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An idea isn't responsible for the people who believe in it.
- Don Marquis
After fifteen minutes I wanted to marry her,
and after half an hour
I completely gave up the idea of stealing her purse.
- the movie Take the Money and Run (1969)
When I eventually met Mr. Right
I had no idea that his first name was Always.
- Rita Rudner
The church is always trying to get other people to reform;
it might not be a bad idea to reform itself a little,
by way of example.
- Mark Twain
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One of the greatest pains to human nature is the pain of a new idea.
- Walter Bagehot
What do I think of Western civilization?
I think it would be a very good idea.
- Mohandas (Mahatma) Gandhi
I never accepted the idea
that I had to be guided by
some pattern or blueprint.
- Little Richard
When an idea reaches critical mass
there is no stopping the shift
its presence will induce.
- Marianne Williamson
The human mind treats a new idea the way the body
treats a strange protein; it rejects it.
- Peter Medawar
Man's mind, once stretched by a new idea,
never regains its original dimensions.
- Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
It takes a long while for a naturally trustful person
to reconcile himself to the idea that
after all God will not help him
- H. L. Mencken
If it's a good idea, go ahead and do it.
It is much easier to apologize than it is to get permission.
- Grace Hopper
As I would not be a slave,
so I would not be a master.
This expresses my idea of democracy.
- Abraham Lincoln
An idea is salvation by imagination.
- Frank Lloyd Wright
Many persons have a wrong idea of
what constitutes true happiness.
It is not attained through self-gratification
but through fidelity to a worthy purpose.
- Helen Keller
A good question is never answered.
It is not a bolt to be tightened into place
but a seed to be planted and to bear more seed
toward the hope of greening the landscape of idea.
- John Ciardi
An invasion of armies can be resisted,
but not an idea whose time has come.
- Victor Hugo
A man may die, nations may rise and fall, but an idea lives on.
- John F. Kennedy
No idea is so outlandish that it should not be considered
with a searching but at the same time a steady eye.
- Winston Churchill
Unity with all creation is a huge idea,
but it fits comfortably within the vast cathedral of our being.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
Every really new idea looks crazy at first.
- Alfred North Whitehead
The value of an idea has nothing whatsoever
to do with the sincerity of the man who expresses it.
- Oscar Wilde
A person with a new idea is
a crank until the idea succeeds.
- Mark Twain
The intellect is a cold thing
and a merely intellectual idea
will never stimulate thought
in the same manner that a spiritual idea does.
- Ernest Holmes
An idea that is not dangerous is
unworthy of being called an idea at all.
- Oscar Wilde
If you are possessed by an idea,
you will find it expressed everywhere,
you even smell it.
- Thomas Mann
Unity can only be manifested by the Binary.
Unity itself and the idea of Unity are already two.
- The Buddha
That deep emotional conviction of the presence
of a superior reasoning power, which is revealed
in the incomprehensible universe, forms my idea of God.
- Albert Einstein
An idea that is developed and put into action
is more important than
an idea that exists only as an idea.
- The Buddha
A mind, once stretched by a new idea,
never regains its original dimensions.
- Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
The idea of brotherhood re-dawns upon the world
with a broader significance
than the narrow association of
members in a sect or creed.
- Helen Keller
Important ideas can come from unexpected places.
We tend to label people - Genius, Idiot,
Socialist, Regressive, Wingnut, Revolutionary, Terrorist.
But it is helpful to remind ourselves to be open
to good ideas - whatever their source.
It is equally important to avoid accepting any idea
merely because we respect that person's
other ideas or accomplishments.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
However carefully we plan our future,
we are always climbing the steps to nowhere.
While it is important to our happiness
that we have an intent for our lives,
it is equally crucial to accept in advance
that we truly have no idea how our lives will turn out -
and that is good.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
The movie character Forrest Gump describing life
as being "like a box of chocolates,"
is such a positive upbeat way of
characterizing the uncertainty of life.
I have no idea what life will give me next,
but whatever it is, it will be sweet.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
Just as in the comedies, a person who is in love
with the idea of love sees prospective partners
through the lens of idealism.
The reaction is, "This must be the one.
They are so perfect - the match of my dreams."
Is that person they just met a perfect match?
It's unlikely their friends think so.
So what happened? That person with the cute smile
was not much more than a mirror for the hopes and dreams
of the one in love with love.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
I will dance a little.
I will move with the wind.
I will give my body to my love and celebrate
that we have substance beyond the idea of ourselves.
We can move. We can touch. This is my physical exclamation point.
This is how I can awaken my mind to the possibilities in the day.
- Mary Anne Radmacher
Plant trees for your great-grandchildren -
for future generations.
Create the legacy of a better world.
Leave this world a better place than you found it.
Literally planting trees for
your great-grandchildren is a wonderful idea,
but far more important...
use this symbolism - this imagery -
to represent the kind of legacy
you want to leave to future generations.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
Do real life people actually fall in love
with the idea of being in love?
Unfortunately, it is actually quite common.
Someone wants desperately to have
the husband or wife of their dreams.
They visualize the vine-covered cottage
with the white picket fence.
They choose the colors for the nursery.
They design all the aspects of their married life.
A real person stands no chance of measuring up to those fantasies.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
There is nobody in this country who got rich on their own. Nobody. You built a factory out there - good for you. But I want to be clear. You moved your goods to market on roads the rest of us paid for. You hired workers the rest of us paid to educate. You were safe in your factory because of police forces and fire forces that the rest of us paid for. You didn't have to worry that marauding bands would come and seize everything at your factory... Now look. You built a factory and it turned into something terrific or a great idea - God bless! Keep a hunk of it. But part of the underlying social contract is you take a hunk of that and pay forward for the next kid who comes along."
- Elizabeth Warren
Beyond mind, there is an awareness that is intrinsic,
that is not given to you by the outside, and is not an idea -
and there is no experiment up to now
that has found any center in the brain
which corresponds to awareness.
The whole work of meditation is
to make you aware of all that is "mind"
and disidentify yourself from it.
That very separation is the
greatest revolution that can happen to man.
Now you can do and act on only that
which makes you more joyous, fulfills you,
gives you contentment, makes your life a work of art, a beauty.
But this is possible only if the master in you is awake.
- Osho
There is a secret wisdom-of-the-ages
that holds the key to breaking our
cycle of self-imposed suffering.
The secret wisdom is, "Life is not supposed to be fair."
This is not sad news. This is GLORIOUS news!
Life is not broken. Nothing is wrong.
God has not failed, died, or gone on vacation.
The world is working perfectly. We just misunderstood.
Somewhere along the way, someone got the idea that
life was "supposed" to be "fair,"
and all the trouble started -
expectation, disappointment, resentment, anger -
a whole cycle of suffering that began
with the belief that life is "supposed" to be "fair."
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
Is a belief a perception of the five senses,
or is it a perception of emotional feeling?
Is it better to say "I sense" and/or "I feel"?
Is it better to say " I know" than "I believe"?
Is belief based on experience or on a idea?
My thinking is that belief/believing is a very missed used word.
- Anonymous
Gravitation is not responsible for people falling in love.
- Albert Einstein
Take charge of your life!
You are responsible to yourself - not to others.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
When one gets angry, it is always angry AT someone -
perhaps a friend or spouse, perhaps a stranger,
perhaps the nameless "they" - "those people at the bank wronged me,"
perhaps God, or perhaps oneself.
In any case, when one gets angry,
they want to find someone to be "responsible" for what happened.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
Leave no authority existing not responsible to the people.
- Thomas Jefferson
I am responsible for my thoughts, my beliefs, and my actions.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
The eyes are not responsible when the mind does the seeing.
- Publilius Syrus
Perhaps it is better to be irresponsible and right,
than to be responsible and wrong.
- Winston Churchill
I do not hold fear about what is happening in the world.
I am responsible for how I conduct myself in the events of my days,
and endeavor to not dwell in fear about anything.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
I like to talk about a thing I call a "practiced pause."
Just a few moments of pausing allows me
to consider a circumstance and take stock
of what the best direction might be.
Reactions tend to rise from habit and unconsidered action.
A Response is considered and thoughtful.
My actions are my own and I am, singularly,
responsible for what I see, say, feel and exert.
- Mary Anne Radmacher
Meddling:
Everything that happens in the world, or doesn't happen,
is NOT my responsibility.
There are more than enough things that are my responsibility.
I am responsible for my thoughts, my beliefs, and my actions -
and that is enough.
It does not serve me to mind anyone else's business.
I can only make myself unhappy by trying to second guess
what anyone else thinks or does.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
If all of us acted in unison as I act individually
there would be no wars and no poverty.
I have made myself personally responsible
for the fate of every human being who has come my way.
- Anais Nin
Morality is simply the attitude we adopt
towards people whom we personally dislike.
- Oscar Wilde
Religion is the masterpiece of the art of animal training,
for it trains people as to how they should think.
- Arthur Schopenhauer
Life is like jumping out of an airplane without a parachute -
only the last couple seconds are fatal,
but most people are scared to death the whole way down.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
Too bad all the people who know how to run this country
are busy running taxicabs or cutting hair.
- George Burns
The more you explain it, the more I don't understand it.
- Mark Twain
I think you're the opposite of a paranoid.
I think you go around with the insane delusion that people like you.
- the Woody Allen movie Deconstructing Harry
When two people decide to get a divorce,
it isn't a sign that they "don't understand" one another,
but a sign that they have, at last, begun to.
- Helen Rowland
Half the world is composed of idiots,
the other half, of people clever enough
to take indecent advantage of them.
- Walter Kerr
One good reason to only maintain a small circle of friends
is that three out of four murders
are committed by people who know the victim.
- George Carlin
Nothing so needs reforming as other people's habits.
- Mark Twain
Half the people you know are below average.
- Anonymous
We make our friends; we make our enemies;
but God makes our next-door neighbor.
- Gilbert (G. K.) Chesterton
I wanted to see exotic Vietnam, the jewel of Southeast Asia.
I, uh, I wanted to meet interesting
and stimulating people of an ancient culture,
and kill them.
- the movie Full Metal Jacket
In critical moments men sometimes see
exactly what they wish to see.
- the character Spock of the television series Star Trek
Some cause happiness wherever they go;
others whenever they go.
- Oscar Wilde
Will the people in the cheaper seats clap your hands?
And the rest of you, if you'll just rattle your jewelry.
- John Lennon
The Lord prefers common-looking people.
That is why he makes so many of them.
- Abraham Lincoln
Be smarter than other people, just don't tell them so.
- H. Jackson Brown, Jr.
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May the world be kind to you,
and may your own thoughts be gentle upon yourself.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
All materials & writings are copyright © Jonathan Lockwood Huie, except for quotes and other specifically identified material which belong to their respective copyright holders if applicable.