Bill Vaughan Quotations | Page 4

I think second place is always the most difficult one. It's not a nice feeling.

Custom governs the world; it is the tyrant of our feelings and our manners and rules the world with the hand of a despot.

There are certain events which to each man's life are as comets to the earth, seemingly strange and erratic portents; distinct from the ordinary lights which guide our course and mark our seasons, yet true to their own laws, potent in their own influences.

The fact that God has prohibited despair gives misfortune the right to hope all things, and leaves hope free to dare all things.

The eyes are the amulets of the mind.

We pursue that which retreats from us.

Failed the bright promise of your early day?

For a deed to be totally pure, it must be done without any thought of reward, whether worldly or divine.

Even the world, that despises simplicity, does not profess to approve of duplicity.

The surest way of making a dupe is to let your victim suppose you are his.

Remembrance of death saves one from this world's deceit.

Familiarity is the most destructive of all iconoclasts.

Have love for your friend up to a limit for it is possible he may turn into your enemy some day; and hate your enemy up to a limit for it is possible he may turn into your friend some day.

The petition of an empty hand is dangerous.

To be a good friend remember that we are human magnets: that like attracts like and that as we give we get.

The sinner will not confess, nor will the priest receive his confession, if the veil of secrecy is removed.

Perhaps you say, Why are the wicked joyous? Why do they live in luxury? Why do they not toil with me? It is because they who have not put down their names to strive for the crown are not bound to undergo the labors of the contest. They who have not gone down into the race-course do not annoint themselves with oil nor get covered with dust. For those whom glory awaits trouble is at hand. The perfumed spectators are wont to look on, not to join in the struggle, nor to endure the sun, the heat, the dust, and the showers ...

Salvation includes an ongoing transformation in your life.

Jesus will brush aside your inabilities.

It's not what's going to happen, but who's coming.

He (God) doesn't need me, but He desires me.

God wants us along for the victory, but it is His fight.

Flattery, if judiciously administered, is always acceptable, however much we may despise the flatterer.

Something larger is happening than just going to heaven.

God, who prepares His work through ages, accomplishes it when the hour is come, with the feeblest instruments.

An indefinable something is to be done, in a way nobody knows how, at a time nobody knows when, that will accomplish nobody knows what.

The SPR is intended to provide relief at times when working families are struggling to make ends meet, and to counter the price shocks that accompany severe supply disruptions. Now is undoubtedly such a time.

It's a real triumph taking a painting out from a pit-hole with a loose and open approach. Some aspects in its favour are those strange accidents that can produce amazing results.

The artist's imagination may wander far from nature. But as long as it is a living, moving power in his brain, isn't it just as real as any other natural phenomenon? The artist justifies his existence only when he can transform his imagination into truth.

Had but my deeds been like my words, ah, then I had been numbered too with holy men.

The pretender sees no one but himself, Because he has the veil of conceit in front; If he were endowed with a God discerning eye, He would see that no one is weaker than himself.

The easiest books are generally the best; for, whatever author is obscure and difficult in his own language, certainly does not think clearly.

Even if you feed the cow cocoa you will not get chocolate.

The best that can be said of you is that you got saved.

There is not a single pessimistic note anywhere in the New Testament after the resurrection.

One of the most gracious dispensations of God concerning His saints is their lovely unawareness of sanctity. The nearer they move to Him, the more conscious are they of sin. If it were impossible at times not to note their own growth in grace, it were impossible also to forget that it was all by His power. If they could be persuaded to admit their progress and talk of it at all, the language of their heart would be this: 'If God could do this in me, He could do it in anyone

...the story of a man who saw three fellows laying bricks at a new building: He approached the first and asked, What are you doing? Clearly irritated, the first man responded, What the heck do you think I'm doing? I'm laying these darn bricks! He then walked over to the second bricklayer and asked the same question. The second fellow responded, Oh, I'm making a living. He approached the third bricklayer with the same question, What are you doing? The third looked up, smiled and said, I'm building a cathedral. At the end of the day, who feels better about how he's spent his last eight hours?

The price of power is responsibility for the public good.

Many years ago Rudyard Kipling gave an address at McGill University in Montreal. He said one striking thing which deserves to be remembered. Warning the students against an over-concern for money, or position, or glory, he said

I believe that God will help us to forget things, the memory of which would do us harm, or rather that He will enable us to remember only so much of them as will be for our good, and we, ourselves, not emotionally overwhelmed. The pain endured. The lesson learned. Let it now be forgotten! Face the future with courage, cheerfulness, and hope. Give God the chance and He will make you forget all that it would be harmful to remember.

Since I am a man, my heart is three or four times less sensitive, because I have three or four times as much power of reason and experience of the world -- a thing which you women call hard-heartedness. As a man, I can take refuge in having mistresses. The more of them I have, and the greater the scandal, the more I acquire reputation and brilliance in society.

By the age of twenty, any young man should know whether or not he is to be a specialist and just where his tastes lie. By postponing the question we have set on immaturity a premium which controls most American personality to its deathbed.

A mission could be defined as an image of a desired state that you want to get to. Once fully seen, it will inspire you to act, fuel your imagination and determine your behavior.

One murder makes a villain, millions often a hero.

Mutual aid is as much a law of animal life as mutual struggle.

The real process of making decisions, of gathering support, of developing opinions, happens before the meeting or after.

The Christianity which is shared is the Christianity which is convincing.

In the electronic age, books, words and reading are not likely to remain sufficiently authoritative and central to knowledge to justify literature.

There must be some great truth underlying the instinct for worship.

A learned man is a tank; a wiser man is a spring.

No one can bring to God what you can.

He knows not the value of a day of pleasure who has not seen adversity.

Perhaps God chose me to be an atheist?

It's never safe to be nostalgic about something until you're absolutely certain there's no chance of its coming back

If you think that one individual can't make a difference in the world, consider what one cigar can do in a nine-room house.

A statesman is any politician it's considered safe to name a school after.

Usually we trust that nature has a master plan. But what was it she expected us to do with tobacco?.

Pipe-smokers spend so much time cleaning, filling and fooling with their pipes, they don't have time to get into mischief.

Any American boy can be a basketball star if he grows up, up, up.

The magnificence of mountains, the serenity of nature-nothing is safe from the idiot marks of man's passing.

Discipline is like cabbage. We may not care for it ourselves, but feel sure it would be good for somebody else.

Most of us wait until we're in trouble, and then we pray like the dickens. Wonder what would happen if, some morning, we'd wake up and say, "Anything I can do for You today, Lord?"

Experience is something I always think I have until I get more of it.

The best of all gifts around any Christmas tree: the presence of a happy family all wrapped up in each other.

The suburb is a place where someone cuts down all the trees to build houses, and then names the streets after the trees.

At bank, post office or supermarket, there is one universal law which you ignore at your own peril: the shortest line moves the slowest.

How many of us have been first attracted to reason, first learned to think, to draw conclusions, to extract a moral from the follies of life, by some dazzling aphorism from Rochefoucauld or La Bruyere.

What a pity that the only way to heaven is in a hearse.

Meditating means bringing the mind back to something again and again. Thus, we all meditate, but unless we direct it in some way, we meditate on ourselves and on our own problems, reinforcing our self-clinging.

The learned compute that seven hundred and seven millions of millions of vibrations have penetrated the eye before the eye can distinguish the tints of a violet. What philosophy can calculate the vibrations of the heart before it can distinguish the colours of love?

As surely as you are a living man, so surely did that spectral anatomy visit my room again last night, grin in my face, and walk away with my trousers: nor was I able to spring from my bed, or break the chain which seemed to bind me to my pillow.

How, frequently, some murder'd man appear'd, To tell his wife and children who had done it...

One learned gentleman, "a sage grave man," Talk'd of the Ghost in Hamlet, "sheath'd in steel"— His well-read friend, who next to speak began, Said, "That was poetry, and nothing real;" A third, of more extensive learning, ran To Sir George Villiers' Ghost, and Mrs. Veal; Of sheeted Spectres spoke with shorten'd breath, And thrice he quoted Drelincourt on Death.

Because, as we are told—a sad old joke, too— Ghosts, like the ladies, never speak till spoke to.

The ideal Christmas gift is money, but the trouble is you can't charge it.

Occasionally we sigh for an earlier day when we could just look at the stars without worrying whether they were theirs or ours.

Retirement, we understand, is great if you are busy, rich, and healthy. But then, under those circumstances, work is great too.

The less important you are on the table of organization, the more you'll be missed if you don't show up for work.

Perhaps the crime situation would be improved if we could get more cops off television and onto the streets.

There is a mighty big difference between good sound reasons and reasons that sound good.

Our court dockets are so crowded today it would be better to refer to it as the overdue process of law.

Man has learned to fly like the birds. Now all he has to do is work out how to do it quietly.

The world could not long ignore a holy church. The church is not despised because it is holy: it is despised because it is not holy enough. There is not enough difference between the people inside the church and those outside to be impressive. A church in which saints were as common as now they are rare would convict the world, if only by contrast. Sanctity cannot be ignored. Even a little bit is potent. So far from the gates of hell prevailing against it, it hammers on their triple steel.

I feel very bad about getting things wrong.

It turns out there's only one thing that capuchins really, really love - and that's sweet stuff. If you give them a big vat of say, marshmallow fluff, and you let them go at it, what they'll do is eat their body weight in marshmallow fluff, walk away, they'll vomit, and they'll come back and eat their body weight again. And they'll vomit. And they'll do that for as long as there is marshmallow fluff out there. They love marshmallow fluff.

Blushes are the rainbow of modesty.

Every time I see a bluebird, I say, well, hey, all this hard work is all worth while.

Earlier research has shown that poor blood flow can damage these parts of the brain. So one theory is that exercise may prevent damage and might even help repair these areas by increasing blood flow.

I want to be the first to bless you on what God has blessed you with - fighting in the heart of the Muslim world that was a battleground for large historic Islamic wars and what is now the place of Islam's greatest war in the present era.

The lioness giveth birth to cubs which remain three days without life. Then cometh the lion, breatheth upon them, and bringeth them to life.

Historical investigation and literary criticism have taken the magic out of the Bible and have made it a composite human book, written by many hands in different ages.

American culture has always known success, not suffering, so we've never known what to do with this part of the Bible. The more we succeed, the more we're seduced into thinking we can control everything. We dissect Revelation to get a sense of control over the future.

According to scriptures at least I know the Bible states not to make any permanent marks on your body.

All of us must act selfishly to Iearn charity, must lie to learn honor, must betray and be betrayed to learn to value trust and commitment.

It doesn't set off any alarm bells. As is typical with T. Rowe, no transition comes about abruptly; they tend to be planned pretty well.

It's always been my belief that the victory of Islam will never take place until a Muslim state is established.. in the heart of the Islamic world.

If we have confidence in our own beliefs, we should not fear freedom of thought.

It is only the first obstacle which counts to conquer modesty.

Without this balance, a body's immune system will not have the desired response when faced with infection. These findings could aid the development and production of vaccines and lead to further research on how the body fights specific infections, such as HIV.

Whether it is fun to go to bed with a good book depends a great deal on who's reading it.