My Favorite Quotes
“As you start traveling down
that road of life, remember this: There are never enough comfort stops. The places you’re going to are never on the
map. And once you get that map out, you
won’t be able to refold it no matter how smart you are. So forget the map, roll down the windows, and
whenever you can, pull over and have a picnic with a pig. And if you can help it, never fly as cargo.” ---Kermit the Frog, in It’s Not Easy Being
Green: And Other Things to Consider.
New York: Hyperion, 2005, p.132.
The Jim
Henson Company began in 1955, and the Muppets were created shortly
thereafter. In 2005, they celebrated
their 50th birthday. (Image
is a free download from http://www.muppets.com)
Unfortunately, many people are
quick to quote but rarely give full citations as to "where" the actual
quote was first said, written, or mentioned – or the context or situation in
which the quote arose. Please let me
know if you can provide any fuller information on the origins of some of these
quotes.
“...And then there is that
great aroma of a library, right up there with wines, perfumes, new cars—and
money.” ---David V. Forrest, M.D., “Introspections: The
Librarians,” American Journal of Psychiatry, v.162, October 2005,
pp.1820-1822. (Quote is from the last
line of the article & the author is discussing reasons why researchers
might still want to physically go to the library in the electronic age.)
“The best acreage for a farmer
to cultivate lies within the ring fence of his skull.” ---Charles Dickens, British novelist, 1868. (Shortened version of a remark Dickens made
when visiting the
“Books are there to keep the
knowledge in while we use our heads for something better.” ---Albert
Szent-Györgyi, U.S. biochemist, in Science,
New Series, v. 146, no. 3649 (Dec. 4, 1964), page 1278. (This quote was part of his remarks about the
challenges of teaching when knowledge was continually expanding.)
“Don’t say you don’t have enough time. You have exactly the same number of hours per
day that were given to Pasteur, Michelangelo, Mother Teresa, Helen Keller,
Leonardo da Vinci, Thomas Jefferson, and Albert Einstein.”---H. Jackson Brown,
Jr., in Life’s Little Instruction Book:
511 reminders for a happy and rewarding life. Nashville, TN: Rutledge Hill Press, 1991,
reminder number 322.
“Every chemical substance, every plant, every
animal in its growth, teaches the unity of the cause, the variety of
appearance.” ---Ralph
Waldo Emerson, American essayist, in "History," Essays: First
Series, 1841.
“Every person you meet knows
something you don’t; learn from them.” ---H. Jackson Brown, Jr., in Life’s Little Instruction Book: 511
reminders for a happy and rewarding life.
Nashville, TN: Rutledge Hill Press, 1991, reminder number 438.
“...everybody is ignorant, only on different
subjects.”
---Will Rogers, U.S. Humorist, in article entitled “From Nuts to the Soup,” New York Times, August 31, 1924, p.
XX2. This also appears to have been
reprinted in other newspapers on the same day but called “Defending my Soup
Plate Position.” He was replying to
criticism that he was wrong about the etiquette of his soup plate, which he
wrote about in an earlier column. Full
text of the essay is available on the web at:
http://www.soupsong.com/srogers1.html
“...facts rarely present themselves cleaned up and alone, ready to be
admired and fussed over. Instead, nature bestows her blessings buried in
mountains of garbage, and scientists rarely know what they have their hands on
until they've sifted through the mess, laboriously, patiently, piece by piece.” --- K.C. Cole in The Universe and the Teacup. New York:
Harcourt Brace, 1998, p.83.
“...the great tragedy of Science – the slaying
of a beautiful hypothesis by an ugly fact...” ---Thomas H. Huxley, British
biologist – from “Biogenesis and Abiogenesis” (his presidential address to the
British Association for the Advancement of Science for 1870) as published in Discourses Biological and Geological,
New York: D. Appleton and company, 1898, pages 229-271. The above quote appears on page 244. He was “tracing the path which has been
followed by a scientific idea [biogenesis] in its long and slow progress from
the position of a probable hypothesis to that of an established law of nature.” Quote was also the focus of a Bloom County cartoon on Feb. 10, 1985,
by Berkely Breathed.
“How glorious it is – and also
how painful – to be an exception.” ---Louis Charles Alfred de Musset, French
author – this is a popular paraphrasing of “How glorious it is, but how
difficult, to be an exceptional blackbird in this world!” Quote
is from the first line of chapter 1 in his Histoire d'un Merle Blanc (The
Story of a White Blackbird) which was originally published in Scenes de
la Vie Priveé et Publique des Animaux by P.J. Stahl and others in 1842 as
“Qu’il est glorieux, mais qu’il est pénible d’être en ce monde un
merle exceptionnel!” The novel relates
his struggle to discover his self-identity and place in life.
“I believe that you do change
the world every day, whether you intend to or not. Often it only takes a small act to make a big
difference.”
---Mark Sanborn, American motivational speaker, in The Fred Factor: How passion in your work and life can turn
the ordinary into the extraordinary.
New York: Doubleday, 2004, page
34.
“I don’t know half of you half
as well as I should like; and I like less than half of you half as well as you
deserve.” ---Bilbo
Baggins in Lord of the Rings: The
Fellowship of the Ring, 2001.
“If you think you are too small
to be effective, you have never been in bed with a mosquito.” ---Betty Reese,
American officer and pilot. The earliest
publication of this that I have been able to locate is in Leadership: A Publication of Christianity Today (Carol Stream, IL),
vol. 16, no. 2, Spring 1995, p. 67. It
was simply a list of popular quotes – with no source listed for the
quotes. This quote has been republished
more recently in many other places, none of which provide the original
source. (This quote has also been
erroneously attributed to Bette Reeves.)
“If you wou’d not be forgotten,
As soon as you are dead and rotten, Either write things worth reading, Or do
things worth the writing.” ---Benjamin Franklin a.k.a. Richard Saunders in Poor Richard’s Almanack – May 1738.
“In everything of nature there
is something of the marvelous.” ---Aristotle
“In the cathedral of science,
every brick is equally important.” ---Max Delbrück
(father of molecular biology)
“In the long run, all solutions
are temporary, so go ahead and use duct tape.” ---American Duct
Tape Council motto (fictional group created by Garrison Keillor on The
Prairie Home Companion radio show)
“Information is the oxygen of
the modern age. It seeps through the
walls topped by barbed wire; it wafts across the electrified borders.” ---Ronald Reagan,
40th U.S. President, in The
Guardian (a newspaper published in
“Insufficient facts always
invite danger.” ---Gene
L. Coon & Carey Wilbur in Star Trek: Space Seed, 1967.
“It is much more difficult to
judge oneself than to judge others. If you succeed in judging yourself rightly,
then you are indeed a man of true wisdom.” ---Antoine de Saint Exupéry, French writer, in The Little Prince,
1943, in section 10. (Originally published in Le Petit Prince as “Il est
bien plus difficile de se juger soi-même que de juger autrur. Si tu réussis à
bien te juger, c'est que tu es un véritable sage.”)
“It is not the result of scientific
research that ennobles humans and enriches their nature, but the struggle to
understand while performing creative and open-minded intellectual work.” ---Albert
Einstein. Originally published as part
of an essay entitled “Good and Evil” in Mein
Weltbild,
“It is our choices…that show
what we truly are, far more than our abilities.” ---J.K. Rowling,
British writer, in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets,
“It matters not how strait the
gate, How charged with punishments the scroll, I am the master of my fate: I am
the captain of my soul.” ---William Ernest Henley, British poet, dramatist, and
critic. This quote is the last verse of
a poem entitled “Invictus” originally published in 1875. The poem has been reprinted in many poetry
collections over the years. The “Final
Written Statement” (dated June 11, 2001) of Oklahoma City bomber Timothy
McVeigh before his execution was actually word for word of the entire
“Invictus” poem – without any author attribution or poem title.
“It’s a wonderful feeling when
you discover some evidence to support your beliefs.” ---Anonymous.
“I’ve heard it said, That
people come into our lives for a reason, Bringing something we must learn, And
we are led, To those who help us most to grow, If we let them, And we help them
in return...”
---song lyrics from “For Good” (written by Stephen Schwartz) from the musical Wicked in 2003.
“Knowledge belongs to humanity
and is the torch which illuminates the world.” ---popular
paraphrasing of sentiments in the last two paragraphs of a speech given by
Louis Pasteur, entitled “Pourquoi la
“Knowledge is a sacred cow, and
my problem will be how we can milk her while keeping clear of her horns.” ---Albert
Szent-Györgyi, U.S. biochemist in Science,
New Series, v. 146, no. 3649 (Dec. 4, 1964), page 1278. This quote was part of his remarks about the
challenges of teaching when knowledge was continually expanding.
“Labour to keep alive in your
Breast that Little Spark of Celestial fire Called Conscience.”---George
Washington in Washington’s Rules of
Civility and Decent Behaviour In Company and Conversation: A paper found
among the early writings of George Washington. Washington, DC: W.H. Morrison, 1888. This particular rule was the 110th
and last of the rules he wrote. Scholars
of this period assert that the placement of the first and last rules was
intentional to place more importance on them.
There is disagreement about whether Washington actually created these
rules himself, or based them on early French Jesuit writings.
“[A
librarian] is the Prometheus who will bring the light of learning to the masses.” --- Matthew
Battles in Libraries: An Unquiet History. New York:
W.W. Norton, 2003, page 149.
“[Librarians
are] the secret masters of the world. They control information. Don't ever piss
one off." ---Spider
Robinson, American writer, in The
“Librarianship
offers a better field for mental gymnastics than any other profession.”--- Anonymous,
“Continuity,” Harper’s Weekly, v. 34, no. 1758, August 30, 1890, page 686.
“[Libraries are] the vessels in
which the seed corn for the future is stored.” ---Dorothy Canfield
Fisher, American writer, “Libraries—the Stronghold of Freedom” in The Library of Tomorrow: A Symposium.
“A library is thought in cold
storage.” ---Herbert
Samuel, British liberal statesman in A Book of Quotations,
“Life’s too short to drink
nasty coffee.”
---Danny O’Neill, founder of The
Roasterie (a Kansas City, Missouri, coffee company) as profiled in
“Romancing the Bean” by Carole Gieseke in VISIONS (an Iowa State
University alumni magazine), July/August 2000, page 22.
“Missing a train is only
painful if you run after it! Likewise, not matching the idea of success others
expect from you is only painful if that’s what you are seeking.” ---Nassim Nicholas
Taleb, in The Black Swan: The Impact of
the Highly Improbable, New York: Random House, 2007, p. 297.
“The next best thing to knowing
something is knowing where to find it.” ---paraphrasing of
quote from Samuel Johnson, British author and lexicographer. The original was “Knowledge is of two
kinds. We know a subject ourselves, or
we know where we can find information upon it.”
Cited in many editions of Boswell’s
Life of Johnson, page number is irrelevant, quote is from the text entry
for April 18, 1775. (He was extolling
the virtues of back of the book indexes and library catalogs.)
“No! Try not.
Do. Or do not. There is no try.” ---Yoda in The Empire Strikes Back,
1980.
“Once you’ve decided on
priority, do the jobs you like least first! It makes each successive job easier.” ---Jim Henson,
American puppeteer, in It’s Not
Easy Being Green: And Other Things to Consider. New York: Hyperion, 2005, p.62.
“One slip does not make a
person forever a failure, anymore than one good turn makes a person forever a
saint.”
---Unknown
“Past performance is not
indicative of future results.” ---stock exchange risk disclaimer
“Readers read books; librarians
read readers.” ---Matthew Battles in Libraries: An Unquiet History.
New York: W.W. Norton, 2003, page
148.
“Research is formalized curiosity. It is poking and prying with a purpose.” ---Zora Neale
Hurston, U.S. African American writer, folklorist, and anthropologist, in Dust
Tracks on a Road, an autobiography. There are multiple editions of the book. This quote makes up the first two sentences
of the chapter titled “Research.” The
page number varies depending on the edition.
The chapter talks about her trials and tribulations of collecting
information in some dangerous situations since asking total strangers questions
on some sensitive topics was likely to cause offense.
“Science is organized knowledge.” ---Herbert Spencer,
British philosopher, in Education:
Intellectual, Moral and Physical,
“Technology will help us manage
the information society only to the extent that its members are skilled in
utilizing it.”
---John Naisbitt, in Megatrends: Ten New Directions Transforming Our Lives,
New York: Warner Books, 1982, page
32.
“The trouble with facts is that
there are so many of them.” ---Samuel McChord Crothers,
“…there are few pleasures comparable to that
of associating continually with curious and vigorous young minds, and of aiding
them in realizing their ideals.” ---Samuel S. Green,
American Library Journal, vol. 1, Oct. 1876, page 81.
“There is no human being from
whom we cannot learn something if we are interested enough…”---Eleanor
Roosevelt, U.S. Diplomat, Humanitarian and First Lady (1933-45), in You Learn by Living, Philadelphia:
Westminster Press, c1960, 1983, page 8.
“To change is always seeming
fickleness. But not to change with the
advance of science is worse; it is persistence in error…” ---James Dwight
Dana, in the preface of System of Mineralogy (3rd edition),
New York: John Wiley, 1850.
“To love what you do and feel
that it matters --- how could anything be more fun?” ---
“We are drowning in information
and starved for knowledge.” ---
“We cannot choose the time we live in. We can
only choose what we do with the time we are given.” ---Gandalf
in Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship
of the Ring, 2001.
“What counts, in the long run,
is not what you read; it is what you sift through your own mind; it is the
ideas and impressions that are aroused in you by your reading. It is the ideas
stirred in your own mind, the ideas which are a reflection of your own
thinking, which make you an interesting person.” ---Eleanor
Roosevelt, U.S. Diplomat, Humanitarian and First Lady (1933-45), in You Learn by Living, Philadelphia:
Westminster Press, c1960, 1983, pages 7-8.
“What do we live for, if it is
not to make life less difficult to each other?” ---George Eliot,
British writer, in Middlemarch: A Story
of Provincial Life, chapter LXXII, 1871-1872.
“...what is a weed? A plant whose virtues have
not yet been discovered.” ---Ralph Waldo
Emerson, American essayist, in Fortune of the Republic. Lecture Delivered at
the
“What you leave behind is not
what is engraved in stone monuments, but what is woven into the lives of
others.”
---Pericles, Ancient Greek General and politician, approx. 430-431 B.C. This is one of the few quotes where I actually
prefer the popular paraphrasing to the original text. The words have been changed considerably over
time but the meaning remains true. Very
few of Pericles’ speeches have ever been documented as they were not written
down at the time they occurred.
Thucydides was a Greek scholar who included many famous speeches in his History and he acknowledges that he
could not possibly have included the speeches verbatim since he received some
of them second or third hand. In
addition, they were written in Greek and each translator has given slightly
different versions of the text. The most
studied and most often quoted of Pericles’ speeches is The Funeral Speech which
was given to honor the first soldiers who died in the Peloponnesian War. This quote is probably a popular paraphrasing
of the sentiments found in section 43 of The Funeral Speech.
“When you drink from the well – remember the
well-digger.” ---Chinese Proverb stenciled on the ballroom frieze
of the Hotel Pattee in
“When you’re chewing life’s gristle, don’t
grumble, give a whistle…"---Eric Idle of Monty
Python, from the song “Always Look on the Bright Side of Life” which was
published in 2001 as part of the album A Faire to Remember.
“When you stop learning you
stop living in any vital and meaningful sense.” ---Eleanor
Roosevelt, U.S. Diplomat, Humanitarian and First Lady (1933-45), in the Forward
to You Learn by Living, Philadelphia:
Westminster Press, c1960, 1983.
“You can shine no matter what
you’re made of.” ---Bigweld in Robots, 2005.
“You miss 100% of the shots you
never take.” ---Wayne Gretzky, Canadian hockey player.
Page created: July
3, 2003
Links last
checked: July 24, 2007
Text last updated: July 14, 2008
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