Inspirational One Liners

It is my personal hobby to collect inspirational one-liners. Here are some of them. On a low day, it will cheer you up to go through a one-liner book, so why not start collecting your own set? Square brackets contain my own comments.

Quotes by unknown authors

• Failure is always temporary, only giving up makes it permenant.
• Do a little more every day than you think you can.
• Character equals destiny.
• When character is gained, everything is gained.
• The best way to predict the future is to create it.
• Be critical of both new ideas and accepted wisdom.
• Trust me: Never trust someone who says "trust me".
• Taxation is a way to force people to work for money.
• It was Chanakya who first wrote that a government should tax its people like a shepherd shears his flock or a bee gets nectar from a flower. But apparently that fiscal wisdom died with him. The modern Indian state has taxed its people like the French get perfume from flowers - by the time they are through, nothing much of the flower remains. Similarly, right from the prohibitive peak income tax rate of 97.5% in the heydey of state control to the current system of state taxes, the formula is a familiar one: by the time the state is through with the taxpayer, nothing much was left of him.

Thiruvalluvar from 'Thirukural'

• Yakavarayinum nakaakka kaavakkal sokaappar
  sol izhukap pattu

  [Even if you don't guard anything else, guard your tongue, otherwise you will guard sorrow after words are drawn out from you.]

• Thaeran thelivum thelinthankan iyuravum
  theera idumbaitharum

  [Deciding before questioning and questioning after deciding will both give you unending trouble.
  • What ever you want to do, whether you want to get married, get divorced, join a job, leave a job, start a project, get out of a project, for anything that you want to do, you should do lots of self questioning and self doubting before you decide. Deciding an action without lots of questioning is foolish. You may waste a lot of time doing it before you regret it.
  • Doubts after deciding is equally foolish. Once you have commenced your action all questions except for how best to do the job at hand should be rigourously eliminated. Doubts and fears will bring down your capacity to do the job. Once you have decided never look back, never ask whether it is worth doing, whether you are going anywhere or whether you will get anywhere or whether you are making a mistake. Just cease your questions and simply go on doing until you execute what you have decided.]

• Anbirkumundo Adaikkum thazh, aarvalar,
  punnkanir pusal tharum
  [Can any door lock love? its unstoppable like the tears that fill our eyes.]

Lord Krishna from the Essence of Bhagavad Gita

• Whatever has happened, has happened well,
  whatever is happening, is happening well,
  whatever is going to happen, will happen well.
  what did you lose? what are you crying for?
  what did you bring into this world for you to lose it?
  what ever did you create for it to be wasted?
  what ever you took was taken from here.
  what ever you gave was given here.
  what is yours today will belong to someone else tomorrow.
  and the day after tomorrow it will belong to someother person
  this is the way of this world.

Sun Tzu

• Know yourself, know your enemies, one hundred battles, one hundred victories.
• He who fights first and then looks for victory shows a supreme lack of intelligence.
• One may know how to win, without being able to do so.

Isaac Asimov

• Happiness is doing it rotten your own way.

Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi

• Violence is the refuge of the incompetent.
• Non violence in a more powerful force than violence.
• It requires more courage to be non violent than it takes to be violent.

Thomas Alva Edison is my favorite.

• Success is 1% inspiration and 99% work. [slightly modified by me. Actually he said 'Genius is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration'.]
• Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.
• The surest way to succeed is to always try just one more time.

Quotes by James Allen from 'As a man thinketh'

• Only the wise man, only he whose thoughts are controlled and purified makes the winds and storms of life obey him.
• With the majority of people the barque of thought is allowed to drift upon the ocean of life.

Ted Turner

• Insecurity breeds greatness. To get to the top in virtually anthing you really have to make a superhuman effort. You won't ever find a superachiever anywhere who wasn't or isn't motivated at least partially by insecurity [or paranoia].

Calvin Coolidge

• “Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. The slogan "press on" has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race.”

Jim Rohn

• In the homes of poor people you'll find a big TV. In the homes of wealthy people you'll find a big library.

Vic Johnson

• one of my most favorite inspirational examples about persistence is the story of an Asian Bamboo species that even after five years of watering, weeding and fertilizing is barely visible. Then in a span of about six weeks it grows two and a half feet a day to 90 feet and higher. It grows so fast that you can literally "hear" it growing. The question to ask is did the bamboo grow 90 feet in six weeks or did it grow 90 feet in five years?
  
  Obviously it grew 90 feet in five years, for all the time when growth wasn't visible it was developing a massive root system that would later support it's magnificent growth. Can you see where the current circumstances in your life are developing your massive root system? Can you see where you must continue to "fertilize" and "water" yourself even though maybe you can't see any visible changes today?

Jeremy Chatfield

• a failure is only a failure when you fail to learn

Lazarus Long

• I don't believe anything. Gets in the way of learning.

Steve Pavlina

• Awesome vs. Crappy goals
• It's far better to happily achieve than it is to feel you must achieve in order to be happy.
• Character trumps personality. Where personal honor is sacred, every individual assumes responsibility for the project. When honesty is paramount, suspicion and distrust cannot gain a foothold. And where mutual respect is high, petty personality differences simply don't matter.
• Failure is not the opposite of success. It is an essential part of success. Once you succeed, no one will remember your failures anyway. Microsoft wasn't Bill Gates' and Paul Allen's first business venture. Who remembers that their original Traf-o-Data business was a flop? The actor Jim Carey was booed off many a stage while a young comedian. We have electric light bulbs because Thomas Edison refused to give up even after 10,000 failed experiments. If the word "failure" is anathema to you, then reframe it: You either succeed, or you have a learning experience.
• you'll learn a lot more by doing than you ever will by thinking indefinitely
• Realize that nothing is free if it costs you time. Before you sign up for any new free service or subscription, ask how much it will cost you in terms of time.
• Thinking and planning are important, but action is far more important. You don't get paid for your thoughts and plans -- you only get paid for your results. When in doubt, act boldly, as if it were impossible to fail. In essence, it is.
• Don't chase money. Chase your passion.

Newt Gingrich

• Perseverance is the hard work that you do after you get tired of doing the hard work that you already did.

Richard Feynman

• Imagination of nature is greater than the imagination of man. [My twist: The imagination of the users of your product is a magnitude greater than your own imagination, or the imagination of society as a whole is greater than your imagination.]

Ben Franklin

• if you love life, don't waste time, because time is what life is made of

Will Rogers

• Even if you're on the right track, you'll get run over if you just sit there.

Albert Einstein

• Make everything as simple as possible, but not simpler

Arthur C. Clarke

• For every expert there is an equal and opposite expert
• When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right; when he states that something is impossible, he is probably wrong.
• The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible.
• Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

Abraham Lincoln

• You cannot help the poor by destroying the rich. You cannot strengthen the weak by weakening the strong. You cannot bring about prosperity by discouraging thrift. You cannot lift the wage earner up by pulling the wage payer down. You cannot further the brotherhood of man by inciting class hatred. You cannot build character and courage by taking away people's initiative and independence. You cannot help people permanently by doing for them, what they could and should do for themselves.

Click here for my own observations

• Inspirational One Liners
• Purpose of Life, Cosmos, Universe - Creation.

• Freedom for blasphemy and apostasy
• Comparison: Polytheism is much better than Monotheism
• Muslims! SMASH your Islamic Idols - Kaaba, Quran, Muhammad and Mecca. Don't commit shirk. Worship ALLAH ALONE.
• Manual: How to become a prophet - for dummies
• Similarity between Islam and Slavery. Muslims are the slaves of muhammad.
• Bible and Quaranic verses that advocate killing, murder.
• The Importance of Muslims and Multiculturalism to your country and this world.

• Financial Democracy - An improvement on democracy.
• Univos - Universal World Dollars Currency
• Don't finance demand. Finance supply. Keep prices low economics. World housing bubble burst of 2020.
• How 911 benefited India and the East. For a world without borders. The last shameful apartheid of mankind: passports and visas.
• Advantages/Reasons: Why become a vegetarian or Vegan? Stop Eating Meat.
• Get rid of ALL languages other than English. Advantages and Disadvantages of English.
• Say No to forming a world government.
• How to fix the broken patent system.
• Links.

• Peer Review and Self Publication of scientific theories using trusted time stamping.
• Earthquakes Causes and prediction. How did continents Form?
• Atheism Skepticism and Astrology. How the Stars and Planets affect / influence / foretell our future / life. Why astrology is harmful even if its not bullshit.
• Theory of hyperspatial Objectivity. Faster than light travel to the stars and other galaxies.