Hobgoblins Quotes

The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed
(and hence clamorous to be led to safety)
by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins,
all of them imaginary.
- H. L. Mencken

Related topics: Cynical Government Political

A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds,
adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines.
With consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do. -
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

The foolish man seeks happiness in the distance;
the wise grows it under his feet.
- J. Robert Oppenheimer

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

When the water starts boiling
it is foolish to turn off the heat.
- Nelson Mandela

You will do foolish things,
but do them with enthusiasm.
- Colette

A wise man can learn more from a foolish question
than a fool can learn from a wise answer.
- Bruce Lee

A widespread belief is more often likely
to be foolish than sensible.
- Bertrand Russell

If a million people say a foolish thing,
it is still a foolish thing.
- Anatole France

If you want to improve,
be content to be thought foolish and stupid.
- Epictetus

Until you'll willing to look foolish,
you'll never have the possibility of being great.
- Cher

It is foolish and wrong to mourn the men who died.
Rather we should thank God that such men lived.
- George S. Patton

It is the nature of the wise to resist pleasures,
but the foolish to be a slave to them.
- Epictetus

Before God we are all equally wise - and equally foolish.
- Albert Einstein

To be idle is a short road to death
and to be diligent is a way of life;
foolish people are idle,
wise people are diligent.
- The Buddha

Talent is God-given; be humble.
Fame is man-given; be thankful.
Conceit is self-given; be careful.
- John Wooden

Nearly all men can stand adversity,
but if you want to test a man's character, give him power.
- Abraham Lincoln

Man is least himself when he talks in his own person.
Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth.
- Oscar Wilde

No man stands so tall as when he stoops to help a child.
- Anonymous (often attributed to Abraham Lincoln)

Adventure is not outside man; it is within.
- George Eliot

We who lived in concentration camps can remember the men
who walked through the huts comforting others,
giving away their last piece of bread...
They offer sufficient proof that everything
can be taken from a man but one thing:
to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances,
to choose one's own way.
- Viktor E. Frankl

Every child comes with the message
that God is not yet discouraged of man.
- Rabindranath Tagore

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.

Two things a man should never be angry at:
what he can help,
and what he cannot help.
- Thomas Fuller

During the first period of a man's life
the greatest danger is not to take the risk.
- Soren Kierkegaard

Every man dies. Not every man truly lives.
- the movie Braveheart

Nothing is enough for the man to whom enough is too little.
- Epicurus

How could man rejoice in victory
and delight in the slaughter of men?
- Lao Tzu

Mystery creates wonder, and wonder is the basis
of man's desire to understand.
- Neil Armstrong

Non-violence is the greatest force at the disposal of mankind.
It is mightier than the mightiest weapon of destruction
devised by the ingenuity of man.
- Mohandas (Mahatma) Gandhi

If a man loses his reverence for any part of life,
he will lose his reverence for all of life.
- Albert Schweitzer

A man who won't die for something is not fit to live.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.

A man may die, nations may rise and fall, but an idea lives on.
- John F. Kennedy

Resistance to the organized mass can be effected only
by the man who is as well organized
in his individuality as the mass itself.
- Carl Jung

A man should look for what is,
and not for what he thinks should be.
- Albert Einstein

If a man loses pace with his companions,
perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer.
Let him step to the music which he hears,
however measured or far away.
- Henry David Thoreau

Whatever your life's work is, do it well.
A man should do his job so well that the living,
the dead, and the unborn could do it no better.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.

If a man does not keep pace with his companions,
perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer.
- Henry David Thoreau

Take a chance! All life is a chance.
The man who goes farthest is generally
the one who is willing to do and dare.
- Dale Carnegie

All the works of man have their origin in creative fantasy.
What right have we then to depreciate imagination.
- Carl Jung

Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day,
teach a man to fish and he will eat for a lifetime.
- Chinese Proverb

Non-violence is a powerful and just weapon which cuts without wounding
and ennobles the man who wields it. It is a sword that heals.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.

No man who is occupied in doing a very difficult thing,
and doing it very well, ever loses his self-respect.
- George Bernard Shaw

If a man can... make a better mousetrap,
the world will make a beaten path to his door.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

A man is truly ethical only when he obeys
the compulsion to help all life which he is able to assist,
and shrinks from injuring anything that lives.
- Albert Schweitzer

Before you criticize a man,
walk a mile in his shoes.
- Anonymous

Only a man's character is the real criterion of worth.
- Eleanor Roosevelt

Intent is what can make a man succeed
when his thoughts tell him that he is defeated.
- Carlos Castaneda

If a man empties his purse into his head,
no man can take it away from him.
An investment in knowledge always pays the best interest.
- Benjamin Franklin

There is a sufficiency in the world
for man's need but not for man's greed.
- Mohandas (Mahatma) Gandhi

The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands
in moments of comfort and convenience,
but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.

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 (attributed)

If thou wilt make a man happy,
add not unto his riches but take away from his desires.
- Epicurus

If a man hasn't discovered something that he will die for,
he isn't fit to live.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.

No man is free who is not master of himself.
- Epictetus

Behind an able man there are always other able men.
- Chinese proverb

The gem cannot be polished without friction,
nor man perfected without trials.
- Confucius

Mistakes are, after all, the foundations of truth,
and if a man does not know what a thing is,
it is at least an increase in knowledge
if he knows what it is not.
- Carl Jung

If a man does not know what port he is steering for,
no wind is favorable to him.
- Seneca

If a man does his best, what else is there?
- George S. Patton

Non-violence means avoiding not only external physical violence
but also internal violence of spirit.
You not only refuse to shoot a man,
but you refuse to hate him.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.

Any man who reads too much
and uses his own brain too little
falls into lazy habits of thinking.
- Albert Einstein

Man falls from the pursuit of the ideal
of plain living and high thinking
the moment he wants to multiply his daily wants.
Man's happiness really lies in contentment.
- Mohandas (Mahatma) Gandhi

Courage is contagious. When a brave man takes a stand,
the spines of others are often stiffened.
- Billy Graham

The true measure of a man is how he treats someone
who can do him absolutely no good.
- Samuel Johnson

It is a man's own mind, not his enemy or foe,
that lures him to evil ways.
- The Buddha

Every man I meet is in some way my superior.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

Circumstance does not make the man: it reveals him to himself.
- James Allen

One man with courage makes a majority.
- old saying probably repeated by Andrew Jackson
(falsely attributed to Jefferson)

A great secret of success is to go through life
as a man who never gets used up.
- Albert Schweitzer

A man in debt is so far a slave.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

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