Daniel Flanagan > Daniel's Quotes

“What's measured improves”
― Peter Drucker

“...good deeds can be shortly stated but where wrong is done a wealth of language is needed to veil its deformity.”
― Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War

“Go to  k the ant, O  l sluggard;         consider her ways, and  m be wise. 7     n Without having any chief,          o officer, or ruler, 8    she prepares her bread  p in summer”
― Anonymous, Holy Bible: English Standard Version

“Anybody who has survived his childhood has enough information about life to last him the rest of his days.”
― Flannery O'Connor, Mystery and Manners: Occasional Prose

“out of sight,out of mind”
― Homer, The Odyssey

“It's a beautiful day in this neighborhood,
A beautiful day for a neighbor.
Would you be mine?
Could you be mine?...

It's a neighborly day in this beauty wood,
A neighborly day for a beauty.
Would you be mine?
Could you be mine?...

I've always wanted to have a neighbor just like you.
I've always wanted to live in a neighborhood with you.

So, let's make the most of this beautiful day.
Since we're together we might as well say:
Would you be mine?
Could you be mine?
Won't you be my neighbor?

Won't you please,
Won't you please?
Please won't you be my neighbor?”
― Fred Rogers

“We only think when confronted with a problem.”
― John Dewey

“bones heal, pain is temporary, [and] chicks dig scars...”
― Evel Knievel, Evel Ways: A Daring Approach to Life the Attitude of Evel Knievel

“the guilty think all talk is of themselves.”
― geoffrey chaucer

“Among the rich you will never find a really generous man even by accident. They may give their money away, but they will never give themselves away; they are egotistic, secretive, dry as old bones. To be smart enough to get all that money you must be dull enough to want it.”
― G.K. Chesterton, A Miscellany of Men

“With foxes we must play the fox.”
― Thomas Fuller

“The Irish were regarded as shiftless and drunken; moreover, they were papists, and their fealty to Rome, it was said, meant they could never become loyal Americans. They were subjected to severe discrimination in employment and were despised by genteel society. W.E.B. Du Bois, the black scholar, testified that when he grew up in Great Barrington, Massachusetts, in the 1870s, "the racial angle was more clearly defined against the Irish than against me".”
― Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr., The Disuniting of America: Reflections on a Multicultural Society

“The best fighter is never angry.”
― Lao Tzu

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

“The streets looked small, of course. The streets that we have only seen as children always do I believe when we go back to them”
― Charles Dickens, David Copperfield

“For a hoarder, staying clean isn't really about bins and labels; it's about processing items that come into the house. A good organizer can help a hoarder develop methods for sorting mail, for staying on top of recycling, and for making sure donated items get to their destinations... The repetition of bad cleaning skills is usually what got the hoarder into trouble in the first place, so an organizer works on repetition of new, positive cleaning skills.”
― Matt Paxton, The Secret Lives of Hoarders: True Stories of Tackling Extreme Clutter

“If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;

If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise

If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;
If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;

If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;

If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the will which says to them: 'Hold on!'

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with Kings - nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;

If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And - which is more - you'll be a Man, my son!”
― Rudyard Kipling, If: A Father's Advice to His Son

“One may smile, and smile, and be a villain; at least I'm sure it may be so in Denmark.”
― William Shakespeare, Hamlet

“Class never runs scared.
It is sure-footed and confident.
It can handle anything that comes along.
Class has a sense of humor.
It knows a good laugh is the best lubricant for oiling the machinery of human relations.

Class never makes excuses.
It takes its lumps and learns from past mistakes.
Class knows that good manners are nothing more than a series of small, inconsequential sacrifices.

Class bespeaks an aristocracy that has nothing to do with ancestors or money.
Some wealthy “blue bloods” have no class, while individuals who are struggling to make ends meet are loaded with it.

Class is real.
It can’t be faked.

Class never tried to build itself by tearing others down.
Class is already up and need not strive to look better by making others look worse.

Class can “walk with kings and keep it’s virtue and talk with crowds and keep the common touch.” Everyone is comfortable with the person who has class because that person is comfortable with himself.

If you have class, you’ve got it made.

If you don’t have class, no matter what else you have, it doesn’t make any difference.”
― Ann Landers

“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

“Energy is eternal delight.”
― William Blake

“At a friend’s house in Greenwich Village I remember talking of the frustration of trying to find the precise word for one’s thoughts, saying that the ordinary dictionary was inadequate. ‘Surely a system could be devised,’ I said, ‘of lexicographically charting ideas, from abstract words to concrete ones, and by deductive and inductive processes arriving at the right word for one’s thought.’ ‘There is such a book,’ said a Negro truck-driver: ‘Roget’s Thesaurus’ A waiter working at the Alexandria Hotel used to quote his Karl Marx and William Blake with every course he served me. A comedy acrobat with a Brooklyn ‘dis’, ‘dem’ and ‘dose’ accent recommended Burton’s Anatomy of Melancholy, saying that Shakespeare was influenced by him and so was Sam Johnson. ‘But you can skip the Latin.’ With the rest of them I was intellectually a fellow-traveller.”
― Charlie Chaplin, My Autobiography

“What good is the warmth of summer, without the cold of winter to give it sweetness.”
― John Steinbeck, Travels with Charley: In Search of America

“To learn to read is to light a fire; every syllable that is spelled out is a spark.”
― Victor Hugo

“JUST FOR TODAY, I will live through this day only. I will not brood about yesterday or obsess about tomorrow. I will not set far-reaching goals or try to overcome all of my problems at once.

I know that I can do something for 24 hours that would overwhelm me if I had to keep it up for a lifetime.

JUST FOR TODAY, I will be happy. I will not dwell on thoughts that depress me. If my mind fills with clouds, I will chase them away and fill it with sunshine.

JUST FOR TODAY, I will accept what is. I will face reality. I will correct those things that I can correct and accept those I cannot.

JUST FOR TODAY, I will improve my mind. I will read something that requires effort, thought and concentration. I will not be a mental loafer.

JUST FOR TODAY, I will make a conscious effort to be agreeable. I will be kind and courteous to those who cross my path, and I'll not speak ill of others. I will improve my appearance, speak softly, and not interrupt when someone else is talking. Just for today, I will refrain from improving anybody but myself.

JUST FOR TODAY, I will do something positive to improve my health. If I'm a smoker, I'll quit. If I'm overweight, I will eat healthfully -- if only for today. And not only that, I will get off the couch and take a brisk walk, even if it's only around the block.

JUST FOR TODAY, I will gather the courage to do what is right and take the responsibility for my own actions.”
― Abigail Van Buren

“And I am sure that I never read any memorable news in a newspaper. If we read of one man robbed, or murdered, or killed by accident, or one house burned, or one vessel wrecked, or one steamboat blown up, or one cow run over on the Western Railroad, or one mad dog killed, or one lot of grasshoppers in the winter, - we need never read of another. One is enough. If you are acquainted with the principle, what do you care for a myriad instances and applications?”
― Henry David Thoreau, Walden: Or, Life in the Woods

“He who every morning plans the transactions of that day and follows that plan carries a thread that will guide him through the labyrinth of the most busy life.”
― Victor Hugo

“(Why do you rob banks, Willie?) Because that's where the money is.”
― Willie Sutton, Where the Money Was: The Memoirs of a Bank Robber

“To steal from a brother or sister is evil. To not steal from the institutions that are the pillars of the Pig Empire is equally immoral.”
― Abbie Hoffman, Steal This Book

“Perhaps the most valuable result of all education is the ability to make yourself do the thing you have to do, when it ought to be done, whether you like it or not. It is the first lesson that ought to be learned and however early a man's training begins, it is probably the last lesson that he learns thoroughly.”
― Thomas Henry Huxley, Collected Essays of Thomas Henry Huxley