Quotational Wisdom

​Those of you who have been with me for a while know that “Reynold’s the name and wisdom’s the game.” Of course, wisdom is available in many forms, from proverbs to haikus to stories, whole books and plays. It is often the product of experience or even examples. As the French proverb suggests, “Children need examples, not sermons.” But sermons can also be the source of significant wisdom. In a past blog I shared some of my favorite proverbs from Cynthia Voelke’s and my 1992 book, A World Treasury of Folk Wisdom. In this volume we collected 1,000 proverbs from more than a hundred countries. These maxims were divided into 100 categories of ten selections each. Not more than one proverb from a single nation or culture was permitted per category. Today I am sharing personal favorites from a collection not of proverbs but quotations found in Shelley Tucker’s Openings—Quotations on Spirituality in Everyday Life (1997). Her book is divided into 41 categories. And in this context I can offer a personal definition of proverbs as quotations that have lost their authors and become common cultural or social property. So, without further ado, here’s my selection. See if you can figure out their categories.

• If not now, when? If not me, who? (Hillel)
• Art is an affirmation of life, a rebuttal of death. (Madeleine L’Engle)
• Most conversations are simply monologues delivered in the presence of witnesses. (Margaret Millar)
• There is more wisdom in your body than in your deepest philosophy. (Friedrich Nietzsche)
• Sometimes even to live is an act of courage. (Seneca)
• In the depth of winter, I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible summer. (Albert Camus)
• I’m not afraid to die. I just don’t want to be there when it happens. (Woody Allen)
• Be happy. It’s one way of being wise. (Colette)
• Hate is a prolonged form of suicide. (Douglas V. Steere)
• Truth, like surgery, may hurt, but it cures. (Josephine Tey)
• When people are least sure, they are often most dogmatic. (J.K. Galbraith)
• Imagination is more important than knowledge. (Albert Einstein)
• It takes a long time to become young. (Pablo Picasso)
• My religion is very simple—my religion is kindness. (The Dalai Lama)
• Laughter is the shortest distance between two people. (Victor Borge)
• My life is my message. (Mahatma Gandhi)
• We can only learn to love by loving. (Doris Murdock)
• It is impossible on reasonable grounds to disbelieve miracles. (Blaise Pascal)
• The only real mistake is the one from which we learn nothing. (John Powell)
• In wildness is the preservation of the world. (Henry David Thoreau)
• You cannot shake hands with a clenched fist. (Indira Gandhi)
• The road to success is dotted with many tempting parking places. (Will Rogers)
• A weed is nothing but an unloved flower. (Ella Wheeler Wilcox)
• Play so that you may be more serious. (Anacharsis)
• No one can make you feel inferior without your consent. (Eleanor Roosevelt)

The source of the quotations included in this blog—available used or $7.01 at amazon.com.