History will have to record that the greatest tragedy of this period of social transition was not the strident clamor of the bad people, but the appalling silence of the good people.
~ Martin Luther King, Jr.
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Quotes
A long long time ago I began collecting inspirational quotes and aphorisms which became my collection of quotes.
Silence
If there was a little more silence, if we all kept quiet… maybe we could understand something.
~ Federico Fellini
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Automation
The factory of the future will have only two employees, a man and a dog. The man will be there to feed the dog. The dog will be there to keep the man from touching the equipment.
~ Warren Bennis
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Jerks
In my opinion, we don’t devote nearly enough scientific research to finding a cure for jerks.
~ Bill Watterson
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True progress
We can judge our progress by the courage of our questions and the depth of our answers, our willingness to embrace what is true rather than what feels good.
~ Carl Sagan
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What we see
…we see what we believe, not the other way around. Rarely do we see the world as it is. Most of the time we are so busy compartmentalizing, judging, and ignoring what we can’t abide that we see almost nothing. We don’t see opportunities. We fail to see pain. And most of all, we refuse to see the danger in doing nothing. If you can’t see, you will never make art successfully.
~ Seth Godin
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The real challenge
Often it isn’t the mountains ahead that wear you out, it’s the little pebble in your shoe.
~ Muhammad Ali
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Your real job
I tell my students, when you get these jobs that you have been so brilliantly trained for, just remember that your real job is that if you are free, you need to free somebody else. If you have some power, then your job is to empower somebody else.
~ Toni Morrison
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Perspective
Think lightly of yourself and deeply of the world.
~ Miyamoto Musashi
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Truth
The further a society drifts from the truth, the more it will hate those that speak it.
~ George Orwell
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Ignorance
Anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that ‘my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge’.
~ Isaac Asimov
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Silence
I like my human experience served up with a little silence and restraint. Silence makes experience go further and, when it does die, gives it that dignity common to a thing one had touched and not ravished.
~ Djuna Barnes
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Change
You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.
~ Buckminster Fuller
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Honesty
Honesty always gets my attention. Not particularly someone who is honest to me, but someone who is honest with themselves.
~ Heath Ledger
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Intelligence
The true test of intelligence is not how much we know how to do, but how to behave when we don’t know what to do.
~ John Holt
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The resistance
When the resistance shows up, I know that I’m winning. Not my fight against it, but my fight to make art. […] The resistance is a symptom that you’re on the right track. The resistance is not something to be avoided; it’s something to seek out.
~ Seth Godin
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Illiteracy
The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn.
~ Alvin Toffler
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It’s people not things
People, even more than things, have to be restored, renewed, revived, reclaimed and redeemed. Never throw out anyone.
~ Audrey Hepburn
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The eternal war
There is the eternal war between those who are in the world for what they can get out of it and those who are in the world to make it a better place for everybody to live in.
~ George Bernard Shaw
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Self study
Useless to possess an obedient mind unless one profits to the furthest possible degree by its obedience. A prolonged primary course of study is indicated. Now as to what this course of study should be there cannot be any question; there never has been any question. All the sensible people of all ages are agreed upon it. And it is not literature, nor is it any other art, nor is it history, nor is it any science. It is the study of one’s self. man, know thyself.
~ Arnold Bennett
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