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;void(0)) . . . PERCEPTION(S) see: "INSIGHT" see: "INTUITION" see: "JUDGEMENT" see: "OBSERVATION" see: "REALITY" see: "TRUTH" see: "UNDERSTANDING" see: "BELIEF" for other related links see: "THE MIND" for other related links Appearances often are deceiving. --Ζsop (c.620 B.C.c.560 B.C.) (Thought to be a legendary figure.) "The Wolf in Sheep Clothing" in _Ζsop's Fables_. - [As financial markets were crumbling in September, 2008:] 'I don't think I can take another day of this,' a Goldman banker told Lloyd Blankfein as they got out of the Goldman car. 'You're getting out of a Mercedes to go to the New York Federal Reserve,' Blankfein responded. 'You're not getting out of a Higgins boat on Omaha Beach.' --Lloyd Blankfein (b. 1954) American investment banker. Quoted in James B. Stewart "Eight Days" in _The New Yorker_ [21 September 2009]. - - As a man is, so he sees. --William Blake (17571827) English poet. Letter to Rev. D. Trusler [23 August 1799]. This life's dim windows of the soul Distorts the heavens from pole to pole And leads you to believe a lie When you see with, not through, the eye. --William Blake (17571827) English poet. _The Everlasting Gospel_ [c.1818], sec. 5, l. 101 - He that accuses all mankind of corruption ought to remember that he is sure to convict only one. --Edmund Burke (17291797) Irish-born Whig politician and man of letters. "Letter to the Sheriffs of Bristol ..." [3 April 1777]. We can all perceive the difference between ourselves and our inferiors, but when it comes to a question of the difference between us and our superiors we fail to appreciate merits of which we have no proper conceptions. --James Fenimore Cooper (17891851) American novelist. _The American Democrat_ [1838] Mediocrity knows nothing higher than itself; but talent instantly recognises genius. --Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (18591930) Scottish-born writer of detective fiction. _The Valley of Fear_, ch. I [1915] - To different minds, the same world is a hell, and a heaven. --Ralph Waldo Emerson (18031882) American philosopher and poet. _Journal_ [22 December 1822] (See Milton, below.) The world is his who can see through his pretension. --Ralph Waldo Emerson (18031882) American philosopher and poet. In a Phi Beta Kappa oration [31 August 1837]. One man's justice is another's injustice; one man's beauty another's ugliness; one man's wisdom another's folly. --Ralph Waldo Emerson (18031882) American philosopher and poet. _Essays_, First Series [1841], "Circles" You cannot see the mountain near. --Ralph Waldo Emerson (18031882) American philosopher and poet. "Shakespeare; Or, The Poet" (essay) [c. 1841-43] I suppose you could never prove to the mind of the most ingenious mollusk that such a creature as a whale was possible. --Ralph Waldo Emerson (18031882) American philosopher and poet. Entry written May 1848, in _Journals_ [1909-14]. People seem not to see that their opinion of the world is also a confession of character. --Ralph Waldo Emerson (18031882) American philosopher and poet. "Worship" (essay) [1860] People only see what they are prepared to see. --Ralph Waldo Emerson (18031882) American philosopher and poet. _Journals_ [February 1864] What is a weed? A plant whose virtues have not yet been discovered. --Ralph Waldo Emerson (18031882) American philosopher and poet. _Fortune of the Republic_ [1878] - Remember that it is not he who gives abuse or blows who affronts, but the view we take of these things as insulting. When, therefore, any one provokes you, be assured that it is your own opinion which provokes you. --Epictetus (55135) Greek philosopher. _The Enchiridion_ [c. 135] ^^ The portrayal of lawyers in literature (if you can call it that), on TV, and in the movies has grown darker, more cynical. The same is true of law enforcement officers. At one time, police, detectives, and others of this breed were usually portrayed sympathetically. Once in a while, the police were shown as bumbling fools, as in the old silent movies about the Keystone Kops. In most "private eye" novels and movies the private eye, not the police, solves the case. This tradition is at least as old as Sherlock Holmes, whose instincts were always sounder than those of poor Inspector Lestrade. But in the Sherlock Holmes stories, and in most novels about private eyes, the police were merely incompetent, or less acute than Miss Marple or Hercule Poirot or Miss Silver or the other amateurs; they were rarely if ever brutal and malevolent. Until roughly the 1960s, the FBI and the CIA were also invariably good guys heroic crime fighters, as shown on such programs as the FBI in Peace and War. But this is emphatically no longer the case. Portrayals of the police, the CIA, the FBI in the late decades of the century were negative, if not downright paranoid. This is true, too, of portrayals of government in general: movies, in particular, peddle the most extreme conspiracy theories: about the Kennedy assassination, or the machinations of the CIA. In The Manchurian Candidate, the Communists brainwash a man and train him to carry out an assassination that would turn the government over to evil conspirators. (The plot fails in the end.) The president is not immune from these images of darkness. True, in Air Force One the president (a handsome dog played by Harrison Ford) is as heroic as one can possibly get. In other movies of the 1990s, however, the president has been a villain; or even a deep-dyed criminal. Earlier, in Dr. Strangelove, the president was sensible enough, but he was surrounded by dangerous fools, and a lunatic in the air force set off a nuclear holocaust: this was a black comedy indeed. Popular culture is also quite ambiguous in the way it portrays the outlaw, the gunman, the Mafia the people on the other side of the law. Hays office rules insisted that crime must not pay; criminals had to be brought to justice. [...] --Lawrence M. Friedman (b. 1930) _American Law in the 20th Century_ [2002], ch. 20 "Taking Stock" pp. 593-4. ^^ Men who are out of humor with themselves often see their own condition in the world outside them, and everything seems amiss because it is not well with themselves. --James A. Froude (18181894) English historian. _Thomas Carlyle: A History of the First Forty Years, 1795-1835_ [1882] Those see nothing but faults that seek for nothing else. --Thomas Fuller (16541734) English writer and physician. Comp., _Gnomologia: Adages and Proverbs_ [1732] Things are not always what they seem. --Gaius Julius Phaedrus (c. 15 B.C. c. 50 A.D.) The versifier of Aesop's Fables in Latin. _Fables_, bk. IV, fable 2, l. 5 The illusion that times that were are better than those that are, has probably pervaded all ages. --Horace Greeley (18111872) American newspaper editor. _The American Conflict_ [1864-66] If you see in any given situation only what everybody else can see, you can be said to be so much a representative of your culture that you are a victim of it. --S. I. (Samuel Ichiye) Hayakawa (19061992) Canadian-born American academic; U.S. Senator from California [1977-83]. _Our Language and Our World_ [1959] He does not weep who does not see. --Victor Hugo (18021885) French poet, dramatist, and novelist. _Les Miserables_ [1862] "Jean Valjean" - The blindness in human beings ... is the blindness with which we are all afflicted in regard to the feelings of creatures and people different from ourselves. --William James (18421910) American philosopher. "On a Certain Blindness in Human Beings" Address published in _Talks to Teachers on Psycology_ [1899]. Whenever two people meet there are really six people present. There is each man as he sees himself, each man as the other sees him, and each man as he really is. --attributed to William James (18421910) American philosopher. - The most pathetic person in the world is someone who has sight but has no vision. --attributed to Helen Keller (18801968) American author and educator who was blind and deaf. The subtlest and most pervasive of all influences are those which create and maintain the repertory of stereotypes. We are told about the world before we see it. We imagine most things before we experience them. --Walter Lippmann (18891974) American journalist. _Public Opinion_, ch. 6 [1929] Men have less lively perception of good than of evil. --Livy [Titus Livius] (59 BC17 AD) With Sallust and Tacitus, one of the three great Roman historians. _Annales_, XXX, 21 For some reason or other, the European has rarely been able to see America except in caricature. --James Russell Lowell (18191891) American poet, critic, essayist, and diplomat. "On a Certain Condescension in Foreigners" [1869] The mind is its own place, and in itself Can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven. --John Milton (16081674) English poet. "Paradise Lost" [1667] (See Emerson, above.) We are like sculptors, constantly carving out of others the image we long for, need, love or desire, often against reality, against their benefit, and always, in the end, a disappointment, because it does not fit them. --Anaοs Nin (19031977) French-born American writer. _The Diary of Anaοs Nin: 1955-1966_ [1966] [To his partner, W. Allen, on the dissolution of their business partnership:] All the world is queer save thee and me, and even thou art a little queer. --Robert Owen (17711858) Welsh-born socialist reformer. Attributed in _The Houghton Mifflin Dictionary of Biography_ [2003]. Rosiness is not a worse windowpane than gloomy gray when viewing the world. --Grace Paley (19222007) American author. "Enormous Changes at the Last Minute" [1960] The only true voyage of discovery, the only fountain of Eternal Youth, would be not to visit strange lands but to possess other eyes, to behold the universe through the eyes of another, of a hundred others, to behold the hundred universes that each of them beholds, that each of them is. --Marcel Proust (18711922) French novelist. _Remembrance of Things Past_ [19131927] Vol. V, _The Captive_ [1923], ch. II "The Verdurins Quarrel with M. de Charlus" It is a very lonely life that a man leads, who becomes aware of truths before their time. --Thomas Brackett Reed (18391902 In an address c. 1899, quoted in William Alexander Robinson _Thomas B. Reed, Parliamentarian_ [1930]. Drove up a newcomer in a covered wagon: "What kind of folks live around here?" "Well, stranger, what kind of folks was there in the country you come from?" "Well, they was mostly a lowdown, lying, thieving gossiping, backbiting kind lot of people." "Well, I guess, stranger, that's about the kind of folks you'll find around here." And the dusty gray stranger had just about blended into the dusty gray cottonwoods in a clump on the horizon when another newcomer drove up: "What kind of folks live around here?" "Well, stranger, what kind of folks was there in the country you come from?" "Well, they was mostly a decent, hardworking, lawabiding, friendly lot of people." "Well, I guess, stranger, that's about the kind of folks you'll find around here." --Carl Sandburg (18781967) American poet. _The People, Yes_ [1936] Every man takes the limits of his own field of vision for the limits of the world. --Arthur Schopenhauer (17881860) German philosopher. _Studies in Pessimism_ [1851] "Psychological Observations" - Thanksgiving dinner's sad and thankless Christmas dinner's dark and blue When you stop and try to see it From the turkey's point of view. Sunday dinner isn't sunny Easter feasts are just bad luck When you see it from the viewpoint Of a chicken or a duck. Oh how I once loved tuna salad Pork and lobsters, lamb chops too 'Til I stopped and looked at dinner From the dinner's point of view. --Shel Silverstein (19301999) Ameican poet and songwriter. "Point of View" in _Where the Sidewalk Ends_ [1974]. - To be able to discern that what is true is true, and that what is false is false,this is the mark and character of intelligence. --Emanuel Swedenborg (16881772) Swedish scientist, philosopher, and theologian. Quoted by Ralph Waldo Emerson in _Essays_, First Series [1841] Essay # 9 "The Over-Soul". We do not judge men by what they are in themselves, but by what they are relatively to us. --Madame Swetchine [Sophie Soymanof] (17821857) Russian-born French writer and salon hostess. _The Writings of Madame Swetchine_ "Airelles", no. 25 (ed. Count de Falloux) [1869] - We do not see things as they are, we see things as we are. --variously attributed to the _Talmud_, Anaοs Nin, H. Jackson Brown, David Pilbeam, "a great Korean writer," and, last but not least, anon.. note: We don't see things as they are, but as we are ourselves. --Henry M. Tomlinson (18731958) English novelist and journalist. _Out of Soundings_, ch. 10 [1931] - Shakespeare, Madam, is obscene, and thank God, we are sufficiently advanced to have found it out! --Frances Trollope (17801863) English author [mother of Anthony Trollope.] Quoting a remark made to her by an American in: _Domestic Manners of the Americans_ [1832]. Honor wears different coats to different eyes. --Barbara Tuchman [nθe Wertheim] (19121989) American historian and author. _The Guns of August_ [1962] ----- acumen [uh-KYOO-muhn; AK-yuh-muhn], noun: Quickness of perception or discernment; shrewdness shown by keen insight. ken [KEN], noun: 1. Perception; understanding; knowledge. 2. The range of vision. 3. View; sight. nephelococcygia (noun) [ne-fκ-lκ-kκ-'si-jee-yκ ] 1: (Literally, "Cloudcuckoosville") Interpreting the shapes of clouds. 2: La-la land, a dream land cut off from reality. Nephelococcygia was dreamed up by Aristophanes for his comedy, "The Birds" (414 B.C.) perspicacious [pur-spi-KEY-shuhs], adjective: Having keen mental perception and understanding; discerning.  . . see: "GOODNESS" see: "MISTAKES" see: "SUCCESS" The pursuit of perfection, then, is the pursuit of sweetness and light. --Matthew Arnold (18221888) English Victorian poet and literary and social critic. _Cuture and Anarchy_ [1869] ch. 1 This is the very perfection of a man, to find out his own imperfections. --Augustine, St. of Hippo (354430) Christian theologian and bishop of Hippo in Roman Africa [396430]. Quoted in _The United Service: A Monthly Review of Military and Naval Affairs_, vol. XIV [1895]. If you expect perfection from other people, your whole life is a series of disappointments, grumbling, and complaints. If, on the contrary, you pitch your expectations low, taking folks as the inefficient creatures which they are, you are frequently surprised by having them perform better than you had hoped. --Bruce Barton (18861967) American advertising executive, religious writer, and Congressman. Attributed in John Cook (comp.) _The Book of Positive Quotations_, p. 448 [2007]. When a man says that he is perfect already, there is only one of two places for him, and that is heaven or the lunatic asylum. --Henry Ward Beecher (18131887) American Congregational minister; brother of Harriet Beecher Stowe, son of Lyman Beecher. _Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit_ [1887] If a man should happen to reach perfection in this world, he would have to die immediately to enjoy himself. --Josh Billings [Henry Wheeler Shaw] (18181885) American humorist. Attributed in Maturin M. Ballou _Edge-Tools of Speech_, p. 363 [1886]. I may not be totally perfect, but parts of me are excellent. --Ashleigh Brilliant (b. 1933) British-born American writer and artist. Title of book [1978] Aim at perfection in everything, though in most things it is unattainable; however, they who aim at it, and persevere, will come much nearer it than those whose laziness and despondency make them give it up as unattainable. --Lord Chesterfield [Philip Dormer Stanhope] (16941773) British writer and politician. Letter to his son [24 May 1750]. [When asked by a U.S. immigration officer whether he was a 'practising homosexual':] Practising? Certainly not. I'm perfect. --Quentin Crisp [Denis Pratt] (19081999) English writer. Quoted in "Sunday Times" (London) [20 January 1982]. Have no fear of perfection you'll never reach it. --Salvador Dali (19041989) Spanish painter. Attributed in Evan Esar _20,000 Quips & Quotes_, p. 589 [1995]. To arrive at perfection, a man should have very sincere friends, or inveterate enemies; because he would be made sensible of his good or ill conduct either by the censures of the one or the admonitions of the others. --Diogenes Laλrtius (fl. early 3rd century) Greek author noted for his history of Greek philosophy. Attributed in "The Athenaeum; or, Spirit of the English Magazines" [1 June 1827]. ^ John Foster Dulles (18881959) American statesman. Asked whether he had ever been wrong, Dulles considered the question for some time before replying. 'Yes,' he finally admitted, 'once many, many years ago. I thought I had made a wrong decision. Of course, it turned out that I had been right all along. But I was wrong to have *thought* that I was wrong.' --_Bartlett's Book of Anecdotes_ edited by Clifton Fadiman and Andrι Bernard [2000 ed.] ^ I am careful not to confuse excellence with perfection. Excellence, I can reach for; perfection is God's business. --Michael J. Fox (b. 1961) Canadian-born actor. Quoted in Lorne A. Adrain (comp.) _The Most Important Thing I Know_ [1997]. Who is wise? He that learns from everyone. Who is powerful? He that governs his Passions. Who is rich? He that is content. Who is that? Nobody. --Benjamin Franklin (17061790) American politician, inventor, and scientist. _Poor Richard's Almanack_ [July 1755] The man with insight enough to admit his limitations comes nearest to perfection. --Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (17491832) German poet, novelist, and playwright. "The Principles of Natural Science", as quoted in Emil Ludwig (ed.) _The Practical Wisdom of Goethe_ [1933]. The farther a man knows himself to be from perfection, so much the nearer is he to it. --Gerard Groote (13401384) Dutch Roman Catholic reformer; some scholars believe Groote was the author of "The Imitation of Christ." Quoted in Carl Ullmann _Reformers Before The Reformation_ [1855]. The surest hindrance to success is to have too high a standard of refinement in our own minds, or too high an opinion of the judgment of the public. He who is determined not to be satisfied with anything short of perfection will never do anything at all, either to please himself or others. --William Hazlitt (17781830) English essayist. Attributed in "Littell's Living Age", # 423 [26 June 1852]. It is reasonable to have perfection in our eye that we may always advance toward it, though we know it can never be reached. --Samuel Johnson (17091784) English poet, critic, and lexicographer. Attributed in Maturin M. Ballou _Pearls of Thought_, p. 196 [1881]. - It's true! It's true! The crown has made it clear: The climate must be perfect all the year. A law was made a distant moon ago here, July and August cannot be too hot; And there's a legal limit to the snow here In Camelot. The winter is forbidden till December, And exits March the second on the dot. By order Summer lingers through September In Camelot. Camelot! Camelot! I know it sounds a bit bizarre; But in Camelot, Camelot That's how conditions are. The rain may never fall till after sundown, By eight the morning fog must disappear. In short, there's simply not A more congenial spot For happ'ly-ever-aftering than here In Camelot. Camelot! Camelot! I know it gives a person pause, But in Camelot, Camelot Those are the legal laws. The snow may never slush upon the hillside. By nine P.M. the moonlight must appear. In short, there's simply not A more congenial spot For happ'ly-ever-aftering than here In Camelot. Each evening from December to December Before you drift to sleep upon your cot, Think back on all the tales that you remember Of Camelot. Ask ev'ry person if he's heard the story, And tell it strong and clear if he has not: That once there was a fleeting wisp of glory Called Camelot. Camelot! Camelot! Now say it out with love and joy! Camelot! Camelot! Yes, Camelot, my boy ... Where once it never rained till after sundown; By eight A.M. the morning fog had flown ... Don't let it be forgot That once there was a spot For one brief shining moment that was known As Camelot. --Alan Jay Lerner (1918-1986) American playwright and lyricist. ""Camelot"," 1960 song from the stage production of the same name. (Music by Frederic Loewe (19011988) Austrian-American composer.) - American women expect to find in their husbands a perfection that English women only hope to find in their butlers. --W. Somerset Maugham (18741965) English novelist, playwright, and short-story writer. _The Razor's Edge_ [1944] There is no man so good that if he place all his actions and thoughts under the scrutiny of the laws, he would not deserve hanging ten times in his life. --Michel Eyquem de Montaigne (15331592) French moralist and essayist. _Essays_, bk. III, ch. 9 [1595] Perfection does not exist; to understand it is the triumph of human intelligence; to desire to possess it is the most dangerous kind of madness. --Alfred de Musset (18101857) French poet, dramatist, and author. Attributed in Maturin M. Ballou _Pearls of Thought_, p. 196 [1881]. [To his partner, W. Allen, on the dissolution of their business partnership:] All the world is queer save thee and me, and even thou art a little queer. --Robert Owen (17711858) Welsh-born socialist reformer. Attributed in _The Houghton Mifflin Dictionary of Biography_ [2003]. Which was performed to a T. --Franηois Rabelais (c. 1494 c. 1553] French humanist, satirist, and physician. _Gargantua and Pantagruel_, bk. IV, ch. 18 [1548] Strive for perfection in everything you do. Take the best that exists and make it better. When it does not exist, design it. Accept nothing nearly right or good enough. --Sir Frederick Henry Royce (18631933) Founder of Rolls-Royce. Attributed in "Financial Mail" [1983]. It is only imperfection that complains of what is imperfect. The more perfect we are, the more gentle and quiet we become towards the defects of others. --Franηois de Salignac de la Mothe-Fιnelon (16511715) French theologian and author. "The Faults of Others" The longer I live the more I see that I am never wrong about anything, and that all the pains that I have so humbly taken to verify my notions have only wasted my time. --George Bernard Shaw (18561950) Irish dramatist and critic. Letter to H.G. Wells, quoted in Dan H. Laurence _Bernard Shaw: Collected Letters: 1911-1925_ [1985]. The indefatigable pursuit of an unattainable Perfection, even though it consist in nothing more than in the pounding of an old piano, is what alone gives meaning to our life on this unavailing star. --Logan Pearsall Smith (18651946) American-born man of letters. _Afterthoughts_ [1931] [Osgood Fielding III (Joe E. Brown) forgiving his fiancιe's admission on being a man:] Well, nobody's perfect. --"Some Like It Hot" [1959 film] Screenplay by Billy Wilder and I.A.L. Diamond. ----- paragon [PAIR-uh-gon; -guhn], noun: A model of excellence or perfection; as, "a paragon of beauty; a paragon of eloquence." persnickety (adj.) 1. Fussy or demanding. Syn.: particular, fussy, fastidious Similar: squeamish, picky, hypercritical, exacting, finicky. 2. Requiring painstaking care of detail. Synonyms: particular Similar: nitpicking, meticulous, fussy, exacting, punctilious. . . see: "SMELL" see: "THE BODY" To attract men, I wear a perfume called 'New Car Interior'. --attributed to Rita Rudner (b. 1955) American stand-up comedian. . . see: "INJUSTICE" see: "OPPRESSION" Opposition may become sweet to a man, when he has christened it persecution. --George Eliot [Mary Ann Evans] (18191880) English novelist. _Scenes of Clerical Life_ [1857], "Janet's Repentance", ch. I (Published anonymously in Blackwood's Magazine.) The patient who has a primary tendency to believe himself persecuted draws from this the conclusion that he must necessarily be a very important person and therefore develops a delusion of grandeur. --Sigmund Freud (18561939) Austrian psychiatrist. Quoted in _The Major Works of Sigmund Freud_ [1952], one of the "Great Books of the Western World". When you spend all your time worrying that the devil is right behind you, eventually you start seeing him whether he's there or not. --Anita Blake, character in _Obsidian Butterfly_ by Laurell K. Hamilton It seems very strange to me that we have this word [paranoia] which means, in effect, that someone feels he is being persecuted when the people who are persecuting him don't think that he is. But we haven't got a word for the condition in which you are persecuting someone without realizing it, which I would have thought is as serious a condition as the other, and certainly no less common. --R.D. Laing (19271989) Scottish psychiatrist. _The Facts Of Life: An Essay In Feelings, Facts, and Fantasy_ [1976] It is very difficult for people to believe the simple fact that every persecutor was once a victim. Yet it should be very obvious that someone who was allowed to feel free and strong from childhood does not have the need to humiliate another person. --Alice Miller (19232010) Polish-born Swiss-German psychologist. _For Your Own Good: Hidden Cruelty in Child-Rearing_ [1990] ;void(0)) PERSEVERANCE & PERSISTENCE . . see: "ABILITY" see: "COURAGE" see: "DETERMINATION" see: "DILIGENCE" see: "EFFORT" see: "OBSTINACY" see: "PURPOSE" see: "RESOLUTION" see: "STRENGTH" see: "TRYING" see: "SUCCESS" for other related links Consider the postage stamp, my son. It secures success through its ability to stick to one thing till it gets there. --Josh Billings [Henry Wheeler Shaw] (18181885) American humorist. Attributed in Herbert V. Prochnow _Speaker's Handbook of Epigrams and Witticisms_ [1955]. - Obstinacy in a bad cause is but consistancy in a good. --Sir Thomas Browne (16051682) English writer and physician. _Religio Medici_, 1. 25 [1642], ed. John Addington Symonds [1886]. & see: Perseverance in a good cause is obstinacy in a bad one. --anon. In "The New-York Mirror" [20 March 1824]. - Endurance is one of the most difficult disciplines, but it is to the one who endures that the final victory comes. --attributed to Buddha [Gautama] (c. 6th4th century B.C.) Founder of Buddhism. Endurance is patience concentrated. --Thomas Carlyle (17951881) Scottish historian and political philosopher. Attributed in Maturin M. Ballou _Edge-Tools of Speech_, p. 129 [1886]. 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 (18881955) American writer and lecturer. Never give in! Never give in! Never, never, never. Never in anything great or small, large or petty never give in except to convictions of honor and good sense. --Winston Churchill (18741965) British Conservative statesman and Prime Minister [1940-45, 1951-55]. Address at Harrow School [29 October 1941]. The comeback kid! --Bill (William Jefferson) Clinton (b. 1946) American Democratic statesman and president [1993-2001]. Description of himself after coming in second in the New Hampshire primary [1992]. Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination are omnipotent. The slogan 'press on' has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race. --Calvin Coolidge (18721933) American Republican statesman and President [1923-29]. Attributed; in the program of a memorial service for Coolidge. Note: According to Fred R. Shapiro (ed.) in _The Yale Book of Quotations_, p. 173 [2006]: "Coolidge wrote this after his retirement for the New York Life Insurance Company, on whose board of directors he served." [Accepting Best Actor Academy Award for 'Gladiator' [2001]:] ... 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. You will fetter my leg, but not Zeus himself can get the better of my free will. --Epictetus (55135) Greek philosopher. _The Discourses_, bk. I, ch. 1 [c. 101 to 108] Success seems to be largely a matter of hanging on after others have let go. --attributed to William Feather (18891981) American author and publisher. Pick yourself up, Dust yourself off, Start all over again. --Dorothy Fields (19051974) American lyricist. "Pick Yourself Up" [1936 song] If at first you don't succeed, try, try, and try again. Then give up. There's no use being a damned fool about it. --attributed to W. C. Fields [William Claude Dukenfield] (18801946) American vaudeville star and film actor. Energy and persistence conquer all things. --Benjamin Franklin (17061790) American politician, inventor, and scientist. Attributed in Maturin M. Ballou _Edge-Tools of Speech_, p. 130 [1886]. - Strength does not come from physical capacity. It comes from an indomitable will. --Mohandas K. Gandhi (18691948) Indian statesman and leader of the nationalistic movement against British rule. _Young India_ (weekly journal published 19191932) [11 August 1920] Man often becomes what he believes himself to be. If I keep on saying to myself that I cannot do a certain thing, it is possible that I may end by really becoming incapable of doing it. On the contrary, if I have the belief that I can do it, I shall surely acquire the capacity to do it even if I may not have it at the beginning. --Mohandas K. Gandhi (18691948) Indian statesman and leader of the nationalistic movement against British rule. _Non-Violence in Peace and War_ [1942] - In the realm of ideas, everything depends on enthusiasm. In the real world, all rests on perseverance. --attributed to Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (17491832) German poet, novelist, and playwright. Patience, persistence and perspiration make an unbeatable combination for success. --attributed to Napoleon Hill (18831970) American journalist, lawyer, and author of self-help books. - Fall seven times, stand up eight. --Japanese Proverb Money grows on the tree of persistence. --Japanese Proverb - Great works are performed not by strength, but by perseverance. --Samuel Johnson (17091784) English poet, critic, and lexicographer. _Rasselas_ [1759] Heroism, the Caucasian mountaineers say, is endurance for one moment more. --George Kennan (18451924) American explorer and author. Letter to Henry Munroe Rogers [25 July 1921]. When the going gets tough, the tough get going. --attributed to Joseph P. Kennedy (18881969) American financier. Every great improvement has come after repeated failures. Virtually nothing comes out right the first time. Failures, repeated failures, are finger posts on the road to achievement. --Charles F. Kettering (18761958) American inventor. Attributed in "Science Education" [1961]. I bend but do not break. --Jean de La Fontaine (16211695) French poet. _Fables_, bk. 1, fable 22 [1668] When the going gets tough, the tough get going. --Frank Leahy (19081973) Coached Notre Dame football team to four national championships. Quoted in _Daily Mail_ (Charleston, WV) [4 May 1954]. There is nothing softer and weaker than water. And yet there is nothing better for attacking hard and strong things. --Lao-tzu (c. 6th cent. B.C.) The first philosopher of Chinese Taoism and alleged author of the _Tao-te Ching_ (Chinese: Classic of the Way of Power). _The Way of Lao-tzu_ ch. 78 The drop of rain maketh a hole in the stone, not by violence, but by oft falling. --Hugh Latimer (c.14851555) English Protestant martyr. "The Second Sermon preached before the King's Majesty" [19 April 1549] I've always found it fascinating that the suicide rate of handicapped people is far less than of those not handicapped. --attributed to Michael Levine Many strokes overthrow the tallest oaks. --John Lyly (1554?1606) English prose stylist and playwright. _Euphues: The Anatomy of Wit_ [1579] Because a thing is difficult for you, do not therefore suppose it to be beyond mortal power. On the contrary, if anything is possible and proper for man to do, assume that it must fall within your own capacity. --Marcus Aurelius Antoninus (121180) Roman emperor [161180] and Stoic philosopher. _Meditations_ Bk. VI, No. 19 Big shots are only little shots who keep shooting. --Christopher Morley (18901957) American journalist, novelist, and poet. Quoted in "Advertiser's Digest" [1947]. Never stop because you are afraid you are never so likely to be wrong. Never keep a line of retreat: it is a wretched invention. The difficult is what takes a little time; the impossible is what takes a little longer. --Fridtjof Nansen (18611930) Norwegian polar explorer. Quoted in "Listener" [14 December 1939]. Water continually dropping will wear hard rocks hollow. --Plutarch (A.D. 46?119?) Greek philosopher and biographer. "Of the Training of Children" Don't let yourself be victimized by the age you live in. It's not the times that will bring us down, any more than it's society. When you put blame on the society, then you end up turning to society for the solution. Just like those poor neurotics at the Care Fest. There's a tendency today to absolve individuals of moral responsibility and tread them as victims of social circumstance. You buy that, you pay with your soul. It's not men who limit women, it's not straights who limit gays, it's not whites who limit blacks. What limits people is lack of character. What limits people is that they don't have the f*cking nerve or imagination to star in their own movie, let alone direct it. --Tom Robbins (b. 1936) American author. _Still Life with Woodpecker_ [1980] When you come to the end of your rope, tie a knot, and hang on. --Franklin D. Roosevelt (18821945) American Democratic statesman and President [19331945]. Attributed in "Minnesota Welfare" [1964]. It is not the critic who counts, not the man who points out how the strong man stumbled, or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena; whose face is marred by the dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again; who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions and spends himself in a worthy course; who at the best, knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who, at worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly; so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory or defeat. --Theodore Roosevelt (18581919) American Republican statesman and President [1901-09]. "Citizenship in a Republic" Address delivered at the Sorbonne, Paris [23 April 1910]. To endure is the first thing that a child ought to learn, and that which he will have the most need to know. --Jean Jacques Rousseau (17121778) French philosopher and novelist. _Emile; or, Treatise on Education_ [1762] A swarm of gnats will overpower an elephant. --Sa'di [Muslih-uddin] (c. 11841291?) Iranian poet. _The Gulistan, or Rose Garden_ (story 28) [A.D. 1258] tr. Edward Rehatsek [1964]. Being defeated is only a temporary condition; giving up is what makes it permanent. --Marilyn vos Savant (b. 1946) American magazine columnist, author, and lecturer. Quoted in Ashton Applewhite, Tripp Evans, & Andrew Frothingham _And I Quote: The Definitive Collection..._, p. 53 [2003]. - And many strokes, though with a little axe, Hew down and fell the hardest-timber'd oak. --William Shakespeare (15641616) English dramatist. _Henry VI, Part 3_ II, i [1591] Wise men ne'er sit and wail their loss, But cheerily seek how to redress their harms. --William Shakespeare (15641616) English dramatist. _Henry VI, Part 3_ IV, iv [1591] - Even if the doctor does not give you a year, even if he hesitates about a month, make one brave push and see what can be accomplished in a week. --Robert Louis Stevenson (18501894) Scottish essayist, poet, and novelist. _Aes Triplex_ (essay), published in _The Cornhill Magazine_ [April 1878]. When you get into a tight place, and everything goes against you, till it seems as though you could not hold on a moment longer, *never give up then* for that is just the place and time that the tide 'll turn. --Harriet Beecher Stowe (18111896) American writer and philanthropist. [Sister of Henry Ward Beecher, daughter of Lyman Beecher.] _Old Town Folks_, ch. XXXIX [1869] "Last Days in Cloudland" Don't bother about genius. Don't worry about being clever. Trust to hard work, perseverance and determination. --attributed to Sir Frederick Treves (18531923) English surgeon. - They are able because they think they are able. --Virgil (7019 B.C.) Roman poet. _The Aeneid_, v. 231 & note the variant (improved?) translation: They conquer who believe they can. --John Dryden (16311700) English poet, critic, and dramatist. Quoted in "The Rambler" #25 [12 June 1750]. - Do not attempt to do a thing unless you are sure of yourself; but do not relinquish it because someone else is not sure of you. --Stewart E White (18731946) American author. In "The Santa Fe Magazine" [1936]. What is the victory of a cat on a hot tin roof ? I wish I knew ... Just staying on it, I guess, as long as she can. --Tennessee Williams [Thomas Lanier Williams] (19111983) American dramatist. "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" [1955] - Genius is only the power of making continuous efforts. The line between failure and success is so fine that we scarcely know when we pass it: so fine that we are often on the line and do not know it. How many a man has thrown up his hands at a time when a little more effort, a little more patience, would have achieved success. As the tide goes out, so it comes clear in. In business, sometimes, prospects may seem darkest when really they are on the turn. A little more persistence, a little more effort, and what seemed hopeless failure may turn to glorious success. There is no failure except in no longer trying. There is no defeat except from within, no really insurmountable barrier save our own inherent weakness of purpose. --The Preferred Accident Insurance Company, as quoted in "The Insurance Economist" (New York) [April 1897]. ----- importunate [im-POR-chuh-nit], adjective: Troublesomely urgent; overly persistent in request or demand; unreasonably solicitous. sedulous [SEJ-uh-luhs], adjective: 1. Diligent in application or pursuit; steadily industrious. 2. Characterized by or accomplished with care and perseverance. tenacious (adj.) [tuh-'ney-shuh s] Holding fast, stubborn or persistent.  PERSUASION . . see: "EXAMPLE" see: "INFLUENCE" see: "REASON" see: "COMMUNICATION" for other related links Give your opinion modestly and coolly, which is the only way to convince. --Lord Chesterfield [Philip Dormer Stanhope] (16941773) British writer and politician. Letter to his son [16 October 1747]. 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 (16681751) French jurist. Quoted in Edward Parsons Day _Day's Collacon: An Encyclopaedia Of Prose Quotations_, p. 15 [1884]. I am not one of the desk-pounding type that likes to stick out his jaw and look like he is bossing the show. I would far rather get behind and, recognizing the frailties and requirements of human nature, I would rather try to persuade a man to go along, because once I have persuaded him, he will stick. If I scare him, he will stay just as long as he is scared, and then he is gone. --Dwight D. Eisenhower (18901969), American Army General, supreme Allied commander WWII, NATO commander, American President [1953-61]. News conference [14 November 1956]. The passions are the only advocates which always persuade. They are a natural art, the rules of which are infallible; and the simplest man with passion will be more persuasive than the most eloquent without. --Franηois de La Rochefoucauld (16131680) French classical author. _Reflections; or, Sentences and Moral Maxims_ [1678], maxim 8 Lower your voice and strengthen your argument. --Lebanese proverb If you would win a man to your cause, first convince him that you are his sincere friend. --Abraham Lincoln (18091865) American Republican statesman, President [18611865]. Address to Springfield Washingtonian Temperance Society, Second Presbyterian Church, Springfield, Illinois [22 February 1842]. One of the best ways to persuade others is with your ears by listening to them. --Dean Rusk (19091994) American politician. Quoted in Jacob Morton Braude (ed.) _Lifetime Speaker's Encyclopedia_ [1962]. ----- cajole [kuh-JOHL]: To persuade with flattery, repeated appeals, or soothing words; to coax. hortatory [HOR-tuh-tor-ee], adjective: Marked by strong urging; serving to encourage or incite; as, "a hortatory speech." inveigle [in-VAY-guhl; -VEE-], transitive verb: 1. To persuade by ingenuity or flattery; to entice. 2. To obtain by ingenuity or flattery. proselytize [PROS-uh-luh-tyz], intransitive verb: 1. To induce someone to convert to one's religious faith. 2. To induce someone to join one's institution, cause, or political party. suasion [SWAY-zhun], noun: The act of persuading; persuasion. end page | PACIFISM - PAIN | PAINTING - PARENTING | PARIS - PASSPORTS | PAST (THE) - PATRIOTISM | PEACE - PERCENTAGES | PEOPLE | PERCEPTIONS - PERSUASION | PESSIMISM - PHILOSOPHY | PHONIES - PHYSICS | PIANO - PLANS | PLACES | PLANTS - POETRY | POISON - POLITICAL PARTIES | POLITICS & POLITICIANS (PAGE 1 A - L) | POLITICS & POLITICIANS (PAGE 2 M - Z) | POLLS - POPES | POPEYE - POTENTIAL | POVERTY | POWER | PRACTICALITY - PRAYER | PREACHERS - PREPARED (BE) | PRESENT (THE) - (THE) PRESS | PRETENSION - PRIVACY | PROBLEMS - PROGRESSIVES | PROGRESS - PROPAGANDA | PROPOSALS - PUBLIC (THE) | PUBLIC OPINION - PUNCTUATION | PUNISHMENT - PURPOSE | QUALITIES - QUIPS | QUIRKS - QUOTATIONS | | H | I - J | K - L | M | N - O | P - Q | | Return Home | The Credits | The Cast | Act 1 | Act 2 | Act 3 | The Reviews | |
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