Quotes
Quotes about Wit
Some people expect the door of opportunity to be opened with an electric eye.
One can present people with opportunities. One cannot make them equal to them.
Opportunity dances with those who are ready on the dance floor.
You cannot make your opportunities concur with the opportunities of people whose incomes are ten times greater than yours.
Opportunity is often difficult to recognize; we usually expect it to beckon us with beepers and billboards. -Unknown.
The coldest bodies warm with opposition; the hardest sparkle in collision.
Don't be afraid of opposition. Remember, a kite rises against; not with; the wind.
But most of us are apt to settle within ourselves that the man who blocks our way is odious, and not to mind causing him a little of the disgust which his personality excites in ourselves.
Gain from your opponents without sacrificing your own strength.
Now I say that with cruelty and oppression it is everybody's business to interfere when they see it.
First we kill all the subversives; then, their collaborators; later, those who sympathize with them; afterward, those who remain indifferent; and finally, the undecided.
Human beings are so made that the ones who do the crushing feel nothing; it is the person crushed who feels what is happening. Unless one has placed oneself on the side of the oppressed, to feel with them, one cannot understand.
No other offense has ever been visited with such severe penalties as seeking to help the oppressed.
You can't hold a man down without staying down with him.
... she knew in her heart that to be without optimism, that core of reasonless hope in the spirit rather than the brain, was a fatal flaw, the seed of death.
I am optimistic and confident in all that I do. I affirm only the best for myself and others. I am the creator of my life and my world. I meet daily challenges gracefully and with complete confidence. I fill my mind with positive, nurturing, and healing thoughts.
Positiveness is a good quality for preachers and speakers because, whoever shares his thoughts with the public will convince them as he himself appears convinced.
Whatever we conceive well we express clearly, and words flow with ease. [Fr., Ce que l'on concoit bien s'enonce clairement, Et les mots pour le dire arrivent aisement.]
The Orator persuades and carries all with him, he knows not how; the Rhetorician can prove that he ought to have persuaded and carried all with him.
You'd scarce expect one of my age To speak in public on the stage; And if I chance to fall below Demosthenes or Cicero, Don't view me with a critic's eye, But pass my imperfections by. Large streams from little fountains flow, Tall oaks from little acorns grow.
With little art, clear wit and sense Suggest their own delivery. [Ger., Es tragt Verstand und rechter Sinn, Mit wenig Kunst sich selber vor.]
The passions are the only orators that always persuade: they are, as it were, a natural art, the rules of which are infallible; and the simplest man with passion is more persuasive than the most eloquent without it.
If you did wed my sister for her wealth, Then for her wealth's sake use her with more kindness: Or if you like elsewhere, do it by stealth; Muffle your false love with some show of blindness: Let not my sister read it in your eye; Be not thy tongue thy own shame's orator; Look sweet, spear fair, become disloyalty; Apparel vice like virtue's harbinger; Bear a fair presence, though your heart be tainted; Teach sin the carriage of a holy saint; Be secret-false: what need she be acquainted?
Not a mouse Shall disturb this hallowed house. I am sent, with broom, before, To sweep the dust behind the door.
All causes are essentially mental, and whosoever comes into daily contact with a high order of thinking must take on some of it.
