Writing Prompts

“A departure from principle in one instance becomes a precedent for a second; that second for a third; and so on, till the bulk of the society is reduced to be mere automatons of misery, to have no sensibilities left but for sin and suffering.” — Thomas Jefferson, 18th-century American Founding Father, early 19th-century U.S. president (letter to Samuel Kercheval, 1816)

“The sentiments of men are known not only by what they receive, but what they reject also.” — Thomas Jefferson, 18th-century American Founding Father, early 19th-century U.S. president (Autobiography, 1821)

“Whatever else may be shaken, there are some facts established beyond warring: virtue is better than vice, truth is better than falsehood, kindness than brutality.” — Quintin Hogg

“We talk on principle but we act on interest.” — William Savage Landor

“Expedients are for the hour, but principles are for the ages.” — Henry Ward Beecher, 19th-century American preacher

“Every man, at the bottom of his heart, wants to do right. But only he can do right who knows right; only he knows right who thinks right; only he thinks right who believes right.” — Tiorio

“Values are like fingerprints. Nobody’s are the same, but you leave ’em all over everything you do.” — Elvis Presley, 20th-century American celebrity entertainer

“When things go wrong don’t go with them.” — Elvis Presley, 20th-century American celebrity entertainer

“Two things fill my mind with ever-increasing wonder and awe: the starry heavens above me and the moral law within me.” — Immanuel Kant, 18th-century Prussian geographer and philosopher

“I never failed once. It just happened to be a 2000-step process.” — Thomas Edison (19th/20th-century American inventor), responding to a reporter who asked how it felt to fail 2000 times before successfully inventing the light bulb

“Be patient and calm — for no one can catch fish in anger.” — Herbert Hoover, 20th-century American public servant, U.S. president

“Fall seven times. Stand up eight.” — Japanese proverb

“If you have made mistakes, even serious ones, there is always another chance for you. What we call failure is not the falling down, but the staying down.” — Mary Pickford, 20th- century American actress

“The way to succeed is never quit. That’s it. But really be humble about it.” — Alex Haley, 20th-century American author

“Our energy is in proportion to the resistance it meets. We attempt nothing great but from a sense of the difficulties we have to encounter, we persevere in nothing great but from a pride in overcoming them.” — William Hazlitt, early 18th-century English essayist and literary critic

“The greater the obstacle the more glory in overcoming it.” — Jean Baptiste Molière, 17th- century French dramatist

“What does not destroy makes me stronger.” — Friedrich Nietzsche, 19th-century German philosopher

“Have patience with all things, but chiefly have patience with yourself. Do not lose courage in considering your own imperfections, but instantly set about remedying them — every day begin the task anew.” — Saint Francis de Sales

“Success consists of getting up just one more time than you fall.” — Oliver Goldsmith, 18th- century English novelist

“Endurance is nobler than strength and patience than beauty.” — John Ruskin, 19th-century British critic and author

“By and by never comes.’’ — St. Augustine

“Energy and persistence conquer all things.” — Benjamin Franklin, 18th-century American Founding Father, inventor and statesman

“Nothing in this world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful people with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. The slogan ‘press on’ has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race.” — Calvin Coolidge, 20th-century American president

“People may fail many times, but they become failures only when they begin to blame someone else.” — Unknown

“One is defeated only when one accepts defeat.” — Marshall Foch, 19th/20th-century French general

“It is not falling into the water, but lying in it, that drowns.” — Unknown

“Winners are losers who got up and gave it one more try.” — Dennis DeYoung, 20th-century songwriter and member of the pop rock band Styx

“Reason alone is insufficient to make us enthusiastic in any matter.” — François duc de la Rochefoucauld, 17th-century French memoirist and philosopher

“What a man accomplishes in a day depends upon the way in which he approaches his tasks. When we accept tough jobs as a challenge. . . and wade into them with joy and enthusiasm, miracles can happen. When we do our work with a dynamic conquering spirit, we get things done.” — Arland Gilbert

“Zeal will do more than knowledge.” — William Hazlitt, early 18th-century English essayist and literary critic

“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.” — Margaret Mead, 20th-century American anthropologist

“The conclusions of passion are the only reliable ones.” — Soren Kierkegaard, early 19th- century Danish philosopher

“Make no little plans! They have no magic to stir men’s blood.” — Daniel Burnham, 19th- century Chicago architect

“Passion, though a bad regulator, is a powerful spring.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson, 19th- century American essayist, public philosopher and poet

“The two sovereign remedies for dullness are love or a crusade.’’ — D.H. Lawrence, 20th- century English novelist

“Know the true value of time; snatch, seize and enjoy every moment of it. No idleness … never put off till tomorrow what you can do today.” — Lord Chesterfield, 18th-century English man of letters

“Nothing is too much trouble.” — Edward Kirby Bonds

“To perceive is to suffer.” — Aristotle, ancient Greek philosopher

“He is a hard man who is only just, and a sad one who is only wise.” — Francois Marie Arouet de Voltaire, 18th-century French author, wit and philosopher

“The gem cannot be polished without friction.” — Chinese proverb

“Adversity introduces a man to himself.” — Unknown

“We cannot learn without pain.” — Aristotle, ancient Greek philosopher

“There is no greater sorrow than to recall a happy time in the midst of wretchedness.” — Dante Alighieri, 13th/14th-century Italian poet

“You should not suffer the past. You should be able to wear it like a loose garment, take it off and let it drop.” — Eva Jessye

“The beauty of the soul shines out when a man bears with composure one heavy mischance after another, not because he does not feel them, but because he is a man of high and heroic temper.” — Aristotle, ancient Greek philosopher

“Wealth consists not in having great possessions, but in having few wants.” — Epicurus, ancient Greek philosopher

“You are not what you own.” — Fugazi, 20th/21st-century American rock band

“I get so tired of listening to one million dollars here, one million dollars there. It’s so petty.” — Imelda Marcos, 20th-century Filipino First Lady (married to Ferdinand Marcos)

“When it is a question of money, everyone is of the same religion.” — Francois Marie Arouet de Voltaire, 18th-century French author, wit and philosopher

“Virtue has never been as respectable as money.”— Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens), 19th- century American humorist, author and journalist

“God looks at the clean hands, not the full ones.” — Publilius Syrus

“It’s not how much you have that makes people look up to you, it’s who you are.” — Elvis Presley, 20th-century American celebrity singer

“Sharing money is what gives it its value.” — Elvis Presley, 20th-century American celebrity singer

“The quest for riches darkens the sense of right and wrong.” — Antiphanes, ancient Greek dramatist

“Don’t forget until too late that the business of life is not business but living.” — B.C. Forbes, early 20th-century American publisher, founder of Forbes magazine

“He is poor who does not feel content.” — Japanese proverb

“For greed, all nature is too little.” — Seneca, Roman statesman and author

“Goodness is the only investment that never fails.” — Henry David Thoreau, 19th-century American essayist and nature writer

“Too many people miss the silver lining because they’re expecting gold.” — Maurice Setter

“A man’s memory may almost become the art of continually varying and misrepresenting his past, according to his interest in the present.” — George Santayana, 20th-century American philosopher, author

“Men live by forgetting. Women live on memories.” — T.S. Eliot, Nobel Prize-winning 20th- century Anglo-American poet

“The superiority of the distant over the present is only due to the mass and variety of the pleasures that can be suggested, compared with the poverty of those that can at any time be felt.” — George Santayana, 20th-century American philosopher

“The past is a foreign country. They do things differently there.” — L. P. Hartley

“The past isn’t dead. It isn’t even past.” — William Faulkner, Nobel Prize-winning 20th-century American novelist

“The past is one evil less and one memory more.’’ — Elbert Hubbard, 19th/20th-century American entrepreneur and philosopher (founder of Roycroft)

“New friends are silver, but old friends are gold.” — Unknown

“When eating a fruit, think of the person who planted the tree.” — Vietnamese saying

“Never esteem anything as of advantage to you that will make you break your word or lose your self-respect.” — Marcus Aurelius

“Loyalty oaths increase the number of liars.” — Noel Peattie

“Gratitude is not only the greatest of virtues, but the parent of all others.” — Cicero (Marcus Tullius), Roman orator, philosopher and statesman

“If you pick up a starving dog and make him prosperous, he will not bite you. This is the principle difference between a dog and a man.” — Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens), 19th-century American humorist, author and journalist

“Friendship, like credit, is highest where it is not used.” — Elbert Hubbard, 19th/20th-century American entrepreneur and philosopher (founder of Roycroft)

“Friends may come and go, but enemies accumulate.” — Thomas Jones

“If you don’t appreciate it, you don’t deserve it.” — Terry Josephson, 20th/21st-century motivational author

[Because power corrupts] “Society’s demands for moral authority and character increase as the importance of the position increases.” — John Adams, 18th-century American Founding Father, second U.S. president

“Do not follow where the path may lead. Go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.” — Unknown

“The final test of a leader is that he leaves behind him in other men the conviction and will to carry on.” — Walter Lippmann, 20th-century American journalist, author and public philosopher

“If we lived in a state where virtue was profitable, common sense would make us saintly. But since we see that avarice, anger, pride and stupidity commonly profit far beyond charity, modesty, justice and thought, perhaps we must stand fast a little, even at the risk of being heroes.” — Sir Thomas More in the movie “A Man For All Seasons” (1966, screenplay by Robert Bolt)

“Few men have virtue to withstand the highest bidder.” — George Washington, 18th-century American Founding Father and war hero, first U.S. president

“The people have a right, an indisputable, unalienable, indefeasible, divine right to that most dreaded and envied kind of knowledge – I mean of the character and conduct of their rulers.” — John Adams, 18t-century American Founding Father, second U.S. president

“Character is the only secure foundation of the state.” — Calvin Coolidge, 20th-century American president

“A man who wants to act virtuously in every way necessarily comes to grief among so many who are not virtuous.” — Niccolo Machiavelli, Florentine Renaissance writer and political adviser

“With all the power that a president has, the most important thing to bear in mind is this: You must not give power to a man unless, above everything else, he has character. Character is the most important qualification the president of the United States can have.” — Richard Nixon (from TV ad for Barry Goldwater’s presidential campaign in 1964)

“All leaders must face some crisis where their own strength of character is the enemy.” — Richard Reeves, 20th-century American journalist and essayist

“In a president, character is everything. A president doesn’t have to be brilliant… He doesn’t have to be clever; you can hire clever… You can hire pragmatic, and you can buy and bring in policy wonks. But you can’t buy courage and decency, you can’t rent a strong moral sense. A president must bring those things with him. He needs to have, in that much-maligned word, but a good one nonetheless, a “vision” of the future he wishes to create. But a vision is worth little if a president doesn’t have the character — the courage and heart — to see it through.” — Peggy Noonan, 20th-century American author, speech writer for U.S. President Ronald Reagan

“Faced with crisis, the man of character falls back upon himself.” — Charles DeGaulle, 20th- century French general and president, founder of the Fifth Republic

“Politics ruins the character.” — Otto von Bismarck, 19th-century German chancellor, founder of the German nation state

“Character is power.” — Booker T. Washington, 19th-century American educator

“Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man’s character, give him power.” — Abraham Lincoln, 19th-century U.S. president

“It is a grand mistake to think of being great without goodness and I pronounce it as certain that there was never a truly great man that was not at the same time truly virtuous.” — Benjamin Franklin, 18th-century American Founding Father, inventor and statesman

“Every person in America has done or said something that would keep him or her from being president. Maybe a nation that consumes as much booze and dope as we do and has our kind of divorce statistics should pipe down about ‘character issues.’ ” — P.J. O’Rourke, 20th-century American humorist and essayist

“Leaders are visionaries with a poorly developed sense of fear and no concept of the odds against them. They make the impossible happen.” — Dr. Robert Jarvik, 20th-century American heart surgeon

“Political interest [can] never be separated in the long run from moral right.” — Thomas Jefferson, 18th-century American Founding Father, early 19th-century U.S. president (letter to James Monroe, 1806)

“I don’t like people who are in politics for themselves and not for others. You want that, you can go into show business.” — Elvis Presley, 20th-century American celebrity singer

“There is a secret pride in every human heart that revolts at tyranny. You may order and drive an individual, but you cannot make him respect you.” — William Hazlitt, early 18th- century English essayist and literary critic

“You can only govern men by serving them.” — Victor Cousin

“A politician would do well to remember that he has to live with his conscience longer than he does with his constituents.” — Melvin R. Laird, 20th-century American secretary of defense

“Politics, as a practice, whatever its professions, has always been the systematic organization of hatreds.” — Henry Adams, 19th-century American historian, memoirist and diplomat

“An election is a moral horror, as bad as battle except for the blood; a mud bath for every soul concerned.” — George Bernard Shaw, 19th/20th-century Anglo-Irish dramatist and wit

“Politics, n. A strife of interests masquerading as a contest of principles.” — Ambrose Bierce, early 20th-century American journalist and writer (from the Devil’s Dictionary)

“Since a politician never believes what he says, he is surprised when others believe him.” — Charles de Gaulle, 20th-century French general and president, founder of the Fifth Republic

“Washington is a place where men praise courage and act on elaborate personal cost- benefit calculations.” — John Kenneth Galbraith, 20th-century North American economist, author and diplomat

“Never create by law what can be accomplished by morality.” — Charles-Louis de Secondat Baron de Montesquieu, 17th/18th-century French jurist and political philosopher

“Bad administration, to be sure, can destroy good policy; but good administration can never save bad policy.” — Adlai Stevenson, 20th-century American politician, presidential candidate

“How far would Moses have gone if he had taken a poll in Egypt?” — Harry S. Truman, 20th-century American president

“Politics is the art of controlling the environment.” — Hunter S. Thomson, 20th-century American journalist and writer

“Democracy becomes a government of bullies, tempered by editors.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson, 19th-century American essayist, public philosopher and poet

“We are here to awaken from the illusion of our separateness.” — Thich Nhat Hanh, 20th- century French-based Vietnamese Buddhist monk, peace activist and author

“Such is the moral construction of the world that no national crime passes unpunished in the long run… Were present oppressors to reflect on the same truth, they would spare to their own countries the penalties on their present wrongs which will be inflicted on them in future times. The seeds of hatred and revenge which they [sow] with a large hand will not fail to produce their fruits in time. Like their brother robbers on the highway, they suppose the escape of the moment a final escape and deem infamy and future risk countervailed by present gain.” — Thomas Jefferson, 18th-century American Founding Father, early 19th-century U.S. president (letter to Francois de Marbois, 1817)

“Men are not punished for their sins, but by them.” — Elbert Hubbard, 19th/20th-century American entrepreneur and philosopher (founder of Roycroft)

“Whoso diggeth a pit shall fall therein.” — Proverbs

“The liar’s punishment is not in the least that he is not believed, but that he cannot believe anyone else.” — George Bernard Shaw, 19th/20th-century Anglo-Irish dramatist and wit “Everybody comes form the same source. If you hate another human being, you’re hating part of yourself.” — Elvis Presley, 20th-century American celebrity entertainer

“The jealous are troublesome to others, but torment to themselves.” — William Penn, 17th-century American colonial leader

“By a divine paradox, wherever there is one slave there are two. So in the wonderful reciprocities of being, we can never reach the higher levels until all our fellows ascend with us.” — Edwin Markham

“No man who continues to add something to the material, intellectual and moral well- being of the place in which he lives is left long without proper reward.” — Booker T. Washington, 19th-century American educator

“Do good with what thou hast, or it will do thee no good.” — William Penn, 17th-century American colonial leader

“They who give have all things; they who withhold have nothing.” — Hindu proverb “Those who are free of resentful thoughts surely find peace.” — Buddha

“No man is more cheated than a selfish man.” — Henry Ward Beecher, 19th-century American preacher

“Our life is what our thoughts make it.” — Marcus Aurelius

“People pay for what they do, and still more, for what they have allowed themselves to become. And they pay for it simply: by the lives they lead.” — Edith Wharton, 19th/20th- century American novelist (from The Age of Innocence)

“Luck is a word devoid of sense. Nothing can exist without a cause.” — Francois Marie Arouet de Voltaire, 18th-century French author, wit and philosopher

“We awaken in others the same attitude of mind we hold in them.” — Elbert Hubbard, 19th/20th-century American entrepreneur and philosopher (founder of Roycroft)

“Act so as to elicit the best in others and thereby in thyself.” — Felix Adler

“Thoughts lead on to purposes; purposes go forth in action; actions form habits; habits decide character; and character fixes our destiny.” — Tryon Edwards “Doubt breeds doubt.” — Franz Grillparzer

“We are shaped and fashioned by what we love.” — Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, 18th/19th- century German statesman, poet, novelist and dramatist

“Any man will usually get from other men just what he is expecting of them. If he is looking for friendship he will likely receive it. If his attitude is that of indifference, it will beget indifference. And if a man is looking for a fight, he will in all likelihood be accommodated in that.” — John Richelsen

“If you keep on saying things are going to be bad, you have a good chance of becoming a prophet.” — Isaac Bashevis Singer, 20th-century Nobel Prize-winning Yiddish/American writer

“Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself.” — Count Leo Tolstoy, 19th-century Nobel Prize-winning Russian novelist

“Do what you want to do….
But want to do what you are doing. Be what you want to be….
But want to be what you are.”
— Unknown

“Speak what you feel, not what you ought to say.” — Shakespeare (from “King Lear”) “Once integrity goes, the rest is a piece of cake.” — J.R. Ewing, lead character in the 20th-century American television show “Dallas”

“Know thyself.” — Plato, ancient Greek philosopher

“Only the shallow know themselves.” — Oscar Wilde, 19th-century English wit and author

“We are never more true to ourselves than when we are inconsistent.” — Oscar Wilde, 19th-century English wit and author

“One’s real life is often the life that one does not lead.” — Oscar Wilde, 19th-century English wit and author

“A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen, philosophers and divines.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson, 19th-century American essayist, public philosopher and poet

“Be as you wish to seem.” — Socrates, ancient Greek sage

“Be honorable yourself if you wish to associate with honorable people.” — Welsh proverb

“Friendship with oneself is all-important, because without it one cannot be friends with anyone else.” — Eleanor Roosevelt, 20th-century American stateswoman, First Lady

“It is better to be hated for what you are than to be loved for what you are not.” — Andre Gide, 20th-century French writer

“A man cannot be comfortable without his own approval.” — Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens), 19th-century American humorist, author and journalist

“Of all the paths a man could strike into, there is, at any given moment, a best path … a thing which, here and now, it were of all things wisest for him to do … to find his path and walk in it.” — Thomas Carlyle, 19th-century Scots-English historian, author

“Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes.” — Carl Jung, 20th-century Swiss founder of analytical psychology

“It isn’t until you come to a spiritual understanding of who you are — not necessarily a religious feeling, but deep down, the spirit within — that you begin to take control.” — Oprah Winfrey, 20th-century American entertainer, businesswoman

“Men can starve from a lack of self-realization as much as they can from a lack of bread.” — Richard Wright, 20th-century American author

“Self-image sets the boundaries of individual accomplishment.” — Maxwell Maltz, 20th- century American psychologist and motivational writer

“Those people who are uncomfortable in themselves are disagreeable to others.” — William Hazlitt, early 18th-century English essayist and literary critic

“What people call the spirit of the times is mostly their own spirit in which the times mirror themselves.” — Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, 18th/19th-century German statesman, poet, novelist and dramatist