Categorized compendium of quotable sayings, aka bon mots and bonbons

Banks:

It is easier to rob by setting up a bank than by holding up a bank clerk.
- Bertolt Brecht

Breeding:

Good breeding consists of concealing how much we think of ourselves and how litle we think of others.
- Orson Welles

Bureaucracy:

The longer the title, the less important the job.
- George McGovern

Change:

Change is not made without inconvenience, even from worse to better.
- Richard Hooker

There is no way to make people like change. You can only make them feel less threatened by it.
- Frederick Hayes

Character:

A man never discloses his own character so clearly as when he describes another’s.
- Jean Paul Richeter

Cheerfulness:

The best way to cheer yourself up is to try to cheer somebody else up.
- Mark Twain

Conservatism:

Every public action, which is not customary, either is wrong, or if it is right, is a dangerous precedent. It follows that nothing should ever be done for the first time.
- Francis Cornford

Curiosity:

No man really becomes a fool until he stops asking questions.
- Charles P. Steinmetz

Doubt:

To believe with certainty, we must begin with doubting
- Stanislaw I, king of Poland

Enthusiasm:

Enthusiasm is the greatest asset in the world. It beats money and power and influence.
- Henry Chester

Ethics:

It is easier to fight for one’s principles than to live up to them.
- Alfred Adler

Evil:

Evil often triumphs, but never conquers.
- Joseph Roux

The devil decries evil.
Virtue is his guise.
To find the hidden villain
Listen for the loudest voice.
- Rodger Malcolm Mitchell

Example:

The first great gift we can bestow on others is a good example.
- Thomas Morell

Fear:

Fear is the father of courage and the mother of safety.
- Unknown

Food:

A hungry man is not a free man.
- Adlai Stevenson

Individual nature:

A bird does not sing because it has an answer; it sings because it has a song.
-Chinese proverb

Information:

Information is not knowledge, knowledge is not wisdom, and wisdom is not foresight. But information is the first essential step of all of these.
- Arthur C. Clarke 

Laughter:

A merry heart doeth good like a medicine.
- Proverbs 17:22

Laughter is the sun that drives winter from the human face.
- Victor Hugo

Law:

Where law ends, there tyranny begins.
- William Pitt

Liberty:

Liberty is the only thing you cannot have unless you are willing to give it to others.
- William Allen White

Love:

Love doesn't make the world go round. Love is what makes the ride worthwhile.
-Franklin P. Jones

The supreme happiness of life is the conviction that we are loved.
- Victor Hugo

Love, you know, seeks to make happy rather than to be happy.
- Ralph Connor

Luck:

Fortune truly helps those who are of good judgment.
- Euripides

Lying:

The cruelest lies are often told in silence.
- Robert Louis Stevenson

Marriage:

A successful marriage is an edifice which must be rebuilt every day.
- Andre Maurois

Minorities:

A minority group has “arrived” only when it has the right to produce some fools and scoundrels without the entire group paying for it.
- Carl T. Rowan

Priorities:

Things that matter most must never be at the mercy of things that matter least.
-Goethe

Responsibility:

You can’t escape the responsibility of tomorrow by evading it today.
- Abraham Lincoln

If each one sweeps before his own door, the whole street is clean.
- Yiddish Proverb

Security:

Security is mostly a superstition . . . Life is either a daring adventure or it is nothing.
- Helen Keller

Self Control:

He is strong who conquers others; he who conquers himself is mighty.
- Lao-Tzu

Thought:

You become what you think about.
-Earl Nightingale

Torture:

The healthy man does not torture others – generally it is the tortured who turn into torturers.
- Carl Jung

Wickedness:

No man ever became wicked all at once.
- Latin Proverb

Got a favorite saying of your own? Send me an e-mail.

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