Facebook share   Tweet This   Email this

Things are seldom what they seem. ...
by Gilbert and Sullivan

Things are seldom what they seem.
- William S. Gilbert (Gilbert and Sullivan: HMS Pinafore)

Related topics: Wisdom

Don't underestimate the value of Doing Nothing,
of just going along,
listening to all the things you can't hear,
and not bothering.
- A. A. Milne (Winnie-The-Pooh)

All things at first appear difficult.
- Chinese proverb

God grant me the serenity
To accept the things I cannot change;
the courage to change the things I can;
and the wisdom to know the difference.
- Reinhold Niebuhr (Serenity Prayer)

Please sign-up for my Free Daily Inspirational Quotes and Insights Email on the form below.

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

We don't see things as they are,
we see things as we are.
- Anais Nin

A time for work, a time for play -
balance in all things.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

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

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

I Dream This Day of Wondrous Things,
of Peace and Hope and Pride.
I Dance My Dance with Life Today,
I'm Filled with Love Inside.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Joy is what happens to us when we allow ourselves
to recognize how good things really are.
- Marianne Williamson

Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed
by the things you didn't do than by the ones you did do.
So throw off the bowlines.
Sail away from the safe harbor.
Catch the trade winds in your sails.
Explore. Dream. Discover.
- widely misattributed to Mark Twain

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

We can do no great things,
only small things with great love.
- Mother Teresa

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

Morality is the basis of things
and truth is the substance of all morality.
- Mohandas (Mahatma) Gandhi

You see things and you say, Why?
But I dream things that never were and say, Why not
- George Bernard Shaw

I believe that everything happens for a reason.
People change so that you can learn to let go,
things go wrong so that you appreciate them when they're right,
you believe lies so you eventually learn to trust no one but yourself,
and sometimes good things fall apart so better things can fall together.
- Marilyn Monroe

Only love and death will change all things.
- Khalil Gibran

The things of this world exist;
they are; you can't refuse them.
- Lao Tzu's Tao Te Ching - Book One #2 - version by Ursula K. Le Guin

It is not he who reviles or strikes you who insults you,
but your opinion that these things are insulting.
- Epictetus

Sometimes good things fall apart
so better things can fall together.
- Marilyn Monroe

If you realize that all things change,
there is nothing you will try to hold on to.
If you are not afraid of dying,
there is nothing you cannot achieve.
- Lao Tzu

If we let things terrify us,
life will not be worth living.
- Seneca

If we all did the things we are capable of doing,
we would literally astound ourselves.
- Thomas Edison

We know nothing at all.
All our knowledge is but the knowledge of schoolchildren.
The real nature of things we shall never know.
- Albert Einstein

Don't try to manage people;
You manage things; You lead people.
- Grace Hopper

Things turn out best for the people
who make the best of the way things turn out.
- Art Linkletter

All the great things are simple,
and many can be expressed in a single word:
freedom, justice, honor, duty, mercy, hope.
- Winston Churchill

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)

There are those that look at things
the way they are, and ask "Why?"
I dream of things that never were, and ask "Why not?"
- Robert F. Kennedy paraphrase of George Bernard Shaw

People should think things out fresh
and not just accept conventional terms
and the conventional way of doing things.
- R. Buckminster Fuller

When trouble arises and things look bad,
there is always one individual who perceives a solution
and is willing to take command.
Very often, that individual is crazy.
- Dave Barry

People are not disturbed by things,
but by the view they take of them.
- Epictetus

The promises we makes to ourselves are the things
that assure us we have the capacity to keep our promises to others.
- Mary Anne Radmacher

If you follow the trail of your own
enthusiastically repeated stories,
you will begin to rediscover the things
that invigorate and enliven you.
- Mary Anne Radmacher

Stand often in the company of dreamers.
They believe you can achieve impossible things.
- Mary Anne Radmacher

The problems of the world cannot possibly
be solved by skeptics or cynics
whose horizons are limited by the obvious realities.
We need men who can dream of things that never were.
- John F. Kennedy

Things do not happen. Things are made to happen.
- John F. Kennedy

People generally complain about only two things:
when they have less than yesterday,
and when they have less than their neighbor.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Some things will never seem adequate
no matter how hard we try.
- from the movie White Man's Burden

I have just three things to teach:
simplicity, patience, compassion.
These three are your greatest treasures.
- Lao Tzu

The highest and most beautiful things in life
are not to be heard about, nor read about, nor seen but,
if one will, are to be lived.
- Soren Kierkegaard

Most of the important things in the world
have been accomplished by people
who have kept on trying
when there seemed to be no hope at all.
- Dale Carnegie

To accomplish great things,
we must not only act, but also dream;
not only plan, but also believe.
- Anatole France

Everything is a miracle,
not just the beautiful and lovely things.
- Anonymous

There are some things you learn best in calm,
and some in storm.
- Willa Cather

Common sense is the knack of seeing things as they are,
and doing things as they ought to be done.
- Josh Billings

Good things happen to those who hustle.
- Anais Nin

All life is change.
Release your attachment to the way things have been,
and wend your way joyfully
through life's unfolding majesty.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

From small beginnings come great things.
- Anonymous

Knowledge is happiness, because to have knowledge -
broad, deep knowledge - is to know true ends from false,
and lofty things from low.
- Helen Keller

A ship in port is safe,
but that's not what ships are built for.
Sail out to sea and do new things.
- Grace Hopper

Energy and persistence conquer all things.
- Benjamin Franklin

In this life we cannot do great things.
We can only do small things with great love.
- Mother Teresa

The best things in life are free.
- Anonymous

Do all things with love.
- Og Mandino

What people say, what people do,
and what they say they do
are entirely different things.
- Margaret Mead

We can always choose to perceive things differently.
You can focus on what's wrong in your life,
or you can focus on what's right.
- Marianne Williamson

Never tell people how to do things.
Tell them what to do and they will
surprise you with their ingenuity.
- George S. Patton

All difficult things have
their origin in that which is easy,
and great things in that which is small.
- Lao Tzu

Three things cannot be long hidden:
the sun, the moon, and the truth.
- The Buddha

Difficulties are things that show a person what he is.
- Epictetus

The softest things in the world overcome
the hardest things in the world.
- Lao Tzu

When you can do the common things of life in an uncommon way,
you will command the attention of the world.
- George Washington Carver

You manage things, you lead people.
- Grace Hopper

Management is doing things right;
leadership is doing the right things.
- Peter F. Drucker

The mystery of the beginning
of all things is insoluble by us;
and I for one, must be content to remain an agnostic.
- Charles Darwin

I believe that anyone can conquer fear
by doing the things he fears to do,
provided he keeps doing them until he gets
a record of successful experience behind him.
- Eleanor Roosevelt

Do first things first, and second things not at all.
- Peter F. Drucker

Do not seek to bring things to pass
in accordance with your wishes,
but wish for them as they are,
and you will find them.
- Epictetus

The least of things with a meaning is worth more in life
than the greatest of things without it.
- Carl Jung

Thank you for visiting: Things are seldom what they seem. ... by Gilbert and Sullivan.

Please sign up on the form below to receive my Free Daily Inspiration - Daily Quotes email.

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