normal people (Joe Ancis)

The only normal people are the ones you don't know very well.

not enough (Johann von Goethe)

Knowing is not enough; we must apply. Willing is not enough; we must do.

caring people (Margaret Mead)

Never believe that a few caring people can't change the world. For, indeed, that's all who ever have.

try (Franklin D. Roosevelt)

It is common sense to take a method and try it. If it fails, admit it frankly and try another. But above all, try something.

attain (Kahlil Gibran, "The Poet of Baalbek")

All that spirits desire, spirits attain.

strength (Carry Nation)

I felt invincible. My strength was that of a giant. God was certainly standing by me. I smashed five saloons with rocks before I ever took a hatchet.

carpe diem (Horace, "Odes")

"Carpe diem, quam minimum credula postero."
Lat., "Seize the day, put no trust in tomorrow."

greatness (Buck Rodgers)

There are countless ways of achieving greatness, but any road to achieving one's maximum potential must be built on a bedrock of respect for the individual, a commitment to excellence, and a rejection of mediocrity.

travel (joke)

If God had meant us to travel economy class, he would have made us narrower.

e-mail (joke)

How do you keep your husband from reading your e-mail? Rename the mail folder to "instruction manuals."

wonder (Greek Proverb)

Wonder is the beginning of wisdom.

progress (Ralph Waldo Emerson)

All our progress is an unfolding, like a vegetable bud. You have first an instinct, then an opinion, then a knowledge as the plant has root, bud, and fruit. Trust the instinct to the end, though you can render no reason.

activity (John Updike)

Any activity becomes creative when the doer cares about doing it right, or doing it better.

dreams (Henry David Thoreau)

Dreams are the touchstones of our character.

biology (joke)

It might look like I'm doing nothing, but at the cellular level I'm really quite busy.

unrequited love (Charlie Brown)

Nothing spoils the taste of peanut butter like unrequited love.

ability and assignment (Baltasar Gracian, "The Oracle")

Great ability develops and reveals itself increasingly with every new assignment.

the key (Buddhist proverb)

To man is given the key to the gates of heaven; the same key opens the gates of hell.

doctor (joke)

I'm losing faith in my doctor. All his patients seem to be sick.

committed (Margaret Mead)

Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.

in you (Orison Swett Marden)

The golden opportunity you are seeking is in yourself. It is not in your environment; it is not in luck or chance, or the help of others; it is in yourself alone.

dreams (Orison Swett Marden)

All men who have achieved great things have been great dreamers.

different music (Henry David Thoreau)

If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away.

help others (Zig Ziglar)

You can have anything in life you want if you just help enough other people get what they want.

kindness (William Makepeace Thackeray)

Never lose a chance of saying a kind word.

endurance (William Feather)

Success seems to be largely a matter of hanging on after others have let go.

scarcity (Wayne Dyer)

There is no scarcity of opportunity to make a living at what you love; there's only a scarcity of resolve to make it happen.

up there (Thomas Adams)

The ambitious climb high and perilous stairs, and never care how to come down; the desire of rising hath swallowed up their fear of a fall.

work (Thomas A. Edison)

I never did anything by accident, nor did any of my inventions come by accident; they came by work.

what if (Robert Schuller)

What would you attempt to do if you knew you would not fail?

good acts (Robert Louis Stevenson)

Don't judge each day by the harvest you reap, but by the seeds you plant.

through (Robert Frost)

The best way out is always through.

depth (Ralph Waldo Emerson)

It is not length of life, but depth of life.

fear (Ralph Waldo Emerson)

Fear defeats more people than any other one thing in the world.

get up (Peter's Principle of Success)

Get up one time more than you're knocked down.

succeed

The great difference between those who succeed and those who fail does not consist in the amount of work done by each but in the amount of intelligent work. Many of those who fail most ignominiously do enough to achieve grand success but they labor haphazardly at whatever they are assigned, building up with one hand to tear down with the other. They do not grasp circumstances and change them into opportunities. They have no faculty for turning honest defeats into telling victories. With ability enough and ample time, the major ingredients of success, they are forever throwing back and forth an empty shuttle and the real web of their life is never woven.

burning (Napoleon Hill)

Every person who wins in any undertaking must be willing to cut all sources of retreat. Only by doing so can one be sure of maintaining that state of mind known as a burning desire to win - essential to success.

opportunity (Milton Berle)

If opportunity doesn't knock, build a door.

success (Marva Collins)

Success doesn't come to you ... you go to it.

aim high (Les Brown)

Shoot for the moon. Even if you miss, you'll land among the stars.

be consistent (Lao-Tzu)

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.

live it (Jonathan Swift)

May you live all the days of your life.

step aside (Joel Arthur Barker)

Those who say it can't be done should get out of the way of those who are doing it.

curiosity (James Stephens)

Curiosity will conquer fear even more than bravery will.

courage (James Bryant Conant)

Behold the turtle. He only makes progress when he sticks his neck out.

disappointments (Henry Ward Beecher)

One's best success comes after their greatest disappointments.

life (Grandma Moses)

Life is what we make it. Always has been, always will be.

never late (George Eliot)

It is never too late to be what you might have been.

be occupied (George Bernard Shaw)

The secret of being miserable is to have the leisure to bother about whether you are happy or not. The cure is occupaton.

do it (General H. Norman Schwarzkopf)

The truth of the matter is that you always know the right thing to do. The hard part is doing it.

find (Galileo)

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

inferior (Eleanor Roosevelt)

No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.

luck (Earl Wilson)

Success is simply a matter of luck. Ask any failure.

bored (Dale Carnegie)

Are you bored with life? Then throw yourself into some work you believe in with all your heart, live for it, die for it, and you will find happiness that you had thought could never be yours.

no secret (Colin Powell)

There are no secrets to success. It is the result of preparation, hard work, learning from failure.

optimism (Colin Powell)

Perpetual optimism is a force multiplier.

darkness (Charles A. Beard)

When it is dark enough, you can see the stars.

no pain, no gain (Bruce Jenner)

I learned that the only way you are going to get anywhere in life is to work hard at it. Whether you're a musician, a writer, an athlete or a businessman, there is no getting around it. If you do, you'll win -- if you don't you won't.

success (Bob Dylan)

A man is a success if he gets up in the morning and gets to bed at night, and in between he does what he wants to do.

success (Bill Gates)

Success is a lousy teacher. It seduces smart people into thinking they can't lose.

failing (Beverly Sills)

You may be disappointed if you fail, but you are doomed if you don't try.

dream (Bernard Edmonds)

To dream anything that you want to dream, that is the beauty of the human mind. To do anything that you want to do, that is the strength of the human will. To trust yourself, to test your limits, that is the courage to succeed.

consistency (Benjamin Disraeli)

The secret of success is consistency of purpose.

preparation (Arthur Ashe)

One important key to success is self-confidence. An important key to self-confidence is preparation.

beauty (Anonymous)

You don't love a woman because she is beautiful, but she is beautiful because you love her.

let go (Anonymous)

If you love somebody, let them go. If they return, they were always yours. If they don't, they never were.

everything (Anonymous)

Love has nothing to do with what you are expecting to get, it's what you are expected to give -- which is everything.

faithfully (Anonymous, Carmina Burana, "Omnia Sol Temperat")

Ama me fideliter! Fidem meam noto: De corde totaliter Et ex mente tota, Sum presentialiter Absens in remota.

love (James Baldwin)

Love does not begin and end the way we seem to think it does. Love is a battle, love is a war; love is a growing up.

masks (James Baldwin)

Love takes off masks that we fear we cannot live without and know we cannot live within.

proof (Joyce Brothers)

The best proof of love is trust.

invisible (H. Jackson Brown Jr.)

Sometimes the heart sees what is invisible to the eye.

perfect love (Leo Buscaglia)

Perfect love is rare indeed - for to be a lover will require that you continually have the subtlety of the very wise, the flexibility of the child, the sensitivity of the artist, the understanding of the philosopher, the acceptance of the saint, the tolerance of the scholar and the fortitude of the certain.

relationship (Rob Cella)

A relationship is like a rose, How long it lasts, no one knows; Love can erase an awful past, Love can be yours, you'll see at last; To feel that love, it makes you sigh, To have it leave, you'd rather die; You hope you've found that special rose, 'Cause you love and care for the one you chose.

friendship and love (Charles Caleb Colton)

Friendship often ends in love; but love in friendship - never.

looking back (Henry Drummond)

You will find as you look back upon your life that the moments when you have truly lived are the moments when you have done things in the spirit of love.

well (Nan Fairbrother)

The hardest of all is learning to be a well of affection, and not a fountain; to show them we love them not when we feel like it, but when they do.

need and love (Erich Fromm)

Immature love says: 'I love you because I need you.' Mature love says 'I need you because I love you.'

life and love (Mahatma Gandhi)

Where there is love there is life.

without (Kahlil Gibran, "The Vision")

Life without love is like a tree without blossoms or fruit.

regret (David Grayson)

Looking back, I have this to regret, that too often when I loved, I did not say so.

illusion (Javan)

Love can sometimes be magic. But magic can sometimes...just be an illusion.

changed (J. Krishnamurti)

The moment you have in your heart this extraordinary thing called love and feel the depth, the delight, the ecstasy of it, you will discover that for you the world is transformed.

someone (Lao-Tzu)

Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength; loving someone deeply gives you courage.

treasure (Og Mandino)

Treasure the love you receive above all. It will survive long after your good health has vanished.

all (Og Mandino)

Do all things with love.

poet (Plato)

At the touch of love everyone becomes a poet.

no such thing (Sidney Poitier)

We all suffer from the preoccupation that there exists ... in the loved one, perfection.

exists (La Rochefoucauld)

There is no disguise which can hide love for long where it exists, or simulate it where it does not.

fear (Bertrand Russell)

To fear love is to fear life, and those who fear life are already three parts dead.

nothing (Kyle Schmidt)

I have said nothing because there is nothing I can say that would describe how I feel as perfectly as you deserve it.

sorry (Erich Segal)

Love means never having to say you're sorry.

happy (Johnny Carson)

If you're happy in what you're doing, you'll like yourself, you'll have inner peace. And if you have that, along with physical health, you will have had more success than you could possibly have imagined.

perception (Miyamoto Musashi)

Perception is strong and sight weak. In strategy it is important to see distant things as if they were close and to take a distanced view of close things.

food (Henry David Thoreau)

He who distinguishes the true savor of his food can never be a glutton; he who does not cannot be otherwise.

fresh start (George Matthew Adams )

It is no disgrace to start all over. It is usually an opportunity.

freedom (Antoine de Saint Exupery)

I know but one freedom, and that is the freedom of the mind.

time eases (Sophocles)

Time eases all things.

flowers (Luther Burbank)

Flowers always make people better, happier and more helpful; they are sunshine, food and medicine to the soul.

curiosity (Albert Einstein)

The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing. One cannot help but be in awe when he contemplates the mysteries of eternity, of life, the marvelous structure of reality. It is one enough if one tries to merely comprehend a little of this mystery everyday. Never lose a holy curiosity.

adversity (Og Mandino)

There is nothing better than adversity. Every defeat, heartbreak, every loss contains its own seed, its own lesson on how to improve your performance next time.

encouragement (Booker T. Washington)

Any man's life will be filled with encouragement if he makes up his mind to do his level best each day.

two evils (Mae West)

When choosing between two evils, I always like to try the one I've never tried before.

personhood (Khalil Gibran)

The person you consider ignorant and insignificant is the one who came from God, that he might learn bliss from grief and knowledge from gloom.

human right (P. J. O'Rourke)

There's only one basic human right, the right to do as you damn well please. And with it comes the basic human duty, the duty to take the consequences.

laughter and love (W. H. Auden)

Among those whom I like or admire, I can find no common denominator, but among those who I love, I can: all of them make me laugh.

agnostic dyslexic insomniac (a joke)

What does the agnostic dyslexic insomniac do at night? He lies awake in wondering whether there really is a dog.

Fortune Cookie Saying #8

You have the capacity to learn from your mistakes. You will learn a lot today.

change, courage, wisdom (Reinhold Neibuhr)

God, give us the grace to accept with serenity the things that cannot be changed, courage to change the things which should be changed, and wisdom to distinguish one from the other.

truth (Albert Schweitzer)

Truth has no special time of its own. Its hour is now--always.

changes (Bernice Johnson Reagon)

Life's changes are not supposed to paralyze you, they're supposed to help you discover who you are.

unanimity (Christopher Morley)

Read everyday, something no one else is reading. Think everyday, something no one else is thinking. Do everyday, something no one else would be silly enough to do. It is bad for the mind to continually be part of unanimity.

secret of greatness (Wilfred A. Peterson)

The secret of greatness is simple: do better work than any other man in your field--and keep on doing it.

great love (Mother Teresa)

We can do no great things, only small things with great love.

power and insight (Herodotus)

The worst pain a man can suffer: to have insight into much and power over nothing.

past (Eileen Caddy)

Dwell not in the past. Use it to illustrate a point, then leave it behind. Nothing really matters except what you do now in this instant of time.

fantasy (Dr. Seuss)

Fantasy is a necessary ingredient of living. It is a way of looking at life through the wrong end of a telescope...and that enables you to laugh at all realities.

interplay of differences (Octavio Paz)

What sets worlds in motion is the interplay of differences, their attractions and repulsions; life is plurality, death is uniformity.

listen (Gertrude Stein)

Let me listen to me and not to them.

life (John Lennon)

Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans.

paradoxes (Maxine Hong Kingston)

I learned to make my mind large, as the universe is large, so that there is room for paradoxes.

city planning (LeCorbusier)

The materials of city planning are: sky, space, trees, steel, and cement; in that order and that hierarchy.

dream (William S. Burroughs)

There couldn't be a society of people who didn't dream. They'd be dead in two weeks.

history (Gregoria de Jesus)

Beware of history, for no secret can be hidden from her.

procrastination (Sir Walter Scott)

To be always intending to live a new life, but never find time to set about it--This is as if a man should put off eating and drinking from one day to another 'till he be starved and destroyed.

truth (Charles Sanders Pierce)

There is something even more vital to science than intelligent methods; and that is, the sincere desire to find out the truth, whatever it may be.

pay it forward (Louise Brown)

If you can't return a favor, pass it on.

doing the best (Oprah Winfrey)

Doing the best at this moment puts you in the best place for the next moment.

conviction vs. convenience (Edward M. Kennedy)

Don't sacrifice your political convictions for the convenience of the hour.

walking distance (Steven Wright)

Everywhere is walking distance if you have the time.

soul (Oscar Wilde)

Nothing can cure the soul but the senses but the soul.

attack (Harry S. Truman)

Carry the battle to them. Don't let them bring it to you. Put them on the defensive. And don't ever apologize for anything.

gambling (Donald Trump)

Money was never a big motivation for me, except as a way to keep score. The real excitement is playing the game.

expectations (Magaret Mitchell)

Life's under no obligation to give us what we expect.

go to the unknown (Diane Arbus)

My favorite thing is to go where I have never been.

anger (Samurai maxim)

The angry man will defeat himself in battle as well as in life.

hate (Richard M. Nixon)

Always remember, others may hate you. But those who hate you don't win unless you hate them. And then you destroy yourself.

individuals (Charley Reese)

Society exists only as a mental concept; in the real world there are only individuals.

play (Kareem Abdul-Jabbar)

You love to be able to center yourself, to let all your emotions go...Don't ever forget that you play with your soul as well as your body.

inside you (Rwandan proverb)

You can outdistance that which is running after you, but not what is running inside you.

revolutionary (Che Guevarra)

The true revolutionary is guided by a great feeling of love.

conformity (John F. Kennedy)

Conformity is the jailer of freedom and the enemy of growth.

peace (Baruch Spinoza)

Peace is not the absence of war. It is a virtue, a state of mind, a disposition for benevolence, confidence, justice.

it's my life (Jimi Hendrix)

I am the one that has to die when it's time for me to die, so let me live my life, the way I want to.

your future (Frank Tyger)

Your future depends mostly on many things, but mostly on you.

aim at perfection (Philip Dormer Chesterfield)

Aim at perfection in everything, though in most things it is unattainable. However, they who aim at it, and persevere, will come much nearer to it than those whose despondency and laziness make them give it up as unattainable.

hunger (Mohandas Gandhi)

God cares to the hungry in the form of food.

two (Piglet)

It's so much more friendly with two.

kindness (Lao-Tzu)

Kindness in words creates confidence. Kindness in thinking creates profoundness. Kindness in giving creates love.

nation (Carlos P. Garcia)

A nation does not live by bread alone, and no profit is gained on strengthening its economy if in doing so it loses its soul.

promises (Angelo J. D'Angelo)

Promise a lot and give even more.

obedience and fun (Katharine Hepburn)

If you obey all the rules, you miss all the fun.

work (Pablo Picasso)

Work is a necessity for man. Man invented the alarm clock.

waking up (Sharon Gold)

Throw out an alarming alarm clock. If the ring is loud and strident, you're waking up to instant stress. You shouldn't be bullied out of bed, just reminded that it's time to start your day.

play (Plato)

You can discover more about a person in an hour of play than in a year of conversation.

gentle (Max Ehrmann)

Beyond a wholesome discipline, be gentle to yourself. You are a child of the Universe no less than the trees and the stars; You have a right to be here.

wondered (Corazon Aquino)

All the world wondered as they witnessed...as people lift themselves from humiliation to the greatest of pride.

blind (Mahatma Gandhi)

An eye for an eye only ends up making the whole world blind.

fear (Frank Herbert)

I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past, I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone, there will be nothing. Only I will remain.

moments (Georges Duhamel)

We do not know the true value of moments until they have undergone the test of memory.

dream (Victor Hugo)

There is nothing like a dream to create the future. Utopia today, flesh and blood tomorrow.

future (Wayne Gretzy)

I skate where the puck is going, not where it has been.

ideas (Seneca)

The best ideas are common property.

information (Franklin P. Adams)

I find that a great part of information I have, was acquired by looking up something and finding something.

ability (George Allen)

Each of us has been put on earth with the ability to do something well. We cheat ourselves and the world if we don't use that ability as best as we can.

death (George Bernard Shaw)

I want to be thoroughly used up when I die, for the harder I work the more I love.

two evils (Christopher Hampton)

Choosing the lesser of two evils, is still choosing evil.

optimism (Robert Conklin)

If humans are perceived to be potentials rather than problems, as possessing strengths instead of weaknesses, as unlimited rather than dull and unresponsive, then they thrive and grow to their capabilities.

time (M. Scott Peck)

Until you value yourself, you won't value your time. Until you value your time, you will not do anything with it.

life (George Washington Carver)

How far you will go in life depends on being tender with the young, compassionate with the aged, sympathetic with the striving and tolerant of the weak and the strong. Because someday, you will have been all these things.

attitude (Amy Tan)

If you can't change your fate, change your attitude.

people and stories (Chinua Achebe)

People create stories create people; or rather stories create people create stories.

success (Albert Einstein)

If a equals success, then the formula is: A=X+Y+Z, X is work, Y is play. Z is keep your mouth shut.

alone (Ellen Burstyn)

What a lovely surprise how unlonely being alone can be.

believe (Pierre Teilhard de Chardin)

We only have to believe. And the more threatening and irreducible reality appears, the more firmly and desperately we must believe. Then, little by little, we shall see the universal horror unbend, and then smile upon us, and then take us in its more than human arms.

capable (Abraham Maslow)

We are not in a position in which we have nothing to work with. We already have capacities, talents, direction, missions, callings.

life (George Bernard Shaw)

Life is no brief candle to me. It is a sort of splendid torch which I got hold of for a moment, and I want to make it burn brightly as possible before handing it on to future generations.

unthinkable (Salman Rushdie)

One of the extraordinary things about human events is that the unthinkable becomes thinkable.

perseverance (Calvin Coolidge)

Nothing in the world can take the place of perseverance. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent.

books (Charles W. Elliot)

Books are the quietest and most constant of friends; they are the most accessible and wisest of counselors, and the most patient of teachers.

making up (Bruce Lee)

What you lack in flexibility and agility you must make up with knowlegde and constant practice.

good character (John Luther)

Good character is more to be praised than outstanding talent. Most talents are, to some extent, a gift. Good character, by contrast is not given to us. We have to build it piece by piece--by thought, choice, courage, and determination.

english (Renato Constantino, historian)

English became the wedge that separated Filipinos from their past and later was used to separate educated Filipinos from the masses of their countrymen.

use (Voltaire)

Use, do not abuse; neither abstinence nor excess renders man happy.

Exemplary Insult #52

Everyone is entitled to be stupid, but you should avoid abusing the privilege.

Fortune Cookie Saying #27

Hard work pays off in the future. Laziness pays off now.

fear (Michael Pritchard)

Fear is the little dark room where negatives are developed.

complain and want (Phil Lout)

I find it unusual that it is more socially unacceptable to complain about what you have than it is to ask for what you want.

can do (John Wooden)

Don't let what you cannot do interfere with what you can do.

encouragement (George Matthew Adams)

There are high spots in all our lives and most of them have come about through encouragement from someone else. I don't care how great, how famous or successful a man or woman may be, each hungers for applause.

mistake (John Powell)

The only real mistake is the one from which we learn nothing.

improving (Edward Gibbon)

We improve ourselves by victories over ourself. There must be contests, and you must win.

mission (Richard Bach)

Here is a test to find whether your mission on earth is finished: If you're alive, it isn't.

censorship (George Bernard Shaw)

All censorships exist to prevent any one from challenging current conceptions and existing institutions. All progress is initiated by challenging current conceptions, and executed by supplanting existing institutions. Consequently, the first condition of progress is the removal of censorship.

friends and pictures (Jennie Jerome Churchill)

Treat your friends as you do your pictures, and place them in their best light.

do the invisible (Walt Disney)

It is kind of fun to do the invisible.

love is from spiritual affinity (Khalil Gibran)

It is wrong to think that love comes from long companionship. Love is the offspring of spiritual affinity and unless that spiritual affinity is created in a moment, it will not be created for years or even generations.

ideas (John H. Vincent)

Ideas are the factors that lift civilization. They create revolutions. There is more dynamite in an idea than in many bombs.

forgive (Oscar Wilde)

Always forgive your enemies; nothing annoys them so much.

greatest feats (Doug Larson)

Some of the world's greatest feats were accomplished by people not smart enough to know they were impossible.

failures (Donald Norfolk)

People are not failures because they have one, two or even thirty setbacks. They become failures only when they stop trying.

love is worth it (Erica Jong)

Love is everything it's cracked up to be. That's why people are so cynical about it...It is really worth fighting for, being brave for, risking everything for. And the trouble is, if you don't risk anything, you risk even more.

insults (John Russell Lynes, Jr.)

The only graceful way to accept an insult is to ignore it; if you can't ignore it, top it. If you can't top it, laugh at it. If you can't laugh at it, it is probably deserved.

never interrupt (Napoleon Bonaparte)

Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake.

not the brains (Fyodor Dostoyevsky)

It is not the brains which matters most, but which that guides them--the character, the heart, generous qualities, progressive ideas.

perspective (Longfellow)

We judge ourselves by what we feel capable of doing, while others judge us by what we have already done.

life (Joanna Field)

I began to have an idea of my life, not as the slow shaping of achievement to fit my preconceived purposes, but as the gradual discovery and growth of a purpose which I did not know.

perish (Publius Ovidius Naso)

Nothing in the entire universe ever perishes, believe me, but things vary, and adopt a new form. The phrase "being born" is used for beginning to be something different from what one was before, while "dying" means ceasing to be the same. Though this thing may pass into that, and that into this, yet the sums of things remains unchanged.

purpose (Carl Jung)

As far as we can discern, the sole purpose of human existence is to kindle a light of meaning in the darkness of mere being.