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One of the annoying things about believing in free will
by P. J. O'Rourke

One of the annoying things about believing in free will
and individual responsibility is the difficulty
of finding somebody to blame your problems on.
And when you do find somebody, it's remarkable
how often his picture turns up on your driver's license.
- P. J. O'Rourke

Related topics: Cynical Life Human-Nature Psychology Wisdom Free-Will

Don't let one cloud obliterate the whole sky.
- Anais Nin

One can never consent to creep when one feels the impulse to soar.
- Helen Keller

One does not discover new lands without consenting
to lose sight of the shore for a very long time.
- Andre Gide

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

Everyone is a prisoner of his own experiences.
No one can eliminate prejudices -
just recognize them.
- Edward R. Murrow

Fear defeats more people than
any other one thing in the world.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

This day I will marry my friend,
the one I laugh with, live for, dream with, love.
- Anonymous

The greatest mistake you can make in life
is to be continually fearing you will make one.
- Elbert Hubbard

Majority rule only works if you're also
considering individual rights,
because you can't have five wolves and one sheep
voting on what to have for dinner.
- Larry Flynt

If you wait for opportunities to occur,
you will be one of the crowd.
- Edward de Bono

No one was ever named "Hero" for following the crowd.
Heroes set their own course.
- 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

To know yet to think that one does not know is best;
Not to know yet to think that one knows
will lead to difficulty.
- Lao Tzu

Take your life in your own hands, and what happens?
A terrible thing: no one to blame.
- Erica Jong

Love one another but make not a bond of love.
Let it rather be a moving sea
between the shores of your souls.
- Khalil Gibran

Holding on to anger is like grasping a hot coal
with the intent of throwing it at someone else;
you are the one who gets burned.
- The Buddha

Individually, we are one drop.
Together, we are an ocean.
- Ryunosuke Satoro

Friendship is born at that moment
when one person says to another,
"What! You too? I thought I was the only one."
- C. S. Lewis

In one drop of water are found all the secrets of all the oceans.
- Khalil Gibran

The essence of all religions is one.
Only their approaches are different.
- Mohandas (Mahatma) Gandhi

Drop the sword - for there is but one flesh to wound,
and it is the one flesh of all humankind.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Try a new perspective on diversity.
Across the country and around the world,
we are all one.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

If you can't feed a hundred people, then feed just one.
- Mother Teresa

One can not reflect in streaming water.
Only those who know internal peace can give it to others.
- Lao Tzu

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

We must be willing to get rid of the life we've planned,
so as to have the life that is waiting for us.
The old skin has to be shed before the new one can come.
- Joseph Campbell

"Just living is not enough," said the butterfly,
"one must have sunshine, freedom and a little flower."
- Hans Christian Andersen

I am one with the Earth,
with the Water, with the Fire,
with the Air that I breathe,
with all Living Things,
and we are all one with Spirit.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

It is any day better to stand erect
with a broken and bandaged head
then to crawl on one's belly,
in order to be able to save one's head.
- Mohandas (Mahatma) Gandhi

People love chopping wood.
In this activity one immediately sees results.
- Albert Einstein

Non-violence and truth are inseparable and presuppose one another.
- Mohandas (Mahatma) Gandhi

Hatred is active, and envy passive dislike;
there is but one step from envy to hate.
- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

There is only one time that is important - NOW!
It is the most important time because
it is the only time that we have any power.
- Leo Tolstoy

When I am getting ready to reason with a man,
I spend one-third of my time thinking about myself
and what I am going to say
and two-thirds about him and what he is going to say.
- Abraham Lincoln

Truth is certainly a branch of morality
and a very important one to society.
- Thomas Jefferson

Courage is the art of being the only one
who knows you're scared to death.
- Earl Wilson

And now here is my secret, a very simple secret:
It is only with the heart that one can see rightly;
what is essential is invisible to the eye.
- Antoine de Saint-Exupery

If there is any one secret of success,
it lies in the ability to get
the other person's point of view
and see things from that person's angle
as well as from your own.
- Henry Ford

No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.
- Eleanor Roosevelt

Why need I volumes, if one word suffice?
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

The greatest hazard of all, losing one's self,
can occur very quietly in the world, as if it were nothing at all.
- Soren Kierkegaard

To know how to free oneself is nothing;
the arduous thing is to know what to do with one's freedom.
- Andre Gide

Love is the total absence of fear.
Love asks no questions.
Its natural state is one of extension and expansion,
not comparison and measurement.
- Gerald Jampolsky

Don't give up. There are too many nay-sayers out there
who will try to discourage you.
Don't listen to them.
The only one who can make you give up is yourself.
- Sidney Sheldon

In the practice of tolerance,
one's enemy is the best teacher.
- Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama

One accurate measurement is worth a thousand expert opinions.
- Grace Hopper

The trick is in what one emphasizes.
We either make ourselves miserable,
or we make ourselves happy.
The amount of work is the same.
- Carlos Castaneda

It isn't enough to talk about peace.
One must believe in it.
And it isn't enough to believe in it.
One must work at it.
- Eleanor Roosevelt

Genius is one percent inspiration
and ninety-nine percent perspiration.
- Thomas Edison

You miss one hundred percent of the shots you don't take.
- Wayne Gretzky

No one ever found wisdom without also being a fool.
Writers, alas, have to be fools in public,
while the rest of the human race can cover its tracks.
- Erica Jong

The quality, not the longevity, of one's life is what is important.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.

Be that self which one truly is.
- Soren Kierkegaard

None is more impoverished than the one who has no gratitude.
Gratitude is a currency that we can mint for ourselves,
and spend without fear of bankruptcy.
- Fred De Witt Van Amburgh

Spread love everywhere you go.
Let no one ever come to you without leaving happier.
- Mother Teresa

This isn't a rehearsal or a practice life.
This is your real life - your one and only real life.
There are no retakes - no second chances.
Begin now - live full out.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

The best remedy for those who are afraid, lonely or unhappy
is to go outside, somewhere where they can be quiet,
alone with the heavens, nature and God.
Because only then does one feel that all is as it should be.
- Anne Frank

I am the wisest man alive, for I know one thing,
and that is that I know nothing.
- Socrates

I don't know what your destiny will be, but one thing I know:
the only ones among you who will be really happy
are those who will have sought and found how to serve.
- Albert Schweitzer

A wise man hears one word and understands two.
- Yiddish Proverb

We should not moor a ship with one anchor,
or our life with one hope.
- Epictetus

Facts are many, but the truth is one.
- Rabindranath Tagore

Be careful not to do your good deeds
when there's no one watching you.
- Tom Lehrer

Neither should a ship rely on one small anchor,
nor should life rest on a single hope.
- Epictetus

The function of prayer is not to influence God,
but rather to change the nature of the one who prays.
- Soren Kierkegaard

When one has nothing to lose, one becomes courageous.
We are timid only when
there is something we can still cling to.
- Carlos Castaneda

I have a dream that my four little children will one day
live in a nation where they will
not be judged by the color of their skin,
but by the content of their character.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.

Your life is the fruit of your own doing.
You have no one to blame but yourself.
- Joseph Campbell

Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one.
- Albert Einstein

Loving, hating, having expectations:
all these are attachments.
Attachment prevents the growth of one's true being.
- Lao Tzu

If one advances confidently
in the direction of his dreams,
and endeavors to live
the life which he has imagined,
he will meet with success
unexpected in common hours.
- Henry David Thoreau

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