Excellent Quotes - Page 10

• Scruples, temptations, and fears, and cutting perplexities of the heart, are often the lot of the most excellent persons.

  Thomas a Kempis

  Fear, Heart, Cutting

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• In your 50s, time becomes precious and must not be wasted. Every minute is an excellent opportunity for a good nap. Happy 50th birthday!

  Bill Cosby

  Birthday, Opportunity, Naps

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• My point is that this Potter business has legs. It will run and run, and we must be utterly mad, as a country, to leave it to the Americans to make money from a great British invention. I appeal to the children of this country and to their Potter-fiend parents to write to Warner Bros and Universal, and perhaps, even, to the great J K herself. Bring Harry home to Britain-and if you want a site with less rainfall than Rome, with excellent public transport, and strong connections to Harry Potter, I have just the place.

  Boris Johnson

  Running, Country, Strong

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• You want to make me the best soldier possible. Go down and look at the standings. Look at the all-time standings. So far you're doing an excellent job with me. Congratulations. Now when are you going to put me up against a good army?

  Orson Scott Card

  Jobs, Congratulations, Army

  Orson Scott Card (2013). “Ender's Game Boxed Set II: Ender's Game, Ender in Exile, Speak for the Dead”, p.205, Tor Science Fiction

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• Regret what? That secret operation was an excellent idea. It had the effect of drawing the Russians into the Afghan trap and you want me to regret it? The day that the Soviets officially crossed the border, I wrote to President Carter. We now have the opportunity of giving to the USSR its Vietnam war. Indeed, for almost 10 years, Moscow had to carry on a war unsupportable by the government, a conflict that brought about the demoralization and finally the breakup of the Soviet empire.

  Zbigniew Brzezinski

  Breakup, Regret, War

  "The CIA's Intervention in Afghanistan". Le Nouvel Observateur Interview, www.globalresearch.ca. January, 1998.

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• Because there are three classes of intellects: one which comprehends by itself; another which appreciates what others comprehend; and a third which neither comprehends by itself nor by the showing of others; the first is the most excellent, the second is good, the third is useless.

  Niccolo Machiavelli

  Class, Appreciate, Three

  Niccolo Machiavelli (2010). “The Prince”, p.93, FastPencil Inc

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• Minds are of three kinds: one is capable of thinking for itself; another is able to understand the thinking of others; and a third can neither think for itself nor understand the thinking of others. The first is of the highest excellence, the second is excellent, and the third is worthless.

  Niccolo Machiavelli

  Thinking, Mind, Excellence

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• Nothing excellent can be done without leisure.

  Andre Gide

  Done, Leisure

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• There are always twenty excellent reasons for doing nothing for every one reason for starting anything-especially if it has never been done before.

  Prince Philip

  Twenties, Done, Doing Nothing

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• But then back on lithium and rotating on the planet at the same pace as everyone else, you find your credit is decimated, your mortification complete: mania is not a luxury one can easily afford. It is devastating to have the illness and aggravating to have to pay for medications, blood tests, and psychotherapy. They, at least, are partially deductible. But money spent while manic doesn't fit into the Internal Revenue Service concept of medical expense or business loss. So after mania, when most depressed, you're given excellent reason to be even more so.

  Kay Redfield Jamison

  Depression, Loss, Luxury

  Frederick K. Goodwin, Kay Redfield Jamison (2007). “Manic-Depressive Illness: Bipolar Disorders and Recurrent Depression”, p.40, Oxford University Press

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• The science of constructing a commonwealth or renovating it, or reforming it, is...not to be taught a priori...That which in the first instance is prejudicial may be excellent in its remoter operation, and its excellence may rise even from the ill effects it produces in the beginning. The reverse also happens; and very plausible schemes, with very pleasing commencements, have often shameful and lamentable conclusions.

  Edmund Burke

  Government, Excellence, May

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• When this body has been so magnificently and artistically created by God, it is only fitting that we should maintain it in good health and harmony by the most excellent and artistic science of Yoga.

  Geeta Iyengar

  Yoga, Body, Artistic

  Geeta S. Iyengar (1998). “Yoga: A Gem for Women”, p.71, Allied Publishers

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• If you practice an excellent virtue without perceiving the taste of its aid, do not marvel; for until a man becomes humble, he will not receive a reward for his labor. Recompense is given, not for labor, but for humility.

  Isaac of Nineveh

  Humble, Humility, Men

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• I reached in experience the nirvana which is unborn, unrivalled, secure from attachment, undecaying and unstained. This condition is indeed reached by me which is deep, difficult to see, difficult to understand, tranquil, excellent, beyond the reach of mere logic, subtle, and to be realized only by the wise.

  Gautama Buddha

  Wise, Buddhist, Inspiration

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• Duffers who consistently shank their balls are urged to buy and study Shanks - No Thanks by R.K. Hoffman, or in extreme cases, M.S. Howard's excellent Tennis for Beginners.

  Henry Beard

  Golf, Tennis, Beginners

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• For neither birth, nor wealth, nor honors, can awaken in the minds of men the principles which should guide those who from their youth aspire to an honorable and excellent life, as Love awakens them

  Plato

  Men, Giving, Honor

  Plato, Francis Macdonald Cornford, Alfred Edward Taylor (1985). “The banquet (also known as The symposium)”

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• When a man makes utensils out of a metal which has been thoroughly cleansed of dross, the utensils will be excellent. You monks, who wish to follow the Way, make your own hearts clean from the dirt of evil passion, and your conduct will be unimpeachable.

  Gautama Buddha

  Passion, Heart, Men

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• Nothing more excellent or valuable than wine was every granted by the gods to man.

  Plato

  Wine, Men, Granted

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• The most excellent Jihad is that for the conquest of self.

  Muhammad

  Holy Prophet, Self, Jihad

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• Our definition of a weakness is anything that gets in the way of excellent performance.

  Donald O. Clifton

  Inspiring, Weakness, Definitions

  Marcus Buckingham, Donald O. Clifton (2001). “Now, Discover Your Strengths”, p.148, Simon and Schuster

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• In her excellent, entirely readable Richard Wright, Hazel Rowley accomplishes what [previous biographer] Michel Fabre would have liked to do with once-guarded letters, aging witnesses, previously unidentified girlfriends. . . . Mostly, Rowley concentrates on telling Wright's very powerful story.

  Darryl Pinckney

  Girlfriend, Powerful, Stories

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• I have been probing the arguments for global warming for well over a decade. In collaboration with a lot of excellent coauthors I have consistently found that when the layers get peeled back, what lies at the core is either flawed, misleading or simply non-existent.

  Ross McKitrick

  Lying, Collaboration, Layers

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• Excellence is a process, not just an outcome. Sure, we have to hold out for high standards in the products or services we provide. The goods must be more than "good enough." But so must our approach - you know, our methodology, the way we do business and deal with people. How could the ends be considered excellent if we can't be proud of the means?

  Price Pritchett

  Business, Mean, People

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• The happy life is thought to be one of excellence; now an excellent life requires exertion, and does not consist in amusement.

  Aristotle

  Life, Inspire, Excellence

  Aristotle, (2014). “Complete Works of Aristotle, Volume 2: The Revised Oxford Translation”, p.1860, Princeton University Press

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• Not only has President Bush broken his word on funding, he has not put in the effort required to turn this excellent idea into a lifesaving reality.

  Jamie Drummond

  Reality, Ideas, Broken

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