Greg > Greg's Quotes

“I find the great thing in this world is not so much where we stand, as in what direction we are moving—we must sail sometimes with the wind and sometimes against it—but we must sail, and not drift, nor lie at anchor.”
― Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr., Autocrat of the Breakfast Table

“This life’s hard, but it’s harder if you’re stupid.”
― George V. Higgins, The Friends of Eddie Coyle

“These are the times in which a genius would wish to live. It is not in the still calm of life, or the repose of a pacific station, that great characters are formed. The habits of a vigorous mind are formed in contending with difficulties. Great necessities call out great virtues. When a mind is raised, and animated by scenes that engage the heart, then those qualities which would otherwise lay dormant, wake into life and form the character of the hero and the statesman.”
― Abigail Adams

“Read not to contradict and confute; nor to believe and take for granted; nor to find talk and discourse; but to weigh and consider. Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested: that is, some books are to be read only in parts, others to be read, but not curiously, and some few to be read wholly, and with diligence and attention.”
― Francis Bacon, The Essays

“Great things are not done by impulse, but by a series of small things brought together.”
― Vincent Van Gogh

“I have wandered all my life, and I have traveled; the difference between the two being this, that we wander for distraction, but we travel for fulfillment.”
― Hilaire Belloc

“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.”
― H. Jackson Brown Jr., P.S. I Love You

“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime.”
― Mark Twain, The Innocents Abroad / Roughing It

“I have found out that there ain't no surer way to find out whether you like people or hate them than to travel with them.”
― Mark Twain, Tom Sawyer Abroad

“The Road Not Taken

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.”
― Robert Frost

“Man cannot discover new oceans unless he has the courage to lose sight of the shore.”
― Andre Gide

“It is good to have an end to journey toward; but it is the journey that matters, in the end.”
― Ursula K. Le Guin, The Left Hand of Darkness

“Let me recommend the best medicine in the world a long journey at a mild season through a pleasant country in easy stages.”
― James Madison

“A traveler without knowledge is a bird without wings.”
― Sa'di

“The world is a book and those who do not travel read only one page.”
― St. Augustine

“A journey is like marriage. The certain way to be wrong is to think you
control it.”
― John Steinbeck, Travels with Charley: In Search of America

“A good traveler has no fixed plans and is not intent on arriving.”
― Lao Tzu

“I travel not to go anywhere, but to go. I travel for travel's sake. The great affair is to move.”
― Robert Louis Stevenson, Travels with a Donkey in the Cévennes

“To finish the moment, to find the journey's end in every step of the road, to live the greatest number of good hours, is wisdom.”
― Ralph Waldo Emerson

“A ship is safe in harbor, but that's not what ships are for.”
― John A. Shedd

“Life is either a daring adventure or nothing at all.”
― Helen Keller, The Open Door

“When you come to a fork in the road take it”
― Yogi Berra

“In wisdom gathered over time I have found that every experience is a form of exploration.”
― Ansel Adams

“The grand essentials to happiness in this life are something to do, something to love, and something to hope for.”
― George Washington Burnap, The Sphere and Duties of Woman: A Course of Lectures

“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.”
― William Durant

“We acquire a particular quality by acting in a particular way.”
― Aristotle

“Three groups spend other people's money: children, thieves, and politicians. All three need supervision.”
― Dick Armey

“It occurs to me now that we mostly live facing “forward” – toward the future. Goals stretch away before us; we reach them one by one, as if driving down a highway. We glance into our rearview mirror now and then, but we don’t truly look back until the journey’s ended. And then, of course, it all looks different. The road curved and rose and fell more than we realized. The sequence wasn’t half as tidy as we thought. Looking back, we see something complex but also strangely perfect. We see something completed.”
― Peter Barton

“You should not confuse your career with your life.”
― Dave Barry

“Go placidly amid the noise and the haste, and remember what peace there may be in silence. As far as possible without surrender, be on good terms with all persons. Speak your truth quietly and clearly, and listen to others, even the dull and ignorant; they too have their story. Be yourself. Especially do not feign affection. Neither be cynical about love – for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment it is perennial as the grass. Take kindly the counsel of the years, gracefully surrendering the things of youth. Nurture strength of spirit to shield you from misfortune. But do not distress yourself with imaginings. Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness. Beyond a wholesome discipline, be gentle with yourself. You are a child of the universe no less than the trees and the stars; you have a right to be here. And whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should. Therefore be at peace with God, whatever you conceive Him to be, and whatever your labours and aspirations, in the noisy confusion of life keep peace with your soul. With all its sham, drudgery and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world.”
― Max Ehrmann, Desiderata: A Poem for a Way of Life