise and like men And face with an undaunted tread
The long black passage
Robert Louis Stevenson 1850-1894
- ARMIES
Gargantuan armies were glorious markets for the mass consumption of mass- produced goods; what client could be more desirable than one that promised to destroy the purchased goods at the earliest opportunity and order more.
Will and Ariel Durant, in Rousseau and Revolution. 1967
- ARMOUR
I fear no foe in shinning armour.
Edward Oxenford 1847-1929
- ARMOUR
There’s no armour against fate Death lays his icy hands on kings
James Shirley 1596-1666
- ARMS
If I were an American, as I am an Englishman, while a foreign troop was landed in my country, I never would lay down my arms; never, never, never.
William Pitt, Earl of Chathau 1708-1785
- ARMS
The trumpets loud clangour; excites us to arms.
John Dryden 1631-1700
- ARMS
It has been calculated by the ablest politicians, that no state, without becoming soon exhausted can maintain above the hundredth part of its members in arms and idleness
Edward Gibbon 1737-1794
- ARMS
The land of scholars and the nurse of arms Oliver Goldsmith
- ARMS
Ran on embattled armies clad in iron and weaponless himself; made arms ridiculous.
John Milton 1608-1674
- ARMS
Servant of God, well done, well hast thou fought
The better fight, who singly hast maintained
Against revolted multitudes a cause
Of truth in word mightier than they in arms.
John Milton
- ARMS
O! here will I set up my everlasting rest
And shake the yoke of inauspicious stars
From this world-wearied flesh
Eyes look your last
Arms take your last embrace
William Shakespeare in Romeo and Juliet 1546-1616
- ARMS
To be or not to be: that is the question.
Whether it is nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles
And by opposing them? To die: to sleep
William Shakespeare in Hamlet
- ARMS
O that ‘twere possible
After long grief and pain
To find the arms of my true love
Round me once again
Lord Alfred Tennyson 1809-1892
- ARMS
How blest beyond all blessings are farmers, if they but knew their happiness. Far from the clash of arms.
Virgil 70-19BC
- ARMS
I sing of arms and of the hero who first came from the shores of troy, exiled by Fate to Italy and its Lavinian shore.
Virgil
- ARMS
Those entrusted with arms should be persons of some substance and stake in
the country.
William Windham 1750-1810
- ARMY
An army marches on its stomach.
Napoleon Bonaparte, Emperor of France 1769-1821
- ARMY
I have no army left, I have nothing but fugitives Napoleon Bonaparte
- ARMY
The sight of a foreign flag always made the army rally round anyone ready to attack it.
Napoleon Bonaparte
- ARMY
There’s lot of bad men in the army….. The army makes ‘cm wild, and they like nothing better than the job of leading a young feller….. as ain’t ever been away from home much…. an’ a-learning ‘em to drink and swear. Keep clear of them folks.
Stephen Crane 1871-1900
- ARMY
Without supplies no army is brave.
Frederick the Great, Emperor of Prussia 1740-1786
- ARMY
An army is a nation within a nation; it’s one of the vices of our age
Alfred De Vigny 1797-1863
- ARMY
Ours (our army) is composed of the scum of the earth.
Arthur Wellesley, the Duke of Wellington, British soldier 1769-1852
- ARMY
Like an army defeated, the snow had retreated.
William Wordsworth 1770-1850
- ARREST
This fell sergeant (death) is strict in his arrest William Shakespeare in Hamlet
- ARROGANCE
It is difficult to see how an arrogant, authoritarian, self-admiring egomaniac can be transformed into an effective leader.
Anonymous c.1988
- ARROGANCE
Lamenting arrogance is often just an expression of impotence.
Anonymous
- ARROGANCE
The incredible arrogance in which the young are growing up will show its results in a few years in the greatest follies.
Johann Wolgand von Goethe 1749-1832
- ART
France, famed in all great arts in none supreme
Matthew Arnold 1822-1888
- ART
It is the glory and the good of Art
That Art remains the one way possible
Of speaking the truth to minds like mine at least.
Robert Browning 1812-1889
- ART
Art is a changing of the actual proportions and order of things, so as to bring more forcibly….. that feature in them which appeals most strongly to the idiosyncrasy of the artist”.
Thomas Hardy, English writer, poet 1840-1928
- ART
Works done least rapidly Art cherishes.
Robert Browning 1812-1889
- ART
An art can only be learned in the workshop of those who are winning their bread by it.
Samuel Butler 1835 – 1902
- ART
The history of Art is the history of revivals.
Samuel Butler 1835-1902
- ART
By viewing Nature, Nature’s handmaid Art Makes mighty things from small beginnings grow.
John Dryden 1631-1700
- ART
Art is a jealous mistress.
Ralph Waldo Emerson 1803-1882
- ART
Tis woman that seduces all mankind, by her we first were taught the wheedling art John Gay 1685-1732
- ART
Art is not in pictures alone. Its place is in everything as much in one as in the other. It is up to the community as a whole, in conduct, business, government and play.
Robert Henri, American painter 1865-1929
- ART
No Art; no letter; no society; and worst of all continual fear and danger of violent death; and the life of man^ solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short
Thomas Hobbes 1588-1679
- ART
Around his tombs let Art and Genius weep, but hear his death, ye blockheads, hear and sleep.
Dr. Samuel Johnson 1709-1784
- ART
Though, Art’s hid causes are not found, All is not sweet all is not sound.
Ben Jonson 1573-1637
- ART
All Art constantly aspires towards the condition of music.
Walter Pater 1839-1894
- ART
Art comes to you proposing frankly to give nothing but the highest quality to your moments as they pass, and simply for those moments sake.
Walter Pater
- ART
True ease in writing comes from Art not chance; as move easiest who have learned to dance.
Alexander Pope 1688-1744
- ART
The secret of the arts is to correct nature.
Francois – Marie Voltaire 1694-1778
- ART
All Art is quite useless.
Oscar Wilde 1854-1900
- ART
Only an auctioneer can be enthusiastic about all forms of Art.
Oscar Wilde
- ART
A work of Art is a comer of creation seen through a temperament.
Emile Zola 1840-1902
- ARTILLERY
The artillery booming forward, rewarded, and on the flanks made jumble of ideas of direction.
Stephen Crane 1871-1900
- ARTIST
Every artist writes his own autobiography
Henry Havelock Ellis 1859-1939
- ARTIST
We must grant the artist his subject, his idea, his theme, our criticism is applied only to what he makes of it.
Henry James 1843-1916
- ARTIST
The true artist will let his wife starve, his children go barefoot, his mother drudge for his living at seventy, sooner than work at anything but his art.
George Bernard Shaw 1856-1950
- ARTISTS
Great artists have no country.
Alfred De Musset 1810-1857
- ASK
This was a good dinner enough; to be sure, but it was not a dinner to ask a man to.
Dr. Samuel Johnson 1709-1784
- ASS
The greatest ass of the three is not the one you would think.
Jean De La Fontaine, French poet and fabulist 1621-1695
- ASSUMPTIONS
We tend to be blind to our own assumptions when we are locked inside them. One way of breaking out of this prison of perception is by contrasting our assumptions with those of other cultures.
Richard T. Pascale and Anthony G Athos in The Art of
Japanese Management 1981
- ATHEISM
My attention, is true piety towards the universe and denies only gods fashioned by men in their own image, to be servants of their human interests.
George Santayana 1863-1952
- ATHEIST
A strict observer is one who would be an atheist under an atheistic king.
Jean De La Bruyere 1645-1696
- ATHEIST
By night an atheist half believes a God.
Edward Young 1683-1765
- ATTACK
My centre is giving way, my right is in retreat, situation excellent; I shall attack. Marshall Foch 1851-1929
Our doubts are traitors and makes us lose the good we oft might win by fearing to attempt.
William Shakespeare
Though by whim, envy or resentment led They damn those authors whom they never read.
Charles Churchill 1731-1764
- AUTHOR
An author who speaks about his own books is almost as bad as a mother who talks about her own children.
Benjamin Disraeli 1804-1881
- AUTHOR
Choose an author as you choose a friend.
Earl of Roscommon 1637-1685
- AUTHOR
Be sure that you go to an author to get at his meaning, not to find yours.
John Ruskin 1819-1900
The capacity to reach out from one self into the mind and emotions of other is a basic requirement for leaders. No one, for example, should have authority over others without a keen sense of tragedy. Tragedy, like a submerged reef, lies beneath the surface in all human experience. A leader must understand its impact and how it can be softened.
Douglas Brown, American Management Association 1968
- AUTHORITY
Authority is the right to decide what should be done and the right to do it or to require someone else to do it.
Edwin Flippo in Personnel Management 1975
- AUTHORITY
No man now has the same authority which his father had except the goaler.
Dr. Samuel Johnson, English writer and lexicographer 1709-1784
Wrest once the law to your authority, to do a great right, do a little wrong. William Shakespeare
- AUTHORITY
Authority forgets a dying king.
Lord Alfred Tennysm 1809-1892
- AUTOBIOGRAPHER
The autobiographer is expected to confess his faults but not to reveal his virtues. Johann Wofgang von Goethe 1749-1832
- AUTOBIOGRAPHY
Speaking and still, more writing of Oneself is beyond all doubt the offspring of the great love one has for oneself.
Vittorio Alfieri, Italian philosopher 1749-1803
- AVARICE
So, for a good gentlemanly vice I think, I must take up with avarice
Lord George Byron 1788-1824
- AVARICE
Avarice, the spur of industry.
David Hume 1711-1776
- AWAKE
Awake, my heart to be loved, awake, awake the darkness silvers away, the mom doth break.
Robert Bridges 1844-1930
- AWAKE
At last awake from life that insane dream we take for waking now.
Robert Browning 1812-1889
- AWAKE
Awake, arise or be forever fall’n
John Milton 1608- 1674
- AWFUL
Anything awful makes me laugh. I misbehaved once at a funeral.
Charles Lamb 1775-1854
- AXIOM
It is an economic axiom as old as the hills that goods and services can only be paid for in goods and services.
A J Nock 1873-1945