“Optimism is the faith that leads to achievement; nothing can be done without hope.”
— Helen Keller Primary source“The law of nature is, do the thing, and you shall have the power: but they who do not the thing have not the power.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson Primary source“The absolute balance of Give and Take, the doctrine that every thing has its price—and if that price is not paid, not that thing but something else is obtained, and that it is impossible to get any thing without its price—is not less sublime in the columns of a ledger than in the budgets of states.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson Primary source“Bond didn’t defend the practice. He simply maintained that the more effort and ingenuity you put into gambling, the more you took out.”
— Ian Fleming Primary source“If you tax too high, the revenue will yield nothing.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson Primary source“If the law is too mild, private vengeance comes in.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson Primary source“If you put a chain around the neck of a slave, the other end fastens itself around your own.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson Primary source“I’m afraid that’s the way it [reality] is. If there are twenty factors and they interact some, you’ll have to learn to handle it—because that’s the way the world is. But you won’t find it that hard if you go at it Darwin-like, step by step with curious persistence. You’ll be amazed at how good you can get.”
— Charlie Munger Primary source“If the government is cruel, the governor’s life is not safe.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson Primary source“Commit a crime, and the earth is made of glass.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson Primary source“You can ignore reality, but you can’t ignore the consequences of ignoring reality.”
— Ayn Rand Disputed“The law holds with equal sureness for all right action. Love, and you shall be loved. All love is mathematically just, as much as the two sides of an algebraic equation.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson Primary source“If you see smoke, there must be fire.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson Primary source“Nature is full of infinite causes that have never occured in experience.”
— Leonardo da Vinci Primary source“Experience never errs; it is only your judgments that err by promising themselves effects such as are not caused by your experiments.”
— Leonardo da Vinci Primary source“The President has paid dear for his White House. It has commonly cost him all his peace.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson Primary source“For want of a nail the shoe is lost; for want of a shoe, the horse is lost; for want of a horse the rider is lost.”
— Benjamin Franklin Primary source“All successful men have agreed in one thing—they were causationists.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson Primary source“For many events, roughly 80% of the effects come from 20% of the causes.”
— Vilfredo Pareto DisputedExperience Science Nature Power Law