Quotes on People

Life is never boring but some people choose to be bored. The concept of boredom entails an inability to use up present moments in a personally fulfilling way. Boredom is a choice; something you visit upon yourself, and it is another of those self-defeating items that you can eliminate from your life.

If I knew that it was possible to save all the children of Germany by transporting them to England, and only half by transferring them to the Land of Israel, I would choose the latter, for before us lies not only the numbers of these children but the historical reckoning of the people of Israel.

We read off the many signals that our companions' clothes transmit to us in every social encounter. In this way, clothing is as much a part of human body language as gestures, facial expressions and postures.Even those people who insist that they despise attention to clothing, and dress as casually as possible, are making quite specific comments on their social roles and their attitudes towards the culture in which they live.

It's always the badly dressed people who are the most interesting.

The most durable thing in writing is style, and style is the most valuable investment a writer can make with his time. It pays off slowly, your agent will sneer at it, your publisher will misunderstand it, and it will take people you have never heard of to convince them by slow degrees that the writer who puts his individual mark on the way he writes will always pay off.

Virtue and learning, like gold, have their intrinsic value: but if they are not polished, they certainly lose a great deal of their luster: and even polished brass will pass upon more people than rough gold.

The founding of our Nation was more than a political event; it was an act of faith, a promise to Americans and to the entire world. The Declaration of Independence declared that people can govern themselves, that they can live in freedom with equal rights, that they can respect the rights of others.

A long visit to a friend is often a great bore. Never make people twice glad.

It is by a thorough knowledge of the whole subject that [people] are enabled to judge correctly of the past and to give a proper direction to the future.

The Himalayan Glaciers on the Tibetan Plateau have been among the most affected by global warming. The Himalayas...provide more than half of the drinking water for 40% of the world's population...Within the next half-century, that 40% of the world's people may well face a very serious drinking water shortage, unless the world acts boldly and quickly to mitigate global warming.

I say it is impossible that so sensible a people [citizens of Paris], under such circumstances, should have lived so long by the smoky, unwholesome, and enormously expensive light of candles, if they had really known that they might have had as much pure light of the sun for nothing.

Every part of the earth is sacred to my people.

She was a remarkable person and the love of my life. We were married for almost 70 years. She encouraged and sustained me and our four children, their families and many other people in a life full of engagement with Australians from all walks of life.

But the people of the disaster area fundamentally needed to understand that the rest of Australia had noticed their misery and their stoicism and their intense sense of community and determination to arise from the sodden wreckage of their homes, and that Australians would dig deep to help. I helped to describe the community ethos which quickly triumphed over incipient despair. It is this mobilisation of the unifying spirit that thrills us all, even as we mourn.

We are at last being recognised as the indigenous people of this country whom must share in its future. This is not a day of national mourning for us. We must leave history behind us and look forward.

I want to be a positive role model, especially for kids and Aboriginal people... When people see me, often all they see is another Australian athlete having a go. It isn't until they see the full Cathy Freeman picture that they realise how proud I am of my ancestry and heritage. I'd like a little more tolerance and acceptance of my culture and all the differing cultures that make up Australia.

The ruler attains wholeness in the correct governance of the people.

Even if they don't know that you are practicing for them, you are helping them and in turn they are helping you. They are actively helping you to develop your compassion, and so to purify and heal yourself. For me, all dying people are teachers, giving to all those who help them a chance to transform themselves through developing their compassion.

I don't teach kids to be number 1. Organizations and people that tell you you have to be number 1; that's not it. You don't have to be number 1. What I teach is to be as good as you can be. Use what you have and be as good as you can be. That's all you can do, anyway.

In our relationship with children and young people, we are not dealing with mechanical devices that can be quickly repaired, but with living beings who are impressionable, volatile, sensitive, afraid, affectionate; and to deal with them we have to have great understanding, the strength of patience and love.

Two kinds of people live a life without care: one kind are extremely worthy of praise, the other kind are extremely worthy of criticism. The first are those who care nothing for the pleasures of the world and the second (i.e. those who are deserving of criticism) care nothing for haya or modesty.