Return
Home
The
Credits
The
Cast
Act
1
Act
2
Act
3
The
Reviews
     
 

ACADEMY AWARDS --- ACCEPTANCE --- ACCIDENTS
ACCOMPLISHMENT --- ACCURACY
ACCUSATION

.
.
.

ACADEMY AWARDS

see: "ACTORS"
see: "MOVIES"


When the Academy called, I panicked. I thought they might
want their Oscars back and the pawn shop has been out of
business for awhile.
--Woody Allen [Allen Stewart Konigsberg] (b. 1935)
American actor, screenwriter, and director.
At the 2002 Academy Awards. Despite dozens of nominations
this was his first appearance at the Oscars. He came to ask
producers to continue filming movies in New York after the
9/11 tragedy.

I'll read you my acceptance speech if you'll read me yours.
--Marlon Brando (1924—2004) to Anthony Quinn [Antonio Quinones]
(1915—2001) Mexican-born American actor, author, and painter;
after the 1957 Oscar ceremony when both had been nominated but
the best actor award had gone to Alec Guinness.

If you can go past those awful idiot faces on the bleachers
outside the theater [on Oscar night] without a sense of the
collapse of the human intelligence; if you can stand the
hailstorm of flash bulbs popping at the poor patient actors
who, like kings and queens, have never the right to look
bored; if you can glance out over this gathered assemblage
of what is supposed to be the elite of Hollywood and say to
yourself without a sinking feeling, 'In these hands lie the
destinies of the only original art the modern world has
conceived'; if you can laugh, and you probably will, at the
cast-off jokes from the comedians on the stage, stuff that
wasn't good enough to use on their radio shows; if you can
stand the fake sentimentality and the platitudes of the
officials and the mincing elocution of the glamour queens
(you ought to hear them with four martinis down the hatch);
if you can do all these things with grace and pleasure, and
not have a wild and forsaken horror at the thought that most
of these people actually take this shoddy performance
seriously; and if you can then go out into the night to see
half the police force of Los Angeles gathered to protect the
golden ones from the mob in the free seats but not from that
awful moaning sound they give out, like destiny whistling
through a hollow shell; if you can do all these things and
still feel next morning that the picture business is worth
the attention of one single intelligent, artistic mind, then
in the picture business you certainly belong.
--Raymond Chandler (1888—1959)
American writer of detective fiction.
_The Atlantic_ [1946]

. . . You know, when you grow up in the suburbs
of Sydney or Auckland or Newcastle, like Ridley
or Jamie Bell, well, the suburbs of anywhere.
You know, a dream like this seems kind of vaguely
ludicrous and completely unattainable. But this
moment is directly connected to those childhood
imaginings. And for anybody who's on the down
side of advantage and relying purely on courage,
it's possible.
--Russell Crowe (b. 1964)
New Zealand-born film actor.
Accepting Best Actor Academy Award for 'Gladiator' [2001].

I accept this very gratefully for keeping my
mouth shut for once. I think I'll do it
again.
--Jane Wyman [Sarah Jane Fulks] (1914—2007)
American actress.
Accepting the 1949 Academy Award for best actress
for her role as a deaf-mute in "Johnny Belinda."

-

TRIVIA: The first time the Academy Awards ceremony
was opened to the general public was in 1947.



ACCEPTANCE

.
.

see: "AGREEMENT"
see: "APPROVAL"


Be content with your lot; one cannot be first in everything.
--Ζsop (c.620 B.C.—c.560 B.C.)
(Thought to be a legendary figure.)
"The Peacock and Juno"
_Ζsop's Fables_

Our entire life [...] consists ultimately in accepting ourselves as we are.
--Jean [-Marie-Lucien-Pierre] Anouilh (1910—1987)
French playwright.
_Le voyageur sans bagage_ (The Traveller Without Luggage) [1937]

Everything in life depends on how that life accepts its limits.
--James Baldwin (1924—1987)
American author and playwright.
_Nobody Knows My Name_ [1961]

The secret of health for both mind and body is not to mourn
for the past, worry about the future, or anticipate troubles,
but to live in the present moment wisely and earnestly.
--Buddha [Gautama] (c. 6th—4th century B.C.)
Founder of Buddhism.
Attributed in _The Teaching of Buddha (the Buddhist Bible) [1934].

Make the best of what is in our power, and
take the rest as it naturally happens.
--Epictetus (55—135)
Greek philosopher.
_Discourses_ 1.1

It is only necessary to grow old to become more indulgent.
I see no fault committed that I have not committed myself.
--Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749—1832)
German poet, novelist, and playwright.
Quoted in Sarah Austin (trans.) _Fragments from German Prose Writers_ [1841].

-

The four stages of acceptance:

1. This is worthless nonsense.
2. This is an interesting, but perverse, point of view.
3. This is true, but quite unimportant.
4. I always said so.
--J.B.S. Haldane (1892—1964)
Scottish mathematical biologist.
(Referring to the stages scientific theory often goes through.)

-

Acceptance of what has happened is the first step to
overcoming the consequences of any misfortune.
--William James (1842—1910)
American philosopher.
Attributed in Dale Carnegie _How to Stop Worrying and Start Living_ [1948].

That what cannot be repaired is not to be regretted.
--Samuel Johnson (1709—1784)
English poet, critic, and lexicographer.
_Rasselas_, ch. IV [1759]

We cannot change anything until we accept it.
Condemnation does not liberate, it oppresses.
--attributed to Carl Gustav Jung (1875—1961)
Swiss psychologist.

For after all, the best thing one can do
When it is raining, is to let it rain.
--Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807—1882)
American poet.
_Tales of a Wayside Inn_ [1863]
"The Poet's Tale; The Birds of Killingworth"

Life has no other discipline to impose, if we would but
realize it, than to accept life unquestioningly. Everything
we shut our eyes to, everything we run away from, everything
we deny, denigrate, or despise, serves to defeat us in the
end. What seems nasty, painful, evil, can become a source
of beauty, joy, and strength, if faced with an open mind.
Every moment is a golden one for him who has the vision
to recognize it as such.
--Henry Miller (1891—1980)
American novelist and essayist.
_The World of Sex_ [1940]

-

God grant me the serenity
to accept the things I cannot change;
courage to change the things I can;
and wisdom to know the difference.

Living one day at a time;
Enjoying one moment at a time;
Accepting hardships as the pathway to peace;
Taking, as He did, this sinful world
as it is, not as I would have it;
Trusting that He will make all things right
if I surrender to His Will;
That I may be reasonably happy in this life
and supremely happy with Him
Forever in the next.
Amen.

--Reinhold Niebuhr (1892—1971)
American theologian.
"The Serenity Prayer" [1936]
With slightly different wording, the first four lines above were
attributed to Niebuhr in the "New York Times" on 2 August 1942.

-

Things cannot always go your way. Learn to accept
in silence the minor aggravations, cultivate the gift
of taciturnity and consume your own smoke with
an extra draught of hard work, so that those about
you may not be annoyed with the dust and soot of
your complaints.
--Sir William Osler (1849—1919)
Canadian-born physician.
_Counsels and Ideals from the Writings of William Osler_, p. 102 [1905]

The way I see it, if you want the rainbow, you gotta put up with the rain.
--Dolly Parton (b. 1946)
American country music singer.
Attributed in William Safire
_Words of Wisdom: More Good Advice_ [1989] (With Leonard Safir)

If a problem has no solution, it may not be a problem,
but a fact, not to be solved, but to be coped with over
time.
--Shimon Peres (b. 1923)
Israeli statesman.
In _The Wall Street Journal_ [7 February 2001].

With a grain of salt.
--Pliny the Elder [Gaius Plinius Secundus] (23—79)
Roman statesman and scholar.
_Natural History_ [77—79 ]

You have to accept whatever comes and the only important thing
is that you meet it with courage and with the best that you have to
give.
--Eleanor Roosevelt (1884—1962)
American human rights activist, diplomat, and
wife of U.S. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt.
Essay in Edward P. Morgan (ed.) _This I Believe ..._ [1952].

-

Things past redress are now with me past care.
--William Shakespeare (1564—1616)
English dramatist.
_Richard II_, II, iii [1595]


Things without remedy,
Should be without regard: what's done is done.
--William Shakespeare (1564—1616)
English dramatist.
_Macbeth_, III, ii [1606]

-

I have heard a good story of our friend Charles Fox. When his
house [...] was on fire, he found all effort to save it useless, and
being a good draughtsman, he went up the next hill to make a
drawing of the fire! the best instance of philosophy I ever heard.
--Robert Southey (1774—1843)
English poet.
Letter to Joseph Cottle [1800] reprinted in Joseph Cottle
_Reminiscences of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey_ [1847].

If you can't change your fate, change your attitude.
--Amy Tan (b. 1952)
American writer.
Interview with Eleanor Wachtel published in Wachtel's _Writers & Company_ [1993].

-

I make the most of all that comes
And the least of all that goes.
--Sara Teasdale (1884—1933)
American poet.
"The Philosopher"


"The Philosopher" :

I saw him sitting in his door,
Trembling as old men do;
His house was old; his barn was old,
And yet his eyes seemed new.

His eyes had seen three times my years
And kept a twinkle still,
Though they had looked at birth and death
And three graves on a hill.

“I will sit down with you,” I said,
“And you will make me wise;
Tell me how you have kept the joy
Still burning in your eyes.”

Then like an old-time orator
Impressively he rose;
“I make the most of all that comes,
And the least of all that goes.”

The jingling rhythm of his words
Echoes as old songs do,
Yet this had kept his eyes alight
Till he was ninety-two.

-

Be not angry that you cannot make others as you
wish them to be, since you cannot make yourself
as you wish to be.
--Thomas a' Kempis (1380—1471)
German ascetical writer.
_Imitation of Christ_, bk. I, ch. 16 [c.1420]

The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation.
What is called resignation is confirmed desperation.
--Henry David Thoreau (1817—1862)
American essayist, poet, and practical philosopher.
_Walden_, ch. I [1854]

Happy is he who learns to bear what he cannot change!
--Friedrich von Schiller (1759—1805)
German poet, historian, and dramatist.
"On the Sublime" in _The Works of Frederick
Schiller_, vol. 4 [S.E. Cassino, Boston, 1884].

-----

acquiesce [ak-wee-ES], intransitive verb:
To accept or consent passively or without
objection — usually used with 'in' or 'to'.

inure [in-YOOR], transitive verb:
To make accustomed or used to something painful, difficult,
or inconvenient; to harden; to habituate; as, "inured to
drudgery and distress."
intransitive verb:
To pass into use; to take or have effect; to be applied.
Ex.: At school, he repeatedly jabbed the nib of his pen
into his hand, wanting to inure himself to agony.
--Peter Conrad, "Enter the philosopher, with an axe,"
_The Observer_, [8 September 2002]



Click picture to ZOOM
ACCIDENTS

.
.

see: "CHANCE"
see: "CIRCUMSTANCES"
see: "DESTINY"
see: "FATE"
see: "LUCK"
see: "UNHAPPINESS" for other related links


Accidents will occur in the best-regulated families.
--Charles Dickens (1812—1870)
English novelist.
_David Copperfield_, ch. 28 [1850]

To what happy accident is it that we owe so unexpected a visit?
--Oliver Goldsmith (1728—1774)
Anglo-Irish writer, poet, and dramatist.
_The Vicar of Wakefield_, ch. XIX [1766 novel, completed 1762]

-

'There's been an accident' they said,
'Your servant's cut in half; he's dead!'
'Indeed!' said Mr Jones, 'and please
Send me the half that's got my keys,
--Harry Graham (1874—1936)
British writer and journalist.
_Ruthless Rhymes for Heartless Homes_ [1899]


Aunt Jane observed, the second time
She tumbled off a bus,
'The step is short from the Sublime
To the Ridiculous.'
--Harry Graham (1874—1936)
British writer and journalist.
_Ruthless Rhymes for Heartless Homes_ [1899]

-

Surely no man can reflect, without wonder upon the vicissitudes
of human life arising from causes in the highest degree accidental
and trifling. If you trace the necessary concatenation of human
events a very little way back, you may perhaps discover that a
person's very going in or out of a door has been the means of
coloring with misery or happiness the remaining current of his
life.
--Fulke Greville (1554—1628)
English philosophical poet.
_Maxims, Characters, and Reflections_, CXXI [2nd ed., 1757]

Whenever I see an old lady slip and fall on a wet sidewalk,
my first instinct is to laugh. But then I think, what if I was
an ant, and she fell on me. Then it wouldn't seem quite so
funny.
--Jack Handey (b. 1949)
American comedian and comedy writer.
_Deep Thoughts_ [1993]

Accident is the name one gives to the coincidence
of events, of which one does not know the
causation. . . . Accidents only exist in our
heads, in our limited perceptions.
--Franz Kafka (1883—1924)
Czech novelist.
Quoted in Gustav Janouch _Conversations with Kafka_, tr. Goronwy Rees [1953].

The Orientals have another word
for accident; it is "kismet," — fate.
--Thomas Babington Macaulay (1800—1859)
English politician and historian.
Attributed in Charles Noel Douglas
_Forty Thousand Quotations, Prose and Poetical_ [1917].

There is no such thing as accident; it is fate misnamed.
--Napoleon I (1769—1821)
Emperor of France [1804—1815].
Attributed in Charles Noel Douglas
_Forty Thousand Quotations, Prose and Poetical_ [1917].

[To his dog who had knocked over a candle
and set fire to his papers:]
Oh Diamond! Diamond! Thou little knowest
the mischief thou has done!
--Sir Isaac Newton (1642—1727)
English mathematician and physicist.
"The Scots Magazine" [October 1772]

A happy accident.
--Germaine de Staλl (1766—1817)
French writer.
_De l'Allemagne_, ch. XVI [1810-1813]

^^

In Milwaukee, uninjured when his auto swerved
off the highway, Eugene Cromwell stepped out
to survey the damage and fell into a 50-foot
limestone quarry. He suffered a broken arm.
--_Time_ [23 April 1956]

^^

-----

carom [KAIR-uhm], noun:
1. A rebound following a collision; a glancing off.
2. A shot in billiards in which the cue ball successively
strikes two other balls on the table.

fortuitous (adj.) [for-'tu-i-tκs]
Coincidental, accidental; occurring by chance.



Click picture to ZOOM
ACCOMPLISHMENT

.
.

see: "ACHIEVEMENT"
see: "DEEDS"
see: "LEGACIES"
see: "SUCCESS" for other related links


We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence
then, is not an act, but a habit.
--Aristotle (384—322 B.C.)
Greek philosopher.
_Nicomachean Ethics_ [c. 350 B.C.]

Here is a test to find whether your mission on
earth is finished: If you're alive, it isn't.
--Richard Bach (b. 1936)
American writer.
_Illusions_ [1977]

Everyone must leave something behind when he dies,
my grandfather said. A child or a book or a painting or
a house or a wall built or a pair of shoes made. Or a
garden planted. Something your hand touched some
way so your soul has somewhere to go when you die,
and when people look at that tree or that flower you
planted, you're there. It doesn't matter what you do,
he said, so long as you change something from the
way it was before you touched it into something that's
like you after you take your hand away. The difference
between the man who just cuts lawns and a real
gardener is in the touching, he said. The lawn cutter
might just as well not have been there at all; the
gardner will be there for a lifetime.
--Ray Bradbury (b. 1920)
American science fiction author.
_Fahrenheit 451_ [1953]

Sweat is the cologne of accomplishment.
--Heywood Hale Broun (1918—2001)
American sportswriter and sports commentator; son of Heywood Broun.
Comment on CBS-TV [21 July 1973], as quoted in
Julia Vitullo-Martin & J. Robert Moskin (eds.)
_The Executive's Book of Quotations_ [1993].

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.
--attributed to Dale Carnegie (1888—1955)
American writer and lecturer.

One never notices what has been done; one
can only see what remains to be done.
--Marie Curie nιe Maria Sklodowska (1867—1934)
Polish-born French physicist who was the co-winner
of the 1903 Nobel Prize for Physics and the winner
of the 1911 Nobel Prize for Chemistry.
Letter to her brother [18 March 1894].

The distance is nothing; it is only the first step that costs.
--Marie Anne de Vichy-Chamrond, marquise du Deffand (1697—1780)
French hostess and patron of the arts.
In a letter to Horace Walpole [6 June 1767].

To accomplish great things we must not only
act, but also dream, not only plan, but also
believe.
--Anatole France [Jacques Anatole Thibault] (1844—1924)
French novelist, man of letters, and winner of the Nobel
Prize for Literature in 1921.
Attributed in Sidney Greenberg (ed.) _Treasury of the Art of Living_ [1964].

For a thing to remain undone nothing
more is needed than to think it done.
--Baltasar Graciαn (1601—1658)
Spanish Jesuit philosopher.
_The Art of Worldly Wisdom_ [1647]

Great things are not accomplished by those
who yield to trends and fads and popular
opinion.
--attributed to Charles Kuralt (1934—1997)
American journalist and broadcaster.

We judge ourselves by what we feel capable of doing,
while others judge us by what we have already done.
--Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807—1882)
American poet.
_Kavanagh: A Tale_, ch. I [1849]

Voyages are accomplished inwardly, and the most
hazardous ones, needless to say, are made without
moving from the spot.
--Henry Miller (1891—1980)
American novelist and essayist.
_The Colossus of Maroussi_ [1941]

There is no limit to what a man can do so long as
he does not care a straw who gets the credit for it.
--C.E. Montague (1867—1928)
English novelist and essayist.
_Disenchantment_, ch. 15 [1922]

Look at a day when you are supremely satisfied at
the end. It is not a day when you lounge around
doing nothing: it's when you've had everything to
do, and you've done it.
--attributed to Margaret Thatcher (b. 1925)
British conservative stateswoman and Prime Minister [1979—1990].

I always turn to the sports pages first, which
records people's accomplishments. The front
page has nothing but man's failures.
--Earl Warren (1891—1974)
American jurist, the 14th Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court [1953—1969].
Quoted in "Sports Illustrated" [22 July 1968].



ACCURACY

.
.

Accuracy of statement is one of the first elements
of truth; inaccuracy is a near kin to falsehood.
--attributed to Tryon Edwards (1809—1894)
American theologian.

Accuracy is to a newspaper what virtue is to a lady,
but a newspaper can always print a retraction.
--attributed to Adlai E. Stevenson (1900—1965)
American Democratic politician.



ACCUSATION

.
.

see: "BLAME"
see: "CRITICISM"
see: "JUDGEMENT"
see: "CRIME & PUNISHMENT" for other related links


He that accuses all mankind of corruption ought
to remember that he is sure to convict only one.
--Edmund Burke (1729—1797)
Irish-born Whig politician and man of letters.
"Letter to the Sheriffs of Bristol ..." [3 April 1777].

Experience informs us that the first defence
of weak minds is to recriminate.
--Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772—1834)
English poet, critic, and philosopher.
_Biographia Literaria_ [1817]

Guilt has very quick ears to an accusation.
--Henry Fielding (1707-1754)
English novelist and dramatist.
_The History of Amelia_ [1751]

If I were two-faced, would I be wearing this one?
--Abraham Lincoln (1809—1865)
American Republican statesman, President [1861—1865].
In 1858 when debating Stephen Douglas, as quoted
in _U.S. News & World Report_, vol. 144 [2008].

Malice, scorned, puts out itself; but, argued, gives
a kind of credit to a false accusation.
--Philip Massinger (1583—1640)
English Jacobean and Caroline playwright.
_The Maid of Honour_, III, iii [1621?]

The best apology against false accusers is silence and
sufferance, and honest deeds set against dishonest
words.
--John Milton (1608—1674)
English poet.
_An Apology for Smectymnuus_ [1642]

When all is summed up, a man never speaks of
himself without loss; his accusations of himself
are always believed, his praises never.
--Michel Eyquem de Montaigne (1533—1592)
French moralist and essayist.
Attributed in Maturin M. Ballou _Treasury of Thought_ [10th ed. 1884].

When a man points a finger at someone else, he should
remember that four of his fingers are pointing to himself.
--Louis Nizer (1902—1994)
English-born American lawyer.
_My Life in Court_, ch. I [1961]

Let us believe neither half of the good people
tell us of ourselves, nor half the evil they say
of others.
--Jean-Antoine Petit-Senn (1792—1870)
French-Swiss lyric poet.
Quoted in Julia B. Hoitt
_Excellent Quotations For Home and School_, p. 149 [1890].

When one is falsely accused, he will advance toward
the aggressor or the one who charges him wrongly;
but when the charge is true, he will fall back,
shrinking as it were from the truth of the accusation.
--Fulton John Sheen (1895—1979)
Roman Catholic bishop; the first popular preacher to appear on television.
_Life Is Worth Living_ (Second Series) [1954]

J'accuse.
[I accuse.]
--Ιmile Zola (1840—1902)
French novelist and critic.
Title of open letter to president of French Republic [13 January 1898].

-----

calumny [KAL-uhm-nee], noun:
1. False accusation of a crime or offense,
intended to injure another's reputation.
2. Malicious misrepresentation; slander.


end page



| ABILITY - ABUSE | ACADEMY AWARDS - ACCUSATION | ACHIEVEMENT - ACQUAINTANCE | ACTION/S | ACTORS / ACTING | ACTUARIES - ADVERSARIES | ADVERSITY - ADVERTISING | ADVICE | AFFAIRS - AFGHANISTAN | AGE | AGNOSTICS - AIRPLANES | ALCOHOL | ALIBI - AMBITION | AMERICA PAGE 1 (A-M) | AMERICA PAGE 2 (N-Z) | AMERICANS | AMERICAN INDIANS | AMERICAN REVOLUTION | AMUSEMENT - ANCESTORS | ANGER | ANIMAL RIGHTS - ANIMALS | ANIMOSITIES - APATHY | APOLOGY & APPEARANCE | APPEASEMENT | APPLAUSE - APRIL | ARCHAEOLOGISTS - ARCHITECTURE | ARGUMENT | ARISTOCRACY - ART | ASHAMED - ASTROLOGY | ATHEISM | ATOM BOMB - ATTRACTION | AUSTRALIA | AUTHORITY - AUTOMOBILES | AUTUMN - AWARENESS |
| A | B | C | D | E | F | G |
| Return Home | The Credits | The Cast | Act 1 | Act 2 | Act 3 | The Reviews |
 
     



Copyright © 2012, someworthwhilequotes.com. All rights reserved.