Wise Quotes about Vain

We are strange beings, we seem
to go free, but we go in chains -
chains of training, custom, convention,
association, environment -
in a word, Circumstance -
and against these bonds
the strongest of us struggle in vain.
- Mark Twain

We will bankrupt ourselves in
the vain search for absolute security.
- Dwight D. Eisenhower

How vain it is to sit down to write
when you have not stood up to live.
- Henry David Thoreau

There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil
to one who is striking at the root,
and it may be that he who bestows the largest amount
of time and money on the needy
is doing the most by his mode of life
to produce that misery
which he strives in vain to relieve.
- Henry David Thoreau

What we call the beginning is often the end.
And to make an end is to make a beginning.
The end is where we start from.
- T. S. Eliot

What people often mean by getting rid of conflict
is getting rid of diversity,
and it is of the utmost importance
that these should not be considered the same.
- M. P. Follett

They must often change,
who would be constant in happiness or wisdom.
- Confucius

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

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

I think wholeness is God's design for us;
and that often amounts to embracing contradictions.
- Bono

Often, the greatest joy is to be found not in new things,
but in old things seen through new eyes.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

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

Watch what people are cynical about,
and one can often discover what they lack.
- George S. Patton

A widespread belief is more often likely
to be foolish than sensible.
- Bertrand Russell

Books can only reveal us to ourselves,
and as often as they do us this service we lay them aside.
- Henry David Thoreau

You can't cross a chasm in two small jumps.
- old proverb often attributed to David Lloyd George

I've learned that mistakes can often be
as good a teacher as success.
- Jack Welch

The darkest night is often the bridge to the brightest tomorrow.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

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

It is often easier to ask for forgiveness
than to ask for permission.
- Grace Hopper

People often say that motivation doesn't last.
Well, neither does bathing - that's why we recommend it daily.
- Zig Ziglar

Live boldly. Laugh Loudly. Love Truly.
Play as often as you can
Work as smart as you are able.
Share your heart as deeply as you can reach.
- Mary Anne Radmacher

When trouble arises and things look bad,
there is always one individual who perceives a solution
and is willing to take command.
Very often, that individual is crazy.
- Dave Barry

Stand often in the company of dreamers.
They believe you can achieve impossible things.
- Mary Anne Radmacher

Often, we get stuck on a question
for which we can't find an acceptable answer.
That is a good time to consider asking a different question.
Every question is based on some assumptions -
usually invisible assumptions that we don't see, unless we go looking.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

By not caring too much about what people think,
I'm able to think for myself
and propagate ideas which are very often unpopular.
And I succeed.
- Albert Ellis

The price of freedom for a nation is lives and money.
Often, the price of freedom for an individual
is challenging the closed minds of family and friend.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Today is your day to laugh at life,
laugh at what's funny - laugh at what's sad,
laugh loud - laugh often,
laugh at me - laugh at you - laugh at life.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Success often grows best in the fertile soil of failure.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

When one door closes, another opens.
But often we look so long, so regretfully,
upon the closed door,
that we fail to see the one that is opened for us.
- Helen Keller

Avoiding danger is no safer
in the long run than outright exposure.
The fearful are caught as often as the bold.
- Helen Keller

Courage is contagious. When a brave man takes a stand,
the spines of others are often stiffened.
- Billy Graham

Know that the darkest night is often
the bridge to the brightest tomorrow.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

People in their handlings of affairs
often fail when they are about to succeed.
If one remains as careful at the end
as he was at the beginning,
there will be no failure.
- Lao Tzu

Often it does not matter so much what we choose,
but that we do choose.
- Alan Cohen

Being defeated is often a temporary condition.
Giving up is what makes it permanent.
- Marilyn vos Savant

When I'm trusting and being myself...
everything in my life reflects this
by falling into place easily, often miraculously.
- Shakti Gawain

Mostly, it is human to dislike surprises -
often with great intensity.
Be open to new ways;
sometimes newness just knocks on our door;
welcome it.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Friendship often ends in love; but love in friendship - never.
- Charles Caleb Colton

Most of us love, to be sure.
Yet far too often our love is passive.
We must be proactive in our love
in order for it to change our lives.
- Marianne Williamson

In war as in life, it is often necessary
when some cherished scheme has failed,
to take up the best alternative open,
and if so, it is folly not to work for it with all your might.
- Winston Churchill

Understand the difference between "failing,"
which each of us does often,
and "being a failure,"
which is a state of mind no one should
ever allow themself to fall into.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

To laugh often and much;
to win the respect of intelligent people
and the affection of children,
to leave the world a better place,
to know even one life has breathed easier
because you have lived,
this is to have succeeded.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

Today is my day to laugh at life.
Laugh loud - laugh often.
Laugh at what's funny - laugh at what's sad.
Laugh at me - laugh at you - laugh at life.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Friendship often leads to love,
but lust seldom leads to friendship.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Know the best and highest choices for health
and more often choose those things.
- Mary Anne Radmacher

Patience is an ever present alternative
to the mind's endemic restlessness and impatience.
Scratch the surface of impatience and what you will find
lying beneath it, subtly or not so subtly, is anger.
It's the strong energy of not wanting things to be the way they are
and blaming someone (often yourself) or something for it.
This doesn't mean you can't hurry when you have to.
It is possible even to hurry patiently, mindfully,
moving fast because you have chosen to.
- Jon Kabat-Zinn

Indifference and neglect often
do much more damage than outright dislike.
- J. K. Rowling

It is better to light a candle than to curse the darkness.
- Chinese proverb often quoted by Eleanor Roosevelt

It's a funny thing about life;
if you refuse to accept anything but the best,
you very often get it.
- W. Somerset Maugham

Success is often the result of taking
a misstep in the right direction.
- Al Bernstein

Self-respect is often mistaken for arrogance
when in reality it is the opposite.
When we can recognize all our good qualities
as well as or faults with neutrality,
we can start to appreciate ourselves
as we would a dear friend
and experience the comfortable inner glow of respect.
To embrace the journey towards our full potential
we need to become our own loving teacher and coach.
Spurring ourselves on to become better human beings,
we develop true regard for ourselves,
and our life will become sacred.
- Osho

The courage of life is often a less dramatic spectacle
than the courage of a final moment;
but it is no less a magnificent mixture of triumph and tragedy.
- John F. Kennedy

A friendship can weather most things and thrive in thin soil;
but it needs a little much of letters and phone calls
and small, silly presents every so often -
just to save it from drying out completely.
- Pam Brown

Just because it's true, I say as often as I can
in as many ways as I can form, "I sure love you."
- Mary Anne Radmacher

The willow which bends to the tempest,
often escapes better than the oak which resists it;
and so in great calamities,
it sometimes happens that light and frivolous spirits
recover their elasticity and presence of mind sooner
than those of a loftier character.
- Albert Schweitzer

All that glisters is not gold;
Often have you heard that told.
Many a man his life hath sold
but my outside to behold.
Gilded tombs do worms enfold.
- William Shakespeare

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Wisdom Quotes