John Sargurudoss > John's Quotes

“Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent.
Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent.
Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil?
Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?”
― Epicurus

“For all that has been,
Thank you.

For all that is to come,
Yes!”
― Dag Hammarskjold

“Don’t be so humble, you’re not that great.”
― Golda Meir

“A story once went the rounds of Israel to the effect that Ben-Gurion described me as 'the only man' in his cabinet. What amused me about is that he (or whoever invented the story) thought that this was the greatest compliment that could be paid to a woman. I very much doubt that any man would have been flattered if I had said about him that he was the only woman in the government!”
― Golda Meir

“A lady came up to me one day and said 'Sir! You are drunk', to which I replied 'I am drunk today madam, and tomorrow I shall be sober but you will still be ugly.”
― Winston Churchill

“Death: "THERE ARE BETTER THINGS IN THE WORLD THAN ALCOHOL, ALBERT."
Albert: "Oh, yes, sir. But alcohol sort of compensates for not getting them.”
― Terry Pratchett

“Beer has that Olympic medal color,” Rot replied, “but does it have a winning taste? I’d hardly call silver a champion flavor. No, I’ll stick to my red wine.”
― Jarod Kintz, The Mandrake Hotel and Resort to violence if necessary

“This is not the end, this is not even the beginning of the end, this is just perhaps the end of the beginning.”
― Winston S. Churchill

“If you look at the world, you'll be distressed. If you look within, you'll be depressed. If you look at God you'll be at rest.”
― Corrie Ten Boom

“One day as Father and I were returning from our walk we found the Grote Markt cordoned off by a double ring of police and soldiers. A truck was parked in front of the fish mart; into the back were climbing men, women, and children, all wearing the yellow star. . . .

"Father! Those poor people!" I cried. . . .

"Those poor people," Father echoed. But to my surprise I saw that he was looking at the soldiers now forming into ranks to march away. "I pity the poor Germans, Corrie. They have touched the apple of God's eye.”
― Corrie ten Boom

“You can measure the happiness of a marriage by the number of scars that each partner carries on their tongues, earned from years of biting back angry words.”
― Elizabeth Gilbert, Committed: A Skeptic Makes Peace with Marriage

“Thus we may know that there are five essentials for victory:
1 He will win who knows when to fight and when not to fight.
2 He will win who knows how to handle both superior and inferior forces.
3 He will win whose army is animated by the same spirit throughout all its ranks.
4 He will win who, prepared himself, waits to take the enemy unprepared.
5 He will win who has military capacity and is not interfered with by the sovereign.”
― Sun Tzu, The Art of War

“Yet the best determining factor of how comfortable we are with ourselves, is our ability to laugh at ourselves.”
― Wes Adamson

“If you never change your mind, why have one?”
― Edward de Bono

“It is better to have enough ideas for some of them to be wrong, than to be always right by having no ideas at all.”
― Edward De Bono

“You do not go out into the street in your underwear, although usually you are wearing underwear. The underwear is not visible but it is there all the time. It is the same with concepts. They are there. They underlie practical things we do- even when we are not conscious of them.”
― Edward De Bono, How to Have a Beautiful Mind

“Many highly intelligent people are poor thinkers. Many people of average intelligence are skilled thinkers. The power of the car is separate from the way the car is driven.”
― Edward De Bono

“There's a danger in the internet and social media. The notion that information is enough, that more and more information is enough, that you don't have to think, you just have to get more information - gets very dangerous.”
― Edward De Bono

“Acquire worldly wisdom and adjust your behavior accordingly. If your new behavior gives you a little temporary unpopularity with your peer group…then to hell with them.”
― Charles T. Munger, Poor Charlie's Almanack: The Wit and Wisdom of Charles T. Munger

“There is no better teacher than history in determining the future... There are answers worth billions of dollars in 30$ history book.”
― Charles T. Munger, Poor Charlie's Almanack: The Wit and Wisdom of Charles T. Munger

“The Roman Emperor Julian, writing in the fourth century, regretted the progress of Christianity because it pulled people away from the Roman gods. He said, 'Atheism [I.e. the Christian faith!] has been specially advanced
through the loving service rendered to strangers, and through their care for the burial of the dead. It is a scandal that there is not a single Jew who is a beggar, and that the godless Galileans care not only for their own poor but for ours as well; while those who belong to us look in vain for the help that we should render them.”
― John Piper, A Godward Life: Savoring the Supremacy of God in All of Life

“An empty head is not really empty; it is stuffed with rubbish. Hence the difficulty of forcing anything into an empty head.”
― Eric Hoffer

“The opposite of the religious fanatic is not the fanatical atheist but the gentle cynic who cares not whether there is a god or not.”
― Eric Hoffer

“Far more crucial than what we know or do not know is what we do not want to know.”
― Eric Hoffer

“Glory is largely a theatrical concept. There is no striving for glory without a vivid awareness of an audience—the knowledge that our mighty deeds will come to the ears of our contemporaries or “of those who are to be.” We are ready to sacrifice our true, transitory self for the imaginary eternal self we are building up, by our heroic deeds, in the opinion and imagination of others.”
― Eric Hoffer, The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements

“The desire to reach for the stars is ambitious. The desire to reach hearts is wise.”
― Maya Angelou

“We write for the same reason that we walk, talk, climb mountains or swim the oceans — because we can. We have some impulse within us that makes us want to explain ourselves to other human beings. That’s why we paint, that’s why we dare to love someone- because we have the impulse to explain who we are. Not just how tall we are, or thin… but who we are internally… perhaps even spiritually. There’s something, which impels us to show our inner-souls. The more courageous we are, the more we succeed in explaining what we know.”
― Maya Angelou

“When you learn, teach. When you get, give.”
― Maya Angelou

“Weeds are luckier than flowers because they are not killed for their beauties!”
― Mehmet Murat ildan

“But what attracted me to weeds was not their beauty, but their resilience. I mean, despite being so widely despised, so unloved, killed with every chance we get, they are so pervasive, so seemingly invincible.”
― Carol Vorvain, A fool in Istanbul - Adventures of a self denying workaholic