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I do not choose to be a common man. It is my right to be uncommon — if I can. I seek opportunity — not security. I do not wish to be a kept citizen, humbled and dulled by having the state look after me. I want to take the calculated risk; to dream and to build, to fail and to succeed.
The greatest service we can do the common man is abolish him and make all men uncommon.
Norman Angell
Here's to the crazy ones, the misfits, the rebels, the troublemakers, the round pegs in a square hole, the ones who see things differently. They're not fond of rules, and they have no respect for the status quo. You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or revile them. About the only thing you can't do is ignore them, because they change things. They push the human race forward, and while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius, because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who'll do it.
I was made to work; if you are equally industrious, you will be equally successful.
Johann Sebastian Bach
No one has ever had an idea in a dress suit.
Sir Frederick G. Banting
The great obstacle to discovery is not ignorance, it is the illusion of
knowledge.
Daniel J. Boorstein
There is a correlation between the creative and the screwball. So we must suffer the screwball gladly.
Through a science or an artform — through creativity — the individual genius seems to live at the exhilarating edge of what it means to have our human mind.
Ah, but a man's reach should exceed his grasp,
Or what's a heaven for?
Robert Browning,
Men and Women, 1855
We are so concerned to flatter the majority that we lose sight of how very often it is necessary, in order to preserve freedom for the minority, let alone for the individual, to face that majority down.
William F. Buckley, Jr.
Be a light unto yourself.
Buddha
Madonna — one of eight children of a car plant worker, and who was six when her mother died — started out with much less than the Wannabes — the pre-teen girl gangs who made up her original hardcore following.... Yet only twenty-eight summers have seen her progress from a Detroit cul-de-sac to a Malibu beach house, and from £5-an-hour cheesecake to an £80 million fortune.... But why Madonna? She is beautiful, but not that beautiful; a good dancer, but not that good; a good actress only when playing herself and an alleged singer. Strength is the answer — just as the very lack of it marked out the embarrassingly vulnerable Marilyn Monroe.... In a landscape of wall-to wall wimps, she is a force of nature, like a hurricane, with so much faith in herself that, sometimes, she appears to be on the verge of the psychotic.
Make no little plans; they have no magic to stir men's blood and probably in themselves will not realized.
Make big plans; aim high in hope and work, remembering that a noble, logical diagram once recorded will never die, but long after we are gone will be a living thing, asserting itself with ever-growing insistency. Remember that our sons and grandsons are going to do things that would stagger us. Let your watchword be order and your beacon beauty.
attributed to Daniel Burnham
Perhaps you have heard the story of Christopher Wren, one of the greatest of English architects, who walked one day unrecognized among the men who were at work upon the building of St. Paul's cathedral in London which he had designed. "What are you doing?
" he inquired of one of the workmen, and the man replied, "I am cutting a piece of stone.
" As he went on he put the same question to another man, and the man replied, "I am earning five shillings twopence a day.
" And to a third man he addressed the same inquiry and the man answered, "I am helping Sir Christopher Wren build a beautiful cathedral.
" That man had vision. He could see beyond the cutting of the stone, beyond the earning of his daily wage, to the creation of a work of art — the building of a great cathedral. And in your life it is important for you to strive to attain a vision of the larger whole.
Tread where the traffic does not go.
Callimachus
Never, never, never, never — in nothing great and small — large and petty — Never give in except to convictions of honor and good sense. Never yield to force and the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy.
To improve is to change; to be perfect is to change often.
The only way to discover the limits of the possible is to go beyond them into the impossible.
Arthur C. Clarke
A man's life is interesting primarily when he has failed — I well know. For it's a sign that he tried to surpass himself.
Georges Clemenceau
All you need is ignorance and confidence then success is sure.
Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain)
Crank — a man with a new idea until it succeeds.
Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain)
Our greatest glory is not in never failing, but in rising every time we fail.
Confucius
I don't know the key to success, but I know the key to failure is to try to please everyone.
Bill Cosby
Talent is what you possess; genius is what possesses you.
Malcolm Cowley
to be nobody-but-yourself — in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else — means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight; and never stop fighting
e.e. cummings
De l'audace, et encore d el'audace, et toujours de l'audace.
(Boldness, and again boldness, and always boldness!)
Georges Jacques Danton
And the world will be better for this;
That one man scorned and covered
with scars,
Still strove with his last ounce of courage,
To reach the unreachable stars.
Joe Darion, "The Impossible Dream",
Man of La Mancha
The brain is a three pound mass you can hold in your hand that can conceive of a universe a hundred-billion light-years across.
The first step toward philosophy is incredulity.
Denis Diderot
Intelligent discontent is the mainspring of civilization.
Eugene V. Debs
Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.
Thomas Edison
He who joyfully marches to music in rank and file has already earned my contempt. He has been given a large brain by mistake, since for him the spinal cord would fully suffice.
Albert Einstein
It gives me great pleasure indeed to see the stubbornness of an incorrigible nonconformist warmly acclaimed.
Albert Einstein
Any coward can fight a battle when he's sure of winning; but give me the man, who has pluck to fight when he's sure of losing. That's my way, sir; and there are many victories worse than a defeat.
George Eliot
But you've got to make your own kind of music
Sing your own special song
Make your own kind of music
Even if nobody else sings along.
Creative thinking may mean simply the realization that there's no particular virtue in doing things the way they always have been done.
As regards intellectual work, it remains a fact, indeed, that great decisions in the realms of thought and momentous discoveries and solutions of problems are only possible to an individual working in solitude.
Sigmund Freud
If you limit your choices only to what seems possible or reasonable, you disconnect yourself from what you truly want, and all that is left is a compromise.
A civilized society is one which tolerates eccentricity to the point of doubtful sanity.
Robert Frost
By natural ability ... I do not mean capacity without zeal, nor zeal without capacity, nor even a combination of both of them, without an adequate power of doing a great deal of very laborious work. But I mean a nature which, when left to itself, will, urged on by an internal stimulus, climb the path that leads to eminence, and has a strength to reach the summit — one which, if hindered or thwarted, will fret and strive until the hindrance is overcome....
Sir Francis Galton, Hereditary Genius, 1869
I claim to be no more than an average man with less than average ability. I am not a visionary. I claim to be a practical idealist. Nor can I claim any special merit for what I have been able to achieve with laborious research. I have not the shadow of a doubt that any man or woman can achieve what I have, if he or she would make the same effort and cultivate the same hope and faith.
Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi
It is better to light one candle than curse the darkness.
Andre Gidé
Different is hard
Different is lonely
Different is trouble
For you only.
Different is heartache
Different is pain.
But I'd rather be different
Than be the same.
Norman Gimbel, "Different", Pufnstuf
Create like a god, screw up like a man, grovel like a dog.
Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Our dangers, as it seems to me, are not from the outrageous but from the conforming; not from those who rarely and under the lurid glare of obliquy upset our complaisance, or shock us with unaccustomed conduct, but from those, the mass of us, who take their virtue and their tastes, like their shirts and their furniture, from the limited patterns which the market offers.
Learned Hand, "The Preservation of Personality," The Spirit of Liberty
If you can 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. Hayakawa
The road to wisdom?
Well it's plain
and simple to express:
Err and err
and err again
but less
and less
and less.
But man is not made for defeat. A man can be destroyed but not defeated.
Ernest Hemingway,
The Old Man and the Sea
There is nothing permanent except change.
Heraclitus
Cherish your visions and your dreams as they are the children of your soul; the blueprints of your ultimate achievements.
It is not strength, but art, obtains the prize,
And to be swift is less than to be wise.
'Tis more by art, than force of num'rous strokes.
Homer,
The Iliad
Fences are made for those who cannot fly.
Elbert Hubbard
There is one thing stronger than all the armies in the world: and that is an idea whose time has come.
Victor Hugo
He who trims himself to suit everyone will soon whittle himself away.
The vast majority of human beings dislike and even actually dread all notions with which they are not familiar ... Hence it comes about that at their first appearance innovators have ... always been derided as fools and madmen.
Aldous Huxley
The rung of a ladder was never meant to rest upon, but to enable a man to put his other foot higher.
Thomas Huxley
In the republic of mediocrity, genius is dangerous.
Robert G. Ingersoll
Genius means little more than the faculty of perceiving in an unhabitual way.
William James
The world ... is only beginning to see that the wealth of a nation consists more than anything else in the number of superior men that it harbors ... Geniuses are ferments; and when they come together, as they have done in certain lands at certain times, the whole population seems to share in the higher energy which they awaken. The effects are incalculable and often not easy to trace in detail, but they are pervasive and momentous.
William James
You can do it!
The marvelous richness of human experience would lose something of rewarding joy if there were not limitations to overcome. The hilltop hour would not be half so wonderful if there were no dark valleys to traverse.
Helen Keller
A man does what he must — in spite of personal consequences, in spite of obstacles and dangers and pressures — and that is the basis of all human morality.
John F. Kennedy,
Profiles in Courage
Ideas shape the course of history.
John Maynard Keynes
If a man is called to be a street sweeper, he should sweep streets even as Michelangelo painted, or Beethoven played music, or Shakespeare wrote poetry. He should sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will pause to say, here lived a great street sweeper who did his job well.
Martin Luther King Jr.
A nation or civilization that continues to produce soft-minded men purchases its own spiritual death on an installment plan.
Martin Luther King Jr.
The principal mark of genius is not perfection but originality, the opening of new frontiers.
Arthur Koestler
It may be those who do most, dream most.
Richard Leacock
We are told that talent creates its own opportunities. Yet, it sometimes seems that intense desire creates not only its own opportunities, but its own talents as well.
Bruce Lee
The mind must be wide open to function freely in thought. A limited mind cannot think freely.
Bruce Lee
Everyone is a genius at least once a year; a real genius has his original ideas closer together.
Sometimes men come by the name of genius in the same way that certain insects come by the name of centipede — not because they have a hundred feet, but because most people can't count above fourteen.
Not failure, but low aim, is crime
Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has.
Margaret Mead
That so few now dare to be eccentric, marks the chief danger of our time.
John Stuart Mill
The great creative individual ... is capable of more wisdom and virtue than collective man ever can be.
John Stuart Mill
Just do it!
When we walk to the edge of all the light we have and take the step into the darkness of the unknown, we must believe that one of two things will happen. There will be something solid for us to stand on or we will be taught to fly.
I love the man that can smile in trouble, that can gather strength from distress, and grow brave by reflection. 'Tis the business of little minds to shrink; but he whose heart is firm, and whose conscience approves his conduct, will pursue his principles unto death.
Thomas Paine
Perhaps the sentiments contained in the following pages, are not yet sufficiently fashionable to procure them general favor; a long habit of not thinking a thing wrong, gives it a superficial appearance of being right, and raises at first a formidable outcry in defence of custom. But the tumult soon subsides.
Thomas Paine, Common Sense
Perhaps as one of the older generation, I should preach a little sermon to you, but I do not propose to do so. I shall, instead give you a word of advice about how to behave toward your elders. When an old and distinguished person speaks to you, listen to him carefully and with respect — but do not believe him. Never put your trust in anything but your own intellect. Your elder, no matter whether he has gray hair or has lost his hair, no matter whether he is a Nobel Laureate, may be wrong. The world progresses, year by year, century by century, as the members of the younger generation find out what was wrong among the things that their elders said. So you must always be skeptical — always think for yourself.
Linus Pauling,
on presentation of the Nobel Prize, 10 Dec 1954
David Harker: "Dr. Pauling, how do you have so many good ideas?
"
Linus Pauling: "Well, David, I have a lot of ideas
and throw away the bad ones.
"
You must always search for truth. Truth does not depend upon the point of view. If your neighbor does not see things as you do, then you must search for the truth. If a statement is made in one country but not another, then you must search for the truth.
We are not the flower of civilization. We are but the immature bud of a civilization yet to come. We are the children of the dawn, witnessing the approach of day. We bask in the dim prophecies of the rising sun, knowing, even in our inexperience, that something glorious is to come; for it is from us that greater beings will grow, to develop in the light of the sun that shall know no setting.
I'm not going to limit myself just because people won't accept the fact that I can do something else.
Dolly Parton
Genius ... is the capacity to see ten things where the ordinary man sees one, and where the man of talent sees two or three, plus the ability to register that multiple perception in the material of his art.
Ezra Pound, 1935
Genius is the quality that transforms personal talent into universal insight. The genius represents and speaks for humanity....
Our society won't be truly free until "None of the Above" is always an option.
Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.
Theodore Roosevelt
Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure, than to take rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy much nor suffer much, because they live in the gray twilight that knows not victory nor defeat.
Theodore Roosevelt, 10 Apr 1899
If we seek merely swollen, slothful ease and ignoble peace, if we shrink from the hard contests where men must win at the hazard of their lives and at the risk of all they hold dear, then bolder and stronger peoples will pass us by, and will win for themselves the domination of the world.
Theodore Roosevelt,
The Strenuous Life, 1900
It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiently; who errs, and comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid sould who know neither victory nor defeat.
Theodore Roosevelt,
The Strenuous Life, 1910
Les esprits médiocres, mais mal faits, surtout les demi-savants, sont les plus sujets à l'opiniâtreté. Il n'y a que les âmes fortes qui sachent se dédire et abandonner un mauvais parti. (Mean-spirited mediocrities, especially those with a smattering of learning, are the most likely to be opinionated. Only strong minds know how to correct their opinions and abandon a bad position.)
Skepticism, like chastity, should not be relinquished too readily.
George Santayana
Care more than others think wise,
Risk more than others think safe,
Dream more than others think practical,
Expect more than others think possible.
All truth goes through three steps: First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Finally, it is accepted as self-evident.
Arthur Schopenhauer
All great ideas are controversial, or have been at one time.
Don't waste time collecting other people's autographs; rather devote it to making your own autograph worth collecting.
George Bernard Shaw
The reasonable man adapts himself to the world:
the unreasonable man persists in trying to adapt the world to himself.
Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.™
George Bernard Shaw
All progress is initiated by challenging current conceptions, and executed by supplanting existing institutions.
George Bernard Shaw
I dread success. To have succeeded is to have finished one's business on earth, like the male spider, who is killed by the female the moment he has succeeded in his courtship. I like a state of continual becoming, with a goal in front and not behind.
George Bernard Shaw
To be in hell is to drift; to be in heaven is to steer.
George Bernard Shaw
People are always blaming their circumstances for what they are. I don't
believe in circumstances. The people who get on in the world are the people who get up
and look for the circumstances they want, and if they can't find them, make them.
George Bernard Shaw
All great truths begin as blasphemies.
George Bernard Shaw, Annajanska, 1919
One man that has a mind and knows it, can always beat ten men who haven't and don't.
George Bernard Shaw,
The Apple Cart, 1930
You see things; and you say "Why?
" But I dream things that never were; and I say "Why not?
"
George Bernard Shaw,
Back to Methuselah
People are always blaming their circumstances for what they are. I don't believe in circumstances. The people who get on in this world are the people who get up and look for the circumstances they want, and, if they can't find them, make them.
George Bernard Shaw,
Mrs. Warren's Profession, 1893
This is the true joy in life, the being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one; the being thoroughly worn out before you are thrown on the scrap heap; the being a force of Nature instead of a feverish selfish little clod of ailments and grievances complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy.
George Bernard Shaw,
Man and Superman, 1903
Cogita tute. (Think for yourself.)
That what is true of business and politics is gloriously true of the professions, the arts and crafts, the sciences, the sports. That the best picture has not yet been painted, the greatest poem is still unsung; the mightiest novel remains to be written; the divinest music has not been conceived even by Bach.
Lincoln Steffens
All it takes for realization is the will to do so.
"Dr. Strangelove",
Dr. Strangelove
Written by Peter George III and
Stanley Kubrick
Research is to see what everybody else has seen, and to think what nobody else has thought.
I do not think there is any thrill that can go through the human heart like that felt by the inventor as he sees some creation of the brain unfolding to success.
Nikola Tesla
The most powerful factors in the world are clear ideas in the minds of energetic men of good will.
If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away.
Henry David Thoreau,
Walden
If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them.
Henry David Thoreau,
Walden
The vitality of thought is in adventure. Ideas won't keep. Something must be done about them. When the idea is new, its custodians have fervour, live for it, and, if need be, die for it.
Youth should be radical. Youth should demand change in the world. Youth should not accept the old order if the world is to move on. But the old orders should not be moved easily — certainly not at the mere whim or behest of youth. There must be clash and if youth hasn't enough force or fervor to produce the clash the world grows stale and stagnant and sour in decay. If our colleges and universities do not breed men who riot, who rebel, who attack life with all the youthful vim and vigor, then there is something wrong with our colleges.
Think for Yourself, Schmuck!
When ordinary people decide to do extraordinary things, they transform their lives and the lives of those around them.
Oprah Winfrey
An expert is a man who has stopped thinking — he knows!
Frank Lloyd Wright
An idea is salvation by imagination.
Frank Lloyd Wright
Early in life I had to choose between honest arrogance and hypocritical humility. I chose the former and have seen no reason to change.
Frank Lloyd Wright
Do or do not, there is no try.
"Yoda,"
The Empire Strikes Back
Written by
George Lucas and Leigh Brackett
Without deviation from the norm, progress is not possible.
Frank Zappa
True artists and true scientists have firm confidence in themselves. This confidence is an expression of inner strength which allows them to speak out, secure in the knowledge that, appearances to the contrary, it is the world that is confused and not they. The first man to see an illusion by which men have flourished for centuries surely stands in a lonely place. In that moment of insight he, and he alone, sees the obvious which to the uninitiated (the rest of the world) yet appears as nonsense or, worse, as madness or heresy.
The successful person makes it a habit to do the things that unsuccessful people don't like to do.
... it does not require a majority to prevail, but rather an irate, tireless minority keen to set brush fires in people's minds ...
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