Tao Te Ching
Anonymous
-800 to present
Freedom from the narrow boxes defined by personal history
Anonymous (5000 BCE - )
Most of us, most of the time stay busy trying to impress people looking for approval, praise and fame. This enslaves and sells our souls to the tyrants of public opinion, the status quo, and to external personal whim. As an antidote to this, the cloak of anonymity opens wide doors of personal expression, creativity, and innovation. In ancient times, perhaps less personal ego fostered this approach, perhaps names were just eroded away by time as is surely the case with many of the quotations that comes to us through the annals of history, perhaps people needed to avoid religious or political persecution. The venerable tradition of using pseudonyms exemplifies both the need and benefit of freeing ourselves from the narrow boxes defined by our personal histories.
Eras
Chinese
Western Han (206 BCE – 9 CE)Unlisted Sources
AFL-CIO's Executive Paywatch News (May, 2018)
Arabic proverb
Atlantic Monthly
Atlantic, Daniel Immerwahr
Burmese proverb
Buzzfeed (2019)
Chinese critic
Chinese Family Planning pamphlet
Chinese proverb
Dutch proverb
English proverb
French proverb
German proverb
Greek proverb
Haida proverb
Irish Slogan
Italian proverb
Japanese Proverb
Japanese Slogan
Jesuit English priest
Korean Proverb
Malay Proverb
Mongolian proverb
Muslim proverb
Nashville Press (1863)
National Black Republican Association (2009)
Native American saying
New York Review of Books
New York Times
New York Times article
Portuguese proverb
Proverb
Roman proverb
Rumelian proverb
Russian Proverb
Scottish Proverb
Sioux proverb
Spanish proverb
Sufi proverb
Sumerian Proverb
Taiwan Yearbook 2006
The Guardian
The Independent
The New Republic (1936)
The Washington Post
Tibetan proverb
Time Magazine
Turkish proverb
Veterum Persarum Religio
Wall Street Journal
Quotes by Anonymous (131 quotes)
“Society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade they know they shall never sit in.”
Chapters:
54. Planting Well
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“Anyone can count the seeds in an apple but no one can count the apples in a seed.”
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“Children are natural mimics who act like their parents despite every effort to teach them good manners.”
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“We believe that success is the key to happiness but in truth happiness is the key to success.”
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“The first to apologize is the bravest, the first to forgive is the strongest, the first to forget is the happiest.”
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“Take risks: if you win, you will be happy; if you lose, you will be wise.”
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“The best person is the one who benefits all human beings.”
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“Amateurs built the ark; professionals built the Titanic.”
Chapters:
57. Wu Wei
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“If the wrong man uses the right means, the right means work in the wrong way.”
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“Clarity is the enemy of self-deception and of the larger deception known as ideology.”
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“Marry a chicken, follow a chicken. Marry a dog, follow a dog.”
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“Humility is a mediator. It will always be the shortest distance between you and another person.”
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“All forms of one-sidedness are deformities of mind and lead to indulgencies of folly.”
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“"secret sewers of vice ... canalized in its flood of unimaginable thoughts, images, and pornographic words, revolting blasphemies [which] debases and perverts and degrades the noble gift of imagination"”
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“Anyone who wants to understand the twentieth century will have to read Orwell.”
from New York Review of Books
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“Man exploits man. Under communism, it's just the opposite.”
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“If it is the truth, what does it matter who said it?”
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“Time is a file that wears but makes no noise.”
from English proverb
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“We are usually the best men when in the worst health.”
from English proverb
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“If you chase two rabbits, you will lose them both.”
from Russian Proverb
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“One beats the bush, another catches the bird.”
from German proverb
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“A man without a smiling face must not open a shop.”
from Chinese proverb
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“He would sell even his share of the sun.”
from Italian proverb
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“He that falls by himself never cries.”
from Turkish proverb
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“Nietzsche’s writings, full of revolutionary opinions, were fired with a fearless iconoclasm which surpassed the wildest dreams of contemporary free thought.”
from New York Times article
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“It is written in the chronicles of the ancients that this King of the Wise, Omar Khayyám… in science he was unrivaled,—the very paragon of his age.”
from Veterum Persarum Religio
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“The dogs bark, but the caravan moves on.”
from Arabic proverb
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“Those who complain the most accomplish the least. Complaining is a complete waste of one’s energy.”
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“If you are patient in one moment of anger, you will escape a hundred days of sorrow.”
from Chinese proverb
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“If you kick a stone in anger, you will hurt your foot.”
from Korean Proverb
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“Americans don’t spend billions for entertainment. They spend it in search of entertainment.”
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“Anyone who isn't confused here doesn't really understand what's going on.”
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“All the world fears Time but Time fears the Pyramids.”
from Arabic proverb
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“No man in Tennessee has done more than Andrew Johnson to create, to perpetuate and embitter in the minds of the Southern people, that feeling of jealousy and hostility against the free States, which has at length culminated in rebellion and civil war. Up to 1860, he had been for 20 years among the most bigoted and intolerant of the advocates of slavery and Southernism.
”
from Nashville Press (1863)
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“The greatest historians of our time—who have lived their own fascinating true-life 'love story' (since she was his 15-year old student)— and recipients of the Pulitzer Prize; they have produced 11 best-selling masterworks of history in 40 years… and recently completed (at ages 90 and 77) their final classic, The Age of Napoleon. They were married in City Hall, he carrying a briefcase swollen with books on philosophy and she holding her roller skates. Their marriage became a working literary partnership. In the early years she was secretary, researcher, assistant and editor. That led eventually to co-authorship. They have produced a total of 7 books together, and Mr. Durant alone has written 17. His The Story of Philosophy has been continuously in print since it was first published in 1928 and has sold more than 3 million copies in 19 languages [by 1975]”
from New York Times article
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“In the 1950s, a typical CEO made 20 times the salary of his or her average worker. Last year, CEO pay at an S&P 500 Index firm soared to an average of 361 times more than the average rank-and-file worker, or pay of $13,940,000 a year ($13,940,000 divided by 261 = $53,410 per day).”
from AFL-CIO's Executive Paywatch News (May, 2018)
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“The English are great lovers of themselves, and of everything belonging to them; they think there are no other men than themselves, and no other world but England; and whenever they see a handsome foreigner they say that 'he looks like an Englishman,' and that it is a great pity that he is not.”
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“[Fitzgerald] was better than he knew, for in fact and in the literary sense he invented a generation ... He might have interpreted them and even guided them, as in their middle years they saw a different and nobler freedom threatened with destruction.”
from New York Times article
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“A student came to a rabbi and said, 'In the olden days, there were men who saw the face of God Why don't they any more?' The rabbi replied, 'Because nowadays no one can stoop so low.'”
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“All gardeners know better than other gardeners.”
from Chinese Proverb
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“Pleasure for an hour, a bottle of wine; pleasure for a year, marriage; pleasure for a lifetime, a garden.”
from Chinese Proverb
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“If you really put a small value upon yourself, rest assured that the world will not raise your price.”
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“When fire and water are at war, it is the fire that loses.”
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“Live together like brothers and do business like strangers.”
from Arabic proverb
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“Firewood is not sold in a forest, fish are not sold near a lake.”
from Chinese Proverb
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“Take care of your business and your business will take care of you.”
from English proverb
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“The top of a pinnacle now, firewood soon.”
from Burmese proverb
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“Nature, time, and patience are the three great physicians.”
from Proverb
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“In Taiwan 7.5 million people (33% of the population) identify themselves as Taoists.”
from Taiwan Yearbook 2006
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“Mann has the high and now seldom encountered liberal virtue of elevating any discussion to another plane — of writing as if men were reasoning creatures, even if the evidence points to the contrary.”
from The New Republic (1936)
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“A pioneer bridge builder between Judaism and Christianity.”
from New York Times article
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“His was an exuberant life crowded with joys – the joy of thought, the joy of music, the joy of good friends. ... The theme that runs throughout his work is his concern with liberty and the dignity of human beings .... Sir Isaiah radiated well-being.”
from New York Times article
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“Isaiah Berlin was often described, especially in his old age, by means of superlatives: the world's greatest talker, the century's most inspired reader, one of the finest minds of our time... there is no doubt that he showed in more than one direction the unexpectedly large possibilities open to us at the top end of the range of human potential.”
from The Independent
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“He made it his business to tell the truth at a time when many contemporaries believed that history had ordained the lie... His work endures, as lucid and vigorous as the day it was written.”
from Time Magazine
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“A special teaching, without scriptures, beyond words and letters, pointing to the mind-essence of man, seeing directly into one’s nature, attaining enlightenment.”
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“The road to hell is paved with good intentions”
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“Corporations have neither bodies to be kicked, nor souls to be damned.”
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“Old men and far travellers may lie with authority.”
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“The crow—when travelling abroad—came back just as black.”
from English proverb
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“A rich widow weeps with one eye and signals with the other.”
from Portuguese proverb
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“Woe to the house where the hen crows and the rooster keeps still.”
from Spanish proverb
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“Marriage is not a finished affair. No matter to what age you live, love must be continuously consolidated. Being considerate, thoughtful and respectful without ulterior motives is the key to satisfactory marriage.”
from Chinese Family Planning pamphlet
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“A grain of corn contains the Universe:The hills and rivers fill a small cooking-pot.”
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“Any fool can make a rule, and every fool will mind it.”
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“The Freudian theory is one of the most important foundation stones for an edifice to be built by future generations, the dwelling of a freer and wiser humanity.”
from New York Times
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“You baby boomers have forgotten who you are. It's time to step back up and finish what you started.”
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“Durant was a remarkable specimen of that nearly extinct species, a civilized liberal of wide learning and even wider sympathy for the fundamentals of human aspiration.”
from Wall Street Journal
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“Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.”
from Chinese proverb
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“We do not inherit the land from our ancestors; we borrow it from our children.”
from Haida proverb
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“He is the lofty peak of Tai towering above the thousand mountains and hills; he is the sun in whose presence a million stars of heaven lose their scintillating brilliance.”
from Chinese critic
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“If a woman calls you to sleep with her and you do not go, you are damned. God does not forgive this. You'll be placed with Judas at the very bottom of hell.”
from Muslim proverb
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“If a man cannot dance, he cannot pray. Angels have mouths but lack the power of speech. The speak to God by dancing... dancing kills the ego, and once the ego has been killed there is no further obstacle to prevent you from joining with God”
from Sufi proverb
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“God does not have a name, He is too big to fit inside names. A name is a prison, God is free.”
from Sufi proverb
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“If youth knew how, and old age could!”
from French proverb
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“Would anyone fall in love if he had never heard or read about such a delirium?”
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“Everyone loves justice in the affairs of others.”
from Italian proverb
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“A word of kindness is better than a fat pie.”
from Russian proverb
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“A woman who loves to be at the window is a bunch of grapes on the highway.”
from English Proverb
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“One can see a louse as far away as China but is unconscious of an elephant on their nose.”
from Malay Proverb
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“There is nothing wrong with making mistakes. Just don't respond with encores.”
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“What is the use of running when you are on the wrong road?”
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“The nail that sticks out is hammered down.
”
from Japanese Proverb
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“One dog barks at something, the rest bark at him.”
from Chinese proverb
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“Butterflies can't see their wings. They can't see how truly beautiful they are, but everyone else can. People are like that as well.”
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“Live together like brothers and do business together like strangers.”
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“The goal of meditation isn’t to control your thoughts, it’s to stop letting them control you.”
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“A handful of patience is worth more than a bushel of brains.”
from Dutch proverb
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“With time and patience, the mulberry leaf becomes a silk gown.”
from Chinese proverb
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“The wise make proverbs and fools repeat them.”
from Scottish Proverb
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“Douglass provided a powerful voice for human rights during this period of American history and is still revered today for his contributions against racial injustice.
”
from National Black Republican Association (2009)
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“Mistake upon mistake compounds to become the sum total of one's knowledge.”
from Japanese Slogan
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“Love is blind; jealousy sees too much.”
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“One enemy is too many. One hundred friends are too few.”
from Tibetan proverb
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“A people without history is like wind on the buffalo grass.”
from Sioux proverb
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“When the last tree has been cut down, the last fish caught, the last river poisoned, only then will we realize that one cannot eat money.”
from Native American saying
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“It is wonderful how much good a man may do in this world if he does not care who gets the credit for it.”
from Jesuit English priest
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“Harari is such a stimulating writer that even when I disagreed, I wanted to keep reading and thinking... this is a sweeping book but its title is a misnomer. Although you will find a few concrete lessons scattered throughout, Harari mostly resists handy prescriptions. He’s more interested in defining the terms of the discussion and giving you historical and philosophical perspective.”
from New York Times
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“One of the most notorious segregationists in history.”
from Buzzfeed (2019)
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“The palest ink is better than the best memory.”
from Chinese proverb
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“A woman voting for divorce is like a turkey voting for Christmas.”
from Irish Slogan
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“A man won't buy the cow if he can get the milk for free.”
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“A man who has never been bewitched by the lovely smile of a woman must be a Buddha made of wood, metal, or stone.”
from Japanese proverb
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“Seven times down, eight times up.”
from Japanese proverb
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“One can conquer a kingdom on horseback, to rule it one must dismount.”
from Mongolian proverb
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“One joy scatters a thousand griefs.”
from Chinese proverb
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“A young branch takes on all the bends that one gives it.”
from Chinese proverb
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“Fromm's thought merits the critical attention of all concerned with the human condition and its future.”
from The Washington Post
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“Fromm is an original thinker. . . . His analysis of the causes of destructiveness is unique, and he has an enviable skill in the lucid presentation of intricate material.”
from Atlantic Monthly
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“Act promptly, make your god happy.”
from Sumerian Proverb
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“Parts of 'Nexus' are wise and bold. They remind us that democratic societies still have the facilities to prevent A.I.’s most dangerous excesses, and that it must not be left to tech companies and their billionaire owners to regulate themselves.”
from New York Times
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“"Nexus' operates primarily as a diagnosis and a call to action, and on those terms it’s broadly successful. If it sells anywhere near as well as Sapiens did, we’ll be that bit better equipped as a species to deal with the rise of the machines.”
from The Guardian
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“Although Harari is a good guide to how future technologies might destroy democracy (or humanity), he's less helpful on the present-day economics bringing those technologies forth.”
from Atlantic, Daniel Immerwahr
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