Thought for Today

"Happiness must be cultivated. It is like character. It is not a thing to be safely let alone for a moment, or it will run to weeds."

~~~~~ Elizabeth Stuart Phelps

Thought for Today

"If you are worthy of its affection, a cat will be your friend but never your slave."

~~~~~ Théophile Gautier

Thought for Today

"A few can touch the magic string,
And noisy fame is proud to win them:
Alas for those that never sing,
But die with all their music in them!"

~~~~~ Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

Thought for Today

"The decline of literature indicates the decline of a nation."

~~~~~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Thought for Today

"While you're saving your face, you're losing your ass."

~~~~~ Lyndon B. Johnson

Thought for Today

"America needs no words from me to see how your decision in Roe v. Wade has deformed a great nation. The so-called right to abortion has pitted mothers against their children and women against men. It has sown violence and discord at the heart of the most intimate human relationships. It has aggravated the derogation of the father's role in an increasingly fatherless society. It has portrayed the greatest of gifts – a child – as a competitor, an intrusion, and an inconvenience. It has nominally accorded mothers unfettered dominion over the independent lives of their physically dependent sons and daughters. And, in granting this unconscionable power, it has exposed many women to unjust and selfish demands from their husbands or other sexual partners. Human rights are not a privilege conferred by government. They are every human being's entitlement by virtue of his humanity. The right to life does not depend, and must not be declared to be contingent, on the pleasure of anyone else, not even a parent or a sovereign."

~~~~~ Mother Teresa

Thought for Today

"Temporary success can be achieved in spite of lack of other fundamental qualities, but no advancements can be maintained without hard work."

~~~~~ William Feather

Thought for Today

"Don't let the opinions of the average man sway you. Dream, and he thinks you're crazy. Succeed, and he thinks you're lucky. Acquire wealth, and he thinks you're greedy. Pay no attention. He simply doesn't understand."

~~~~~ Robert G. Allen

Thought for Today

"It is the artist's function not to copy but to synthesise: to eliminate from that gross confusion of actuality which is his raw material whatever is accidental, idle, irrelevant, and select for perpetuation that only which is appropriate and immortal."

~~~~~ William Ernest Henley

Thought for Today

"Words are also seeds, and when dropped into the invisible spiritual substance, they grow and bring forth after their kind."

~~~~~ Charles Fillmore

Thought for Today

"Work will win when wishy washy wishing won't."

~~~~~ Thomas S. Monson

Thought for Today

"I knew that my staying up would not change the election result if I were defeated, while if elected I had a hard day ahead of me. So I thought a night's rest was best in any event."

~~~~~ Benjamin Harrison

Thought for Today

"Too many people overvalue what they are not and undervalue what they are."

~~~~~ Malcolm Forbes

Thought for Today

"A man with a surplus can control circumstances, but a man without a surplus is controlled by them, and often has no opportunity to exercise judgment."

~~~~~ Marshall Field

Thought for Today

"Unless a man undertakes more than he possibly can do, he will never do all he can do."

~~~~~ Henry Drummond

Thought for Today

"The difference between a democracy and a dictatorship is that in a democracy you vote first and take orders later; in a dictatorship you don't have to waste your time voting."

~~~~~ Charles Bukowski

Thought for Today

"Cows are amongst the gentlest of breathing creatures; none show more passionate tenderness to their young when deprived of them; and, in short, I am not ashamed to profess a deep love for these quiet creatures."

~~~~~ Thomas de Quincey

Thought for Today

"An educated person is one who has learned that information almost always turns out to be at best incomplete and very often false, misleading, fictitious, mendacious – just dead wrong."

~~~~~ Russell Baker

Thought for Today

"No matter how skillful you are, you can't invent a product advantage that doesn't exist. And if you do, and it's just a gimmick, it's going to fall apart anyway."

~~~~~ William Bernbach

Thought for Today

"Do not be fooled into believing that because a man is rich he is necessarily smart. There is ample proof to the contrary."

~~~~~ Julius Rosenwald

Thought for Today

"Colleges are places where pebbles are polished and diamonds are dimmed."

~~~~~ Robert Green Ingersoll

A Thought on the Disappearance of Freedom

"The past shows unvaryingly that when a people’s freedom disappears, it goes not with a bang, but in silence amid the comfort of being cared for. That is the dire peril in the present trend toward statism. If freedom is not found accompanied by a willingness to resist, and to reject favors, rather than to give up what is intangible but precarious, it will not long be found at all."

~~~~~ Richard M. Weaver, 1962
(Cited in Jonah Goldberg's book Liberal Fascism: The Secret History of the American Left, From Mussolini to the Politics of Change )

Thought for Today

"Lotteries, a tax upon imbeciles."

~~~~~ Camillo di Cavour

Thought for Today

"I love such mirth as does not make friends ashamed to look upon one another next morning."

~~~~~ Izaak Walton

Thought for Today

"Modern diplomats approach every problem with an open mouth."

~~~~~ Arthur Goldberg

Thought for Today

"One has a greater sense of degradation after an interview with a doctor than from any human experience."

~~~~~ Alice James

Thought for Today

"The most absurd and reckless aspirations have sometimes led to extraordinary success."

~~~~~ Luc de Clapiers

Thought for Today

"Conceit is God's gift to little men."

~~~~~ Bruce Barton

Thought for Today

"You cannot fly like an eagle with the wings of a wren."

~~~~~ William Henry Hudson

Thought for Today

"We always love those who admire us; we do not always love those whom we admire."

~~~~~ Rupert Brooke

Thought for Today

"To expect defeat is nine-tenths of defeat itself."

~~~~~ Francis Marion Crawford

Thought for Today

"If we ever hope to rid the world of the political AIDS of our time, terrorism, the rule must be clear: One does not deal with terrorists; one does not bargain with terrorists; one kills terrorists."

~~~~~ Meir Kahane