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OPPORTUNITY --- OPPRESSION --- OPTIMISM
ORATORS --- ORGANIZATION

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OPPORTUNITY

see: "CHANCE"
see: "LUCK"
see: "TAKING ADVANTAGE"
see: "TEMPTATION"
see: "SUCCESS" for other related links


FELON, n. A person of greater enterprise than discretion,
who in embracing an opportunity has formed an unfortunate
attachment.
--Ambrose Bierce (1842—1914)
American newspaperman, wit, and satirist.
_The Cynic's Word Book_ [1906]
(Retitled in 1911 as _The Devil's Dictionary_.)

Life consists not in holding good cards
but in playing those you hold well.
--attributed to Josh Billings [Henry Wheeler Shaw] (1818—1885)
American humorist.

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Do not suppose opportunity will knock twice at your door.
--Sιbastien-Roch Nicolas Chamfort (1741—1794)
French playwright and conversationalist.
Attributed in _Wilson's Photographic Magazine_, vol. XXVII [1890].

& see:

Opportunity never knocks twice.
--"Chicago Daily Tribune" [30 August 1896]

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(Strike while the iron is hot.)
Whil that iren is hoot, men sholden smyte.
--Geoffrey Chaucer (c. 1343—1400)
English poet.
_The Canterbury Tales_ [c. 1387] "Tale of Melibeus"

A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity;
an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.
--Often misattributed to Winston Churchill (1874—1965)
British Conservative statesman and Prime Minister [1940-45, 1951-55].

Your diamonds are not in far distant mountains or in
yonder seas; they are in your own backyard, if you
but dig for them.
--Russell H. Conwell (1843—1925)
American lawyer, author, clergyman, and educator.
Attributed in _Serving the World: The People and Ideas
of America's State and Land-Grant Universities_ [1987].

Opportunity is missed by most people because
it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.
--attributed to Thomas Alva Edison (1847—1931)
American inventor.

All that is valuable in human society depends upon the
opportunity for development accorded the individual.
--Albert Einstein (1879—1955)
German-American physicist.
Statement, London [15 September 1933].

The golden moments in the stream of life rush past us, and we
see nothing but sand; the angels come to visit us, and we only
know them when they are gone.
--George Eliot [Mary Ann Evans] (1819—1880)
English novelist.
_Scenes of Clerical Life_ [1857]
(Published anonymously in Blackwood's Magazine.)

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
--Robert Frost (1874—1963)
American poet.
"The Road Not Taken" [1916]

The Chinese call luck opportunity, and they say it
knocks every day at your door. Some people hear
it; some do not. It's not enough to hear opportunity
knock. You must let him in, greet him, make friends
and work together.
--Bernard Gittelson
Attributed in Roy B. Zuck _The Speaker's Quote Book_ [2009].

Gather ye rosebuds while ye may,
Old Time is still a-flying:
And this same flower that smiles to-day,
To-morrow will be dying.
--Robert Herrick (1591—1674)
English poet and clergyman.
"To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time" l. 1 [1648]

Make hay while the sun shines.
--John Heywood (1497—1580)
English playwright.
_Dialogue of Proverbs_ [1546]

Slaves would be tyrants if the chance were theirs.
--Victor Hugo (1802—1885)
French poet, dramatist, and novelist.
"The Vanished City"

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But freedom is not enough. You do not wipe away the scars of centuries
by saying, "Now you are free to go where you want, and do as you desire,
and choose the leaders you please."

You do not take a person who, for years, has been hobbled by chains and
liberate him, bring him up to the starting line of a race and then say, "You
are free to compete with all the others," and still justly believe that you
have been completely fair.

Thus it is not enough just to open the gates of opportunity. All our citizens
must have the ability to walk through those gates.

And this is the next and the more profound stage of the battle for civil
rights. We seek not just freedom, but opportunity. We seek not just legal
equity, but human ability; not just equality as a right and a theory, but
equality as a fact and equality as a result.

--Lyndon B. Johnson (1908—1973)
American Democratic statesman, President [1963—1969].
Commencement Address at Howard University [4 June 1965].

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When one door of happiness closes, another opens; but often
we look so long at the closed door that we do not see the one
which has been opened for us.
--Helen Keller (1880—1968)
American author and educator who was blind and deaf.
_We Bereaved_ [1929]

Democracy does not guarantee equality of conditions —
it only guarantees equality of opportunity.
--Irving Kristol (1920—2009)
American founder of the neoconservative movement.
_Two Cheers for Capitalism_ [1978] (Wikiquote)

Democracy gives every man
A right to be his own oppressor.
--James Russell Lowell (1819—1891)
American poet, critic, essayist, and diplomat.
_The Biglow Papers_ Second Series, # 7 [1867].

I cannot join the space program and restart my life
as an astronaut, but this opportunity to connect my
abilities as an educator with my interests in history
and space is a unique opportunity to fulfill my early
fantasies.
--Christa McAuliffe (1948—1986)
American teacher.
From her winning essay in NASA's nationwide search
for the first teacher to travel in space, released after
her death with six others aboard the space shuttle
Challenger [28 January 1986].

Ability is of little account without opportunity.
--Napoleon I (1769—1821)
Emperor of France [1804—1815].
Attributed in _The Homiletic Review_ [November 1895].

While we stop to think, we often miss our opportunity.
--Publilius Syrus (85—43 B.C.)
Latin writer of mimes who was originally a slave.
_The Moral Sayings of Publius Syrus_, tr. Darius Lyman Jr., [1856]

An evil-speaker differs from an evil-doer
only in the want of opportunity.
--Quintilian (c. 35—100)
Roman rhetorician.
Attributed in J. K. Hoyt & Anna L. Ward (eds.)
_The Cyclopedia of Practical Quotations_, p. 521 [4th ed., 1882].

The follies which a man regrets the most in his life,
are those which he didn't commit when he had the
opportunity.
--Helen Rowland (1875—1950)
American writer.
_A Guide to Men_, [1922] "Improvisations"

[Terry Malloy (Marlon Brando) speaking:]
I could have had class. I could have been a contender.
--Budd Schulberg (1914—2009)
American screenwriter.
"On the Waterfront" [1954 screenplay]

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Brutus: There is a tide in the affairs of men,
Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune;
Omitted, all the voyage of their life
Is bound in shallows and in miseries.
On such a full sea are we now afloat;
And we must take the current when it serves,
Or lose our ventures.
--William Shakespeare (1564—1616)
English dramatist.
_Julius Caesar_, IV, iii [1599]


Let Hercules himself do what he may,
The cat will mew, and dog will have his day.
--William Shakespeare (1564—1616)
English dramatist.
_Hamlet_, V, i [1601]

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The beauty of a democracy is that you never can tell
when a youngster is born what he is going to do with
himself, and that no matter how humbly he is born,
no matter where he is born, no matter what circum-
stances hamper him at the outset, he has a chance
to master the minds and lead the imagintions of
the whole country.
--Woodrow Wilson (1856—1924)
American Democratic statesman and President [1913—1921].
Speech to the Chamber of Commerce, Columbus, Ohio [10 December 1915].




OPPRESSION

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see: "FORCE"
see: "INJUSTICE"
see: "PERSECUTION"
see: "POWER"
see: "SLAVERY"
see: "TYRANNY"
see: "EVIL" for other related links
see: "HURTING (SOMEONE)" for other related links


The oppression of any people for opinion's sake has rarely had any
other effect than to fix those opinions deeper and render them more
important.
--Hosea Ballou (1771—1852)
American theologian.
Quoted in John L. Stoddard _Rebuilding a Lost Faith_ [1826].

The most potent weapon in the hands of
the oppressor is the mind of the oppressed.
--Steve Biko (1946—1977)
South African anti-apartheid campaigner.
"White Racism and Black Consciousness" (presentation)
Cape Town, South Africa [January 1971]

Oppressed people are frequently very oppressive when first
liberated. And why wouldn't they be? They know best two
positions. Somebody's foot on their neck or their foot on
somebody's neck.
--Florynce R. Kennedy (1916—2001)
American lawyer, feminist, and author.
_Institutionalized Oppression vs the Female_ [1970].

People seem good while they are oppressed, but they only
wish to become oppressors in their turn: life is nothing but
a competition to be the criminal rather than the victim.
--Bertrand Russell (1872—1970)
British philosopher, mathematician, and Nobel laureate.
Letter to Ottoline Morrell [17 December 1920],
in Nicholas Griffin (ed.) _The Selected Letters of
Bertrand Russell: The Public Years, 1914-1970_ [2001].

Good chap, that Hitler! He showed how
to deal with political opponents.
--Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (1879—1953),
Soviet Communist leader and head of the USSR from
the death of V. I. Lenin (1924) until his own death.
(On the 1934 "Night of the Long Knives") in Christopher Andrew
and Oleg Gordievsky _KGB: The Inside Story_ [1990].




Click picture to ZOOM
OPTIMISM

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see: "ATTITUDE"
see: "CHEERFULNESS"
see: "HOPE"
see: "THE MIND" for other related links
see: "EMOTIONS & FEELINGS" for other related links


A positive attitude may not solve all your
problems, but it will annoy enough people
to make it worth the effort.
--Herm Albright (1876—1944)
German-born American painter and lithographer.
Attributed in _Reader's Digest_ [1995].

One of the things I learned the hard way was that it doesn't
pay to get discouraged. Keeping busy and making optimism
a way of life can restore your faith in yourself.
--Lucille Ball (1911—1989)
American actress, producer, and star of "I Love Lucy."
Quoted in Michael LeBoeuf _How to Win Customers
and Keep Them for Life_ [1988].

Got no checkbooks, got no banks,
Still I'd like to express my thanks;
I've got the sun in the morning and the moon at night.
--Irving Berlin (1888—1989)
American songwriter.
"I Got the Sun in the Morning" from the
musical _Annie Get Your Gun_ [1946].

OPTIMISM, n. The doctrine, or belief, that everything
is beautiful, including what is ugly, everything good,
especially the bad, and everything right that is wrong.
It is hereditary, but fortunately not contagious.
--Ambrose Bierce (1842—1914)
American newspaperman, wit, and satirist.
_The Cynic's Word Book_ [1906]
(Retitled in 1911 as _The Devil's Dictionary_.)

The lark's on the wing;
The snail's on the thorn:
God's in His heaven—
All's right with the world!
--Robert Browning (1812—1889)
English poet.
"Pippa Passes" [1841]

Every time it rains, it rains
Pennies from heaven.
Don't you know each cloud contains
Pennies from heaven?
--Johnny Burke (1908—1964)
American lyricist.
"Pennies from Heaven" [1936 song]

There'll be bluebirds over
The white cliffs of Dover
Tomorrow, just you wait and see.
There'll be love and laughter
And peace ever after
Tomorrow, when the world is free.
--Nat Burton
American songwriter.
1941 song w/music by Walter Kent.

The optimist proclaims that we live in the best
of all possible worlds; and the pessimist fears
that this is true.
--James Branch Cabell (1879—1958)
American novelist and essayist.
_The Silver Stallion_, ch. 26 [1926]

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I am an optimist. It does not seem
too much use being anything else.
--attributed to Winston Churchill (1874—1965)
British Conservative statesman and Prime Minister [1940-45, 1951-55].


A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity;
an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.
--Often misattributed to Winston Churchill (1874—1965)
British Conservative statesman and Prime Minister [1940-45, 1951-55].

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I believe that man will not merely endure; he will prevail. He
is immortal, not because he alone among creatures has an
inexhaustible voice, but because he has a soul, a spirit
capable of compassion and sacrifice and endurance.
--William Faulkner (1897—1962)
American novelist.
Nobel Prize Speech [10 December 1950].

If I never had a cent—
I'd be rich as Rockefeller;
Gold dust at my feet,
On the sunny side of the street.
--Dorothy Fields (1905—1974)
American lyricist.
"On the Sunny Side of the Street" [1930 song] w/music by Jimmy McHugh.

In spite of everything I still believe
that people are really good at heart.
--Anne Frank (1929—1945)
German-born Jewish diarist.
_Diary_ [15 July 1944]

It is always darkest just before the day dawneth.
--Thomas Fuller (1608—1661)
English churchman and historian.
_A Pisgah-Sight of Palestine_ [1650]

I got plenty o' nuthin', an' nuthin' plenty fo' me.
I got a gal, got my song, got Hebben the whole day long.
Got my gal, got my Lawd, got my song.
--Ira Gershwin (1896—1983)
American songwriter.
"I Got Plenty 'o Nuttin'" from the 1935 opera/musical
_Porgy and Bess_. Music by George Gershwin et. al..

Don't count your chickens before they are hatched.
--Thomas Howell _New Sonnets_ [c. 1570]

Here's to a fellow who smiles,
When life runs along like a song,
And here's to a lad who can smile,
When everything goes dead wrong.
--Irish toast

Cheer up! the worst is yet to come!
--Philander Chase Johnson (1866—1939)
American journalist, humorist, and dramatic editor.
In "Everybody's Magazine" [1920].

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No pessimist ever discovered the secret of the stars,
or sailed to an uncharted land, or opened a new
heaven to the human spirit.
--Helen Keller (1880—1968)
American author and educator who was blind and deaf.
_My Key of Life, Optimism: An Essay_ [1904]


Keep your face to the sunshine
and you cannot see the shadow.
--Helen Keller (1880—1968)
American author and educator who was blind and deaf.
Quoted in Walter Fogg _One Thousand Sayings of History_ [1929].

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Mistrust the man who finds everything good; the man
who finds everything evil; and still more the man who
is indifferent to everything.
--Johann Kaspar Lavater (1741—1801)
Swiss writer, Protestant pastor, and founder of physiognomics.
Quoted in _The New Era_, vol II, no. 7 [May 1872].

The boys will be home by Christmas.
--Douglas MacArthur (1880—1964)
American general.
[November 1950.] In Harry S Truman
_Memoirs: Years of Trial and Hope, ch. 24 [1956].

The Future's So Bright I Gotta Wear Shades.
--Pat MacDonald (b. 1952)
American musician and songwriter.
[Title of 1986 song]

You've got to ac-cent-tchu-ate the positive,
Elim-my-nate the negative,
Latch on to the affirmative,
Don't mess with Mister In-between.
--Johnny Mercer (1909—1976)
American songwriter.
"Ac-cent-tchu-ate the Positive" [1944 song] w/music by Harold Arlen.

A lament in one ear, maybe; but always a
song in the other. And to me life is simply
an invitation to live.
--Sean O'Casey (1880—1964)
Irish dramatist and memorist.
Quoted in David A. Wilson _Ireland, a Bicycle,
and a Tin Whistle_, p. 1 [1995].

Rosiness is not a worse windowpane than
gloomy gray when viewing the world.
--Grace Paley (1922—2007)
American author.
"Enormous Changes at the Last Minute" [1960]

Stick with the optimists. It's going to
be tough enough even if they're right.
--attributed to James Barrett "Scotty" Reston (1909—1995)
Scottish-born American journalist; two-time
winner of the Pulitzer Prize for reporting.

"And the King wanted an inscription good for a thousand
years and after that to the end of the world?"
"Yes, precisely so."
"Something so true and awful that no matter what happened
it would stand?"
"Yes, exactly that."
"Something no matter who spit on it or laughed at it there
it would stand and nothing would change it?"
"Yes, that was what the king ordered his wise men to write."
"And what did they write?"
"Five words: THIS TOO SHALL PASS AWAY."
--Carl Sandburg (1878—1967)
American poet.
_The People, Yes_ [1936]

Don't duck. Ha, they couldn't hit
an elephant at this dis—
--General John B. Sedgwick (1813—1864)
The most senior officer from either side to be
killed during the American Civil War.
He was shot by a Confederate sniper at
the Battle of Spotsylvania [9 May 1864].

Make sobriety a habit, and intemperance will be hateful; make prudence
a habit and reckless profligacy will become revolting ... Even happiness
itself can become habitual. There is a habit of looking at the bright side
of things, also of looking at the dark side. Dr. Johnson has said that the
habit of looking at the best side of a thing is worth more to a man than
a thousand pounds a year ... And to bring up men and women with a
genial nature of this sort, a good temper, and a happy frame of mind, is
perhaps of even more importance, in many cases, than to perfect them
in much knowledge and many accomplishments.
--Samuel Smiles (1812—1904)
Scottish author.
_Self-Help_ [1859]

Everything's coming up roses.
--Stephen Sondheim (b. 1930)
American musical theater lyricist and composer.
[Title of 1959 song.]

A pessimist looks at his glass and says it is half
empty; an optimist looks at it and says it is half
full.
--Josiah Stamp (1880—1941)
English economist.
Attributed in "N.Y. Times" [13 November 1935].

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There is no sadder sight than a young
pessimist, except an old optimist.
--Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (1835—1910)
American humorist, novelist, journalist, and river pilot.
_Mark Twain's Notebook_, entry of 27 December 1903 [1935].


The best way to cheer yourself up is
to try to cheer somebody else up.
--Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (1835—1910)
American humorist, novelist, journalist, and river pilot.
Attributed in Evan Esar _20,000 Quips & Quotes_, p. 127 [1995].

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They are able because they think they are able.
--Virgil (70—19 B.C.)
Roman poet.
_The Aeneid_, v. 231

The pessimist complains about the wind;
The optimist expects it to change;
The realist adjusts the sails.
--attributed to William Arthur Ward (1921—1994)
American college administrator and author.

While there is a chance of the world getting through its
troubles I hold that a reasonable man has to behave as
though he was sure of it. If at the end your cheerfulness
is not justified, at any rate you will have been cheerful.
--H.G. Wells (1866—1946)
English novelist.
_Apropos of Dolores_ [1938]

If you pretend to be good, the world takes you very
seriously. If you pretend to be bad, it doesn't. Such
is the astounding stupidity of optimism.
--Oscar Wilde (1854—1900)
Anglo-Irish dramatist and poet.
Lord Darlington, in _Lady Windermere's Fan_, act 1 [1892].

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panglossian (adj.) [pζn-'glah-si-κn]
Blindly and naively optimistic.
Etymology: The word is based on the name of Pangloss,
the tutor in Voltaire's 'Candide' [1759] who believes, in
Candide's words, "that all is right when all goes wrong."

sanguine (adj.)
Confident: cheerfully optimistic.




ORATORS

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see: "PUBLIC SPEAKING"
see: "SPEECH"
see: "SPEECHES"
see: "COMMUNICATION" for other related links


In that oration there were some things that
were true, and some things that were trite:
but what was true was trite, and what was
not trite was not true.
--Arthur James Balfour (1848—1930)
British Conservative statesman and Prime Minister [1920—1925].
Quoted in Winston Churchill
_Great Contemporaries_ [1937] "Arthur James Balfour".

In order to convince it is necessary to speak
with spirit and wit; to advise, it must come
from the heart.
--Henri-Franηois d' Aguesseau (1668—1751)
French jurist.
Quoted in Edward Parsons Day _Day's Collacon: An
Encyclopaedia Of Prose Quotations_, p. 15 [1884].

Oratory is the cunning of the tongue over the ear, but
eloquence is the joining of the heart with the soul.
--Kahlil Gibran (1883—1931)
Lebanese poet.
In Anthony Ferris (ed. & trans.)
_Spiritual Sayings of Kahlil Gibran_, p. 39 [1963].

Words, so innocent and powerless as they are,
as standing in a dictionary, how potent for good
and evil they become, in the hands of one who
knows how to combine them.
--Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804—1864)
American novelist and short-story writer.
Entry of 18 May 1848 in "Note-Books", pub.
in _The Atlantic Monthly_ [December 1866].

Where Judgment has Wit to express
it, there's the best Orator.
--William Penn (1644—1718)
Quaker leader and advocate of religious freedom who oversaw
the founding of the American Commonwealth of Pennsylvania
as a refuge for Quakers and other religious minorities of Europe.
_Some Fruits of Solitude_ [1693]


TOPICAL

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Great Orators of the Democrat Party.....

YESTERDAY

'One man with courage makes a majority.'
--Andrew Jackson

'The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.'
--Franklin D. Roosevelt

'The buck stops here.'
--Harry S. Truman

'Ask not what your country can do for you;
ask what you can do for your country.'
--John F. Kennedy

TODAY

'America is--is no longer, uh, what it--it, uh, could be, uh, what it was
once was...uh, and I say to myself, 'uh, I don't want that future, uh,
uh for my children.'
--Barack Obama (Without a teleprompter)

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exhort [ig-ZORT], transitive verb:
To incite by words or advice; to urge strongly;
hence, to advise, warn, or caution.

perorate [PUR-uh-rayt], intransitive verb:
1. To conclude or sum up a long discourse.
2. To speak or expound at length; to declaim.




ORGANIZATION

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A place for everything and everything in its place.
--Mrs Beeton (1836—1865)
English writer.
_The Book of Household Management_ [1861]

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desultory [DES-uhl-tor-ee], adjective:
1. Jumping or passing from one thing or subject to another
without order or rational connection; disconnected; aimless.
2. Moving disconnectedly without focus; lacking enthusiam,
sluggish.

expeditious [ek-spuh-DISH-uhs], adjective:
Characterized by or acting with speed and efficiency.

marshal (verb) ['mah(r)-shκl]
To arrange in order (troops), to bring together and organize (facts).


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