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Quotable Quotes

Page 12

by Editors of Reader's Digest


  If you never budge, don’t expect a push.

  —MALCOLM S. FORBES

  You must get involved to have an impact. No one is impressed with the won-lost record of the referee.

  —JOHN H. HOLCOMB

  The Militant Moderate

  Swing hard, in case they throw the ball where you’re swinging.

  —DUKE SNIDER

  Life is a great big canvas, and you should throw all the paint on it you can.

  —DANNY KAYE

  Success is a ladder that cannot be climbed with your hands in your pockets.

  —AMERICAN PROVERB

  Few wishes come true by themselves.

  —JUNE SMITH

  in Sentinel (Orlando, Florida)

  Dig the well before you are thirsty.

  —CHINESE PROVERB

  Have you considered that if you “don’t make waves,” nobody, including yourself, will know that you are alive?

  —THEODORE ISAAC RUBIN, MD

  Many a man with no family tree has succeeded because he branched out for himself.

  —LEO AIKMAN

  God gives every bird his worm, but he does not throw it into the nest.

  —SWEDISH PROVERB

  Ask God’s blessing on your work, but don’t ask him to do it for you.

  —DAME FLORA ROBSON

  on Friends, BBC

  It is easy to sit up and take notice. What is difficult is getting up and taking action.

  —AL BATT

  Not everything that is faced can be changed. But nothing can be changed until it is faced.

  —JAMES BALDWIN

  Our dilemma is that we hate change and love it at the same time; what we really want is for things to remain the same but get better.

  —SYDNEY J. HARRIS

  Just as iron rusts from disuse, even so does inaction spoil the intellect.

  —LEONARDO DA VINCI

  Men may doubt what you say, but they will believe what you do.

  —LEWIS CASS

  If your ship doesn’t come in, swim out to it!

  —JONATHAN WINTERS

  Sow an act, and you reap a habit. Sow a habit, and you reap a character. Sow a character, and you reap a destiny.

  —CHARLES READE

  BE BOLD IN WHAT YOU STAND FOR . . .

  Be bold in what you stand for and careful what you fall for.

  —RUTH BOORSTIN

  in The Wall Street Journal

  Don’t believe that winning is really everything. It’s more important to stand for something. If you don’t stand for something, what do you win?

  —LANE KIRKLAND

  Never give in—in nothing, great or small, large or petty—except to convictions of honor and good sense.

  —WINSTON CHURCHILL

  The quality of a man’s life is in direct proportion to his commitment to excellence, regardless of his chosen field of endeavor.

  —VINCE LOMBARDI

  A good resolution is like an old horse which is often saddled but rarely ridden.

  —MEXICAN PROVERB

  Compromise makes a good umbrella, but a poor roof.

  —JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL

  A thing moderately good is not so good as it ought to be. Moderation in temper is always a virtue; but moderation in principle is always a vice.

  —THOMAS PAINE

  He that always gives way to others will end in having no principles of his own.

  —AESOP

  Middleness is the very enemy of the bold.

  —CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER

  You’ve got to stand for somethin’ or you’re gonna fall for anything.

  —JOHN COUGAR MELLENCAMP

  “You’ve Got to Stand for Somethin’”

  Learn to say no. It will be of more use to you than to be able to read Latin.

  —CHARLES HADDON SPURGEON

  One-half the troubles of this life can be traced to saying yes too quickly and not saying no soon enough.

  —JOSH BILLINGS

  It’s important that people should know what you stand for. It’s equally important that they know what you won’t stand for.

  —MARY H. WALDRIP

  Standing in the middle of the road is very dangerous; you get knocked down by the traffic from both sides.

  —MARGARET THATCHER

  The main discomfort in being a middle-of-the-roader is that you get sideswiped by partisans going in both directions.

  —SYDNEY J. HARRIS

  The most prominent place in hell is reserved for those who are neutral on the great issues of life.

  —REV. BILLY GRAHAM

  Never “for the sake of peace and quiet” deny your own experience or convictions.

  —DAG HAMMARSKJOLD

  When something important is going on, silence is a lie.

  —A. M. ROSENTHAL

  in The New York Times

  Please all and you please none.

  —AESOP

  He who turns the other cheek too far gets it in the neck.

  —H. HERT

  You can lean over backward so far that you fall flat on your face.

  —BEN H. BAGDIKIAN

  In the end it will not matter to us whether we fought with flails or reeds. It will matter to us greatly on what side we fought.

  —G. K. CHESTERTON

  A man’s judgment is best when he can forget himself and any reputation he may have acquired and can concentrate wholly on making the right decisions.

  —ADM. RAYMOND A. SPRUANCE

  OPPORTUNITIES ARE NEVER LOST . . .

  Opportunities are never lost. The other fellow takes those you miss.

  —ANONYMOUS

  Not many sounds in life, and I include all urban and all rural sounds, exceed in interest a knock at the door.

  —CHARLES LAMB

  The world is before you, and you need not take it or leave it as it was when you came in.

  —JAMES BALDWIN

  Opportunity is often difficult to recognize; we usually expect it to beckon us with beepers and billboards.

  —WILLIAM ARTHUR WARD

  If opportunity doesn’t knock, build a door.

  —MILTON BERLE

  It is often hard to distinguish between the hard knocks in life and those of opportunity.

  —FREDERICK PHILLIPS

  Life is always walking up to us and saying, “Come on in, the living’s fine,” and what do we do? Back off and take its picture.

  —RUSSELL BAKER

  Opportunity is sometimes hard to recognize if you’re only looking for a lucky break.

  —MONTA CRANE

  Opportunity’s favorite disguise is trouble.

  —FRANK TYGER

  in Rotary “Scandal Sheet” (Graham, Texas)

  Opportunities are often things you haven’t noticed the first time around.

  —CATHERINE DENEUVE

  Wherever we look upon this earth, the opportunities take shape within the problems.

  —NELSON A. ROCKEFELLER

  If a window of opportunity appears, don’t pull down the shade.

  —TOM PETERS

  The Pursuit of Wow!

  A problem is a chance for you to do your best.

  —DUKE ELLINGTON

  Jumping at several small opportunities may get us there more quickly than waiting for one big one to come along.

  —HUGH ALLEN

  Problems are only opportunities with thorns on them.

  —HUGH MILLER

  Snow on the Wind

  Opportunity is a bird that never perches.

 
—CLAUDE MCDONALD

  One of the secrets of life is to make stepping stones out of stumbling blocks.

  —JACK PENN

  Today’s opportunities erase yesterday’s failures.

  —GENE BROWN

  in News-Times (Danbury, Connecticut)

  I make the most of all that comes and the least of all that goes.

  —SARA TEASDALE

  “The Philosopher,” in Poems That Touch the Heart, edited by A. L. Alexander

  OUT ON A LIMB . . .

  Why not go out on a limb? Isn’t that where the fruit is?

  —FRANK SCULLY

  All growth, including political growth, is the result of risk-taking.

  —JUDE WANNISKI

  What isn’t tried won’t work.

  —CLAUDE MCDONALD

  in The Christian Word

  What is more mortifying than to feel that you have missed the plum for want of courage to shake the tree?

  —LOGAN PEARSALL SMITH

  It is not because things are difficult that we do not dare; it is because we do not dare that they are difficult.

  —SENECA

  What would life be if we had no courage to attempt anything?

  —VINCENT VAN GOGH

  A coward meets his fate in his own hideout.

  —JORGE SALVADOR LARA

  El Comercio

  All serious daring starts from within.

  —EUDORA WELTY

  One Writer’s Beginnings

  If you risk nothing, then you risk everything.

  —GEENA DAVIS

  Worry is like a rocking chair. It will give you something to do, but it won’t get you anywhere.

  —The United Church Observer

  Progress always involves risks. You can’t steal second base and keep your foot on first.

  —FREDERICK B. WILCOX

  Yes, risk-taking is inherently failure-prone. Otherwise, it would be called sure-thing-taking.

  —TIM MCMAHON

  Take a chance! All life is a chance. The man who goes furthest is generally the one who is willing to do and dare.

  —Dale Carnegie’s Scrapbook, edited by Dorothy Carnegie

  People wish to learn to swim and at the same time to keep one foot on the ground.

  —MARCEL PROUST

  Remembrance of Things Past

  High expectations are the key to everything.

  —SAM WALTON

  If you’re never scared or embarrassed or hurt, it means you never take any chances.

  —JULIA SOREL

  When you’re skating on thin ice, you may as well tap-dance.

  —BRYCE COURTENAY

  It’s better to plunge into the unknown than to try to make sure of everything.

  —GERALD LESCARBEAULT

  Take calculated risks. That is quite different from being rash.

  —GEN. GEORGE S. PATTON JR.

  We cannot become what we need to be by remaining what we are.

  —MAX DE PREE

  Leadership Is an Art

  When you reach for the stars, you may not quite get one, but you won’t come up with a handful of mud either.

  —LEO BURNETT

  In skating over thin ice, our safety is in our speed.

  —RALPH WALDO EMERSON

  You are permitted in time of great danger to walk with the devil until you have crossed the bridge.

  —BULGARIAN PROVERB

  If you don’t place your foot on the rope, you’ll never cross the chasm.

  —LIZ SMITH

  Necessity is the mother of taking chances.

  —MARK TWAIN

  If necessity is the mother of invention, discontent is the father of progress.

  —DAVID ROCKEFELLER

  Sometimes the fool who rushes in gets the job done.

  —AL BERNSTEIN

  A man sits as many risks as he runs.

  —HENRY DAVID THOREAU

  A ship in harbor is safe—but that is not what ships are for.

  —JOHN A. SHEDD

  A ROAD TWICE TRAVELED . . .

  A road twice traveled is never as long.

  —ROSALIE GRAHAM

  The meaning of life cannot be told; it has to happen to a person.

  —IRA PROGOFF

  The Symbolic & the Real

  The winds and waves are always on the side of the ablest navigators.

  —EDWARD GIBBON

  The person who has had a bull by the tail once has learned 60 or 70 times as much as a person who hasn’t.

  —MARK TWAIN

  The work will teach you how to do it.

  —ESTONIAN PROVERB

  Sometimes you earn more doing the jobs that pay nothing.

  —TODD RUTHMAN

  When you fall in a river, you’re no longer a fisherman; you’re a swimmer.

  —GENE HILL

  in Field & Stream

  Believe one who has tried it.

  —VIRGIL

  Information’s pretty thin stuff unless mixed with experience.

  —CLARENCE DAY

  The Crow’s Nest

  Only the wearer knows where the shoe pinches.

  —PROVERB

  A man begins cutting his wisdom teeth the first time he bites off more than he can chew.

  —HERB CAEN

  The value of experience is not in seeing much, but in seeing wisely.

  —SIR WILLIAM OSLER

  One thing about experience is that when you don’t have very much you’re apt to get a lot.

  —FRANKLIN P. JONES

  in Quote

  Experience is a wonderful thing; it enables you to recognize a mistake every time you repeat it.

  —The Associated Press

  We learn to walk by stumbling.

  —BULGARIAN PROVERB

  I have never let my schooling interfere with my education.

  —MARK TWAIN

  People learn something every day, and a lot of times it’s that what they learned the day before was wrong.

  —BILL VAUGHAN

  Just when you think you’ve graduated from the school of experience, someone thinks up a new course.

  —MARY H. WALDRIP

  Experience is what you get when you don’t get what you want.

  —DAN STANFORD

  Anybody who profits from the experience of others probably writes biographies.

  —FRANKLIN P. JONES

  If we could sell our experiences for what they cost us, we’d all be millionaires.

  —ABIGAIL VAN BUREN

  Half, maybe more, of the delight of experiencing is to know what you are experiencing.

  —JESSAMYN WEST

  Hide and Seek

  Perhaps the angels who fear to tread where fools rush in used to be fools who rushed in.

  —FRANKLIN P. JONES

  HE WHO HESITATES . . .

  He who hesitates is last.

  —The Wit and Wisdom of Mae West

  edited by Joseph Weintraub

  He who hesitates is sometimes saved.

  —JAMES THURBER

  Fables for Our Time

  These things are good in little measure and evil in large: yeast, salt and hesitation.

  —The Talmud

  The man who insists upon seeing with perfect clearness before he decides, never decides.

  —HENRI FRÉDÉRIC AMIEL

  A man would do nothing if he waited until he could do it so well that no one could find fault.

  —JOHN HENRY CARDINAL NEWMAN

 
It’s better to be boldly decisive and risk being wrong than to agonize at length and be right too late.

  —MARILYN MOATS KENNEDY

  Across the Board

  If all difficulties were known at the outset of a long journey, most of us would never start out at all.

  —DAN RATHER WITH PETER WYDEN

  I Remember

  Decision is a sharp knife that cuts clean and straight. Indecision is a dull one that hacks and tears and leaves ragged edges behind.

  —JAN MCKEITHEN

  The chief danger in life is that you may take too many precautions.

  —ALFRED ADLER

  You have to be careful about being too careful.

  —BERYL PFIZER

  If you wait, all that happens is that you get older.

  —LARRY MCMURTRY

  Some Can Whistle

 

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