Many years ago I wondered if collecting something might be a fun avocation. Stamps, coins, seashells, buttons, whatever . . . although none of those caught my fancy. And then one day I realized that I had already been collecting something for years: quotes. For a writer and public speaker, good quotes are like diamonds. I have hundreds of them, and they are filed systematically, sort of. At any rate, today I’m simply going to share a few that I hope are worthy of either a chuckle or serious thought.
“If we did not have childhood and were able somehow to jump catlike from infancy to adulthood, I doubt very much that we would turn out human.”
The Fragile Species, Lewis Thomas
“The riff of the independent person is: I don’t need nobody. I used to hear the same thing from certain old coppers. But God never made a soul for whom that was completely true.”
Pleading Guilty, Scott Turow
“A friend hears the song in my heart and sings it to me when my memory fails.”
Pioneer Girls Leaders’ Handbook
“There was no possibility of defeating an enemy who would carry away a thousand tons of dirt in handkerchiefs.”
The Last Supper, Charles McCarry (speaking of the Vietnamese War)
“Is the information of your life a cage that imprisons you or raw material for change?
Absolute Zero, Chuck Logan
“There are no human beliefs apart from the events in the natural world, such as electrical impulses in the cerebral cortex.”
The Gospel in a Pluralist Society, Leslie Newbigin
“Anyone who thinks that the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach needs to study geography.” Mae West
“I have learned the danger of indifference, the crime of indifference. For the opposite of love is not hate but indifference. Elie Wiesel, Newsweek 29 April 1985
“A society betrays humanity whenever it doesn’t live up to its own expressed ideals.”
The Janson Directive, Robert Ludlum
“I always wanted to be somebody, but now I realize I should have been more specific.”
Lily Tomlin
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