Famous Quotes by Famous People

Emanuel James "Jim" Rohn (September 17, 1930 – December 5, 2009) was an American entrepreneur, author and motivational speaker. His rags to riches story played a large part in his work, which influenced others in the personal development industry.  Discipline is the bridge between goals and accomplishment. Success is nothing more than a few simple disciplines, practiced every day. Take care of your body. It's the only place you have to live. Happiness is not something you postpone for the future; it is something you design for the present. Either you run the day or the day runs you. We must all suffer one of two things: the pain of discipline or the pain of regret or disappointment.     You must take personal responsibility. You cannot change the circumstances, the seasons, or the wind, but you can change yourself. That is something you have charge of. If you don't design your own life plan, chances are you'll fall into someone else's plan. An...

William Penn Adair "Will" Rogers (November 4, 1879 – August 15, 1935) was an American cowboy, vaudeville performer, humorist, newspaper columnist, social commentator, and stage and motion picture actor. Good judgment comes from experience, and a lot of that comes from bad judgment. Make crime pay. Become a lawyer.     Advertising is the art of convincing people to spend money they don't have for something they don't need.     We will never have true civilization until we have learned to recognize the rights of others.     Everything is funny, as long as it's happening to somebody else. Even if you're on the right track, you'll get run over if you just sit there. I don't make jokes. I just watch the government and report the facts.     A man only learns in two ways, one by reading, and the other by association with smarter people.     Even though you are on the right track - you will get run over if you just sit there. ...

Ernest Miller Hemingway (July 21, 1899 – July 2, 1961) was an American novelist, short story writer, and journalist. His economical and understated style had a strong influence on 20th-century fiction, while his life of adventure and his public image influenced later generations. Hemingway produced most of his work between the mid-1920s and the mid-1950s, and won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1954. There is no friend as loyal as a book. There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed. Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know. I love sleep. My life has the tendency to fall apart when I'm awake, you know? The best way to find out if you can trust somebody is to trust them. Always do sober what you said you'd do drunk. That will teach you to keep your mouth shut. The world breaks everyone, and afterward, many are strong at the broken places. The first draft of anything is shit. All you have to do is write one true sentence. Write...

 Ayn Rand ( February 2  January 1905 – March 6, 1982) was a Russian-born American novelist, philosopher, playwright, and screenwriter. She is known for her two best-selling novels, The Fountainhead (1943) and Atlas Shrugged (1957), and for developing a philosophical system she called Objectivism A building has integrity just like a man. And just as seldom.    Civilization is the progress toward a society of privacy. The savage's whole existence is public, ruled by the laws of his tribe. Civilization is the process of setting man free from men.    Wealth is the product of man's capacity to think. When man learns to understand and control his own behavior as well as he is learning to understand and control the behavior of crop plants and domestic animals, he may be justified in believing that he has become civilized.    The hardest thing to explain is the glaringly evident which everybody had decided not to see.    The worst guilt is to a...

Tony Robbins (born Anthony J. Mahavoric; February 29, 1960) is an American motivational speaker, personal finance instructor, and self-help author. He became well known from his infomercials and self-help books: Unlimited Power, Unleash the Power Within and Awaken the Giant Within. Setting goals is the first step in turning the invisible into the visible.     Stay committed to your decisions, but stay flexible in your approach.     To effectively communicate, we must realize that we are all different in the way we perceive the world and use this understanding as a guide to our communication with others.     It is in your moments of decision that your destiny is shaped.     It's not the events of our lives that shape us, but our beliefs as to what those events mean.     You see, it's never the environment; it's never the events of our lives, but the meaning we attach to the events - how we interpret them - that shapes who we ...

Joan Alexandra Molinsky (June 8, 1933 – September 4, 2014), known as Joan Rivers, was an American actress, comedian, writer, producer, and television host noted for her often controversial comedic persona—where she was alternately self-deprecating or sharply acerbic, especially toward celebrities and politicians. The first time I see a jogger smiling, I'll consider it.     I hate housework! You make the beds, you do the dishes and six months later you have to start all over again.     I've learned from doing my own show with Fox that people are not your partners if they're signing the checks. Whoever signs your paycheck is the boss - no matter what they tell you. I don't excercise. If God had wanted me to bend over, he would have put diamonds on the floor.     It's so long since I've had sex I've forgotten who ties up who.     Every comedian is furious. Age makes me angry. I'm unhappy at not being able to open packages anymore. I'm an...

René Karl Wilhelm Johann Josef Maria Rilke (4 December 1875 – 29 December 1926)—better known as Rainer Maria Rilke —was a Bohemian-Austrian poet and novelist, "widely recognized as one of the most lyrically intense German-language poets", writing in both verse and highly lyrical prose. Several critics have described Rilke's work as inherently "mystical" And now we welcome the new year. Full of things that have never been. Once the realization is accepted that even between the closest human beings infinite distances continue, a wonderful living side by side can grow, if they succeed in loving the distance between them which makes it possible for each to see the other whole against the sky.     Live your questions now, and perhaps even without knowing it, you will live along some distant day into your answers. Perhaps everything terrible is in its deepest being something helpless that wants help from us.     I want to be with those who know secret thing...

The grass is always greener around the fire hydrant.     You have to believe in yourself.     Hell hath no fury like a Democrat scorned.     Can you imagine what I would do if I could do all I can? Got an issue, get a tissue.     We are all are equal, but some pay higher tax rates than others. Life is a work in progress.     The one thing we know about the future is that it comes only one day at a time.     Business is the salt of life.     A goal without a plan is just a wish.     Compound interest is proof of gods existence.     Less is more, unless you're Al Gore.     There are very few profound sayings in the world.     If you don't have anything nice to say... dead silence creates a lot awkwardness.     Attribution is power.     If you live to be 1000 years old, I hope I live to be 1000 minus 1 day, so I never have to live ...

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder and it may be necessary from time to time to give a stupid or misinformed beholder a black eye. ― Jim Henson The difference between genius and stupidity is; genius has its limits. ― Albert Einstein The trouble with having an open mind, of course, is that people will insist on coming along and trying to put things in it. ― Terry Pratchett The statistics on sanity are that one out of every four people is suffering from a mental illness. Look at your 3 best friends. If they're ok, then it's you. ― Rita Mae Brown A person without a sense of humor is like a wagon without springs. It's jolted by every pebble on the road. ― Henry Ward Beecher A well-developed sense of humor is the pole that adds balance to your steps as you walk the tightrope of life. ― William Arthur Ward You can turn painful situations around through laughter. If you can find humor in anything, even poverty, you can survive it. ― Bill Cosby Everything human is ...

Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev (2 March 1931) is a former Soviet statesman. He was the eighth and last leader of the Soviet Union, having served as General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1985 until 1991 when the party was dissolved. Sometimes it's difficult to accept, to recognise one's own mistakes, but one must do it. I was guilty of overconfidence and arrogance, and I was punished for that.     If not me, who? And if not now, when?     If what you have done yesterday still looks big to you, you haven't done much today.     The world will not accept dictatorship or domination.     We could only solve our problems by cooperating with other countries. It would have been paradoxical not to cooperate. And therefore we needed to put an end to the Iron Curtain, to change the nature of international relations, to rid them of ideological confrontation, and particularly to end the arms race.     If people ...

Ludwig van Beethoven (17 December 1770 – 26 March 1827) was a German composer. A crucial figure in the transition between the Classical and Romantic eras in Western art music, he remains one of the most famous and influential of all composers Music should strike fire from the heart of man, and bring tears from the eyes of woman.     Only the pure in heart can make a good soup. Don't only practice your art, but force your way into its secrets; art deserves that, for it and knowledge can raise man to the Divine. Tones sound, and roar and storm about me until I have set them down in notes. Music is a higher revelation than all wisdom and philosophy.     Nothing is more intolerable than to have to admit to yourself your own errors. Art! Who comprehends her? With whom can one consult concerning this great goddess?     What you are, you are by accident of birth; what I am, I am by myself. There are and will be a thousand princes; there is only on...

Fool! Don't you see now that I could have poisoned you a hundred times had I been able to live without you. I will not be triumphed over.     In praising Antony I have dispraised Caesar.     Celerity is never more admired than by the negligent.     My honour was not yielded, but conquered merely.     All strange and terrible events are welcome, but comforts we despise.

Grace Patricia Kelly (November 12, 1929 – September 14, 1982) was an American actress who, after marrying Prince Rainier III, became Princess of Monaco. Getting angry doesn't solve anything.     Emancipation of women has made them lose their mystery.     Women's natural role is to be a pillar of the family.     I don't like yelling and fighting, and I can't quarrel. As an unmarried woman, I was thought to be a danger.     The freedom of the press works in such a way that there is not much freedom from it.     Other women looked on me as a rival. And it pained me a great deal.     I don't want to dress up a picture with just my face.     If anybody starts using me as scenery, I'll return to New York. For a woman, forty is torture, the end.     I don't want to be married to someone who feels inferior to my success or because I make more money than he does.

John Ronald Reuel Tolkien CBE FRSL (3 January 1892 – 2 September 1973) was a British writer, poet, philologist, and university professor who is best known as the author of the classic high-fantasy works The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, and The Silmarillion. Still round the corner there may wait, A new road or a secret gate. All that is gold does not glitter, not all those who wander are lost; the old that is strong does not wither, deep roots are not reached by the frost.     All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us. Not all those who wander are lost. Faithless is he that says farewell when the road darkens.     You have been chosen, and you must therefore use such strength and heart and wits as you have.     Don't go getting mixed up in the business of your betters, or you'll land in trouble too big for you. I dislike Allegory - the conscious and intentional allegory - yet any attempt to explain the purport of m...

Work hard for what you want because it won't come to you without a fight. You have to be strong and courageous and know that you can do anything you put your mind to. If somebody puts you down or criticizes you, just keep on believing in yourself and turn it into something positive. :-Leah LaBelle     Yesterday is not ours to recover, but tomorrow is ours to win or lose.:- Lyndon B. Johnson In order to carry a positive action we must develop here a positive vision.:-Dalai Lama Keep your face to the sunshine and you cannot see a shadow.:-Helen Keller Once you replace negative thoughts with positive ones, you'll start having positive results.:-Willie Nelson     I truly believe that everything that we do and everyone that we meet is put in our path for a purpose. There are no accidents; we're all teachers - if we're willing to pay attention to the lessons we learn, trust our positive instincts and not be afraid to take risks or wait for some miracle to come ...

Ones best success comes after their greatest disappointments. -- Henry Ward The greater danger for most of us is not that our aim is too high and we miss it, but that it is too low and we reach it. ― Michelangelo Success seems to be connected to action. Successful people keep moving. They make mistakes,but they don’t quit. ― Conrad Hilton The secret of getting ahead is getting started. ― Mark Twain For true success ask yourself these four questions: Why? Why not? Why not me? Why not now? ― James Allen Impossible is a word to be found only in the dictionary of fools. ― Napoleon Bonaparte It is hard to fail, but it is worse never to have tried to succeed. ― Theodore Roosevelt I cannot give you the formula for success, but I can give you the formula for failure which is, try to please everybody. ― Herbert Swope Sweat plus sacrifice equals success. ― Charles O. Finley Put your heart, mind, intellect and soul even to your smallest acts. That is the secret to success. ― Sw...

Socrates (469 BC – 399 BC) was a classical Greek (Athenian) philosopher credited as one of the founders of Western philosophy. he is an enigmatic figure known chiefly through the accounts of later classical writers, especially the writings of his students Plato and Xenophon, and the plays of his contemporary Aristophanes. Many would claim that Plato's dialogues are the most comprehensive accounts of Socrates to survive from antiquity. The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing. The unexamined life is not worth living. Wonder is the beginning of wisdom. Strong minds discuss ideas, average minds discuss events, weak minds discuss people. By all means marry; if you get a good wife, you’ll become happy; if you get a bad one, you’ll become a philosopher. The only good is knowledge and the only evil is ignorance. Death may be the greatest of all human blessings. Be slow to fall into friendship, but when you are in, continue firm and constant. Sometimes you put...

Stephen Edwin King (born September 21, 1947) is an American author of contemporary horror, supernatural fiction, suspense, science fiction, and fantasy. His books have sold more than 350 million copies,many of which have been adapted into feature films, miniseries, television shows, and comic books. The trust of the innocent is the liar's most useful tool.    Talent is cheaper than table salt. What separates the talented individual from the successful one is a lot of hard work.    Americans are apocalyptic by nature. The reason why is that we've always had so much, so we live in deadly fear that people are going to take it away from us. French is the language that turns dirt into romance.    I was in enough to get along with people. I was never socially inarticulate. Not a loner. And that saved my life, saved my sanity. That and the writing. But to this day I distrust anybody who thought school was a good time. Anybody. If you don't have the time to read, ...

Jimmy Donal "Jimbo" Wales (born August 7, 1966) is an American Internet entrepreneur best known as the co-founder and promoter of the online non-profit encyclopedia Wikipedia and the for-profit Wikia web hosting company. If it isn't on Google, it doesn't exist. Things work well when a group of people know each other, and things break down when it's a bunch of random people interacting.    I'm a big advocate of freedom: freedom of speech, freedom of expression, freedom of thought.    While I'm optimistic about the direction the world is headed, generally, I think there is a need for constant vigilance and pressure on repressive governments.    People do fun and interesting things because they're fun and interesting.    I don't worry. It's just not in my nature, really. Free speech includes the right to not speak.    We've seen how grassroots journalism by blogs has had an impact at various points politically, as ordinary people have ampl...

Joanne "Jo" Rowling, (born 31 July 1965),[1] pen names J. K. Rowling and Robert Galbraith, is a British novelist best known as the author of the Harry Potter fantasy series. The books have gained worldwide attention, won multiple awards, and sold more than 400 million copies.They have become the best-selling book series in history and been the basis for a series of films which is the second highest-grossing film series in history. It takes a great deal of bravery to stand up to our enemies, but just as much to stand up to our friends. It is impossible to live without failing at something, unless you live so cautiously that you might as well not have lived at all, in which case you have failed by default. If you want to see the true measure of a man, watch how he treats his inferiors, not his equals.     It is our choices... that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities. Poverty entails fear and stress and sometimes depression. It meets a thousand petty h...

Henry Ford (July 30, 1863 – April 7, 1947) was an American industrialist, the founder of the Ford Motor Company, and the sponsor of the development of the assembly line technique of mass production.Ford married Clara Jane Bryant (1866–1950) on April 11, 1888 and supported himself by farming and running a sawmill. They had one child: Edsel Ford (1893–1943) His father gave him a pocket watch in his early teens. At 15, Ford dismantled and reassembled the timepieces of friends and neighbors dozens of times, gaining the reputation of a watch repairman.[5] At twenty, Ford walked four miles to their Episcopal church every Sunday. Coming together is a beginning; keeping together is progress; working together is success. My best friend is the one who brings out the best in me.     Life is a series of experiences, each one of which makes us bigger, even though sometimes it is hard to realize this. For the world was built to develop character, and we must learn that the setbacks ...

Sigmund Freud (born Sigismund Schlomo Freud, 6 May 1856 – 23 September 1939) was an Austrian neurologist and the father of psychoanalysis, a clinical method for treating psychopathology through dialogue between a patient and a psychoanalyst. Time spent with cats is never wasted. We are never so defensless against suffering as when we love. He that has eyes to see and ears to hear may convince himself that no mortal can keep a secret. If his lips are silent, he chatters with his fingertips; betrayal oozes out of him at every pore. The great question that has never been answered, and which I have not yet been able to answer, despite my thirty years of research into the feminine soul, is 'What does a woman want?'     I cannot think of any need in childhood as strong as the need for a father's protection.     The mind is like an iceberg, it floats with one-seventh of its bulk above water. The goal of all life is death.     The ego is not master...

TEAM = Together Everyone Achieves More Teamwork is "work done by several associates with each doing a part but all subordinating personal prominence to the efficiency of the whole". Coming together is a beginning. Keeping together is progress. Working together is success. ― Henry Ford Alone we can do so little; together we can do so much. ― Helen Keller Talent wins games, but teamwork and intelligence wins championships. ― Michael Jordan Teamwork is the secret that make common people achieve uncommon result. ― Ifeanyi Enoch If two men on the same job agree all the time, then one is useless. If they disagree all the time,both are useless. ― Darryl F. Zanuck None of us is as smart as all of us. ― Ken Blanchard Do you want a collection of brilliant minds or a brilliant collection of minds?― R. Meredith Belbin Teams share the burden and divide the grief. ― Doug Smith No one can whistle a symphony. It takes an orchestra to play it. ― H.E. Luccock The best ...

María Eva Duarte de Perón (7 May 1919 – 26 July 1952) was the second wife of Argentine President Juan Perón (1895–1974) and served as the First Lady of Argentina from 1946 until her death in 1952. She is usually referred to as Eva Perón (Spanish language -- Evita.) I demanded more rights for women because I know what women had to put up with. My biggest fear in life is to be forgotten. Shadows cannot see themselves in the mirror of the sun.     I am only a sparrow amongst a great flock of sparrows.     I am my own woman.     I know that, like every woman of the people, I have more strength than I appear to have.     When the rich think about the poor, they have poor ideas.     To convince oneself that one has the right to live decently takes time. Time is my greatest enemy. If I have to apply five turns to the screw each day for the happiness of Argentina, I will do it.     Where there is a worker, there ...

Thomas Woodrow Wilson (December 28, 1856 – February 3, 1924) was an American politician and academic who served as the 28th President of the United States from 1913 to 1921. Born and raised in Virginia, Wilson earned a Ph.D. in political science, working as a professor and scholar at various institutions before being chosen as President of Princeton University, where he worked from 1902 to 1910.  I not only use all the brains that I have, but all I can borrow. If a dog will not come to you after having looked you in the face, you should go home and examine your conscience. You are not here merely to make a living. You are here in order to enable the world to live more amply, with greater vision, with a finer spirit of hope and achievement. You are here to enrich the world, and you impoverish yourself if you forget the errand. The man who is swimming against the stream knows the strength of it. You are here in order to enable the world to live more amply, with greater vis...

Sir Timothy John Berners-Lee (born 8 June 1955), also known as TimBL, is an English computer scientist, best known as the inventor of the World Wide Web. He made a proposal for an information management system in March 1989,and he implemented the first successful communication between a Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) client and server via the Internet sometime around mid-November of that same year.Berners-Lee is the director of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), which oversees the Web's continued development. He is also the founder of the World Wide Web Foundation, and is a senior researcher and holder of the Founders Chair at the MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL).He is a director of the Web Science Research Initiative (WSRI),and a member of the advisory board of the MIT Center for Collective Intelligence.In 2011 he was named as a member the Board of Trustees of the Ford Foundation. The web is more a social creation than a technical one. ...

Charles, Prince of Wales (Charles Philip Arthur George (born 14 November 1948), is the eldest child and heir apparent of Queen Elizabeth II. Known alternatively in Scotland as Duke of Rothesay and in South West England as Duke of Cornwall,he is the longest-serving heir apparent in British history, having held the position since 1952.In 1981, he married Lady Diana Spencer and they had two sons, Prince William (born 1982) later to become Duke of Cambridge, and Prince Harry (born 1984). In 1996, the couple divorced, following well-publicised extra-marital affairs. Diana died in a car crash in Paris the following year.In 2005, Charles married Camilla Parker Bowles, who uses the title Duchess of Cornwall. Something as curious as the monarchy won't survive unless you take account of people's attitudes. After all, if people don't want it, they won't have it.     Christianity was literally born in the Middle East, and we must not forget our Middle Eastern brothers and si...

Diana, Princess of Wales (1 July 1961 – 31 August 1997), was the first wife of Charles, Prince of Wales, who is the eldest child and heir apparent of Queen Elizabeth II. Only do what your heart tells you. I think like any marriage, especially when you’ve had divorced parents like myself; you want to try even harder to make it work. Everyone needs to be valued. Everyone has the potential to give something back. Hugs can do great amounts of good – especially for children. Carry out a random act of kindness, with no expectation of reward, safe in the knowledge that one day someone might do the same for you. I live for my sons. I would be lost without them. I think the biggest disease the world suffers from in this day and age is the disease of people feeling unloved. I know that I can give love for a minute, for half an hour, for a day, for a month, but I can give. I am very happy to do that, I want to do that. Everyone of us needs to show how much we care for each other...

Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci, more commonly Leonardo da Vinci, (Italian: [leoˈnardo da (v)ˈvintʃi] ( listen); 15 April 1452 – 2 May 1519) was an Italian polymath whose areas of interest included invention, painting, sculpting, architecture, science, music, mathematics, engineering, literature, anatomy, geology, astronomy, botany, writing, history, and cartography. He has been variously called the father of paleontology, ichnology, and architecture, and is widely considered one of the greatest painters of all time. Sometimes credited with the inventions of the parachute, helicopter and tank,[2][3][4] his genius epitomized the Renaissance humanist ideal.    The greatest deception men suffer is from their own opinions.     Tears come from the heart and not from the brain.     There are three classes of people: those who see. Those who see when they are shown. Those who do not see.     Beyond a doubt truth bears the same relation to falseho...