Wise Don Marquis Quotes

No idea is so outlandish that it should not be considered
with a searching but at the same time a steady eye.
- Winston Churchill

I never accepted the idea
that I had to be guided by
some pattern or blueprint.
- Little Richard

Many persons have a wrong idea of
what constitutes true happiness.
It is not attained through self-gratification
but through fidelity to a worthy purpose.
- Helen Keller

A good question is never answered.
It is not a bolt to be tightened into place
but a seed to be planted and to bear more seed
toward the hope of greening the landscape of idea.
- John Ciardi

Unity can only be manifested by the Binary.
Unity itself and the idea of Unity are already two.
- The Buddha

If it's a good idea, go ahead and do it.
It is much easier to apologize than it is to get permission.
- Grace Hopper

When an idea reaches critical mass
there is no stopping the shift
its presence will induce.
- Marianne Williamson

However carefully we plan our future,
we are always climbing the steps to nowhere.
While it is important to our happiness
that we have an intent for our lives,
it is equally crucial to accept in advance
that we truly have no idea how our lives will turn out -
and that is good.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

If you are possessed by an idea,
you will find it expressed everywhere,
you even smell it.
- Thomas Mann

The human mind treats a new idea the way the body
treats a strange protein; it rejects it.
- Peter Medawar

Man's mind, once stretched by a new idea,
never regains its original dimensions.
- Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

Beyond mind, there is an awareness that is intrinsic,
that is not given to you by the outside, and is not an idea -
and there is no experiment up to now
that has found any center in the brain
which corresponds to awareness.
The whole work of meditation is
to make you aware of all that is "mind"
and disidentify yourself from it.
That very separation is the
greatest revolution that can happen to man.
Now you can do and act on only that
which makes you more joyous, fulfills you,
gives you contentment, makes your life a work of art, a beauty.
But this is possible only if the master in you is awake.
- Osho

The movie character Forrest Gump describing life
as being "like a box of chocolates,"
is such a positive upbeat way of
characterizing the uncertainty of life.
I have no idea what life will give me next,
but whatever it is, it will be sweet.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

There is a secret wisdom-of-the-ages
that holds the key to breaking our
cycle of self-imposed suffering.
The secret wisdom is, "Life is not supposed to be fair."
This is not sad news. This is GLORIOUS news!
Life is not broken. Nothing is wrong.
God has not failed, died, or gone on vacation.
The world is working perfectly. We just misunderstood.
Somewhere along the way, someone got the idea that
life was "supposed" to be "fair,"
and all the trouble started -
expectation, disappointment, resentment, anger -
a whole cycle of suffering that began
with the belief that life is "supposed" to be "fair."
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

That deep emotional conviction of the presence
of a superior reasoning power, which is revealed
in the incomprehensible universe, forms my idea of God.
- Albert Einstein

Unity with all creation is a huge idea,
but it fits comfortably within the vast cathedral of our being.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

The value of an idea has nothing whatsoever
to do with the sincerity of the man who expresses it.
- Oscar Wilde

Important ideas can come from unexpected places.
We tend to label people - Genius, Idiot,
Socialist, Regressive, Wingnut, Revolutionary, Terrorist.
But it is helpful to remind ourselves to be open
to good ideas - whatever their source.
It is equally important to avoid accepting any idea
merely because we respect that person's
other ideas or accomplishments.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

A mind, once stretched by a new idea,
never regains its original dimensions.
- Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

It takes a long while for a naturally trustful person
to reconcile himself to the idea that
after all God will not help him
- H. L. Mencken

The idea of brotherhood re-dawns upon the world
with a broader significance
than the narrow association of
members in a sect or creed.
- Helen Keller

The intellect is a cold thing
and a merely intellectual idea
will never stimulate thought
in the same manner that a spiritual idea does.
- Ernest Holmes

I will dance a little.
I will move with the wind.
I will give my body to my love and celebrate
that we have substance beyond the idea of ourselves.
We can move. We can touch. This is my physical exclamation point.
This is how I can awaken my mind to the possibilities in the day.
- Mary Anne Radmacher

Plant trees for your great-grandchildren -
for future generations.
Create the legacy of a better world.
Leave this world a better place than you found it.
Literally planting trees for
your great-grandchildren is a wonderful idea,
but far more important...
use this symbolism - this imagery -
to represent the kind of legacy
you want to leave to future generations.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Just as in the comedies, a person who is in love
with the idea of love sees prospective partners
through the lens of idealism.
The reaction is, "This must be the one.
They are so perfect - the match of my dreams."
Is that person they just met a perfect match?
It's unlikely their friends think so.
So what happened? That person with the cute smile
was not much more than a mirror for the hopes and dreams
of the one in love with love.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

What do I think of Western civilization?
I think it would be a very good idea.
- Mohandas (Mahatma) Gandhi

As I would not be a slave,
so I would not be a master.
This expresses my idea of democracy.
- Abraham Lincoln

After fifteen minutes I wanted to marry her,
and after half an hour
I completely gave up the idea of stealing her purse.
- the movie Take the Money and Run (1969)

When I eventually met Mr. Right
I had no idea that his first name was Always.
- Rita Rudner

The church is always trying to get other people to reform;
it might not be a bad idea to reform itself a little,
by way of example.
- Mark Twain

Do real life people actually fall in love
with the idea of being in love?
Unfortunately, it is actually quite common.
Someone wants desperately to have
the husband or wife of their dreams.
They visualize the vine-covered cottage
with the white picket fence.
They choose the colors for the nursery.
They design all the aspects of their married life.
A real person stands no chance of measuring up to those fantasies.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

One of the greatest pains to human nature is the pain of a new idea.
- Walter Bagehot

Is a belief a perception of the five senses,
or is it a perception of emotional feeling?
Is it better to say "I sense" and/or "I feel"?
Is it better to say " I know" than "I believe"?
Is belief based on experience or on a idea?
My thinking is that belief/believing is a very missed used word.
- Anonymous

There is nobody in this country who got rich on their own. Nobody. You built a factory out there - good for you. But I want to be clear. You moved your goods to market on roads the rest of us paid for. You hired workers the rest of us paid to educate. You were safe in your factory because of police forces and fire forces that the rest of us paid for. You didn't have to worry that marauding bands would come and seize everything at your factory... Now look. You built a factory and it turned into something terrific or a great idea - God bless! Keep a hunk of it. But part of the underlying social contract is you take a hunk of that and pay forward for the next kid who comes along."
- Elizabeth Warren

I thought then, and I think now, that the invasion of Iraq
was unnecessary and unjust.
And I think the premises on which it was launched were false.
- Jimmy Carter

Allow the president to invade a neighboring nation,
whenever he shall deem it necessary to repel an invasion,
and you allow him to do so whenever he may choose
to say he deems it necessary for such a purpose -
and you allow him to make war at pleasure.
- Abraham Lincoln

It isn't what you have, or who you are, or where you are,
or what you are doing that makes you happy or unhappy.
It is what you think about.
- Dale Carnegie

As soon as man does not take his existence for granted,
but beholds it as something
unfathomably mysterious, thought begins.
- Albert Schweitzer

When I examine myself and my methods of thought,
I come to the conclusion that the gift of fantasy
has meant more to me than
any talent for absorbing positive knowledge.
- Albert Einstein

Sometimes I think we're alone.
Sometimes I think we're not.
In either case, the thought is staggering.
- R. Buckminster Fuller

People hardly ever make use of the freedom which they have,
for example, freedom of thought;
instead they demand freedom of speech as a compensation.
- Soren Kierkegaard

In the uttermost meaning of the words,
thought is devout, and devotion is thought.
Deep calls unto deep.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

If you want to improve,
be content to be thought foolish and stupid.
- Epictetus

It is wonderful to have Faith,
but don't confuse trust with being gullible.
Balance trust with conscious thought.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

The best of a book is not the thought which it contains,
but the thought which it suggests;
just as the charm of music dwells not in the tones
but in the echoes of our hearts.
- Oliver Wendell Holmes

Words make you think a thought.
Music makes you feel a feeling.
A song makes you feel a thought.
- E. Y. Harburg

Friendship is born at that moment
when one person says to another,
"What! You too? I thought I was the only one."
- C. S. Lewis

Reality is what you believe it to be.
It's what you put your thought and energy into,
because your hands physically manifest thought.
So your world becomes what you feel and what you think.
- Jewel

Always aim at complete harmony
of thought and word and deed.
Always aim at purifying your thoughts
and everything will be well.
- Mohandas (Mahatma) Gandhi

So your father, or your mother,
never thought you were good enough - SO WHAT?
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light,
but by making the darkness conscious.
- Carl Jung

Just when the caterpillar thought
the world was over, it became a butterfly.
- Anonymous

The good news is that you aren't
as important as you thought you were.
Relax. The weight of the world
is not on your shoulders.
Take a day off.
Go for a long silent walk in the woods.
The world will still be there tomorrow -
as good and as bad as ever.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

There are two kinds of failures:
those who thought and never did,
and those who did and never thought.
- Laurence J. Peter

I want it said of me by those who knew me best,
that I always plucked a thistle and planted a flower
where I thought a flower would grow.
- Abraham Lincoln

Action is no less necessary than thought
to the instinctive tendencies of the human frame.
- Mohandas (Mahatma) Gandhi

Die when I may, I want it said by those who knew me best
that I always plucked a thistle and planted a flower
where I thought a flower would grow.
- Abraham Lincoln

The main purpose of life is to live rightly, think rightly, act rightly.
The soul must languish when we give all our thought to the body.
- Mohandas (Mahatma) Gandhi

Naturally, every age thinks that all ages before it were prejudiced,
and today we think this more than ever, and are just as wrong
as all previous ages that thought so.
How often have we not seen the truth condemned!
It is sad but unfortunately true that man learns nothing from history.
- Carl Jung

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