Explanations Quotes

We are tired of aristocratic explanations in Harvard words.
- Dwight D. Eisenhower

Related topics: Government Political

That which is hateful to you,
do not do to your fellow.
That is the whole Torah;
the rest is the explanation.
- Talmud (Jewish Wisdom)

All other things being equal,
the simplest explanation is the most likely.
- a statement of Occam's Razor

Do not seek the because -
in love there is no because,
no reason, no explanation, no solutions.
- Anais Nin

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Thank you for joining me on this journey we call life,
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

On the ordinary view of each species
having been independently created,
we gain no scientific explanation.
- Charles Darwin

The Four Stages of Public Opinion
I (Just after publication): The novelty is absurd
and subversive of Religion and Morality.
The propounder both fool and knave.
II (Twenty years later): The Novelty is absolute Truth
and will yield a full and satisfactory
explanation of things in general -
The propounder a man of sublime genius and perfect virtue.
III (Forty years later): The Novelty won't explain
things in general after all, and therefore is a wretched failure.
The propounder a very ordinary person advertised by a clique.
IV (A century later): The Novelty a mixture of truth and error.
Explains as much as could reasonably be expected.
The propounder worthy of all honor
in spite of his share of human frailties,
as one who has added to the permanent possessions of science.
- Thomas Henry [T. H.] Huxley

We are composed of self-contradictions.
Each of us is loving in some moments - hateful in others.
Patient and calm sometimes - harried by urgency at others.
Understanding - and self-absorbed.
Reassuring - and sarcastic.
Generous - and greedy.
Trusting - and jealous.
Comforting - and snappish.
Original - and stuck in a rut.
Thankful - and needy.
Forgiving - and vengeful.
Nurturing ourself - and stuffing ourself with fast food.
Honoring our bodies - and overstressing.
Being Joyful - and Suffering.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

When written in Chinese, the word "crisis"
is composed of two characters.
One represents danger and the other represents opportunity.
- John F. Kennedy

If a man is called to be a street sweeper,
he should sweep streets even as Michelangelo painted,
or Beethoven composed music, or Shakespeare wrote poetry.
He should sweep streets so well that all the hosts
of heaven and earth will pause to say,
here lived a great street sweeper who did his job well.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.

It is well to remember that the
entire population of the universe,
with one trifling exception, is composed of others.
- Andrew J. Holmes

Our life is composed greatly from dreams, from the unconscious,
and they must be brought into connection with action.
They must be woven together.
- Anais Nin

Life is like music; it must be composed by ear,
feeling, and instinct, not by rule.
- Samuel Butler

Love is composed of a single soul inhabiting two bodies.
- Aristotle

A vow is a purely religious act
which cannot be taken in a fit of passion.
It can be taken only with a mind purified
and composed and with God as witness.
- Mohandas (Mahatma) Gandhi

The worst government is often the most moral.
One composed of cynics is often very tolerant and humane.
But when fanatics are on top there is no limit to oppression.
- H. L. Mencken

Half the world is composed of idiots,
the other half, of people clever enough
to take indecent advantage of them.
- Walter Kerr

Our Lord has written the promise of the resurrection,
not in books alone, but in every leaf in spring-time.
- Martin Luther

The words of the prophets are written on the subway walls.
- Simon and Garfunkel

Give me your tired, your poor,
your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.
- written on the Statue of Liberty in New York harbor

No written law has ever been more binding
than unwritten custom supported by popular opinion.
- Carrie Chapman Catt

The very ink with which all history
is written is merely fluid prejudice.
- Mark Twain

History is written by the victors.
- Winston Churchill

Miracles are a retelling in small letters
of the very same story
which is written across the whole world
in letters too large for some of us to see.
- C. S. Lewis

"Mother Teresa Prayer"
People are often unreasonable, illogical, and self-centered;
... Forgive them anyway.
If you are kind, people may accuse you
of selfish, ulterior motives;
... Be kind anyway.
If you are successful, you will win some
false friends and some true enemies;
... Succeed anyway.
If you are honest and frank, people may cheat you;
... Be honest and frank anyway.
What you spend years building, someone could destroy overnight;
... Build anyway.
If you find serenity and happiness, they may be jealous;
... Be happy anyway.
The good you do today, people will often forget tomorrow;
... Do good anyway.
Give the world the best you have, and it may never be enough;
... Give the world the best you've got anyway.
You see, in the final analysis, it is between you and God;
It was never between you and them anyway.
We can do no great things - only small things with great love.
- although commonly attributed to Mother Teresa,
who kept a copy of this prayer on
the wall of her Calcutta orphanage,
this prayer was actually written by Kent Keith.

The Prayer of St. Francis of Assisi
Lord, make me an instrument of your peace,
Where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury, pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
where there is sadness, joy.
O Divine Master,
grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console;
to be understood as to understand;
to be loved as to love.
For it is in giving that we receive;
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned;
and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.
- although attributed to St. Francis of Assisi,
this prayer first appeared (written in French) in 1912

It is a fact often observed,
that men have written good verses
under the inspiration of passion,
who cannot write well under other circumstances.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

Life is a moderately good play
with a badly written third act.
- Truman Capote

Feel Unity with Spirit and All Creation
All things share the same breath the
beast, the tree, the man... the air
shares its spirit with all the life it supports.
- Chief Seattle [actually written by screenwriter Ted Perry in 1972]

The history of free men is never really written by chance
but by choice; their choice!
- Dwight D. Eisenhower

I have never written a book that didn't teach me
far more than it taught any reader.
- Isaac Asimov

The world is perfect. It's a mess.
It has always been a mess.
We are not going to change it.
Our job is to straighten out our own lives.
- Joseph Campbell

It is our choices ... that show what we truly are,
far more than our abilities.
- J. K. Rowling (Harry Potter and The Chamber of Secrets)

We all live with the objective of being happy;
our lives are all different and yet the same.
- Anne Frank

We cannot choose our external circumstances,
but we can always choose how to respond to them.
- Epictetus

Our lives begin to end the day we become silent
about things that matter.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.

All our dreams can come true,
if we have the courage to pursue them.
- Walt Disney

What we think, we become.
All that we are arises with our thoughts.
With our thoughts, we make the world.
- The Buddha

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.
Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.
It is our Light, not our Darkness, that most frightens us.
- Marianne Williamson

Time, like life itself, has no inherent meaning.
We give our own meaning to time as to life.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Our loyalties must transcend our race, our tribe,
our class, and our nation;
and this means we must develop a world perspective.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.

"Hurry up" ranks right up there with "you need to"
as a destroyer of our humanity.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

The purpose of our lives is to be happy.
- Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama

We have only this moment,
sparkling like a star in our hand -
and melting like a snowflake.
- Marie B. Ray

As we work to create light for others,
we naturally light our own way.
- Mary Anne Radmacher

Our faith gives us knowledge of something better.
- E. F. Schumacher

Our Joy comes from living our own lives simply -
never from demanding that others live simply -
or from ever making any demands whatsoever upon others.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

The wave of evil washes all our institutions alike.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

Our life always expresses the result of our dominant thoughts.
- Soren Kierkegaard

The highest possible stage in moral culture
is when we recognize that we ought to control our thoughts.
- Charles Darwin

It is not the magnitude of our actions
but the amount of love
that is put into them that matters.
- Mother Teresa

Our relationships - love and friendship -
are at the core of the meaning of our lives.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

The only limits in our life are those we impose on ourselves.
- Bob Proctor

How different our lives are when we
really know what is deeply important to us,
and keeping that picture in mind,
we manage ourselves each day
to be and to do what really matters most
- Stephen Covey

The opposite of courage in our society
is not cowardice, it is conformity.
- Rollo May

When the vast cathedral of our being
becomes a sanctuary for all creation,
we become the face of God.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

There is only one way to happiness and that is to cease worrying
about things which are beyond the power of our will.
- Epictetus

Only when life is difficult,
are we challenged to become our greatest selves.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

If we don't see a failure as a challenge to modify our approach,
but rather as a problem with ourselves, as a personality defect,
we will immediately feel overwhelmed.
- Anthony Robbins

We can change our lives.
We can do, have, and be exactly what we wish.
- Tony Robbins

We must teach our children to resolve
their conflicts with words, not weapons.
- William J. Clinton

We censor our actions, but
our dreams reveal our true character.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

We all have our thorns. We, and Life, have our moments.
Life occurs before our morning coffee.
Life occurs in our bathrobe with our hair uncombed.
Bless and give thanks for All of Life - the bloom and the thorns.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Our life is what our thoughts make it.
- Marcus Aurelius

Where ignorance is our master,
there is no possibility of real peace.
- Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama

The reason why men do not obey us,
is because they see the mud at the bottom of our eye.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

Many people excuse their own faults
but judge other persons harshly.
We should reverse this attitude
by excusing others' shortcomings
and by harshly examining our own.
- Paramahansa Yogananda

We hardly ever realize that we can
cut anything out of our lives,
anytime, in the blink of an eye.
- Carlos Castaneda

We can never be the better for our religion
if our neighbor is the worse for it.
- Anonymous

Miracles are the natural way of the Universe -
our only job is to move our doubting minds aside
and let the miracles flow.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Once we accept our limits, we can go beyond them.
- Albert Einstein

We tell the real truth of our life
by the stories we repeatedly tell.
- Mary Anne Radmacher

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May the world be kind to you, and may your own thoughts be gentle upon yourself.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie