Wise Washington Irving Quotes

If a man is called to be a street sweeper,
he should sweep streets even as Michelangelo painted,
or Beethoven composed music, or Shakespeare wrote poetry.
He should sweep streets so well that all the hosts
of heaven and earth will pause to say,
here lived a great street sweeper who did his job well.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.

The wicked leader is he who the people despise.
The good leader is he who the people revere.
The great leader is he who the people say, "We did it ourselves."
- Lao Tzu

The great enemy of the truth is very often not the lie,
deliberate, contrived and dishonest,
but the myth, persistent, persuasive and unrealistic.
- John F. Kennedy

The choice is to work alone to be a little
more successful than the next person,
or to work together for the great betterment of humanity.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Man becomes great exactly in the degree
in which he works for the welfare of his fellow-men.
- Mohandas (Mahatma) Gandhi

Great talents are the most lovely
and often the most dangerous
fruits on the tree of humanity.
They hang upon the most slender twigs
that are easily snapped off.
- Carl Jung

Great spirits have always encountered
violent opposition from mediocre minds.
- Albert Einstein

To be conscious that you are ignorant
is a great step to knowledge.
- Benjamin Disraeli

The water in a vessel is sparkling;
the water in the sea is dark.
The small truth has words which are clear;
the great truth has great silence.
- Rabindranath Tagore

Nurture your mind with great thoughts,
for you will never go any higher than you think.
- Benjamin Disraeli

When you become centered, suddenly there is great freedom
because you know you are not the mind and you are not the body.
- Osho

Wealth consists not in having great possessions,
but in having few wants.
- Epictetus

All difficult things have
their origin in that which is easy,
and great things in that which is small.
- Lao Tzu

Before we acquire great power
we must acquire wisdom to use it well.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

There are trivial truths and there are great truths.
The opposite of a trivial truth is plainly false.
The opposite of a great truth is also true.
- Niels Bohr

One of the surest ways to cause
yourself great suffering
is to insist upon being right -
to demand that all others view life
exactly as you view it.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

If a warrior is to succeed at anything,
the success must come gently,
with a great deal of effort but with no stress or obsession.
- Carlos Castaneda

In times of great stress or adversity,
it's always best to keep busy,
to plow your anger and your energy
into something positive.
- Lee Iacocca

A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds,
adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines.
With consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do. -
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

The wise man looks into space,
and does not regard the small as too little,
nor the great as too much;
for he knows that there is no limit to dimensions.
- Lao Tzu

To the young child, all life is a great adventure -
when did we grow so dull and brittle.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Great indeed is the sublimity of the Creative,
to which all beings owe their beginning
and which permeates all heaven.
- Lao Tzu

The Universe is one great kindergarten for man.
Everything that exists has brought
with it its own peculiar lesson.
- Orison Swett Marden

Do the difficult things while they are easy
and do the great things while they are small.
A journey of a thousand miles must begin with a single step.
- Lao Tzu

It takes a great deal of courage to stand up to your enemies,
but even more to stand up to your friends.
- J.K. Rowling

Trust men and they will be true to you;
treat them greatly and they will show themselves great.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

The only good luck many great men ever had was
being born with the ability and determination to overcome bad luck.
- Channing Pollock

The essence of life is not in
the great victories and grand failures,
but in the simple joys.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

A great secret of success is to go through life
as a man who never gets used up.
- Albert Schweitzer

Great leadership is not the visit of an unexpected fate
but rather a flame which is kept burning
in spite of the winds of risk and opposition.
- Mary Anne Radmacher

Everyone has inside of him a piece of good news.
The good news is that you don't know how great you can be!
How much you can love!
What you can accomplish! And what your potential is!
- Anne Frank

The great pleasure in life is doing
what people say you cannot do.
- Walter Bagehot

You're off to Great Places!
Today is your day!
Your mountain is waiting,
So... get on your way!
- Dr. Seuss

Thinking is necessary, but not sufficient, for living a great life.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

It's one of life's great paradoxes ...
Accepting with gratitude whatever life throws at us
is critical to happiness.
Yet without a goal and commitment, life lose much of its value.
The best we can do in the face of this paradox
is to play to win, but be cheerful in defeat
and ready to play again.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Great leaders are almost always great simplifiers,
who can cut through argument, debate, and doubt
to offer a solution everybody can understand.
- Colin Powell

"Fair" is not a useful concept.
Life is not "fair."
You can't make life "fair."
You can get angry.
You can complain about life not being "fair."
You can attempt revenge - perhaps violently.
You can inflict great suffering upon yourself
in the name of life being "unfair."
And Life is still not "fair."
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

I am a great believer in luck
and I find that the harder
I work the more I have of it.
- Thomas Jefferson

If (s)he's an apple and you're an orange,
celebrate your differences -
make a great fruit salad.
Love isn't about being the same -
it's about being sweet with each other.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Great men or men of great gifts
you shall easily find,
but symmetrical men never.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

The hottest place in Hell is reserved for those
who remain neutral in times of great moral conflict.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.

You will become as small as your controlling desire;
as great as your dominant aspiration.
- James Allen

Life is a great big canvas,
and you should throw all the paint you can on it.
- Danny Kaye

After climbing a great hill,
one only finds that there are many more hills to climb.
- Nelson Mandela

Enthusiasm is the mother of effort,
and without it nothing great was ever achieved.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

If the mind wants to comprehend reality,
it will have to come out of the past and the future.
But coming out of the past and the future,
it is no longer the mind at all.
Hence the insistence of all the great masters of the world
that the door to reality is no-mind.
- Osho

Great works are performed not by strength,
but by perseverance.
- Samuel Johnson

How do we measure a great leader?
By how he treats the least of these.
- Jesse Jackson

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Wisdom Quotes