Which Quotes

Our inventions are wont to be pretty toys, which distract our attention from serious things. They are but improved means to an unimproved end.

An association of men who will not quarrel with one another is a thing which has never yet existed, from the greatest confederacy of nations down to a town meeting or a vestry.

The problem of social organization is how to set up an arrangement under which greed will do the least harm, capitalism is that kind of a system.

I dream of an Africa which is in peace with itself.

What troubles me is the Internet and the electronic technology revolution. Shyness is fueled in part by so many people spending huge amounts of time alone, isolated on e-mail, in chat rooms, which reduces their face-to-face contact with other people.

The willow which bends to the tempest, often escapes better than the oak which resists it; and so in great calamities, it sometimes happens that light and frivolous spirits recover their elasticity and presence of mind sooner than those of a loftier character.

There can be no equality or opportunity if men and women and children be not shielded in their lives from the consequences of great industrial and social processes which they cannot alter, control, or singly cope with.

Nonviolence is a powerful and just weapon. which cuts without wounding and ennobles the man who wields it. It is a sword that heals.

Whenever a youth is ascertained to possess talents meriting an education which his parents cannot afford, he should be carried forward at the public expense.

The stroke of death is as a lover's pinch, which hurts and is desired.

It is the heart which perceives God and not the reason. That is what faith is: God perceived by the heart, not by the reason.

I know of no country in which there is so little independence of mind and real freedom of discussion as in America.

There is a tide in the affairs of men, Which taken at the flood, leads on to fortune. Omitted, all the voyage of their life is bound in shallows and in miseries. On such a full sea are we now afloat. And we must take the current when it serves, or lose our ventures.

A politician is an animal which can sit on a fence and yet keep both ears to the ground.

Service which is rendered without joy helps neither the servant nor the served. But all other pleasures and possessions pale into nothingness before service which is rendered in a spirit of joy.

If you hug to yourself any resentment against anybody else, you destroy the bridge by which God would come to you.

Perfect valour consists in doing without witnesses that which we would be capable of doing before everyone.

Once the realization is accepted that even between the closest human beings infinite distances continue, a wonderful living side by side can grow, if they succeed in loving the distance between them which makes it possible for each to see the other whole against the sky.

Focused, hard work is the real key to success. Keep your eyes on the goal, and just keep taking the next step towards completing it. If you aren't sure which way to do something, do it both ways and see which works better.

Advocates of capitalism are very apt to appeal to the sacred principles of liberty, which are embodied in one maxim: The fortunate must not be restrained in the exercise of tyranny over the unfortunate.

The chief value of money lies in the fact that one lives in a world in which it is overestimated.

One's past is what one is. It is the only way by which people should be judged.

Music is the one incorporeal entrance into the higher world of knowledge which comprehends mankind but which mankind cannot comprehend.

In the US, there is basically one party - the business party. It has two factions, called Democrats and Republicans, which are somewhat different but carry out variations on the same policies. By and large, I am opposed to those policies. As is most of the population.

Love is the affinity which links and draws together the elements of the world... Love, in fact, is the agent of universal synthesis.

Yesterday, December seventh, 1941, a date which will live in infamy, the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan.

The Difficult is that which can be done immediately; the Impossible that which takes a little longer.

Some critics will write 'Maya Angelou is a natural writer' - which is right after being a natural heart surgeon.

Alcohol is the anesthesia by which we endure the operation of life.

We must conceive of this whole universe as one commonwealth of which both gods and men are members.