Action

• Actions speak louder than words, and they tell fewer lies.
• If you want to have what you have not, you must do what you do not. 
• The world is divided into people who do things and people who get the credit; try to belong to the first class - there's far less competition ~ Dwight Monroe
• A pinch of probably is worth a pound of perhaps. ~ James Thurber
• The chains of habit are too weak to be felt until they are too strong to be broken. ~ Samuel Johnson

Advice

• Advice is seldom welcome, and those who need it the most, like it the least. ~ Chesterfield
• There are two kinds of people who never amount to much: those who never take advice from anybody, and those who always take advice from everybody.  
• It's funny about advice: the better it is, the harder it is to take.

Age and Accomplishment

• Since when has age become a disqualifying factor in human endeavor and accomplishment? Between the ages of 70 and 83, Commodore Vanderbilt added ten million dollars to his fortune. Verdi, at 83, produced his magnificent "Te Deum," his "Stabat Mater," and "Ave Maria." Oliver Wendell Holmes, at 79, wrote his "Over the Teacups," and Tennyson, at 83, wrote "Crossing the Bar." ~ unknown
• The young tell you what they are doing, the old what they have done, and everyone else what they are going to do. 

Aim

• Whenever you have an aim you must sacrifice something of freedom to attain it. ~ Somerset Maugham
• You're not driving your car after you pass eighty miles an hour - you're aiming it. 
• The bull's-eye is the last part of the target to wear out. 
• Many people have the right aim in life, but not enough courage to pull the trigger.

Anxiety

• It requires a great deal of inexperience to be beyond the reach of anxiety.
• Anxiety is like sand in an oyster: a little produces a pearl, too much kills the creature. 

Beginning

• The secret of getting ahead is getting started.
• Middle age is not the beginning of the end, but the end of the beginning.
• A movie star's marriage always begins with a romance and ends the same way.
• There's nothing worse than a quitter, except the person who's afraid to begin.
• Live so that you can at least get the benefit of the doubt. ~ Kin Hubbard 

Believe

• Difficulties seldom defeat people; lack of faith in themselves usually does it.
• We can believe the impossible, but can never believe the improbable. ~ Oscar Wilde

Character

• Character is like a tree and reputation like its shadow. The shadow is what we think of it; the tree is the real thing. ~ Abraham Lincoln
• Character is what you are; reputation is what you try to make people think you are. 
• Your character is built by what you stand for, your reputation is what you fall for. 
• Character is what you get; reputation is what you get caught at. 
• The worst way to try to make ends meet is by running around in circles. 
• The person who is always kicking seldom has a leg to stand on. 
• There's only one thing more important in life than background, and that's backbone. 
• A person has to have a lot of courage to admit that they don't have any. 
• The hardest way out of a difficulty is to look for an easy way out. 
• The last of the human freedoms is to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances. ~ Victor Frankl
• A person can fail many times, but they are not a failure until they begin to blame somebody else. ~ John Burroughs

Colonialism

• The touchiest part of a colonial policy is how to keep inferior peoples inferior.

Common Sense

• Common sense is usually lack of imagination, and imagination is usually lack of common sense. 

Critical Thinking

• Can you think outside the box, without having to get rid of what's in the box? ~ H. Luis Vargas 

Death

• If some died and others did not, death would be a terrible affliction. ~ La Bruyere

Equality

• The law cannot make all people equal, but they are all equal before the law. ~ Frederick Pollock
• All people are equal, but it's what they're equal to that counts.

Family

• If you cannot get rid of the family skeleton, you may as well make it dance. ~ Bernard Shaw
• The trouble with the family is that children grow out of childhood but parents never grow out of parenthood.

Fear

• There's nothing I'm afraid of like scared people. ~ Robert Frost
• The person who fears suffering is already suffering from what they fear. ~ Montaigne
• Those who lack the courage will always find a philosophy to justify it. ~ Camus
• Too many children are afraid of the dark, and too many adults are afraid of the light. 

Forgiveness

• The secret of forgiving everything is to understand nothing. ~ Bernard Shaw
• If everybody remembered the past, nobody would ever forgive anybody. ~ Robert Lynd

Freedom

• Freedom rings where opinions clash. ~ Adlai Stevenson
• The basic test of freedom is perhaps less in what we are free to do than in what we are free not to do. ~ Eric Hoffer
• It is  hard to be happier than other people because we always believe others to be happier than they are. ~ Montesquieu

Hate

• It is better to be hated for what you are than to be loved for what you are not. ~ Gide

Head and Heart

• Some people feel with their heads and think with their hearts. ~ G.C. Lichtenberg
• Many people must first lose their head before they can find their heart. ~ Nietczsche
• Two things are bad for the heart - running up stairs  and running down people. ~ Bernard Baruch

Hide

• It is often easier to hide something than to hide the fact that you are hiding something. ~ G.C. Lichtenberg
• Look wise, say nothing, and grunt: speech was given to conceal thought. ~ William Solser

Influence

• The need for integrity today is perhaps as great as it has ever been. And it is absolutely essential for anyone who desires to become a person of influence. ~ John C. Maxwell
• When a person feels encouraged, they can face the impossible and overcome incredible adversity.
• For most people, it's not what they are that holds them back. It's what they think they're not. 
• Fear sometimes carries a person further than courage, but not in the same direction.
• People don't care how much you know until they know how much you care. ~ John Maxwell
• If all I do as a therapist is listen, I must ask myself what I'm really doing. ~ H. Luis Vargas

Relationships

• Everyone's friend is no one's. ~ Schopenhauer
• We often provide for those who give us the least, and give the least to those who provide us the most. ~H. Luis Vargas
• Life is replete with hellos, goodbyes, and lots of surprise. ~H. Luis Vargas
• People rarely achieve remarkable success without the embrace of and from others. ~H. Luis Vargas
• We yearn to be loved for who we are - but, instead, we do what we think others will approve of. H. Luis Vargas
• My experience of your experience of me experiencing you, informs your experience of my experience of me experiencing you. ~ H. Luis Vargas

Sorrow

• To live through a period of stress and sorrow with another human being creates a bond which nothing seems able to break. People can be happy together and look back on their contacts very pleasantly, but such contacts will not make the same kind of bond that sorrow lived through together will create ~ Eleanor Roosevelt

**uncredited aphorisms are the work of Evan Esar, 20,000 Quips and Quotes