Jennifer > Jennifer's Quotes

“Act without expectation.”
― Lao Tzu

“To know that you do not know is the best.
To think you know when you do not is a disease.
Recognizing this disease as a disease is to be free of it.”
― Lao Tzu

“Respond intelligently even to unintelligent treatment”
― Lao Tzu

“Because one believes in oneself, one doesn't try to convince others. Because one is content with oneself, one doesn't need others' approval. Because one accepts oneself, the whole world accepts him or her.”
― Lao Tzu

“Kindness in words creates confidence. Kindness in thinking creates profoundness. Kindness in giving creates love.”
― Lao-Tzu

“Care about what other people think and you will always be their prisoner.”
― Lao Tzu

“He who knows all the answers has not been asked all the questions.”
― Confucius

“It does not matter how slowly you go as long as you do not stop.”
― Confucius

“There is surely nothing other than the single purpose of the present moment. A man's whole life is a succession of moment after moment. There will be nothing else to do, and nothing else to pursue. Live being true to the single purpose of the moment.”
― Yamamoto Tsunetomo, Hagakure: The Book of the Samurai

“There is something to be learned from a rainstorm. When meeting with a sudden shower, you try not to get wet and run quickly along the road. But doing such things as passing under the eaves of houses, you still get wet. When you are resolved from the beginning, you will not be perplexed, though you will still get the same soaking. This understanding extends to everything.”
― Tsunetomo Yamamoto, The Hagakure: A code to the way of samurai

“Singlemindedness is all-powerful.”
― Yamamoto Tsunetomo

“To be wronged is nothing, unless you continue to remember it.”
― Confucius

“The man who moves a mountain begins by carrying away small stones.”
― Confucius, Confucius: The Analects

“I hear and I forget. I see and I remember. I do and I understand.”
― Confucius

“Men are born soft and supple; dead they are stiff and hard. Plants are born tender and pliant; dead, they are brittle and dry. Thus whoever is stiff and inflexible is a disciple of death. Whoever is soft and yielding is a disciple of life. The hard and stiff will be broken. The soft and supple will prevail.”
― Lao Tzu

“She does not show herself, and therefore is apparent. She does not affirm herself, and therefore is acknowledged. She does not boast and therefore has merit. She does not strive and therefore is successful. It is exactly because she does not contend, that nobody can contend with her.”
― Lao Tzu

“Stop thinking, and end your problems.
What difference between yes and no?
What difference between success and failure?
Must you value what others value,
avoid what others avoid?
How ridiculous!

Other people are excited,
as though they were at a parade.
I alone don't care,
I alone am expressionless,
like an infant before it can smile.

Other people have what they need;
I alone possess nothing.
I alone drift about,
like someone without a home.
I am like an idiot, my mind is so empty.

Other people are bright;
I alone am dark.
Other people are sharp;
I alone am dull.
Other people have purpose;
I alone don't know.
I drift like a wave on the ocean,
I blow as aimless as the wind.

I am different from ordinary people.
I drink from the Great Mother's breasts.”
― Lao-Tzu, Tao Te Ching

“Knowledge is a treasure, but practice is the key to it.”
― Lao Tzu

“Beauty is only skin deep, but ugly goes clean to the bone.”
― Dorothy Parker

“If you want to know what God thinks of money, just look at the people he gave it to.”
― Dorothy Parker

“This is not a novel to be tossed aside lightly. It should be thrown with great force.”
― Sid Ziff

“I don't know much about being a millionaire, but I'll bet I'd be darling at it.”
― Dorothy Parker

“I hate writing, I love having written.”
― Dorothy Parker

“I like to have a martini,
Two at the very most.
After three I'm under the table,
after four I'm under my host.”
― Dorothy Parker, The Collected Dorothy Parker

“They sicken of the calm who know the storm.”
― Dorothy Parker, Sunset Gun: Poems

“You can lead a horticulture, but you can't make her think.”
― Dorothy Parker, You Might As Well Live: The Life and Times of Dorothy Parker

“That would be a good thing for them to cut on my tombstone: Wherever she went, including here, it was against her better judgment.”
― Dorothy Parker

“This wasn't just plain terrible, this was fancy terrible. This was terrible with raisins in it."

[Women Know Everything!]”
― Dorothy Parker

“And if my heart be scarred and burned,
The safer, I, for all I learned.”
― Dorothy Parker, Sunset Gun: Poems

“Symptom Recital

I do not like my state of mind;
I'm bitter, querulous, unkind.
I hate my legs, I hate my hands,
I do not yearn for lovelier lands.
I dread the dawn's recurrent light;
I hate to go to bed at night.
I snoot at simple, earnest folk.
I cannot take the gentlest joke.
I find no peace in paint or type.
My world is but a lot of tripe.
I'm disillusioned, empty-breasted.
For what I think, I'd be arrested.
I am not sick, I am not well.
My quondam dreams are shot to hell.
My soul is crushed, my spirit sore;
I do not like me any more.
I cavil, quarrel, grumble, grouse.
I ponder on the narrow house.
I shudder at the thought of men....
I'm due to fall in love again.”
― Dorothy Parker