Category: Wisdom (Page 4 of 13)

Potter Stewart was an Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court. He was was born on January 23, 1915, in Cincinnati, Ohio. Stewart’s father was an attorney and had served as Cincinnati’s mayor. Stewart also became an attorney. He graduated from Yale University in 1937 with an undergraduate degree and in 1941 with a law degree. He practiced law briefly in New York City and enlisted in the United States Naval Reserve soon after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941. During World War II, Stewart served on tankers operating in the Atlantic Ocean and in the Mediterranean Sea. Following the war, Stewart returned to Cincinnati, where he practiced law and on the Cincinnati City Council.

In 1954, President Dwight D. Eisenhower appointed Stewart to be judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. Four years later, Eisenhower appointed Stewart to be the 92nd associate justice on the United States Supreme Court. In July 1981, Stewart retired from the Supreme Court and died on December 7, 1985.

“Ethics is knowing the difference between what you have a right to do and what is right to do.”

“Censorship reflects a society’s lack of confidence in itself. It is a hallmark of an authoritarian regime.”

“Fairness is what justice really is.”

“Swift justice demands more than just swiftness.”

“The right to defy an unconstitutional statute is basic in our scheme. Even when an ordinance requires a permit to make a speech, to deliver a sermon, to picket, to parade, or to assemble, it need not be honored when it’s invalid on its face.”

Baruch (or Benedict) Spinoza (1632-1677), was one of the most important philosophers of the European tradition of rationalism. He was a member of the Sephardic Jewish community of Amsterdam, and received a thorough education in the tradition of medieval philosophical texts as well as in the works of Descartes, Hobbes, and other writers of the period.

Contact with dissident Christian movements and with the scientific and philosophical thought of Descartes led Spinoza to distance himself from orthodox life. Not yet 24 years old, Spinoza rejected traditional interpretations of Scripture and thus deviated from Jewish orthodoxy. In 1656 he was deemed a heretic, cast out of the synagogue, and cursed with all the curses of the firmament. In 1656 he was expelled from the synagogue at Amsterdam on charges of heretical thought and practice, after which he Latinized his name to Benedict.

For a short time Spinoza was exiled from Amsterdam, but he returned and began his life again, supporting himself by grinding lenses for optical instruments, Spinoza stayed for a period of time in the vicinity of Amsterdam, where he gave private lessons and carried on a wide correspondence. In order not to compromise his freedom of thought and speech, he repeatedly refused a chair at the University of Heidelberg, but nevertheless became celebrated in his own day and was regularly visited by other philosophers; among others, Gottfried Leibniz.

In 1660 he moved to Voorburg and then on to the Hague, where he lived with great frugality on a small pension. In 1672 Spinoza undertook a small diplomatic mission to the invading French army, but on his return he was under suspicion as a spy and narrowly escaped being killed by the mob. Spinoza lived out his remaining years in the same frugal state, writing and corresponding. He died of phthisis, possibly brought on by his trade as a lens-grinder. There remain numerous testimonies to his simplicity, virtue, charm, and courage.

“Nature abhors a vacuum.”

“Do not weep; do not wax indignant. Understand.”

“Peace is not an absence of war, it is a virtue, a state of mind, a disposition for benevolence, confidence, justice.”

“There is no hope unmingled with fear, and no fear unmingled with hope.”

“Minds, nevertheless, are not conquered by arms, but by love and generosity.”

“The greatest pride, or the greatest despondency, is the greatest ignorance of one’s self.”

“All excellent things are as difficult as they are rare.”

“The highest activity a human being can attain is learning for understanding, because to understand is to be free.”

“Men are deceived if they think themselves free, an opinion which consists only in this, that they are conscious of their actions and ignorant of the causes by which they are determined.”

Sophocles (496 BC-406 BC ) was born near Athens and proceeded to become one of the great playwrights of the golden age. Thought to be the son of a wealthy merchant, he would have enjoyed all the comforts of a thriving Greek empire. His studies included all of the arts. By the age of sixteen, he was leading a choir of boys at a celebration of the victory of Salamis. Twelve years later, his studies complete, Sophocles took first prize in his first competition. More than 120 plays were to follow. He would go on to win eighteen first prizes, and he would never fail to take at least second.

An accomplished actor, Sophocles performed in many of his own plays. However, the young Athenian’s voice was comparatively weak, and eventually he would give up his acting career to pursue other ventures. In addition to his theatrical duties, Sophocles served for many years as an ordained priest in the service of two local heroes–Alcon and Asclepius, the god of medicine. He also served on the Board of Generals, a committee that administered civil and military affairs in Athens, and for a time he was director of the Treasury, controlling the funds of the association of states known as the Delian Confederacy.

Of Sophocles’ more than 120 plays, only seven have survived in their entirety. Of these, Oedipus the King is generally considered his greatest work. This tragedy of fate explores the depths of modern psycho-analysis as Oedipus unwittingly kills his father and marries his mother in an attempt to avoid the very prophecy he ultimately fulfills. A masterful work of plot and suspense, Oedipus the King is often heralded as a “perfectly structured” play. Shortly after the production of Oedipus at Colonus in 405, Sophocles passed away.

“Heaven never helps the men who will not act.”

“If anyone counts upon one day ahead or even more, he does not think. For there can be no tomorrow until we have safely passes the day that is with us still.”

“Nobody loves life like him that’s growing old.”

“To him who is afraid everything rustles.”

“To be doing good deeds is man’s most glorious task.”

“One word frees us of all the weight and pain in life. That word is love.”

“One who knows how to show and to accept kindness will be a friend better than any possession.”

“One must learn by doing the thing; though you think you know it, you cant be certain until you try.”

“It is terrible to speak well and be wrong.”

“Rather fail with honor than succeed by fraud.”

“What you cannot enforce, do not command.”

“Wisdom outweighs any wealth.”

Solomon lived around 1000-922 BC and ruled as King of Israel and Judah from 961 BC to 922 BC. Solomon was son of King David and Bathsheba, and was appointed heir to the throne at the sacrifice of his older brother Adonijah. The exact dates of his life are disputed, but generally with variations no larger than 10 years.

Solomon is by Biblical tradition considered to be the greatest king of Israel. He is remembered for keeping a large kingdom together, comprising most of today’s Middle East; for building the Temple of Jerusalem; and for his wisdom. Solomon married daughters of neighbouring kings which resulted in a total of 700 wives and 300 concubines. His main wife was the daughter of the Egyptian pharaoh.

Although he was a ruler at a young age, he soon became known for his wisdom. The first and most famous incident of his cleverness as a judge was when two women came to his court with a baby whom both women claimed as their own. Solomon threatened to split the baby in half. One woman was prepared to accept the decision, but the other begged the King to give the live baby to the other woman. Solomen then knew the second woman was the mother.

People from surrounding nations also came to hear Solomon’s wisdom. He composed 3,000 proverbs and 1,005 songs. He wrote the Song of Songs, the Book of Proverbs and Ecclesiastes.

“Naked a man comes from his mother’s womb, and as he comes, so he departs. He takes nothing from his labor
that he can carry in his hand.”

“A friend loveth at all times, and a brother is born for adversity.”

“Train up a child in the way that he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it.”

“A merry heart maketh a cheerful countenance.”

“A good name is rather to be chosen than riches.”

“In the day of prosperity be joyful, but in the day of adversity consider.”

“A merry heart doeth good like medicine.”

“Who is the wise man? He who sees what’s going to be born.”

“Start with GOD-the first step in learning is bowing down to GOD; only fools thumb their noses at such wisdom and learning.”

“As iron sharpens iron, so a friend sharpens a friend.”

“There is a time to get (win) and a time to lose.”

“A fool is wise in his eyes.”

“Kindness and faithfulness keep a king safe, through kindness his throne is made secure.”

(469-399 B.C.) Socrates was primarily known as a philosopher of Athens, one of the wisest people of all times. He grew up in his family trade of sculpting and also received a formal education in geometry and astronomy. It was his hunger for knowledge led him to seek the truth beyond education. During his tenure in Athens, Socrates served with honor as a solder in the Peloponnesian Wars with Sparta.

One of Socrates contributions to philosophy, the Socrates Method, was to inquire involving the questioning of people on the positions they asserted and working them through further questions into seemingly inevitable contradictions, thus proving them wrong. This gave rise to dialectic, the idea that truth needs to be approached by modifying one’s position through questionings and exposures to contrary ideas.

“Our youth now love luxury, they have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders, and love to chatter in place of exercise. Children are now tyrants, not the servants of their households. They no longer rise when elders enter the room. They contradict their parents, chatter before company, gobble up their food and tyrannize their teachers.”

“The unexamined life is not worth living.” “I hold that to need nothing is divine, and the less a man needs the nearer does he approach divinity.”

“Let him that would move the world first move himself.”

“If a man is proud of his wealth, he should not be praised until it is known how he employs it.”

“If all our misfortunes were laid in one common heap, whence everyone must take an equal portion, most people would be content to take their own and leave.”

“There is only one good, knowledge, and one evil, ignorance.”

“I was really too honest a man to be a politician and live.”

Socrates had two simple rules for life:

“Know thyself”
“Take nothing in excess”

Robert Schuller was born in Alton, Iowa in 1926. A Protestant minister turned television evangelist, Schuller made headlines in 1955 when he preached to his congregation in a drive-in movie theater; his large congregation was apparently busting at the seams of his Los Angeles church. From there, Schuller collected donations to build a multimillion dollar facility in the southern California called the “Crystal Cathedral,” from which he now preaches for the Reformed Church of America. In 1970, he began a popular television ministry, preaching in weekly hour shows called the “Hour of Power.”

“Always look at what you have left. Never look at what you have lost.”

“Better to do something imperfectly than to do nothing flawlessly.”

“Failure doesn’t mean you are a failure… it just means you haven’t succeeded yet.”

“You will never win if you never begin.”

“If you listen to your fears, you will die never knowing what a great person you might have been.”

“Life is but a moment, death also is but another.”

“Most people who succeed in the face of seemingly impossible conditions are people who simply don’t know how to quit.”

“Problems are not stop signs, they are guidelines.”

“If there exists no possibility of failure, then victory is meaningless.”

“God’s delays are not God’s denials.”

“The hardest struggle of all is to be something different from what the average man is.”

“Spectacular achievement is always preceded by unspectacular preparation.”

“The only place where your dream becomes impossible is in your own thinking.”

“The truth of the matter is that you always know the right thing to do. The hard part is doing it.”

“What great thing would you attempt if you knew you could not fail?”

“Anyone can count the seeds in an apple, but only God can count the number of apples in a seed.”

“Faith is affirming success before it comes. Faith is making claims to victory before it is achieved.”

(3 B.C – 65 A.D.) Seneca, the younger, was the son of Seneca the elder. He was a Roman philosopher, dramatist, and statesman. The younger Seneca went to Rome in his childhood, studied rhetoric and philosophy, and earned renown as an orator when still a youth. He was exiled by Claudius because of an affair with Claudius’ bother’s daughter.

In 49 A.D., Seneca was recalled at the urgings of Agrippina to become tutor of the young Nero. During this time, he amassed a huge fortune and wanted no more of court life. After accusations of conspiracy were leveled at Seneca, he was instructed to commit suicide and obliged. His surviving works cover writings spanning ethics, anger, divine providence morality and peace among other things. Seneca is considered to have had the greatest influence on the period of Renaissance tragedy.

“Difficulties strengthen the mind, as labor does the body.”

“Enjoy present pleasures in such a way as not to injure future ones.”

“It is easier to exclude harmful passions than to rule them, and to deny them admittance than to control them after they have been admitted.”

“One should count each day as a separate life.”

“Toil to make yourself remarkable by some talent or other.”

“He who boasts of his ancestry is praising the deeds of another.”

“Fire is the test of gold; adversity, of strong men.”

“It is better, of course, to know useless things than to know nothing.”

“It is not the man who has too little, but the man who craves more, that is poor.”

“Live among men as if God beheld you; speak to God as if men were listening.”

“There is no great genius without some touch of madness.”

“Men do not care how nobly they live, but only how long, although it is within the reach of everyman to live nobly, but within no man’s power to live long.”

“It is the quality rather than quantity that matters.”

“You can tell the character of every man when you see how he received praise.”

“While we are postponing, life speeds by.”

“Let us train our minds to desire what the situation demands.”

She was born in New York City on October 11, 1884, daughter of Anna Hall and Elliott Roosevelt, younger brother of Theodore. When her mother died in 1892, the children went to live with Grandmother Hall; her father died only two years later. At 15, Eleanor attended a distinguished school in England. This developed her self-confidence among other girls. In her circle of friends was a distant cousin, Franklin Delano Roosevelt. They became engaged in 1903 and were married in 1905, with her uncle the President giving the bride away. Within eleven years Eleanor bore six children; one son died in infancy.

In Albany, where Franklin served in the state Senate from 1910 to 1913, Eleanor started her long career as political helpmate. From his successful campaign for governor in 1928 to the day of his death, she dedicated her life to his purposes. When Mrs. Roosevelt came to the White House in 1933, she understood social conditions better than any of her predecessors and she transformed the role of First Lady accordingly. She never shirked official entertaining; she greeted thousands with charming friendliness. She also broke precedent to hold press conferences, travel to all parts of the country, give lectures and radio broadcasts, and express her opinions candidly in a daily syndicated newspaper column.

After the President’s death in 1945 she returned to a cottage at his Hyde Park estate, telling reporters: “the story is over.” Within a year, however, she began her service as American spokesman in the United Nations. She continued a vigorous career until she died in New York City that November, and was buried at Hyde Park beside her husband.

“Happiness is not a goal; it is a by-product.”

“It is better to light a candle than curse the darkness.”

“No one can make you feel inferior without your own consent.”

“The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.”

“It is not fair to ask of others what you are unwilling to do yourself.”

“Ones philosophy is not best expressed in words; its expressed in the choices one makes. In the long run, we shape our lives and we shape ourselves. The process never ends until we die. And the choices we make are ultimately our responsibility.”

“Do what you feel in your heart to be right – for you’ll be criticized anyway. You’ll be damned if you do, and damned if you don’t.”

“When you cease to make a contribution, you begin to die.”

“I think that somehow, we learn who we really are and then live with that decision.”

“You gain strength, courage and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You are able to say to yourself, ‘I have lived through this horror. I can take the next thing that comes along.’ You must do the thing you think you cannot do.”

“Only a man’s character is the real criterion of worth.”

“Absence makes the heart grow fonder.”

“For it isn’t enough to talk about peace. One must believe in it. And it isn’t enough to believe in it. One must work at it.”

“Friendship with ones self is all important, because without it one cannot be friends with anyone else in the world.”

“Hate and force cannot be in just a part of the world without having an effect on the rest of it.”

Born in 1882 at Hyde Park, New York, he attended Harvard University and Columbia Law School. Following the example of his fifth cousin, President Theodore Roosevelt, whom he greatly admired, Franklin D. Roosevelt entered public service through politics, but as a Democrat. He won election to the New York Senate in 1910. President Wilson appointed him Assistant Secretary of the Navy, and he was the Democratic nominee for Vice President in 1920.

In the summer of 1921, when he was 39, disaster hit. Roosevelt was stricken with poliomyelitis. Demonstrating indomitable courage, he fought to regain the use of his legs, particularly through swimming. At the 1924 Democratic Convention he dramatically appeared on crutches to nominate Alfred E. Smith as “the Happy Warrior.” In 1928 Roosevelt became Governor of New York.

He was elected President in November 1932, to the first of four terms. By March there were 13,000,000 unemployed, and almost every bank was closed. In three years, of his first term, the Nation had achieved some measure of recovery, but businessmen and bankers were turning more and more against Roosevelt’s New Deal program. In 1936 he was re-elected by a top-heavy margin. Feeling he was armed with a popular mandate, he sought legislation to enlarge the Supreme Court, which had been invalidating key New Deal measures. Roosevelt lost the Supreme Court battle, but a revolution in constitutional law took place. Thereafter the Government could legally regulate the economy.

When the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, Roosevelt directed organization of the Nation’s manpower and resources for global war. Feeling that the future peace of the world would depend upon relations between the United States and Russia, he devoted much thought to the planning of a United Nations, in which, he hoped, international difficulties could be settled. As the war drew to a close, Roosevelt’s health deteriorated, and on April 12, 1945, while at Warm Springs, Georgia, he died of a cerebral hemorrhage.

“It is common sense to take a method and try it. If it fails, admit it frankly and try another. But above all, try something.”

“The only limit to our realization of tomorrow will be our doubts about reality.”

“Happiness lies in the joy of achievement and the thrill of creative effort.”

“The only thing to fear is fear itself.”

“It is a terrible thing to look over your shoulder when you are trying to lead — and find no one there.”

“It is an unfortunate human failing that a full pocketbook often groans more loudly than an empty stomach.”

“True individual freedom cannot exist without economic security and independence. People who are hungry and out of a job are the stuff of which dictatorships are made.”

“There are many ways of going forward, but only one way of standing still.”

“The hopes of the Republic cannot forever tolerate either undeserved poverty or self-serving wealth.”

“We look forward to a world founded upon four essential human freedoms. The first is freedom of speech and expression. The second is freedom of every person to worship God in his own way. The third is freedom from want. The fourth is freedom from fear.”

“When you get to the end of your rope, tie a knot and hang on.”

Born in 1879 on a large ranch in the Cherokee Nation near what later would become Oologah, Oklahoma, Will Rogers was taught by a freed slave how to use a lasso as a tool to work Texas Longhorn cattle on the family ranch. As he grew older, Will Rogers’ roping skills developed so special that he was listed in the Guinness Book of Records for throwing three lassos at once: One rope caught the running horse’s neck, the other would hoop around the rider and the third swooped up under the horse to loop all four legs.

His hard-earned skills won him jobs trick roping in wild west shows and on the vaudeville stages where, soon, he started telling small jokes. Will Rogers soon became recognized as being a very informed and smart philosopher–telling the truth in very simple words so that everyone could understand. Will Rogers was the star of Broadway and 71 movies of the 1920s and 1930s; a popular broadcaster; besides writing more than 4,000 syndicated newspaper columns and befriending Presidents, Senators and Kings. He wrote six books. In fact he published more than two million words. He was the first big time radio commentator, was a guest at the White House and his opinions were sought by the leaders of the world.

While a fast horse thrilled Will Rogers, he also loved flying. It was on a flight to Alaska in 1935 with a daring one-eyed Oklahoma pilot named Wiley Post that their plane crashed and both men lost their lives.

“Even if you are on the right track, you’ll get run over if you just sit there.”

“Everybody is ignorant, only at different subjects.”

“Get someone else to blow your horn and the sound will carry twice as far.”

“Half our life is spent trying to find something to do with the time we have rushed through life trying to save.”

“Live so that you wouldn’t mind selling your pet parrot to the town gossip.”

“This thing of being a hero, about the main thing to do is to know when to die. Prolonged life has ruined more men than it ever made.”

“No man is great if he thinks he is.”

And some of Will Rogers Humor

Don’t squat with your spurs on.

Good judgment comes from experience, and a lot of that comes from bad judgment.

If you find yourself in a hole, the first thing to do is stop diggin’.

If you get to thinkin’ you’re a person of some influence, try orderin’ somebody else’s dog around.

It don’t take a genius to spot a goat in a flock of sheep.

If you’re ridin’ ahead of the herd, take a look back every now and then to make sure it’s still there.

Never kick a cow chip on a hot day.

Never miss a good chance to shut up.

Never slap a man who’s chewin’ tobacco.

The quickest way to double your money is to fold it over and put it back in your pocket.

There’s two theories to arguin’ with a woman. Neither one works.