Frequently used quotations to consider
Here are some frequently used quotations. Please feel free to request a quotation or saying of your choice – or create your own! The length of the quotation depends upon the size of the vessel upon which it is to be inscribed. For a mug, the number of words should be no more than about 29. Please feel free to contact me if you have any questions or are not sure if your quote will fit.
Adams, Henry
A teacher affects eternity; one can never tell where the influence stops.
Aeschylus
It is always in season for old men to learn.
Time as he grows old teaches all things.
Aesop
No act of kindness, no matter how small, is ever wasted.
Ali, Mohammed
Champions aren’t made in the gyms. Champions are made from something they have deep inside them – a desire, a dream, a vision.
Allen, James
Dream lofty dreams, and as you dream, so shall you become.
Amiel, Henri Frederic
Conquering any difficulty always gives one a secret joy, for it means pushing back a boundary-line and adding to one’s liberty.
Apollinaire, Guillaume
Now and then it’s good to pause in our pursuit of happiness and just be happy.
Aristotle
Quality is not an act. It is a habit.
For the things we have to learn before we can do them, we learn by doing them.
Education is the best provision for old age.
In all things of nature there is something of the marvelous.
Armstrong, Louis
Aurelius, Marcus
The universe is change; our life is what our thoughts make it.
Bacon, Francis
Knowledge is power.
Begin doing what you want to do now. We are not living in eternity. We have only this moment, sparkling like a star in our hand and melting like a snowflake.
Ball, Lucille
Love yourself first and everything else falls into line.
Barrymore, John
One is not old until regrets take the place of dreams.
Bernard, Dorothy
Courage is fear that has said its prayers.
Bible
Let all you do be done in Love. I Cor.16.4
Do not get tired of doing what is good…do not give up. Gal. 6:9
Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. Heb. 11:1
How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him that bringeth good tidings, that publish peace. Isaiah 52:7
For he shall give his angels charge over thee, to keep thee in all thy ways. Psalm 91
A cheerful heart is good medicine. Prov. 17:22a
Brandt, Anthony
Other things may change us, but we start and end with the family.
Brock, Peter
Bite off more than you can chew and then chew like hell.
Buddha
Be a light unto yourself.
To one in whom love dwells, the whole world is but one family.
Holding on to anger is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die.
Burke, Edmund
Evil triumphs when good men do nothing.
Campbell, Joseph
Follow your bliss! Find where it is and don’t be afraid to follow it.
Camus, Albert
In the midst of winter I found within me an invincible summer.
Live to the point of tears!
Caras, Roger
Dogs are not our whole life, but they make our lives whole.
Carroll, Lewis
If you don’t know where you are going, any road will take you there.
Cervantes, Miguel
Too much sanity is madness, and he maddest of all see life as it is and not as it should be.
Diligence is the mother of good fortune.
Chesterton, G.K.
Angels can fly because they take themselves lightly.
Chuang Tsu
A path is formed by walking on it.
Churchill, Winston
We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give.
Never ever ever give up.
Confucius
Wheresoever you go, go with all your heart.
Those who cannot forgive others break the bridge over which they themselves must pass.
Our greatest glory is not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall.
cummings, ee
how fortunate are you and i, whose home is timelessness: we who have wandered down from fragrant mountains of eternal now
seeker of truth follow no path, all paths lead where, truth is here
not all matters of mind equal one violet
i’d rather learn from one bird how to sing than teach ten thousand stars how not to dance.
Dalai Lama
Love and compassion are necessities, not luxuries. Without them humanity cannot survive.
Approach love and cooking with reckless abandon.
Davis, Bette
Why ask for the moon when you can have the stars?
Dickinson, Emily
All I know of love is that love is all there is.
We turn, not older with years, but newer every day.
Dostoevsky, Fyodor
Without suffering, happiness cannot be understood. The ideal passes through suffering like gold through fire.
If everything on earth was rational, nothing would ever happen.
Edison, Thomas
Genius is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration.
Our greatest weakness lies in giving up. The most certain way to succeed is always to try just one more time.
Einstein, Albert
Life is not a problem to be solved. It is a mystery to be lived.
Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds.
Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world.
I was supposed to choose a practical profession, but this was simply unbearable to me.
I must be willing to give up what I am in order to become what I can be.
As long as there are kids and cookies and imaginations that will not be oppressed by the knowledge and rationality of the times, just maybe, goodness and beauty may prevail yet.
It is the supreme art of the teacher to awaken joy in creative expression and knowledge.
One cannot learn anything so well as by experiencing it oneself.
Unthinking respect for authority is the greatest enemy of truth.
For the rest of my life I want to reflect on what light is.
Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better.
In every difficulty lies opportunity.
The most beautiful experience we can have is the mysterious; it is the fundamental emotion which stands at the cradle of true art and true science.
Eliot, George
Friendship is the inexpressible comfort of feeling safe with a person, having neither to weigh thoughts nor measure words.
Emerson, Ralph Waldo
Though we travel the world over to find the beautiful, we must carry it with us or we find it not.
Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind.
Our life is an apprenticeship to the truth that around every circle another can be drawn, that there is no end in nature, but every end is a beginning.
Every artist was first an amateur.
Hitch your wagon to a star.
Adopt the pace of nature; her secret is patience.
What lies before us and what lies behind us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us.
Scatter joy.
Life wastes itself whilst we are preparing to live.
Life is a series of surprises and would not be worth taking or keeping if it were not.
Make the most of yourself, for that is all there is of you.
To finish the moment, to find the journey’s end in every step of the road, to live the greatest number of good hours, is wisdom.
Exupery, Antoine de Saint
It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye. (The Little Prince)
A goal without a plan is just a wish.
Fosdick, H.E.
I would rather live in a world where my life is surrounded by mystery than live in a world so small my mind could comprehend it.
Franklin, Ben
If principle is good for anything, it is worth living up to.
Take time for all things; great haste makes great waste.
One who will have patience can have what he will.
Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy.
If you love life, don’t waste time; because time is what life is made of.
Frost, Robert
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I – I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference.
Freedom lies in being bold.
Fuller, Buckminster
There is nothing in a caterpillar that tells you it’s going to be a butterfly.
Gandhi, Mahatma
We must be the change we wish to see in the world.
Strength does not come from physical capacity. It comes from an indomitable will.
To forget how to dig the earth and to tend the soil is to forget ourselves.
There is no love where there is no will.
What you do may seem insignificant, but it is very important that you do it.
An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind.
Gates, Bill
Sometimes you just have to trust your intuition.
Gibran, Kahlil
Marriage is the golden ring in a chain whose beginning is a glance and whose ending is eternity.
Keep your heart in wonder at the daily miracles of your life.
Love one another, but make not a bond of love: Let is rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls.
Work is love made visible.
Yesterday is but today’s memory and tomorrow is today’s dream.
Your children are not your children. They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself.
Beauty is not in the face, beauty is a light in the heart.
Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von
Just trust yourself, then you will know how to live.
Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it.
Nothing is more highly to be prized the value of each day.
Talent is nurtured in solitude; character is formed in the stormy billows of the world.
The tree that would grow strong must send its roots down deep.
Gordon, Julius
Love is not blind – it sees more, not less. But because it seems more it is willing to see less.
Gretzsky, Wayne
You miss 100% of the shots you never take.
Hemingway, Ernest
One cat just leads to another.
Never mistake motion for action.
The world breaks everyone and afterward many are stronger at the broken places.
There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed to death.
It is good to have an end to journey towards, but it is the journey that matters in the end.
Hendrix, Jimi
When the power of love overcomes the love of power, the world will know peace.
Knowledge speaks, but wisdom listens.
Excuse me while I kiss the sky.
Henley, William E.
I am the master of my fate; I am the captain of my soul.
Heraclitus
Nothing endures but change…It is not possible to step twice in the same river.
Holmes, Ernest
When we find good in everything, we shall receive good from everything.
Holmes, Oliver Wendel
A mind that is stretched to a new idea never returns to its original dimension.
Alas for those who never sing, and die with all their music in them!
Hugo, Victor
Nothing is as powerful as an idea whose time has come.
James, William
I will act as if what I do makes a difference.
The art of being wise if the art of knowing what to overlook.
Jameson, Storm
Happiness comes of the capacity to feel deeply, to enjoy simply, to think freely, to risk life, to be needed.
Jefferson, Thomas
I am a great believer in luck. The harder I work the more I have of it.
On matters of style, swim with the current. On matters of principle, stand like a rock.
It is in our lives and not our words, that our religion must be read.
Jung, Carl
What great thing ever came into existence that was not first fantasy?
Kahlo, Frida
I paint my own reality. The only thing I know is that I paint because I need to.
Keller, Helen
The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched. They must be felt with the heart.
Alone we can do so little, together we can do so much.
Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in nature…Life is either a daring adventure or nothing.
Kennedy, Edward M. (Ted)
The work goes on, the cause endures, the hope still lives, and the dream shall never die.
Kierkegaard, Soren
Life can only be understood backwards, but it must be lived forwards.
King, Jr., Martin Luther
Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.
It is always the right time to do the right thing.
The moral arc of the universe is long, but it bends towards justice.
Lao Tzu
At the center of your being you have the answer; you know who you are and you know what you want.
A journey of a thousand miles must begin with a single step.
Existence is infinite, not to be defined.
Leopold, Aldo
Only a mountain has lived long enough to listen objectively to the howl of the wolf.
There are some who can live without wild things and sunsets, and some who cannot.
Lincoln, Abraham
I will prepare myself and my opportunity will come.
Let us have faith that right makes might.
I am a success today because I had a friend who believed in me, and I didn’t have the heart to let him down.
People are about as happy as they make up their minds to be.
Luta, Hulali
Good friends are like stars. You don’t always see them, but you always know they’re there.
Luther, Martin
There is no more lovely, friendly and charming relationship, communion or company than a good marriage.
Mandela, Nelson
Many things seem impossible until they are done.
You were born to manifest the glory of God that is within us. It’s not just in some of us; it’s in everyone.
Mason, John
You’re born an original. Don’t die a copy.
McAuliffe, Christa
I touch the future. I teach.
Mead, Margaret
Never doubt that a group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.
Merton, Thomas
We are so obsessed with doing that we have no time and no imagination left for being.
A tree gives glory to God by being a tree.
Michelangelo
I saw the angel in the marble, and I just chiseled ‘til I set him free.
Mohammed
One’s true wealth is the good he does in this world.
More, Sir Thomas
You cannot abandon the ship in the storm because you cannot control the winds.
Mother Theresa
Love is a fruit in season at all times, and with reach of every hand.
I have found the paradox that if I love until it hurts, then there is no hurt, only more love.
Muir, John
Climb the mountains and get their good tidings. Nature’s peace will flow into you as sunshine flows into trees.
In God’s wildness lies the hope of the world – the great fresh, unblighted, unredeemed wilderness.
Newton, Isaac
If I see father than others, it is because I stood on the shoulders of Giants.
Niebuhr, Reinhold
God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference. (Serenity Prayer)
Nietzsche, Friedrich
One must still have chaos in one, to give birth to a dancing star.
Without music, life would be a mistake.
Speak your truth… All suppressed truths become poisonous.
Beauty’s voice speaketh gently: it appealeth only to the most awakened souls.
One must know how to be a sponge if one would be loved by overflowing hearts.
Be careful when you fight the monsters, lest you become one.
Is it better to out-monster the monster, or be quietly devoured?
Is not life a hundred times too short for us to bore ourselves?
What else is love but understanding and rejoicing in the fact that another person lives, acts, and experiences otherwise than we do?
Nin, Anais
And the day came when the risk it took to remain tight inside the bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.
Obama, Barack
There is no challenge too great for a world that stands as one.
Together, ordinary people can do extraordinary things.
We have a stake in one another…What binds us together is greater than what drives us apart.
We are all meant to shine.
Orwell, George
In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act.
Osler, Sir William
Laughter is the music of life.
Otto, Herbert
Loving is the best way to celebrate living.
Paine, Thomas
The world is my country, all mankind are my brethren, and to do good is my religion.
Pearce, Joseph Chilton
To live a creative life, we must lose our fear of being wrong.
Picasso, Pablo
In art there is room for all possibilities.
Painting is just another way of keeping a diary.
Plato
To risk nothing is to risk everything.
Those having torches will pass them on to others.
Proust, Marcel
The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes.
Proverb
If you want to travel fast, go alone. If you want to travel far, go together. (African)
One who sings prays twice. (Chinese)
To know and not to do is not to know. (Chinese)
Better to light a candle than to curse the darkness. (Chinese)
When the people lead, the leaders will follow. (Chinese)
Keep your daubers up! (English)
Use soft words and hard arguments. (English)
When you walk your talk, people listen. (German)
To learn, read. To know, write. To master, teach.
Go and wake up your luck. (Irish)
You’ve got to do your own growing, no matter how tall your grandfather was. (Irish)
A long life may not be good enough, but a good life is long enough. (Jewish)
Learn as if you were to live forever, live as if you were to die tomorrow. (Jewish)
We must make up for the threatened brevity of life by heightening the intensity of life. (Jewish)
Toss your cares upon the wind, and let the sun rise in your heart. (Native American)
May the warm winds of heaven blow softly upon you and each new day bring sunrise in your heart. (Native American – Cherokee)
We will be known by the tracks we leave behind. (Native American – Lakota)
We are the ones we have been waiting for. (Native American – Hopi)
We can only be what we give ourselves the power to be. (Native American – Cherokee)
There is no way to Peace. Peace is the way. (Quaker)
Yesterday is but a dream, and tomorrow is only a vision, but today well lived makes every yesterday a dream of happiness and every tomorrow a vision of hope. (Sufi)
No matter how far you have gone on a wrong road, turn back. (Turkish)
Leap, and the net will appear. (Zen)
Purkey, William
Dance like no one is watching, love like you’ll never be hurt, sing like no one is listening, live like it’s heaven on earth.
Rimbeck, M.L.
Happiness is not a state to arrive at, but a manner of travel.
Rogers, Will
Even if you’re on the right track, you’ll get run over if you just sit there.
If you’ve done it, it ain’t braggin’.
Roosevelt, Eleanor
The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.
Many people will walk in and out of your life, but only true friends leave footprints in your heart.
To handle yourself, use your head; to handle others, use your heart.
Learn from the mistakes of others. You can’t live long enough to make them all yourself.
Roosevelt, Franklin
The only limit to our realization of tomorrow will be our doubts of today.
Repetition does not transform a lie into the truth.
When you get to the end of your rope, tie a knot and hand on.
Roosevelt, Theodore
It is hard to fail, but it is worse to never have tried.
Far and away the best prize that life offers is the chance to work hard at work worth doing.
Rumi
Look for the answer within the question.
Yesterday I was clever, so I wanted to change the world. Today I am wise, so I am changing myself.
Ruskin, John
The highest reward for one’s toil is not what he gets for it, but what he becomes by it.
Saint Francis of Assisi
Start by doing what’s necessary, then what’s possible, and suddenly you’re doing the impossible.
Do not lose your inward peace for anything whatsoever.
Samuels, David
Kindness is no common virtue. It is a rare gift.
Sand, George
Life shared among people who love each other is the ideal of happiness.
Schultz, Charles
All you need is love. But a little chocolate now and then doesn’t hurt.
Scully, Frank
Why not go out on a limb? Isn’t that where the fruit is?
Seneca
Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity.
Seuss, Dr.
You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes. You can steer yourself any direction you choose.
Shakespeare, William
This, above all, to thine own self be true.
A light heart lives long.
The earth has music for those who listen.
One touch of nature makes the whole world kin.
Shaw, George Bernard
I want to be thoroughly used up when I die, for the harder I work the more I live.
Progress is impossible without change, and those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything.
Shedd, William
A ship is safe at harbor – but that’s not what ships are for.
Socrates
To find yourself, think for yourself.
Endeavor to be what you desire to appear.
Let him that would move the world, first move himself.
Know thyself.
Stevenson, Robert Louis
There is no duty we so underrate as the duty of being happy.
Teasdale, Sara
I make the most of all that comes and the least of all that goes.
Thaxter, Celia
There shall be eternal summer in the grateful heart.
Thoreau, Henry David
If one does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him stop to the music which he hears, however measured or far away.
Our lives are frittered away by detail… Simplify, simplify.
Time is but the stream I go a-fishing in.
If one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours.
In the long run, men hit only what they aim at.
I love a broad margin to my life.
Do what you love. Know your own bone; gnaw at it, bury it, unearth it, and gnaw it still.
What good is a house, if you haven’t a got a decent planet to put it on?
I listen from time to time to hear the hounds of silence baying at the moon… A night in which the silence was audible, I heard the unspeakable.
In wildness is the preservation of the world.
Tolkien, J.R.R.
The Road goes ever on and on, down from the road where it began.
All that we have to decide it what to do with the time that is given to us.
Twain, Mark
I never let my schooling interfere with my education.
Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear – not absence of fear.
Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream.
All life demands change, variety, contrast—else there is small zest to it.
Ulrich, Laurel Thatcher
Well-behaved women rarely make history.
Unknown Author
Blessed are those that can laugh at themselves, for they shall never cease to be amused.
When in doubt, make art.
As you wander on through life, whatever be your goal, keep your eye upon the donut, not upon the hole.
Worry is imagination misplaced.
Take some time to be alone, to see what thy soul doth wear.
If it wasn’t for coffee, I’d have no personality whatsoever.
Van Dyke, Henry
Use what talents you possess: the woods would be very silent if no birds sang there except those that sing best.
Van Gogh, Vincent
I am seeking, I am striving. I am in it with all my heart.
What would life be if we had no courage to attempt anything?
Warhol, Andy
They always say time changes things, but you actually have to change them yourself.
West, Mae
You only live once, but if you do it right, once is enough.
Whitefield, George
It is better to wear out than to rust out.
Whitman, Walt
The powerful play goes on and you may contribute a verse… What shall your verse be?
Re-examine all you have been told. Dismiss what insults your soul.
Wiesel, Elie
Peace is our gift to each other.
Wilde, Oscar
Be yourself, everyone else is already taken.
To love oneself is the beginning of a life-long romance.
Your soul grows sick with longing for the things it has forbidden itself.
Williams, Ted
Just keep going. Everybody gets better if they keep at it.
Wooden, John
Don’t let what you cannot do interfere with what you can do.
Ability may get you to the top, but it takes character to keep you there.
It’s what you learn after you know it all that counts.
Wright, Frank Lloyd
The longer I live the more beautiful live becomes.
The truth is more important than the facts.
Yeats, William
Education is not filling a bucket, it is lighting a fire.
Yoda
Do, or do not. There is no try.
Luminous beings are we; not this crude matter.