- K -
- Out of the crooked timber of humanity no straight thing can ever be made.
Immanuel Kant [1784]
- Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in nature, nor do the children of men as a whole experience it. Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. Life is either a daring adventure or nothing.
Helen Keller
- Be not angry that you cannot make others as you wish them to be, since you cannot make yourself as you wish to be.
Thomas a Kempis
- When written in Chinese, the word "crisis" is composed of two characters. One represents danger and the other represents opportunity.
John F. Kennedy
- Only those who dare to fail greatly can ever achieve greatly.
Robert F. Kennedy
- Our problems are man-made, therefore they may be solved by man. No problem of human destiny is beyond human beings.
John F. Kennedy
- The real menace in dealing with a five-year-old is that in no time at all you begin to sound like a five-year-old.
Jean Kerr
- If one cannot catch the bird of paradise, better take a wet hen.
Nikita Khruschev [in Time Magazine, 1958]
- The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.
Martin Luther King
- What you do when you don't have to, determines what you will be when you can no longer help it.
Rudyard Kipling
- Great Opportunities to help others seldom come, but small ones surround us every day.
Sally Koch
- If the creator had a purpose in equipping us with a neck, he surely meant us to stick it out.
Arthur Koestler
- L -
- The human species, according to the best theory I can form of it, is composed of two distinct races, the men who borrow and the men who lend.
Charles Lamb ['Essays of Elia', 1823]
- The true measure of a man is how he treats someone who can do him absolutely no good.
Ann Landers
- Rare is the person who can weigh the faults of others without putting his thumb on the scales.
Byron J. Langenfeld
- You can close your eyes to reality but not to memories.
Stanislaw Lec
- It is well that war is so terrible. We should grow too fond of it.
Robert E. Lee [1862]
- If you see a whole thing - it seems that it's always beautiful. Planets, lives.... But close up a world's all dirt and rocks. And day to day, life's a hard job, you get tired, you lose the pattern.
Ursula K. LeGuin
- A lie told often enough becomes the truth.
V.I. Lenin
- Life is what happens while you are making other plans.
John Lennon, singer and songwriter
- When you choose the lesser of two evils, always remember that it is still an evil.
Max Lerner
- It is with our passions as it is with fire and water -- they are good servants but bad masters.
Roger L'Estrange
- Happiness isn't something you experience; it's something you remember.
Oscar Levent
- I will study and get ready, and perhaps my chance will come.
Abraham Lincoln
- If I had eight hours to chop down a tree, I'd spend six sharpening my ax.
Abraham Lincoln
- You may fool all the people some of the time; you can even fool some of the people all of the time; but you can't fool all of the people all the time.
Abraham Lincoln [A. McClure:'Lincoln's Yarns and Stories', 1904]
- He has the right to criticize who has the heart to help.
Abraham Lincoln
- Most people are as happy as they make up their minds to be.
Abraham Lincoln
- Research serves to make building stones out of stumbling blocks.
Arthur D. Little
- Mishaps are like knives, that either serve us or cut us, as we grasp them by the blade or the handle.
James Russel Lowell
- Earth and sky, woods and fields, lakes and rivers, the mountain and the sea, are excellent schoolmasters, and teach some of us more than we can ever learn from books.
John Lubbock
- What we see depends mainly on what we look for.
John Lubbock
- Nobody's ever insulted to be invited.
Mrs. Leonard Lyons
- M -
- There is no security on earth; there is only opportunity.
Gen. Douglas MacArthur
- Every man is the architect of his own life. He builds it just the way he wants it. However, after he has built what he wants, he sometimes decides that he doesn't like what he has built and looks for someone or
something to blame instead of changing himself.
Sidney Madwed
- Risk! Risk Anything! Care no more for the opinion of others, for those other voices. Do the hardest thing on earth for you. Act for yourself. Face the truth.
Katherine Mansfield
- The road to hell is paved with good intentions.
Karl Marx
- Our destiny changes with our thought; we shall become what we wish to become, do what we wish to do, when our habitual thought corresponds with our desire.
Orison S. Marden
- Wisdom is knowledge which has become a part of one's being.
Orison S. Marden
- What you see is news. What you know is background. What you feel is opinion.
Lester Markel
- It is an old and ironic habit of human beings to run faster when we have lost our way.
Rollo May
- We cannot live only for ourselves. A thousand fibers connect us with our fellow men; and among those fibers, as sympathetic threads, our actions run as courses, and they come back to us as effects.
Herman Melville
- It is better to fail in originality than to succeed in imitation.
Herman Melville
- He who knows how to be poor knows everything.
Jules Michelet, (1798-1847)
- The truest expression of a people is in its dance and music.
Agnes de Mille
- Home is not where you live, but where they understand you.
Christian Morgenstern
- What you have in your mind, your talents, your native abilities, no one can take from you. When you die you take them with you. Use them diligently while you are here.
Alfred A. Montapert
- Do not confuse motion and progress. A rocking horse keeps moving but does not make any progress.
Alfred A. Montapert
- Animals are reliable, many full of love, true in their affections, predictable in their actions, grateful and loyal. Difficult standards for people to live up to.
Alfred A. Montapert
- The only calendar I need is just outside my window. With eyes to see and ears to hear, nature keeps me posted.
Alfred A. Montapert
- N -
- Ability is nothing without opportunity.
Napoleon Bonaparte
- It is the cause, not the death, that makes the martyr.
Napoleon Bonaparte
- No man can think clearly when his fists are clenched.
George Jean Nathan
- In music the passions enjoy themselves.
Friedrich Nietzsche
- The policy of being too cautious is the greatest risk of all.
Jawaharlal Nehru
- Tact is the knack of making a point without making an enemy.
Howard W. Newton
- Each friend represents a world in us, a world not born until they arrive, and it is only by this meeting that a new world is born.
Anais Nin
- O -
- The truth does not change according to our ability to stomach it.
Flannery O'Connor
- Happiness is the harvest of a quiet eye.
Austin O'Malley
- If you bungle raising your children, I don't think whatever else you do matters.
Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, reporter, editor, US First Lady
- The foolish man seeks happiness in the distance, the wise grows it under his feet.
James Oppenheim
- Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past.
George Orwell, author
- There are no exceptions to the rule that everybody likes to be an exception to the rule.
Charles Osgood, journalist
- When we walk to the edge of all the light we have and take the step into the darkness of the unknown, we must believe that one of two things will happen. There will be something solid for us to stand on or we will be taught to fly.
Patrick Overton
- My hopes are not always realized, but I always hope.
Ovid
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