c2p-cmd/Good-Quotes-Authors huggingface dataset:
In order to grow, I promise you'll have to let go of some habits. 10 times out of 10, they'll be the habits you're most in love with.
— Brandi L. Bates, Remains To Be Seen
The way into the hall of success always passes through the chamber of decision. Decide to be a success
—  success is deliberate!
Perhaps my greatest wisdom is the knowledge that I do not know.
— John Steinbeck, Travels with Charley: In Search of America
It is of the greatest important in this world that a man should know himself, and the measure of his own strength and means; and he who knows that he has not a genius for fighting must learn how to govern by the arts of peace.
— Niccolò Machiavelli
Wisdom is when you understand what, previously, at best you only knew.
— Idries Shah, Observations
Free will is the cutting edge of Creation, don’t you see? The word spontaneity derives from the Latin sponte, meaning ‘of one’s free will.’ Spontaneity is the impulse, the purest expression of freedom, and the impulse wants to do whatever it wants to do. But you are afraid of what others think, others who are just as afraid of what you think, and so you pussyfoot along the perimeter of the free-will zone, wilting like a wallflower.
— Tony Vigorito
Experience is never at bargain price.
— Alice B. Toklas, The Alice B. Toklas Cookbook
One who never anticipates deceit or expects duplicity, and yet is the first to recognize such things – is that not a sage indeed?
— Confucius, The Analects
I am not one who was born with great wisdom. I love the ancients and diligently seek wisdom among them.
— Confucius, The Analects
One must not make too much of anything in life, good or bad.
— Joseph Conrad, The Shadow-Line
The mind has a definite way of clothing one's thoughts in appropriate physical equivalents. Think in terms of poverty and you will live in poverty. Think in terms of opulence and you will attract opulence. Through the eternal law of harmonious attraction, one's thoughts always clothe themselves in material things appropriate unto their nature.
— Napoleon Hill, You Can Work Your Own Miracles
Women don't like to be told what to do. They like to be the ones telling us what to do. You want her to do something, you're gonna have to go about it a different way.
— Cambria Hebert, #Hater
Pride, cowardice, and miserliness are bad for me but good for women
— Ali R.A
Opportunity is swift of flight but slow to return.
— Ali R.A
Compromise, if not the spice of life, is its solidity. It is what makes nations great and marriages happy
— Phyllis McGinley
An almost perfect relationship with his father was the earthly root of all his wisdom. From his own father, he said, he first learned that Fatherhood must be at the core of the universe. [speaking of George MacDonald]
— C.S. Lewis, Phantastes
humility is beyond our reach. if it were a product of reaching, we would instinctively be proud of reaching it. it is a gift.
— John Piper
In friendship, bond not with a shallow man.
— Ueda Akinari, Tales of Moonlight and Rain
The question to ask is what will satisfy you? What will bring you peace? And perhaps the answer to those is in asking yourself when you were last happy.
— Eleanor Brown, The Weird Sisters
To say that a being who is sentient has no interest in continuing to live is like saying that a being with eyes has no interest in continuing to see. Death—however “humane”—is a harm for humans and nonhumans alike.
— Gary L. Francione
Do things for people not because of who they are or what they do in return, but because of who you are
— Harold S. Kushner
You can bail water 24/7, and no matter how good you are at not sinking, you still have a hole in your boat.
— Kelli Jae Baeli, Crossing Paths
Creating a better futureRequires creativity in the present.
— Matthew Goldfinger
The good and wise lead quite lives
— Euripides
I reject animal welfare reform and single-issue campaigns because they are not only inconsistent with the claims of justice that we should be making if we really believe that animal exploitation is wrong, but because these approaches cannot work as a practical matter. Animals are property and it costs money to protect their interests; therefore, the level of protection accorded to animal interests will always be low and animals will, under the best of circumstances, still be treated in ways that would constitute torture if applied to humans.By endorsing welfare reforms that supposedly make exploitation more “compassionate” or single-issue campaigns that falsely suggest that there is a coherent moral distinction between meat and dairy or between fur and wool or between steak and foie gras, we betray the principle of justice that says that all sentient beings are equal for purposes of not being used exclusively as human resources. And, on a practical level, we do nothing more than make people feel better about animal exploitation.
— Gary L. Francione
Animals are property. There are laws that supposedly protect animal interestsin being treated “humanely,” but that term is interpreted in large part to mean that we cannot impose “unnecessary” harm on animals, and that is measured by what treatment is considered as necessary within particular industries, and according to customs of use, to exploit animals. The bottom line is that animals do not have any respect-based rights in the way that humans have, because we do not regard animals as having any moral value. They have only economic value. We value their interests economically, and we ignore their interests when it is economically beneficial for us to do so.At this point in time, it makes no sense to focus on the law, because as long as we regard animals as things, as a moral matter, the laws will necessarily reflect that absence of moral value and continue to do nothing to protect animals. We need to change social and moral thinking about animals before the law is going to do anything more.
— Gary L. Francione
So it is always preferable to discuss the matter of veganism in a non-judgemental way. Remember that to most people, eating flesh or dairy and using animal products such as leather, wool, and silk, is as normal as breathing air or drinking water. A person who consumes dairy or uses animal products is not necessarily or usually what a recent and unpopular American president labelled an "evil doer.
— Gary L. Francione
Being aware is being aware of one's own mind and the games it plays on itself.
— Robin Macnaughton, Power Astrology:  Make The Most Of Your Sun Sign
The job of a writer is not to convey emotion but to invoke it.
— Eric T. Benoit
Knowledge & understanding mixed with ones convictions of 'experience' is hardly impositional". ~R. Alan Woods [2012]
— R. Alan Woods, The Journey Is The Destination: A Photo Journal
I learned from Jurassic Park that just because you can do something doesn’t mean you should.
— Christopher C. Starr
Make your ideal your new real.
— Derek Padula
Give not thyself up, then, to fire, lest it invert thee, deaden thee, as for the time it did me. There is a wisdom that is woe; but there is a woe that is madness.
— Herman Melville, Moby-Dick or, The Whale
you need power only to do something harmful.otherwise love is enough,compassion is enough.
— Osho
Are the great spiritual teachings really advocating that we fight evil because we are on the side of light, the side of peace? Are they telling us to fight against that other 'undesirable' side, the bad and the black. That is a big question. If there is wisdom in the sacred teachings, there should not be any war. As long as a person is involved with warfare, trying to defend or attack, then his action is not sacred; it is mundane, dualistic, a battlefield situation.
— Chögyam Trungpa, Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism
Don’t follow someone else’s map. You should glean teachings from all directions, keeping true to those that bring progress yet remaining open to changes in yourself.
— Deepak Chopra, The Book of Secrets: Unlocking the Hidden Dimensions of Your Life
There are those who know and those who don't know. And for every ten thousand who don't know there's only one who knows. That's the miracle of all time--the fact that these millions know so much but don't know this.
— Carson McCullers, The Heart is a Lonely Hunter
Follow your heart, Ithilnin," Albirich repeated. "Time is precious. Don't waste it living someone else's life.
— Jess C. Scott, The Darker Side of Life
Love, as life, is a journey. Finding true love for the ever after is an amazing achievement.
— Fadi Hattendorf
respect life,revere life.there is nothing more holy than life,nothing more divine than life.
— Osho
From the cradle to the grave, joy and pain is the fertilizer for wisdom.
— T.F. Hodge, From Within I Rise: Spiritual Triumph Over Death and Conscious Encounters with "The Divine Presence"
I think your vision gets better as you get older.
— Jennifer Donnelly, A Northern Light
I don't believe in worrying. It's a waste of energy.
— Malinda Lo, Huntress
Whenever ego suffers from fear of death & your practice turns to seeing impermanence, ego settles down.
— Tsoknyi Rinpoche, Carefree Dignity: Discourses on Training in the Nature of Mind
I did not know that mankind were suffering for want of gold. I have seen a little of it. I know that it is very malleable, but not so malleable as wit. A grain of gold will gild a great surface, but not so much as a grain of wisdom.
— Henry David Thoreau, Life Without Principle
Their mother is Athene, the goddess of wisdom, and, although they are often ready to play the buffoon to amuse you, such conduct is the prerogative of the truly wise.
— T.H. White, The Once and Future King
Be wise as a serpent and wary as a dove!
— Mark Twain
one should never assume anything
— Dick Francis, Crossfire
A guilty conscience is jealousy's playground.
— L. Quick
Who was to know what went on in a person's heart? A wise woman kept her own counsel.
— Donna Woolfolk Cross, Pope Joan
The friend is a human EdenBut Eden is so easily lostWhen you choose, choose wiselyBefore you share, count the cost
— Genieve Dawkins, The Turmoil Within
No one is ever going to give you something that they're too afraid to even claim for themselves. People don't know themselves, so they don't like to see other people figure it out and live their lives in ways that they themselves cannot. So they try to box you in, and limit you, so they don't feel inadequate. But you don't need their approval- the only person who ever, ever limits you is yourself.
— Danielle Jordan
The brillant person who does not take heed is the same as the ignorant who does not know.
— Debra E. Johnson
But the character of the music emphasized the tale as allegory--humorous, poignant, humane allegory--disclosing the metamorphosis of life itself, in which man moves from confident inexperience through the bitterness of experience, toward the rueful wisdom of self-knowledge.
— Robertson Davies, A Mixture of Frailties
The old continued to have one resurgence of foolishness after another, until the organism gave out altogether.
— Saul Bellow
all brave men love
—  for he only is brave who has affections to fight for.
Are you just gonna stare at Jack or are we gonna go?" Milo asked, poking his head into the bedroom.
— Amanda Hocking, Wisdom
You might say that you've finally earned the wisdom.Actually, it's the wisdom that has found and formed you.
— Toba Beta, Master of Stupidity
Perhaps a man really dies when his brain stops, when he loses the power to take in a new idea.
— George Orwell, Coming Up for Air
It is useful to study different traditions in order to be free of attachment to any one way of expressing what is beyond expression. (x)
— Ravi Ravindra, The Wisdom of Patanjali's Yoga Sutras: A New Translation and Guide by Ravi Ravindra
Tennis taught me so many lessons in life. One of the things it taught me is that every ball that comes to me, I have to make a decision. I have to accept responsibility for the consequences every time I hit a ball.
— Billie Jean King
To live content with small means; to seek elegance rather than luxury, and refinement rather than fashion; to be worthy, not respectable, and wealthy, not, rich; to listen to stars and birds, babes and sages, with open heart; to study hard; to think quietly, act frankly, talk gently, await occasions, hurry never; in a word, to let the spiritual, unbidden and unconscious, grow up through the common. this is my symphony.
— William Ellery Channing
To deny the reality of things is to miss their reality; to assert the emptiness of things is to miss their reality. The more you talk and think about it, the further astray you wander from the truth. Stop talking and thinking and there is nothing you will not be able to know.
— Sengcan, Hsin Hsin Ming
Whoever is full of wisdom is naturally compassionate; in fact we recognize that someone has gained spiritual wisdom by seeing their compassionate behavior. . . . Individuals and countries with power need to develop wisdom and compassion, for without these attributes, there is a danger that the power will be used to oppress and exploit others. (31)
— Ravi Ravindra, The Wisdom of Patanjali's Yoga Sutras: A New Translation and Guide by Ravi Ravindra
One true king knew when to step aside and give up the reins of power—to remove his crown and relinquish his kingdom—all for the sake of glimpsing, just once in a lifetime, the face of a holy child.He was the Fourth to follow the Star.His gift was a secret.The rest of his journey is unknown.
— Vera Nazarian, The Perpetual Calendar of Inspiration
We are much beholden to Machiavelli and others, that write what men do, and not what they ought to do . For it is not possible to join serpentine wisdom with the columbine innocency, except men know exactly all the conditions of the serpent; his baseness and going upon his belly, his volubility and lubricity, his envy and sting, and the rest; that is, all forms and natures of evil. For without this, virtue lieth open and unfenced. Nay, an honest man can do no good upon those that are wicked, to reclaim them, without the help of the knowledge of evil.
— Francis Bacon
In examinations the foolish ask questions that the wise cannot answer.
— Oscar Wilde
To have opinions is to sell out to yourself. To have no opinion is to exist. To have every opinion is to be a poet.
— Fernando Pessoa, The Book of Disquiet
Any man who has got himself set over others and don't have any responsibility to something bigger than him is a son of a bitch.
— Oakley Hall, Warlock
When two wise men are blaming one another,then time has come for you to be the third one.
— Toba Beta, Master of Stupidity
The only way to heal yourself was to understand. Understand the love or the hate or the cowardice, or the impulsiveness, the lack of will of the one who hurt you--the circumstances that twisted them, the influences that warped them. And when you forgot yourself and saw the others with pitying comprehension, saw their tortured motives, a white, healing peace descended upon you. Your betrayal became an impersonal one, like a bridge giving way when you crossed it, lightning, a motor collision--you were in the way and you were damaged--that was all. It wasn't meant for you. When you understood, you were released into a new freedom and wisdom.
— Mary Schumann, Strong Enchantments
God teaches the soul by pains and obstacles, not by ideas.
— Jean-Pierre de Caussade, Abandonment to Divine Providence
Don't talk about love, But speak out of love cause most of the liars are only perfect of talking about nothing but passion & don't talk about justice, But speak out of justice cause most of the oppressors are only perfect of talking about nothing but rightness.
— Ibrahim Aslan
Right now, just speak gently your words of wisdom to the youngsters.Sooner or later, those words will arrive at the right place in their hearts.
— Toba Beta, My Ancestor Was an Ancient Astronaut
No shortcut to wisdom.No tollways to be wise.
— Toba Beta, My Ancestor Was an Ancient Astronaut
Do not ever go out of yourself because you will get lost even from your life.
— Sorin Cerin, Wisdom Collection: The Book of Wisdom
...freedom can be a full-time job if you let it.
— Pearl Cleage, Till You Hear from Me
Man will never reach the higher wisdom,If he can't yet accept the pain of change.
— Toba Beta, My Ancestor Was an Ancient Astronaut
. . . I had found the edge. The place where you unstrap all your fastenings to the earth, to what you are what you have been, where you flame out on the edge of the spheres, and the sun and moon become eclipsed and the world below is as dead and remote and without interest as if it were glazed with ice. 
— James Lee Burke, Black Cherry Blues
I wrote "David" because it seemed to me that children, who can love a book more passionately than any grown person, got such a lot of harmless entertainment and not enough real, valuable literature.
— Anne Holm
Like this cup, you are full of your own opinions and speculations. How can I show you wisdom unless you first empty your cup?
— Nyogen Senzaki
Insults sting but a little when they stem from a man's ignorance.
— Susan Wiggs, At the King's Command
To be beyond yourself is the gate to wisdom. 
— Sorin Cerin
If we deny the thirst of love, we stand to lose the last known address of the stranger whithin us. 
— Sorin Cerin
Vulnerability really means to be strong and secure enough within yourself that you are able to walk outside without your armor on. You are able to show up in life as just you. That is genuine strength and courage. Armor may look tough, but all it does is mask insecurity and fear.
— Alaric Hutchinson, Living Peace
If a serious statement is defined as one that may be made in terms of waking life, poetry will never rise to the level of seriousness. It lies beyond seriousness, on that more primitive and original level where the child, the animal, the savage, and the seer belong, in the region of dream, enchantment, ecstasy, laughter. To understand poetry we must be capable of donning the child's soul like a magic cloak and of forsaking man's wisdom for the child's.
— Johan Huizinga, Homo Ludens: A Study of the Play-Element in Culture
Relationships are steppingstones for the evolution of our consciousness. Each interaction we have, be it one of joy or contrast, allows us to learn more about who we are and what we want in this lifetime. They bring us into greater alignment…as long as we continue to move forward and do not get attached to hurt, anger, or being a victim.
— Alaric Hutchinson, Living Peace
The possibility of the dream gives strength.
— Lailah Gifty Akita, Pearls of  Wisdom: Great  mind
Expectation has brought me disappointment. Disappointment has brought me wisdom. Acceptance, gratitude and appreciation have brought me joy and fulfilment.
— Rasheed Ogunlaru
Love is being able to view a situation without adding duality to it.
— Alaric Hutchinson, Living Peace
Wenn du weißt, behaupte, dass du es weißt. Und wenn du etwas nicht weißt, gib zu, dass du es nicht weißt. Das ist Wissen.
— Confucius
A primary requirement in every enterprise in habit-formation is self-confidence.
— Ralph Alfred Habas, The Art of Self-Control
We don't notice things change. We know that things change, we've been told since childhood that things change, we've witnessed things change ourselves many a time, and yet we're still utterly incapable of noticing the moment that change comes--or we search for change in all the wrong places.
— Arkady Strugatsky
Whoever lost the truth has lost him/her self. 
— Sorin Cerin
For what are in reality the things we call ‘Wisdom,’ ‘Virtue,’ ‘Heroism,’ ‘sublime hours,’ and ‘great moments of life,’ but the moments when we have more or less issued forth from ourselves, and have been able to halt, be it only for an instant, on the step of one of the eternal gates whence we see that the faintest cry, the most colourless thought, and most nerveless gestures do not drop into nothingness; …
— Maurice Maeterlinck, The Treasure of the humble
The perfection of wisdom, and the end of true philosophy is to proportion our wants to our possessions, our ambitions to our capacities, we will then be a happy and a virtuous people.
— Mark Twain
We can't just restrict ourselves to what we know, because we are talking about the unknown.
— Belsebuub
Never underestimate yourself when you do what is right. Never overestimate yourself when you do what is wrong.
— Roy  Bennett
Love is supposed to lift you up, not hold you down. It is supposed to push you forward, not hold you back.
— Suzy Kassem, Rise Up and Salute the Sun: The Writings of Suzy Kassem
Guts are important. Your guts are what digest things. But it is your brains that tell you which things to swallow and which not to swallow.
— Austin Dacey
Die Welt ist von Narren geschaffen, damit Weise in ihr Leben.
— Oscar Wilde, A Woman of No Importance
When we choose to stay down, we are in reality confusing wisdom with cowardice. When we choose to stand back up, we are using wisdom to overcome cowardice.
— Craig D. Lounsbrough
It is much better to die of hunger unhindered by grief and fear than to live affluently beset with worry, dread, suspicion and unchecked desire.
— Epictetus
Silence at the proper season is wisdom, and better than any speech.
— Plutarch
God grant ... that he may learn to understand in time, that whoso is minded to do as he himself wills will soon enough see the day when he will find he has done that which he had never willed.
— Sigrid Undset, The Axe
You were not just blessed for yourself,your were blessed to be a blessing toothers.
— Ifeanyi Enoch Onuoha
The greatest solution of all is to live and work in partnership with yourself, your family and friends, your work and community, your nation, your world, nature, and spirit.
— Marc Allen, The Millionaire Course: A Visionary Plan for Creating the Life of Your Dreams
Wisdom must yield to superstition's rules,Who arms with bigot zeal the hand of fools.
— Voltaire, Candide and The Maid of Orleans
I don't know what to say to fill the silence. I don't know how to fix this. It seems wrong to leave him, but I have to. There's no compromise, no alternative. Things just weren't meant to be, which seems like a pansy-ass thing to say, until it happens to you.
— H.M. Ward, The Arrangement 8: The Ferro Family
His strength for your weakness! His wisdom for your folly! His drive for your drift! His grace for your greed! His love for your lust! His peace for your problems! His joy for your sorrow! His plenty for your poverty!
— Major Thomas
I see at last that all the knowledgeI wrung from the darkness—that the darkness flung me—Is worthless as ignorance: nothing comes from nothing,The darkness from the darkness. Pain comes from the darknessAnd we call it wisdom. It is pain.
— Randall Jarrell, The Complete Poems
To struggle against darkness is not to blunder ignorantly
—  intelligence is needed to generate right action.
Hold fast to dreams, for if dreams die, life is a broken-winged bird that cannot fly.
— Langston Hughes
Wisdom is not having God's perspective of the whole matter before us, but having God's perspective about what next response will honor Him while keeping us still usable to Him.
— Jim Berg, Changed Into His Image
We always need a motivation, in order for us to meet our full potential at work.
— Jayson Engay
A spoon does not know the taste of soup, nor a learned fool the taste of wisdom.
— Anonymous
People who actually have good advice seldom give it voluntarily, instead others seek them out for it. They do not shove it down people's throats just to boost their exaggerated sense of importance.
— JJ Matebesi
Wise random strangers at bars are modern-day Oracles of Delphi, except drunk and sometimes leaving abruptly when it's their turn for karaoke.
— Kelly Williams Brown, Adulting: How to Become a Grown-up in 468 Easy(ish) Steps
a problem well put is half solved.
— John Dewey
Selfishness and greed, individual or national, cause most of our troubles.
— Harry Truman
truth, like gold, is to be obtained not by its growth, but by washing away from it all that is not gold.
— Leo Tolstoy
If you are what you eat, you are what you see and hear.
— E.A. Bucchianeri, Brushstrokes of a Gadfly
Yes, Kālāmas, it is proper that your have doubt, that you have perplexity, for a doubt has arisen in a matter which is doubtful. Now, look you Kālāmas, do not be led by reports, or traditions, or hearsay. Be not led by the authority of religious texts, not by the delight in speculative opinions, nor by seeming possibilities, not by the idea: 'this is our teacher'. But, O Kālāmas, when you know for yourself that certain things are unwholesome, and wrong, and bad, then give them up... And when you know for yourself that certain things are wholesome and good, then accept them and follow them.
— Gautama Buddha
A soul that is kind and intends justice discovers more than any sophist
— Sophocles
We think a wise person is someone who solves problems. Truth is, a wise person is someone who avoids problems.
— Prem Rawat
Between the natural way and the path of grace there is a deep abyss. It is in that gap that we live our lives as a giant struggle between good and evil, Satan and God, despair and love. Whenever despair wins, it is the natural way. Whenever love wins, it is a moment of grace. When love is victorious and defeats despair completely, you've reached the path of grace.
— Haim Shapira, על הדברים החשובים באמת
After the final no there comes a yes / And on that yes the future world depends.
— Wallace Stevens
Wisdom comes from reflection.
— Deborah Day, BE HAPPY NOW!
There's always something when you're at fault, too, and that fault you must discover and learn to recognize and take the consequences of it.
— Anne Holm, I Am David
One is often so busy doing life that it is easy to avoid evaluating whether you are putting your energy in the direction you value most.
— Deborah Day
But Johannes had said, "Politeness is something you owe other people, because when you show a little courtesy, everything becomes easier and better. But first and foremost, it's something you owe yourself. You are David.
— Anne Holm, I Am David
A fool can easily be known(identified) by what proceeds from his or her mouth.
— Adedayo kingjerry
Indeed if fish had fish-lore and Wise-fish, it is probable that the business of anglers would be very little hindered.
— J.R.R. Tolkien, Morgoth's Ring
Flattery is like cologne water, to be smelt of, not swallowed.
— Josh Billings
You call forth the world which God has formed and that world only. Nor is this life of yours by which you set such store your doing, however you may choose to tell it. Its shape was forced in the void at the onset and all talk of what might otherwise have been is senseless for there is no otherwise. Of what could it be made? Where be hid? Or how make its appearance? The probability fo the actual is absolute. That we have no power to guess it out beforehand makes it no less certain. That we may imagine alternate histories means nothing at all.
— Cormac McCarthy, Cities of the Plain
Anyone with half a mind could see that," said Tiffany.Miss Tick sighed. "Yes. But sometimes it's so hard to find half a mind when you need one.
— Terry Pratchett
Entering a cell, penetrating deep as a flying saucer to find a new galaxy would be an honorable task for a new scientist interested more in the inner state of the soul than in outer space.
— Dejan Stojanovic
Feel not obliged to make good use of every ripe fruit on the vine.
— Kathryn  Hall, Plant Whatever Brings You Joy: Blessed Wisdom from the Garden
Seek out your superiors and learn from them. Do not hide nor shy away from them for the sake of your pride for true pride is perceived, not in perceived skill, but in improvement.
— Megan  Webster
A wise man is able to differentiate between humility and weakness, he does not mistake courage for pride.
— Newton Gatambia
The man who makes everything that leads to happiness depends upon himself, and not upon other men, has adopted the very best plan for living happily. This is the man of moderation, the man of manly character and of wisdom.
— Plato
...when you put on your shortest dress, please leave some mystery in it. That's the difference between a miniskirt and a ho-skirt. A ho-skirt shows your Frisbee. A miniskirt shows just enough to cause some mystery. What these young women lack is mystery.
— Tyler Perry, Don't Make a Black Woman Take Off Her Earrings: Madea's Uninhibited Commentaries on Love and Life
How will you go about finding that thing the nature of which is totally unknown to you?" (Plato) The things we want are transformative, and we don’t know or only think we know what is on the other side of that transformation. Love, wisdom, grace, inspiration- how do you go about finding these things that are in some ways about extending the boundaries of the self into unknown territory, about becoming someone else?
— Rebecca Solnit, A Field Guide to Getting Lost
Any serious social, political, and economic change must include veganism.
— Gary L. Francione
We shouldn't have been so scornful; we should have had compassion. But compassion takes work, and we were young.
— Margaret Atwood, The Year of the Flood
You cannot live a nonviolent life as long as you are consuming violence. Please consider going vegan.
— Gary L. Francione
Don’t hide what you have just because people tell you it’s not normal. I have known normal people…and guess what? They are as boring as hell...
— Sidney Knight
Speciesism is morally objectionable because, like racism, sexism, and heterosexism, it links personhood with an irrelevant criterion. Those who reject speciesism are committed to rejecting racism, sexism, heterosexism, and other forms of discrimination as well.
— Gary L. Francione
The knowing ones must have pity on the ignorant.One who knows is willing to give up his body even for an ant,because he knows that the body is nothing.
— Swami Vivekananda
If we take the position that an assessment that veganism is morally preferable to vegetarianism is not possible because we are all “on our own journey,” then moral assessment becomes completely impossible or is speciesist. It is impossible because if we are all “on our own journey,” then there is nothing to say to the racist, sexist, anti-semite, homophobe, etc. If we say that those forms of discrimination are morally bad, but, with respect to animals, we are all “on our own journey” and we cannot make moral assessments about, for instance, dairy consumption, then we are simply being speciesist and not applying the same moral analysis to nonhumans that we apply to the human context.
— Gary L. Francione
The notion that we should promote “happy” or “humane” exploitation as “baby steps” ignores that welfare reforms do not result in providing significantly greater protection for animal interests; in fact, most of the time, animal welfare reforms do nothing more than make animal exploitation more economically productive by focusing on practices, such as gestation crates, the electrical stunning of chickens, or veal crates, that are economically inefficient in any event. Welfare reforms make animal exploitation more profitable by eliminating practices that are economically vulnerable. For the most part, those changes would happen anyway and in the absence of animal welfare campaigns precisely because they do rectify inefficiencies in the production process. And welfare reforms make the public more comfortable about animal exploitation. The “happy” meat/animal products movement is clear proof of that. We would never advocate for “humane” or "happy” human slavery, rape, genocide, etc. So, if we believe that animals matter morally and that they have an interest not only in not suffering but in continuing to exist, we should not be putting our time and energy into advocating for “humane” or “happy” animal exploitation.
— Gary L. Francione
Science says the first word on everything, and the last word on nothing.
— Victor Hugo
If we still advise we shall never do.
— Elizabeth I, Collected Works
There are some animal advocates who say that to maintain that veganism is the moral baseline is objectionable because it is “judgmental,” or constitutes a judgment that veganism is morally preferable to vegetarianism and a condemnation that vegetarians (or other consumers of animal products) are “bad” people. Yes to the first part; no to the second. There is no coherent distinction between flesh and other animal products. They are all the same and we cannot justify consuming any of them. To say that you do not eat flesh but that you eat dairy or eggs or whatever, or that you don’t wear fur but you wear leather or wool, is like saying that you eat the meat from spotted cows but not from brown cows; it makers no sense whatsoever. The supposed “line” between meat and everything else is just a fantasy–an arbitrary distinction that is made to enable some exploitation to be segmented off and regarded as “better” or as morally acceptable. This is not a condemnation of vegetarians who are not vegans; it is, however, a plea to those people to recognize their actions do not conform with a moral principle that they claim to accept and that all animal products are the result of imposing suffering and death on sentient beings. It is not a matter of judging individuals; it is, however, a matter of judging practices and institutions. And that is a necessary component of ethical living.
— Gary L. Francione
We should never present flesh as somehow morally distinguishable from dairy. To the extent it is morally wrong to eat flesh, it is as morally wrong — and possibly more morally wrong — to consume dairy
— Gary L. Francione
If we are ever going to see a paradigm shift, we have to be clear about how we want the present paradigm to shift.We must be clear that veganism is the unequivocal baseline of anything that deserves to be called an “animal rights” movement. If “animal rights” means anything, it means that we cannot morally justify any animal exploitation; we cannot justify creating animals as human resources, however “humane” that treatment may be.We must stop thinking that people will find veganism “daunting” and that we have to promote something less than veganism. If we explain the moral ideas and the arguments in favor of veganism clearly, people will understand. They may not all go vegan immediately; in fact, most won’t. But we should always be clear about the moral baseline. If someone wants to do less as an incremental matter, let that be her/his decision, and not something that we advise to do. The baseline should always be clear. We should never be promoting “happy” or “humane” exploitation as morally acceptable.
— Gary L. Francione
An abolitionist is, as I have developed that notion, one who (1) maintains that we cannot justify animal use, however “humane” it may be; (2) rejects welfare campaigns that seek more “humane” exploitation, or single-issue campaigns that seek to portray one form of animal exploitation as morally worse than other forms of animal exploitation (e.g., a campaign that seeks to distinguish fur from wool or leather); and (3) regards veganism, or the complete rejection of the consumption or use of any animal products, as a moral baseline. An abolitionist regards creative, nonviolent vegan education as the primary form of activism, because she understands that the paradigm will not shift until we address demand and educate people to stop thinking of animals as things we eat, wear, or use as our resources.
— Gary L. Francione
Human nature is all alike.
— Mark Twain, Autobiography of Mark Twain, Vol. 1
Free thinker walks on shortcuts among wisdoms.
— Toba Beta, Betelgeuse Incident: Insiden Bait Al-Jauza
Guys willing to hold your dick are a dime a dozen
—  save your hearts for the one who wants to hold your hand.
I let all that anger and worry go because they don't belong to me any more than the future does. And I don't wanna feel them anyhow, because the truth is, whatever happens when this war ends, here and now, far from Richmond County, I'm freer than I've ever been.
— Teresa R. Funke, Dancing in Combat Boots
The rights paradigm, which, as I interpret it, morally requires the abolition of animal exploitation and requires veganism as a matter of fundamental justice, is radically different from the welfarist paradigm, which, in theory focuses on reducing suffering, and, in reality, focuses on tidying up animal exploitation at its economically inefficient edges. In science, those who subscribe to one paradigm are often unable to understand and engage those who subscribe to another paradigm precisely because the theoretical language that they use is not compatible.I think that the situation is similar in the context of the debate between animal rights and animal welfare. And that is why welfarists simply cannot understand or accept the slavery analogy.
— Gary L. Francione
Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge?Where is the knowledge we have lost in infomation?
— T.S. Eliot
A mind set in its ways is wasted. Don't do it.
— Eric Schmidt
Limitation of one's freedom might seem to be something negative and unpleasant, but love makes it a positive, joyful and creative thing. Freedom exists for the sake of love.
— John Paul II, Love and Responsibility
Those who have wisdom have all:Fools with all have nothing.
— Thiruvalluvar, Kural
You got up off the bathroom floor. That’s a start. Now, just stay off the floor. After all—aside from winning the lottery—all any of us can ever really hope for is more days spent standing tall than spent in pieces on the floor.
— Sarah Spann, Wildflowers Come Back
Men grow tired of sleep, love, singing and dancing, sooner than war.
— Homer
Yes - en I's rich now, come to look at it. I owns myself, en I's wuth eight hund'd dollars. I wisht I had de money, I wouldn' want no mo'.
— Mark Twain, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
We must accept the reality that the causes of impatience travel a two-way street.
— Allan Lokos, Patience: The Art of Peaceful Living
We are exactly where we have chosen to be.
— Vernon Howard
Children are the closest we have to wisdom, and they become adults the moment that final drop of everything mysterious is strained from them.
— Simon Van Booy, Love Begins in Winter: Five Stories
The art of peaceful living comes down to living compassionately & wisely.
— Allan Lokos, Patience: The Art of Peaceful Living
The ultimate difference between God's wisdom and man's wisdom is how they relate to the glory of God's grace in Christ crucified. God's wisdom makes the glory of God's grace our supreme treasure. But man's wisdom delights in seeing himself as resourceful, self-sufficient, self determining, and not utterly dependent on God's free grace.
— John Piper, Think: The Life of the Mind and the Love of God
To tell others thatIt is a rumor Will not do. When your own heart asks How will you respond?
— Gosen Wakashū
Patience is a natural consequence of the cultivation of compassion & love, for ourselves and all beings.
— Allan Lokos, Patience: The Art of Peaceful Living
Let us be sure that the lady of our choice possesses certain tangible qualities that we admire; and if in other ways she falls short of our ideal, we must be patient and call to mind those qualities that first induced us to begin our courting.
— Murasaki Shikibu
Authoritarian, paralyzing, circular, occasionally elliptical stock phrases, also jocularly referred to as nuggets of wisdom, are a malignant plague, one of the very worst ever to ravage the earth.
— José Saramago, The Cave
It takes 43 muscles to frown and 3 to raise the middle finger.
— Mariel
Only to the degree that people have what they need, that they are healthy and unafraid, that their lives are varied, interesting, meaningful, productive, joyous, can we begin to judge, or even guess, their nature. Few people, adults or children, now live such lives.
— John Holt, Instead of Education: Ways to Help People Do Things Better
Silence will speakIf given an ear
— Stillness is the movementOf our atmosphere
The essence of successful discipline is not technique; rather, it is self-confidence.
— John Rosemond, A Family of Value
CAN is the enemy of DO.
— Alaina Odessa
Only be rebellious for good reasons.
— Hannah B (Who is rebellious for everything)
Desire is the seed of potential.
— Alaina Odessa
I hate wise men because they are lazy, cowardly, and prudent. To the philosophers' equanimity, which makes them indifferent to both pleasure and pain, I prefer devouring passions. The sage knows neither the tragedy of passion, nor the fear of death, nor risk and enthusiasm, nor barbaric, grotesque, or sublime heroism. He talks in proverbs and gives advice. He does not live, feel, desire, wait for anything. He levels down all the incongruities of life and then suffers the consequences. So much more complex is the man who suffers from limitless anxiety. The wise man's life is empty and sterile, for it is free from contradiction and despair. An existence full of irreconcilable contradictions is so much richer and creative. The wise man's resignation springs from inner void, not inner fire. I would rather die of fire than of void.
— Emil M. Cioran, On the Heights of Despair
men are undoubtedly more in danger from prosperity than from adversity. for when matters go smoothly, they flatter themselves, and are intoxicated by their success
— John Calvin
It takes a wise man to discover a wise man.
— Diogenes of Sinope
yet if you had a desire for good or beautiful thingsand your tongue were not concocting some evil to sayshame would not hold down your eyesbut rather you would speak about what is just
— Sappho, If Not, Winter: Fragments of Sappho
If it's knowledge and wisdom you want, then seek out the company of those who do real work for an honest purpose.
— Edward Abbey, Postcards from Ed: Dispatches and Salvos from an American Iconoclast
One hundred victories in one hundred battles is not the most skillful, subduing the other's military without battle is the most skillful.
— Sun Tzu
We are unknown to ourselves, we men of knowledge - and with good reason. We have never sought ourselves - how could it happen that we should ever find ourselves? It has rightly been said: "Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also"; our treasure is where the beehives of our knowledge are.
— Friedrich Nietzsche, On the Genealogy of Morals
... anyone can acquire wealth, the real art is giving it away.
— Daisy Goodwin, The American Heiress
The years I have squandered in puerile excitement, in going hither and thither, in seeking to force nature and time, I ought to have spent in solitude and meditation, in endeavoring to make myself worthy of being loved.
— Théophile Gautier, Mademoiselle de Maupin
Buddhism is all about science. If science is the systematic pursuit of the accurate knowledge of reality, then science is Buddhism, Buddhism is science.
— Robert A.F. Thurman, Why the Dalai Lama Matters: His Act of Truth as the Solution for China, Tibet, and the World
Vessels large may venture more, But little boats should keep near shore.
— Benjamin Franklin, The Way to Wealth
The best lessons learned are from other peoples mistakes.
— Melissa Bradley
There are three kind of history. The first is what really happened and that is forever lost. The second is what most people thought happened, and we can recover that with assiduous effort. The third is what the people in power wanted the future to think happened and that is 90 percent of the history in books.
— Michael Gruber, The Book of Air and Shadows
I want a man who knows something about himself. And is appalled. And has to forgive himself to get along.
— C.P. Snow, The Masters
I was headed for an entire life spent alone, pitying myself for not being more, ignoring all those people who actually ask me to be more, because they see it in me.
— Charles Yu, How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe
I would rather risk failure than achieve it without risk.
— Millard Johnson
It is a fool of a shepherd who culls his dogs.
— Jefferson Smith, Strange Places
Only those who row the boat make waves
— Christina Dodd, Some Enchanted Evening
To advance spiritually requires a method of practice & determination to carry it out.
— Allan Lokos, Pocket Peace: Effective Practices for Enlightened Living
That’s going to be your trouble — judgment about yourself.(Tender is the Night)
— F. Scott Fitzgerald
He brooded on how close destruction always was to all creatures, animals as well as humans, and he realized that there is nothing we can predict or know for certain in this world except death.
— Hermann Hesse, The Fairy Tales of Hermann Hesse
The dead to the grave, the living to the loaf.
— Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
L'homme qui n'a pas été anarchiste à seize ans est un imbécile. Mais c'en est un autre, s'il l'est encore à quarante.
— Georges Clémenceau
the only graceful way to accept an insult is to ignore it; if you cant ignore it, top it; if you cant top it, laugh at it; if you cant laugh at it, its probably deserved
— Russell Lynes
Don’t become bigoted about bigots.
— Scott Ross
Life is easy. We make it hard.
— Danny Wilson
I love my old paintings as postulates as fresh starting points but I have to destroy them. I have to make a new manifesto.
— Georg Baselitz
Es decir..., lo que yo creo es que el hombre piensa en el significado de la vida porque sabe con certeza que va morir algún día. (...) Nadie sabe lo que va a ocurrir. Por eso nosotros, para evolucionar necesitamos la muerte.
— Haruki Murakami, The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle
There is no dishonor in wisdom.
— James Welch
I do not expect old heads on young shoulders.
— C.S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters
One thing, all things: move among and intermingle, without distinction. To live in this realization is to be without anxiety about non-perfection. To live in this faith is the road to non-duality, because the non-dual is one with the trusting mind.
— Sengcan, Hsin Hsin Ming
For the unified mind in accord with the Way all self-centered striving ceases. Doubts and irresolutions vanish and life in true faith is possible. With a single stroke we are freed from bondage; nothing clings to us and we hold nothing. All is empty, clear, self-illuminating, with no exertion of the mind's power.
— Sengcan, Hsin Hsin Ming
When thought is in bondage the truth is hidden, for everything is murky and unclear, and the burdensome practice of judging brings annoyance and weariness. What benefit can be derived from distinctions and separations?
— Sengcan, Hsin Hsin Ming
One may enter the literary parlor via just about any door, be it the prison door, the madhouse door, or the brothel door. There is but one door one may not enter it through, which is the child room door. The critics will never forgive you such. The great Rudyard Kipling is one of a number of people to have suffered from this. I keep wondering to myself what this peculiar contempt towards anything related to childhood is all about.
— Michael Ende
Stress the right of the individual to select only what he desires to know, to use any knowledge as he wishes, that he himself owns what he has learned.
— L. Ron Hubbard
Would that death were like this. Would that one would sleep and sleep and sleep forever.
— Anne Rice
...a blink of an eye in itself is nothing. But the eye that blinks, that is something.
— Chaim Potok
A wise person is like a smoothly polished rock: it takes time to become either.
— Vera Nazarian, The Perpetual Calendar of Inspiration
How can you be one of the stars of heaven, when the stars are innumerable? What star number do you have?
— Sorin Cerin, Wisdom Collection: The Book of Wisdom
‎your first thought would send the power of Quantum physics into a hive of activity. your first thought, would inevitably become the destiny of the day
— Andre Jordan
We are often more treacherous through weakness than calculation
— François de La Rochefoucauld
That vice has often proved an emancipator of the mind, is one of the most humiliating, but, at the same time, one of the most unquestionable facts in history.
— William Edward Hartpole Lecky, The Map of Life, Conduct, and Character
I have more wisdom than any books ever written in history of times, any scripture ever written which you rhyme but this is not my purpose.
— Santosh Kalwar
We will never be more that we have been destined to be! 
— Sorin Cerin
I'll not go where there is any of that sort of thing going on, again. It's the sure way, and the only sure way;
— Mark Twain, Pudd'nhead Wilson
The absolute truth is one for an infinity of possible relative truths which lie. 
— Sorin Cerin