Writing Prompts

“The younger we are, the more we want to change the world. The older we are, the more we want to change the young.” — Unknown

“It is not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the ones most responsive to change.” — Charles Darwin

“We can’t become what we need to be by remaining what we are.” — Oprah Winfrey

“All blame is a waste of time. No matter how much fault you find with another, and regardless of how much blame you place, it will not change you. The only thing blame does is keep the focus off you when you are looking for external reasons to explain your unhappiness or frustration. You may succeed in making another feel guilty of something, but you won’t succeed in changing whatever it is about you that is making you unhappy.” — Dr. Wayne Dyer, author (Your Erroneous Zones)

“If opportunity doesn’t knock, build a door.” — Unknown

“Challenges make you discover things about yourself that you never really knew.” — Cicely Tyson

“You never understand a person until you consider things from his point of view.” — Harper Lee, 20th-century American novelist

“Things come to those who wait, but only the things left by those who hustle.” — Abraham Lincoln, 19th-century American president

“I can’t imagine a person becoming a success who doesn’t give this game of life everything he’s got. — Walter Cronkite, 20th-century American journalist

“If you lead through fear you will have little to respect; but if you lead through respect, you will have little to fear.” — Unknown

“The real art of conversation is not only to say the right thing in the right place, but to leave unsaid the wrong thing at the tempting moment.” — Dorothy Nevill

“This thing we call failure is not the falling down, but the staying down. ” — Mary Pickford, 20th-century American actor

“If there’s no wind, row.” — Unknown

“It is easy to fool yourself. It is possible to fool the people you work for. It is more difficult to fool the people you work with. But it is almost impossible to fool the people who work under you.” — Harry B. Thayer

“Reputation is what you are perceived to be. Character is what you are.” — John Wooden, 20th-century college basketball coach

“I tell you and you forget. I show you and you remember. I involve you and you understand.” — Unknown

“It won’t help a young man much to be one hundred years ahead of his time if he is a month behind in his rent.” — Chalmers da Costa, 20th-century American writer

“Life is a grindstone. Whether it grinds you down or polishes you up depends on what you are made of.” — Unknown

“The meaning of life is that nobody knows the meaning of life.” — Woody Allen, 20th-century American humorist and filmmaker

“When evil men plot, good men must plan. When evil men burn and bomb, good men must build and bind. When evil men shout ugly words of hatred, good men must commit themselves to the glories of love.” — Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., 20th-century Nobel Prize-winning American civil rights leader

“Small opportunities are often the beginning of great enterprises.” — Demosthenes, ancient Greek orator

“The question for each man to settle is not what he would do if he had the means, time, influence and educational advantages, but what he will do with the things he has.” — Hamilton Wright Mabee

“Let no man be sorry he has done good because others have done evil. If a man has acted right he has done well, though alone. If wrong, the sanction of all mankind will not justify him.” — Henry Fielding, 18th-century English novelist

“Life is one long struggle between conclusions based on abstract ways of conceiving cases, and opposite conclusions prompted by our instinctive perception of them.” — William James, 19th-century American philosopher and author

“Experience is the name everyone gives to their mistakes.” — Oscar Wilde, 19th-century English wit and author

“Not a day passes over this earth, but men and women of no note do great deeds, speak great words and suffer noble sorrows.” — Charles Reed

“Perfection has one grave defect; it is apt to be dull.” — Somerset Maugham, 20th-century English author

“Satire is tragedy plus time.” — Lenny Bruce, 20th-century American comedian

“When speculation has done its worst, two and two still make four.” — Samuel Johnson, 18th-century English public philosopher and scholar

“A true history of human events would show that a far larger proportion of our acts are the results of sudden impulses and accident than of that reason of which we so much boast.’’ — Peter Cooper

“If you can’t explain what you’re doing in simple English, you’re probably doing something wrong.” — Alfred Kazin, 20th-century American critic and author

“There are no shortcuts to any place worth going.” — Beverly Sills, 20th-century American opera singer and civic leader

“We aim above the mark to hit the mark.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

“If thou workest at that which is before thee, following right reason seriously, vigorously, calmly, without allowing anything else to distract thee but keeping thy divine part pure, if thou shouldst be bound to give it back immediately, if thou holdest to this, expecting nothing, fearing nothing, but satisfied with thy present activity according to nature and with heroic truth in every word and sound which thou utterest, thou wilt live happily. And there is no man who is able to prevent this.” — Marcus Aurelius

“All receive advice. Only the wise profit from it.” — Syrus

“If thou thinkest twice before thou speakest once, thou wilt speak twice the better for it.” — William Penn

“A wise man knows everything; a shrewd one, everybody.” — Unknown

“A wise man will make more opportunities than he finds.” — Francis Bacon, 16th-century English philosopher and essayist

“The Way of the Sage is to act but not to compete.” — Lao-Tzu (Tao Te Ching) “Wise men learn more from fools than fools from the wise.” — Cato, Roman censor

“Never kick a man when he’s up.” — Thomas “Tip” O’Neill, 20th-century American politician, Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, 1970s-1980s

“A wise man will make more opportunities than he finds.” — Francis Bacon, 16th-century English philosopher and essayist

“Whatever your grade or position, if you know how and when to speak, and when to remain silent, your chances of real success are proportionately increased.” — Ralph C. Smedley

“To finish the moment, to find the journey’s end in every step of the road, to live the greatest number of good hours, is wisdom.”— Ralph Waldo Emerson, 19th-century American essayist, public philosopher and poet

“Think like a man of action, act like a man of thought.” — Henri Bergson

“To sensible men, every day is a day of reckoning.” — John W. Gardner, 20th-century American nonprofit leader, founder of Common Cause

“Always imitate the behavior of the winner when you lose.” — Unknown

“He who hates vice, hates mankind.” — Pliny the Younger

“Our virtues are most often but our vices disguised.” — François duc de la Rochefoucauld, 17th-century French memoirist and philosopher

“Few things are harder to put up with than the annoyance of a good example.” — Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens), 19th-century American humorist, author and journalist (in Pudd’nhead Wilson)

“The essence of greatness is the perception that virtue is enough.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson, 19th-century American essayist, public philosopher and poet

“Hypocrisy is the homage vice pays to virtue.” — François duc de la Rochefoucauld, 17th- century French memoirist and philosopher

“More people are flattered into virtue than bullied out of vice.” — Robert Smith Surtees “To many people, virtue consists chiefly in repenting faults, not in avoiding them.” — Georg Christoph Lichtenberg

“Value is that which one acts to gain and/or keep. Virtue is the act by which one aims and/or keeps it.” — Ayn Rand, 20th-century Russian/American philosopher and author

“If you live long enough, you get accused of things you never did and praised for virtues you never had.” — I.F. Stone, 20th-century American journalist

“Be virtuous and you will be eccentric.” — Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens), 19th-century American humorist, author and journalist

“Sell not virtue to purchase wealth.” — English proverb

“What ought not to be done do not even think of doing.” — Epictetus, ancient Greek historian

“No man should be praised for his goodness if he lacks the strength to be bad; in such cases goodness is usually only the effect of indolence or impotence of will.” — François duc de la Rochefoucauld, 17th-century French memoirist and philosopher

“By associating with good and evil persons a man acquires the virtues and vices which they possess, even as the wind blowing over different places takes along good and bad odors.” — The Panchatantra

“The first and the best victory is to conquer self. To be conquered by self is, of all things, the most shameful and vile.” — Plato, ancient Greek philosopher

“Show me a man without vices and I’ll show you a man without virtues.” — Abraham Lincoln, 19th-century American president

“Big egos are big shields for lots of empty space.” — Diana Black

“Pride gets no pleasure out of having something, only out of having more of it than the next man.” — C.S. Lewis, 20th-century British novelist and scholar

“Half of the harm that is done in this world is due to people who want to feel important…. They do not mean to do harm…. They are absorbed in the endless struggle to think well of themselves.” — T.S. Eliot, Nobel Prize-winning 20th-century Anglo-American poet

“When dealing with people, remember you are not dealing with creatures of logic, but with creatures bristling with prejudice and motivated by pride and vanity.” — Dale Carnegie, 20th-century American motivational writer

“Nothing is so commonplace as to wish to be remarkable.” — Unknown

“If you let your head get too big, it’ll break your neck.”’ — Elvis Presley, 20th-century American celebrity singer

“A free society is one where it is safe to be unpopular.” — Adlai Stevenson II, 20th-century American politician, presidential candidate

“When you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to reform.” — Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens), 19th-century American humorist, author and journalist

“I value solid popularity — the esteem of good men for good action. I despise the bubble popularity that is won without merit and lost without crime.” — Thomas Hart Benton, 18th/19th-century American writer and U.S. senator from Missouri

“He that falls in love with himself will have no rivals.” — Benjamin Franklin, 18th-century American Founding Father, inventor and statesman

“When I hear a man applauded by the mob I always feel a pang of pity for him. All he has to do to be hissed is to live long enough.” — H. L. Mencken, 20th-century American journalist and humorist

“Vanity plays lurid tricks with our memory.” — Joseph Conrad, 19th/20th-century Nobel Prize- winning Polish-English author

“No man is a hero to his valet.” — Mme. Cornuel, 17th-century Parisian hostess

“Betrayal can only happen if you love.” — David Cornwall, a.k.a. John Le Carre, 20th-century British author (from “The Perfect Spy”)

“It is more shameful to distrust one’s friends than to be deceived by them.” — François duc de la Rochefoucauld, 17th-century French memoirist and philosopher

“Most of our faults are more pardonable than the means we use to conceal them.” — François duc de la Rochefoucauld, 17th-century French memoirist and philosopher

“Nature never deceives us; it is always we who deceive ourselves.” — Jean-Jacques Rousseau, 18th-century French philosopher

“More dangers have deceived men than forced them.” — Francis Bacon, 16th-century English philosopher and essayist

“Every journalist who is not too stupid or too full of himself to notice what is going on knows that what he does is morally indefensible. He is a kind of confidence man, preying on people’s vanity, ignorance or loneliness, gaining their trust and betraying them without remorse.” — Janet Malcolm, 20th-century American journalist and author (The Journalist and the Murderer)

“How many times do you get to lie before you are a liar?” — Michael Josephson, 20th/21st- century American ethicist

“Humility, that low, sweet root, from which all heavenly virtues shoot.” — Thomas Moore, 19th-century Irish poet, satirist, composer and musician (from “Loves of the Angels: Third Angel’s Story”)

“Humility, like darkness, reveals the heavenly lights.” — Henry David Thoreau, 19th-century American essayist and nature writer (from “Walden”)

“Humility is the solid foundation of all the virtues.” — Confucius, ancient Chinese sage “Once the game is over, the king and the pawn go back in the same box.” — Italian proverb

“A taste for simplicity cannot last for long.” — Eugene Delacroix, 19th-century French painter

“The problem with property is that it takes so much of your time.” — Willem de Kooning, 20th-century Dutch-American painter

“Hastiness and superficiality are the psychic disease of the twentieth century.” — Alexander Solzhenitzyn, 20th-century Nobel Prize-winning Russian novelist

“Take what you can use and let the rest go by.” — Ken Kesey, 20th-century American author “Less is more.” — Mies van der Rohe, 20th-century Dutch-American “Modernist” architect

“Less is a bore.” — Robert Venturi, 20th-century American post-Modernist architect

“Make a virtue of necessity.” — Geoffrey Chaucer, medieval English author

“You can’t have everything. Where would you put it?” — Steven Wright, 20th-century American humorist

“A good name is more desirable than great riches.” — Proverbs 22:1

“Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth.” — Bible (Matthew 5:5)

“Do not sound a trumpet before thee as the hypocrites do . . . that they may have glory from men. . . . But when thou doest alms let not thy left hand know what thy right hand doeth.” — Bible (Matthew 6:1-4)

“The farther a man knows himself to be free from perfection, the nearer he is to it.” — Gerard Groote

“He who thinks he has no faults has one.” — Unknown

“The greatest truths are the simplest, and so are the greatest men.” — J.C. Hare

“Simplicity of character is no hindrance to the subtlety of intellect.” — John Morley, 19th- century British statesman

“If I have seen farther than other men it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.” — Isaac Newton, 17th-century English mathematician and physicist

“Hatred is blind, anger is foolhardy, and he who pours out vengeance risks having to drink a bitter draft.” — Alexandre Dumas, 19th-century French novelist and playwright (from The Count of Monte-Cristo, 1844)

“Do not be too moral. You may cheat yourself out of much life.” — Henry David Thoreau “Moral indignation is in most cases two percent moral, forty-eight percent indignation, and fifty percent envy.” — Vittorio De Sica, 20th-century Italian filmmaker
“A knave’s religion is always the rottenest thing about him.” — John Ruskin, 19th-century British critic and author

“Anger is never without a reason, but seldom a good one.” — Benjamin Franklin, 18th-century American Founding Father, inventor and statesman

“Anyone can become angry. That is easy. But to be angry with the right person, to the right degree, at the right time, for the right purpose, and in the right way – this is not easy.” – Aristotle, ancient Greek philosopher (from the Nicomachaen Ethics)

“When a man is wrong and won’t admit it, he always gets angry.” — Haliburton

“All seems infected that the infected spy, as all looks yellow to the jaundiced eye.” — Alexander Pope, 17th-century English poet

“You can tell the size of a man by the size of the thing that makes him mad.” — Adlai Stevenson II, 20th-century American politician, presidential candidate

“Envy someone an’ it pulls you down. Admire them and it builds you up. Which makes more sense?” — Elvis Presley, 20th-century American celebrity entertainer

“Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you feel that you, too, can become great.” — Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens), 19th-century American humorist, author and journalist

“There are two kinds of people: those who do the work and those who take the credit. Try to be in the first group; there is less competition there.” — Indira Gandhi, 20th-century Indian prime minister

“I shall allow no man to belittle my soul by making me hate him.” — Booker T. Washington, 19th-century American educator

“Instead of comparing our lot with that of those who are more fortunate than we are, we should compare it with the lot of the great majority of our fellow men. It then appears that we are among the privileged.” — Helen Keller, 20th-century American social activist, public

“You can’t escape the responsibility of tomorrow by evading it today.” — Abraham Lincoln, 19th-century American president

“Provision for others is the fundamental responsibility of human life.” — Woodrow Wilson, 20th-century American president

“To protect those who are not able to protect themselves is a duty which every one owes to society.” — Edward Macnaghten

“I am only one, but still, I am one. I cannot do everything but I can do something. And, because I cannot do everything, I will not refuse to do what I can.” — Edward Everett Hale

“It is better to light a candle than to curse the darkness.” — Chinese proverb “Responsibility is to keep the ability to respond” — Robert Duncan

“Our duty is to be useful, not according to our desires, but according to our powers.” — Henry F. Amiel

“The question for each man to settle is not what he would do if he had the means, time, influence and educational advantages, but what he will do with the things he has.” — Hamilton Wright Mabee

“The value of life is not in the length of days, but in the use we make of them; a man may live long yet very little.” — Michel de Montaigne, 16th-century French man of letters and essayist

“We cannot do everything at once, but we can do something at once.” — Calvin Coolidge, 20th-century American president

“Any man’s life will be filled with constant and unexpected encouragement if he makes up his mind to do his level best each day.” — Booker T. Washington, 19th-century American educator

“I long to accomplish some great and noble task, but it is my chief duty to accomplish small tasks as if they were great and noble.” — Helen Keller, 20th-century American social activist, public speaker and author

“A man can do only what he can do. But if he does that each day he can sleep at night and do it again the next day.” — Albert Schweitzer, 20th-century German Nobel Peace Prize- winning mission doctor and theologian

“A sense of duty imprisons you.” — Jennie Holzer, 20th-century American artist

“We demand entire freedom of action and then expect the government in some miraculous way to save us from the consequences of our own acts…. Self-government means self-reliance.” — Calvin Coolidge, 20th-century American president

“I do not serve what you worship; nor do you serve what I worship. You have your own religion and I have mine.” — The Koran

“The words you speak today should be soft and tender … for tomorrow you may have to eat them.” — Unknown

“Every man is to be respected as an absolute end in himself; and it is a crime against the dignity that belongs to him as a human being, to use him as a mere means for some external purpose.” — Immanuel Kant, 18th-century Prussian geographer and philosopher

“In his private heart no man much respects himself.” — Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens), 19th- century American humorist, author and journalist

“The highest result of education is tolerance.” — Helen Keller, 20th-century American social activist, public speaker and author

“Perhaps the most important thing we can undertake toward the reduction of fear is make it easier for people to accept themselves, to like themselves.” — Bonaro Overstreet

Civilizations should be measured by “the degree of diversity attained and the degree of unity retained.” — W.H. Auden, 20th-century English poet

“Never look down on anybody unless you’re helping him up.” — Jesse Jackson, 20th-century American political activist, preacher

“Animals don’t hate, and we’re supposed to be better than them.” — Elvis Presley, 20th- century American celebrity entertainer

“We have just enough religion to make us hate, but not enough to make us love one another.” — Jonathan Swift, 17th/18th-century English satirist

“The true measure of an individual is how he treats a person who can do him absolutely no good.” — Ann Landers, 20th-century American newspaper “advice” columnist

“Prejudice is the child of ignorance.” — William Hazlitt, early 18th-century English essayist and literary critic

“The more you prepare, the luckier you appear.” — Terry Josephson, 20th/21st-century motivational author

“But words are things, and a small drop of ink,
Falling like dew, upon a thought, produces
That which makes thousands, perhaps millions, think…” — Lord Byron, 19th-century English poet (from Canto the Third)

“[A]n aim in life is the only fortune worth the finding; and it is not to be found in foreign lands, but in the heart itself.” — Robert Louis Stevenson, 19th-century English novelist and adventurer (from “The Amateur Emigrant”)

“All progress depends on the unreasonable man.” — George Bernard Shaw, 19th/20th-century Anglo-Irish dramatist and wit

“To know just what has to be done, then to do it, comprises the whole philosophy of practical life.” — Sir William Osler

“When I am anxious it is because I am living in the future. When I am depressed it is because I am living in the past.” — Unknown

“[T]he tragedy of life doesn’t lie in not reaching your goal. The tragedy lies in having no goal to reach. It isn’t a calamity to die with dreams unfulfilled, but it is a calamity not to dream…. It is not a disgrace not to reach the stars, but it is a disgrace to have no stars to reach for. Not failure, but low aim is sin.” — Benjamin Elijah Mays, 20th-century American educator, president of Morehouse College

“Genius is but fine observation strengthened by fixity of purpose.” — Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 19th-century English novelist

“The most important part of doctrine is the first two letters.” — David C. Egner

“As long as I can conceive something better than myself I cannot be easy unless I am striving to bring it into existence.”— George Bernard Shaw, 19th/20th-century Anglo-Irish dramatist and wit

“Striving to do better, oft we mar what’s well.” — William Shakespeare, 16th-century English dramatist

“The only way to find the limits of the possible is by going beyond them to the impossible.” — Arthur C. Clarke, 20th-century English science fiction writer

“The more you prepare, the luckier you appear.” — Terry Josephson, 20th/21st-century motivational author

“Stop thinking in terms of limitations and start thinking in terms of possibilities.” — Terry Josephson, 20th/21st-century motivational author