Quotable Quotes (30 page)

—
Y
IDDISH PROVERB

 

Some people have all the luck. And they're the ones who never depend on it.

—
B
OB
I
NGHAM

 

There is no substitute for incomprehensible good luck.

—
L
YNNE
A
LPERN AND
E
STHER
B
LUMENFELD

Oh, Lord, I Sound Just Like Mama

 

Serendipity is looking in a haystack for a needle and discovering the farmer's daughter.

—
Quoted by J
ULIUS
H
.
C
OMROE
J
R.
in
Retrospectroscope

 

It is an all-too-human frailty to suppose that a favorable wind will blow forever.

—R
ICK
B
ODE

First You Have to Row a Little Boat

 

It is perhaps a more fortunate destiny to have a taste for collecting shells than to be born a millionaire.

—
R
OBERT
L
OUIS
S
TEVENSON

 

Superstition is foolish, childish, primitive and irrational—but how much does it cost you to knock on wood?

—
J
UDITH
V
IORST

Love & Guilt & the Meaning of Life, Etc
.

T
HE LIMITS OF THE POSSIBLE 
. . .

 

The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible.

—
A
RTHUR
C
.
C
LARKE

Profiles of the Future

 

I have learned to use the word impossible with the greatest caution.

—
W
ERNHER VON
B
RAUN

 

What we need are more people who specialize in the impossible.

—
T
HEODORE
R
OETHKE

 

The difference between the impossible and the possible lies

 

in a person's determination.

—
T
OMMY
L
ASORDA

 

The impossible is often the untried.

—
J
IM
G
OODWIN

 

All things are possible until they are proved impossible—and even the impossible may only be so, as of now.

—
P
EARL
S
.
B
UCK

A Bridge for Passing

 

Progress begins with the belief that what is necessary is possible.

—
N
ORMAN
C
OUSINS

 

Start by doing what's necessary, then what's possible and suddenly you are doing the impossible.

—
S
T.
F
RANCIS OF
A
SSISI

 

Everything looks impossible for the people who never try anything.

—
J
EAN-
L
OUIS
E
TIENNE

 

The young do not know enough to be prudent, and therefore they attempt the impossible—and achieve it, generation after generation.

—
P
EARL
S
.
B
UCK

 

Nothing ever built arose to touch the skies unless some man dreamed that it should, some man believed that it could, and some man willed that it must.

—
C
HARLES
F
.
K
ETTERING

 

Accomplishing the impossible means only that the boss will add it to your regular duties.

—
D
OUG
L
ARSON

 

I
F YOU WANT A PLACE IN THE SUN 
. . .

 

If you want a place in the sun, you've got to put up with a few blisters.

—
A
BIGAIL
V
AN
B
UREN

 

Always bear in mind that your own resolution to succeed is more important than any one thing.

—
A
BRAHAM
L
INCOLN

 

Probably the most honest “self-made man” ever was the one we heard say: “I got to the top the hard way—fighting my own laziness and ignorance every step of the way.”

—
J
AMES
T
HOM

 

You can't expect to make a place in the sun for yourself if you keep taking refuge under the family tree.

—
C
LAUDE
M
C
D
ONALD

in
The Christian Word

 

The important thing in life is not to have a good hand but to play it well.

—
L
OUIS-
N
.
F
ORTIN

Pensées, Proverbes, Maximes

 

Striving for success without hard work is like trying to harvest where you haven't planted.

—
D
AVID
B
LY

in
Deseret News
(Salt Lake City)

 

Showing up is 80 percent of life.

—
W
OODY
A
LLEN

 

If you play to win, as I do, the game never ends.

—
S
TAN
M
IKITA

Journal
(Edmonton, Alberta)

 

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

—
G
EN.
C
OLIN
L
.
P
OWELL

in
The Black Collegian

 

Success is how high you bounce when you hit bottom.

—
G
EN.
G
EORGE
S
.
P
ATTON

 

Success is often the result of taking a misstep in the right direction.

—
A
L
B
ERNSTEIN

 

Wherever you see a successful business, someone once made a courageous decision.

—
P
ETER
D
RUCKER

 

Success is often just an idea away.

—
F
RANK
T
YGER

 

The only thing that ever sat its way to success was a hen.

—
S
ARAH
B
ROWN

 

Success has a simple formula: do your best, and people may like it.

—
S
AM
E
WING

 

As a general rule, the most successful man in life is the man who has the best information.

—
B
ENJAMIN
D
ISRAELI

 

You're never a loser until you quit trying.

—
M
IKE
D
ITKA

 

There's no secret about success. Did you ever know a successful man who didn't tell you about it?

—
K
IN
H
UBBARD

 

Success is more a function of consistent common sense than it is of genius.

—
A
N
W
ANG

Lessons: An Autobiography

 

Don't aim for success if you want it; just do what you love and believe in, and it will come naturally.

—
D
AVID
F
ROST

 

Success isn't a result of spontaneous combustion. You must set yourself on fire.

—
A
RNOLD
H
.
G
LASOW

 

Success without honor is an unseasoned dish; it will satisfy your hunger, but it won't taste good.

—
J
OE
P
ATERNO

 

Sports serve society by providing vivid examples of excellence.

—
G
EORGE
F
.
W
ILL

 

Always do what you say you are going to do. It is the glue and fiber that binds successful relationships.

—
J
EFFRY
A
.
T
IMMONS

The Entrepreneurial Mind

A
FINE LANDSCAPE IS LIKE A PIECE OF MUSIC . . .

 

There is nothing like walking to get the feel of a country. A fine land­scape is like a piece of music; it must be taken at the right tempo. Even a bicycle goes too fast.

—
P
AUL
S
COTT
M
OWRER

The House of Europe

 

When one tugs at a single thing in nature, he finds it attached to the rest of the world.

—
J
OHN
M
UIR

 

The universe is not required to be in perfect harmony with human ambition.

—
C
ARL
S
AGAN

 

Our Creator would never have made such lovely days and have given us the deep hearts to enjoy them unless we were meant to be immortal.

—
N
ATHANIEL
H
AWTHORNE

 

Climb the mountains and get their good tidings. Nature's peace will flow into you as sunshine flows into trees. The winds will blow their freshness into you, and the storms their energy, while cares will drop off like falling leaves.

—
J
OHN
M
UIR

 

There is no silence like that of the mountains.

—
G
UY
B
UTLER

A Local Habitation

 

I have seen the sea when it is stormy and wild; when it is quiet and serene; when it is dark and moody. And in all its moods, I see myself.

—
M
ARTIN
B
UXBAUM

 

April hath put a spirit of youth in every thing.

—
W
ILLIAM
S
HAKESPEARE

 

Our Lord has written the promise of resurrection, not in books alone but in every leaf of springtime.

—
M
ARTIN
L
UTHER

 

Spring hangs her infant blossoms on the trees / Rock'd in the cradle of the western breeze.

—
W
ILLIAM
C
OWPER

 

Spring, thy name is color.

—
L
IBBIE
F
UDIM

 

Spring is nature's way of saying, “Let's party!”

—
R
OBIN
W
ILLIAMS

 

A little madness in the spring is wholesome even for the king.

—
E
MILY
D
ICKINSON

 

Springtime is the land awakening. The March winds are the morning yawn.

—Quoted by L
EWIS
G
RIZZARD
in
Kathy Sue Loudermilk, I Love You

 

The first day of spring is one thing, and the first spring day is another. The difference between them is sometimes as great as a month.

—
H
ENRY
V
AN
D
YKE

 

Spring is when you feel like whistling even with a shoe full of slush.

—
D
OUG
L
ARSON

 

Summer afternoon—summer afternoon; to me those have always been the two most beautiful words in the English language.

—
H
ENRY
J
AMES

 

If a June night could talk, it would probably boast that it invented romance.

—
B
ERN
W
ILLIAMS

 

Until you have heard the whippoorwill, either nearby or in the faint distance, you have not experienced summer night.

—
H
ENRY
B
EETLE
H
OUGH

in
Vineyard Gazette
(Edgartown, Massachusetts)

 

Oh, the summer night has a smile of light, and she sits on a sapphire throne.

—
B
.
W
.
P
ROCTER

 

The experience of drought and dust storms remains central to the psychology of the prairie west; more than the intermittent affluence of postwar decades, it tints a westerner's outlook on life. He continues to live in next year country, where he smokes a pack of hope a day.

—
M
ARK
A
BLEY

Beyond Forget

 

For man, autumn is a time of harvest, of gathering together. For nature, it is a time of sowing, of scattering abroad.

—
E
DWIN
W
AY
T
EALE

Autumn Across America

 

Autumn is a second spring when every leaf is a flower.

—
A
LBERT
C
AMUS

 

Autumn carries more gold in its hand than all the other seasons.

—
J
IM
B
ISHOP

 

October's poplars are flaming torches lighting the way to winter.

—
N
OVA
S
.
B
AIR

in
Capper's Weekly

 

October, here's to you. Here's to the heady aroma of the frost-kissed apples, the winey smell of ripened grapes, the wild-as-the-wind smell of hickory nuts and the nostalgic whiff of that first wood smoke.

—
K
EN
W
EBER

in Providence, R.I.,
Journal-Bulletin

 

Autumn is a season followed immediately by looking forward to spring.

—
D
OUG
L
ARSON

 

Winter is not a season; it's an occupation.

—
S
INCLAIR
L
EWIS

 

Few things are as democratic as a snowstorm.

—
B
ERN
W
ILLIAMS

in
The National Enquirer

 

No winter lasts forever; no spring skips its turn.

—
H
AL
B
ORLAND

Sundial of the Seasons

 

All sunshine makes a desert.

—
A
RABIC PROVERB

 

I am sure it is a great mistake always to know enough to go in when it rains. One may keep snug and dry by such knowledge, but one misses a world of loveliness.

—
A
DELINE
K
NAPP

 

When there is a river in your growing up, you probably always hear it.

—
A
NN
Z
WINGER

Run, River, Run

 

I like trees because they seem more resigned to the way they have to live than other things do.

—
W
ILLA
C
ATHER

 

A man has made at least a start on discovering the meaning of human life when he plants shade trees under which he knows full well he will never sit.

—
D
.
E
LTON
T
RUEBLOOD

 

I never knew how soothing trees are—many trees and patches of open sunlight, and tree presences; it is almost like having another being.

—
D
.
H
.
L
AWRENCE

 

The soil in return for her service keeps the tree tied to her, the sky asks nothing and leaves it free.

—
R
ABINDRANATH
T
AGORE

 

Everything is blooming most recklessly; if it were voices instead of colors, there would be an unbelievable shrieking into the heart of the night.

—
R
AINER
M
ARIA
R
ILKE

Letters of Rainer Maria Rilke

 

A woodland in full color is awesome as a forest fire; but a single tree is like a dancing tongue of flame to warm the heart.

—
H
AL
B
ORLAND

Sundial of the Seasons

 

He that plants trees loves others besides himself.

—
E
NGLISH PROVERB

 

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

—
L
UTHER
B
URBANK

 

If we had a keen vision of all that is ordinary in human life, it would be like hearing the grass grow or the squirrel's heart beat, and we should die of that roar which is the other side of silence.

—
G
EORGE
E
LIOT

 

People from a planet without flowers would think we must be mad with joy the whole time to have such things about us.

—I
RIS
M
URDOCH

A Fairly Honourable Defeat

 

The Pyramids will not last a moment compared with the daisy.

—
D
.
H
.
L
AWRENCE

D. H. Lawrence and Italy

 

I don't see why I am always asking for private, individual, selfish miracles when every year there are miracles like white dogwood.

—
A
NNE
M
ORROW
L
INDBERGH

Bring Me a Unicorn

 

I don't ask for the meaning of the song of a bird or the rising of the sun on a misty morning. There they are, and they are beautiful.

—
P
ETE
H
AMILL

in
Esquire

 

A bird does not sing because it has an answer. It sings because it has a song.

—
C
HINESE PROVERB

 

Let us a little permit nature to take her own way; she better understands her own affairs than we.

—
M
ONTAIGNE

 

I've always regarded nature as the clothing of God.

—A
LAN
H
OVHANESS

 

The sky is the daily bread of the eyes.

—
R
ALPH
W
ALDO
E
MERSON

 

One touch of nature makes the whole world kin.

—
W
ILLIAM
S
HAKESPEARE

 

Repetition is the only form of permanence that nature can achieve.

—
G
EORGE
S
ANTAYANA

 

The repetition in nature may not be a mere recurrence. It may be a theatrical “encore.”

—
G
.
K
.
C
HESTERTON

 

Everybody wants to go back to nature—but not on foot.

—
W
ERNER
M
ITSCH

 

Never a daisy grows but a mystery guides the growing.

—
R
ICHARD
R
EALF

 

I would rather live in a world where my life is surrounded by mystery than live in a world so small that my mind could comprehend it.

—
H
ARRY
E
MERSON
F
OSDICK

 

If the human brain were so simple that we could understand it, we would be so simple that we couldn't.

—E
MERSON
M. P
UGH

 

Science cannot answer the deepest questions. As soon as you ask why there is something instead of nothing, you have gone beyond science. I find it quite improbable that such order came out of chaos. There has to be some organizing principle. God to me is the explanation for the miracle of existence—why there is something instead of nothing.

—
C
OSMOLOGIST
A
LLAN
R
.
S
ANDAGE

 

Sometimes I think we're alone in the universe, and sometimes I think we're not. In either case, the idea is quite staggering.

—
A
RTHUR
C
.
C
LARKE

 

Unknowingly, we plow the dust of stars, blown about us by the wind, and drink the universe in a glass of rain.

—
I
HAB
H
ASSAN

 

The universe is full of magical things patiently waiting for our wits to grow sharper.

—
E
DEN
P
HILLPOTTS

A Shadow Passes

 

The sun, with all those planets revolving around it and dependent on it, can still ripen a bunch of grapes as if it had nothing else in the universe to do.

—
G
ALILEO

 

To define the universe would be to contain it, and that would be to limit existence.

—D
AVID
B
ERESFORD

in
The Weekly Mail & Guardian
(Johannesburg, South Africa)

 

The universe is merely a fleeting idea in God's mind—a pretty uncomfortable thought, particularly if you've just made a down payment on a house.

—
W
OODY
A
LLEN