Often Misattributed Quotes

Before you act, listen.
Before you react, think.
Before you spend, earn.
Before you criticize, wait.
Before you pray, forgive.
Before you quit, try. ~ William Arthur Ward

The great enemy of communication, we find, is the illusion of it. We have talked enough; but we have not listened. And by not listening we have failed to concede the immense complexity of our society - and thus the great gaps between ourselves and those with whom we seek understanding. ~ William H. Whyte

Diamonds are a girl's best friend. ~ Jule Styne

I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it. ~ S.G. Tallentyre

When you come to the end of your rope, tie a knot and hang on. ~ Franklin D. Roosevelt

The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place. ~ George Bernard Shaw

Wanting to be someone else is a waste of who you are ~ Kurt Cobain

Let every man shovel out his own snow, and the whole city will be passable," said Gamache. Seeing Beauvoir's puzzled expression he added, "Emerson."
"Lake and Palmer?"
"Ralph and Waldo. ~ Louise Penny

Don't walk in front of me ... I may not follow
Don't walk behind me ... I may not lead
Walk beside me ... just be my friend ~ Albert Camus

If the bee disappeared off the face of the earth, man would only have four years left to live. ~ Maurice Maeterlinck

Not all of us can do great things. But we can do small things with great love. ~ Mother Teresa

In that case the current orthodoxy happens to be challenged, and so the principle of free speech lapses. Now, when one demands liberty of speech and of the press, one is not demanding absolute liberty. There always must be, or at any rate there always will be, some degree of censorship, so long as organised societies endure. But freedom, as Rosa Luxembourg [sic] said, is 'freedom for the other fellow'. The same principle is contained in the famous words of Voltaire: 'I detest what you say; I will defend to the death your right to say it.' If the intellectual liberty which without a doubt has been one of the distinguishing marks of western civilisation means anything at all, it means that everyone shall have the right to say and to print what he believes to be the truth, provided only that it does not harm the rest of the community in some quite unmistakable way. ~ George Orwell

Fiction Is My Addiction ~ Dr. Seuss

Democracy must be something more than two wolves and a sheep voting on what to have for dinner. ~ James Bovard

The past is a pebble in my shoe. ~ Poe

So the problem is not so much to see what nobody has yet seen, as to think what nobody has yet thought concerning that which everybody sees. ~ Arthur Schopenhauer

To insist on a spiritual practice that served you in the past is to carry the raft on your back after you have crossed the river. ~ Gautama Buddha

It is not the strongest or the most intelligent who will survive but those who can best manage change. ~ Leon C. Megginson

Be nice to nerds. You may end up working for them. We all could. ~ Charles J. Sykes

But until a person can say deeply and honestly, "I am what I am today because of the choices I made yesterday," that person cannot say, "I choose otherwise. ~ Stephen R. Covey

Always speak politely to an enraged dragon. ~ Steven Brust

Dancing is a perpendicular expression of a horizontal desire. ~ George Bernard Shaw

I can't give you a sure-fire formula for success, but I can give you a formula for failure: try to please everybody all the time. ~ Herbert Bayard Swope

The difference between genius and stupidity is: genius has its limits. ~ Alexandre Dumas-fils

The earth has its music for those who will listen ~ Reginald Vincent Holmes

Science is organized knowledge. Wisdom is organized life. ~ Will Durant

You can't go back and make a new start, but you can start right now and make a brand new ending. ~ James R. Sherman

In the West we have a tendency to be profit-oriented, where everything is measured according to the results and we get caught up in being more and more active to generate results. In the East
especially in India
I find that people are more content to just be, to just sit around under a banyan tree for half a day chatting to each other. We Westerners would probably call that wasting time. But there is value to it. Being with someone, listening wihtout a clock and without anticipation of results, teaches us about love. The success of love is in the loving
it is not in the result of loving.
These words, taken from the book A Simple Path, are the words of one of the Missionaries of Charity Sisters, not of Mother Teresa. ~ Mother Teresa

Time you enjoy wasting is not wasted time. ~ Marthe Troly-Curtin

Stay away from negative people. They have a problem for every solution. ~ Anonymus Autor

Money is like manure, its only good if you spread it around. ~ Francis Bacon

Be yourself; everyone else is already taken. ~ Oscar Wilde

If you are out to describe the truth, leave elegance to the tailor. ~ Ludwig Boltzmann

It is said that before entering the sea
a river trembles with fear.

She looks back at the path she has traveled,
from the peaks of the mountains,
the long winding road crossing forests and villages.

And in front of her,
she sees an ocean so vast,
that to enter
there seems nothing more than to disappear forever.

But there is no other way.
The river can not go back.

Nobody can go back.
To go back is impossible in existence.

The river needs to take the risk
of entering the ocean
because only then will fear disappear,
because that's where the river will know
it's not about disappearing into the ocean,
but of becoming the ocean. ~ Osho

Give a girl the right shoes and she will conquer the world. ~ Anonymous

Choose a job you love, and you will never have to work a day in your life. ~ Anonymous