Wise Quotes about Unexpected

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

If you advance confidently in the direction of your dreams
and endeavor to leave the life which you have imagined,
you will you will meet with a success unexpected in common hours.
- Henry David Thoreau

Unexpected events can set you back or set you up.
It's all a matter of - perspective.
- Mary Anne Radmacher

I have learned, that if one advances confidently
in the direction of his dreams,
and endeavors to live the life he has imagined,
he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours.
- Henry David Thoreau

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

Individually, we do have our crises -
mostly from unexpected directions,
but so have all people from all ages.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

What is a miracle? To some, it is an act of God.
To others, something amazing, extraordinary, or unexpected.
To me, Life is a miracle.
Everything that happens is a miracle.
There is no reason for me to exist as I do -
no reason for humanity, the universe, or the laws of Nature.
Energy, mass, gravity and the rest of existence
are all so improbable.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

If one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams,
and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined,
he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours.
He will put some things behind, will pass an invisible boundary;
new, universal, and more liberal laws
will begin to establish themselves around and within him;
or the old laws be expanded, and interpreted in his favor
in a more liberal sense,
and he will live with the license of a higher order of beings.
- Henry David Thoreau

See beauty in those unexpected places.
(she asked herself how people could let Bach be background noise.)
See the opportunity in what looks like inconvenience.
(she steered clear of the traffic jam
and went to the bakery she's been meaning to stop at.)
She embraces the undeclared possibility
in what seems like just another ordinary day.
(her friend is scheduled for cancer surgery
and suddenly everything around her seems so very precious.)
- Mary Anne Radmacher

A man does what he must - in spite of personal consequences,
in spite of obstacles and dangers and pressures -
and that is the basis of all human morality.
- John F. Kennedy

In spite of everything, I still believe
that people are really good at heart.
I simply can't build up my hopes on a foundation
consisting of confusion, misery and death.
- Anne Frank

If I am happy in spite of my deprivations,
if my happiness is so deep that it is a faith,
so thoughtful that it becomes a philosophy of life.
If, in short, I am an optimist,
my testimony to the creed of optimism is worth hearing.
- Helen Keller
...
Helen Keller (1880-1968) overcame being both deaf and blind
to become a famous author, lecturer, and activist
for women's suffrage, workers' rights, and ending war.

I keep my ideals, because in spite of everything,
I still believe that people are really good at heart.
- Anne Frank

A hero is an ordinary individual
who finds the strength to persevere
and endure in spite of overwhelming obstacles.
- Christopher Reeve

Heroes act in spite of their fear,
while the rest of us act because of our fear.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

The supreme happiness of life
is the conviction of being loved for yourself,
or, more correctly, being loved in spite of yourself.
- Victor Hugo

A blessed thing it is for any man or woman to have a friend,
one human soul whom we can trust utterly,
who knows the best and worst of us,
and who loves us in spite of all our faults.
- Charles Kingsley

It's really a wonder that I haven't dropped all my ideals,
because they seem so absurd and impossible to carry out.
Yet I keep them, because in spite of everything
I still believe that people are really good at heart.
- Anne Frank

Victory at all costs, victory in spite of all terror,
victory however long and hard the road may be;
for without victory, there is no survival.
- Winston Churchill

The Four Stages of Public Opinion
I (Just after publication): The novelty is absurd
and subversive of Religion and Morality.
The propounder both fool and knave.
II (Twenty years later): The Novelty is absolute Truth
and will yield a full and satisfactory
explanation of things in general -
The propounder a man of sublime genius and perfect virtue.
III (Forty years later): The Novelty won't explain
things in general after all, and therefore is a wretched failure.
The propounder a very ordinary person advertised by a clique.
IV (A century later): The Novelty a mixture of truth and error.
Explains as much as could reasonably be expected.
The propounder worthy of all honor
in spite of his share of human frailties,
as one who has added to the permanent possessions of science.
- Thomas Henry [T. H.] Huxley

Man is least himself when he talks in his own person.
Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth.
- Oscar Wilde

Talent is God-given; be humble.
Fame is man-given; be thankful.
Conceit is self-given; be careful.
- John Wooden

No man stands so tall as when he stoops to help a child.
- Anonymous (often attributed to Abraham Lincoln)

Nearly all men can stand adversity,
but if you want to test a man's character, give him power.
- Abraham Lincoln

There is nothing with which every man is so afraid
as getting to know how enormously much
he is capable of doing and becoming.
- Soren Kierkegaard

All the works of man have their origin in creative fantasy.
What right have we then to depreciate imagination.
- Carl Jung

It is not the man who has too little,
but the man who craves more, that is poor.
- Lucius Annaeus Seneca

If a man empties his purse into his head,
no man can take it away from him.
An investment in knowledge always pays the best interest.
- Benjamin Franklin

I am the wisest man alive, for I know one thing,
and that is that I know nothing.
- Socrates

The gem cannot be polished without friction,
nor man perfected without trials.
- Confucius

When I am getting ready to reason with a man,
I spend one-third of my time thinking about myself
and what I am going to say
and two-thirds about him and what he is going to say.
- Abraham Lincoln

Is the babe young? When I behold it,
it seems more venerable than the oldest man.
- Henry David Thoreau

Two things a man should never be angry at:
what he can help,
and what he cannot help.
- Thomas Fuller

Any man who reads too much
and uses his own brain too little
falls into lazy habits of thinking.
- Albert Einstein

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.

You can tell whether a man is clever by his answers.
You can tell whether a man is wise by his questions.
- Naguib Mahfouz

The foolish man seeks happiness in the distance;
the wise grows it under his feet.
- J. Robert Oppenheimer

A wise man will make haste to forgive,
because he knows the true value of time,
and will not suffer it to pass away in unnecessary pain.
- Samuel Johnson

A man is but the product of his thoughts -
what he thinks, he becomes.
- Mohandas (Mahatma) Gandhi

Money has never made man happy, nor will it,
there is nothing in its nature to produce happiness.
The more of it one has the more one wants.
- Benjamin Franklin

When you are offended at any man's fault,
turn to yourself and study your own failings.
Then you will forget your anger.
- Epictetus

Science gives man knowledge, which is power;
religion gives man wisdom, which is control.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.

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

The wise man looks back into the past,
and does not grieve over what is far off,
nor rejoice over what is near;
for he knows that time is without end.
- Lao Tzu

The man who is awakened, lives in such a way
that he leaves no footprints.
- Osho quoting The Buddha

Early to bed and early to rise,
makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise.
- Benjamin Franklin

A man should look for what is,
and not for what he thinks should be.
- Albert Einstein

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

We who lived in concentration camps can remember the men
who walked through the huts comforting others,
giving away their last piece of bread...
They offer sufficient proof that everything
can be taken from a man but one thing:
to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances,
to choose one's own way.
- Viktor E. Frankl

Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day,
teach a man to fish and he will eat for a lifetime.
- Chinese Proverb

You cannot teach a man anything;
you can only help him find it within himself.
- Galileo Galilei

You cannot build character and courage by
taking away a man's initiative and independence.
- Abraham Lincoln

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

The essence of philosophy is that a man should so live
that his happiness shall depend
as little as possible on external things.
- Epictetus

If you would convince a man that he does wrong, do right.
Men will believe what they see.
- Henry David Thoreau

The more a man can forget, the greater the number
of metamorphoses which his life can undergo,
the more he can remember, the more divine his life becomes.
- Soren Kierkegaard

The man who goes alone can start today;
but he who travels with another
must wait till that other is ready.
- Henry David Thoreau

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Wisdom Quotes