Famous Motivational and Inspirational Quotes Quotes of the Month (Battle of Wits - Chiasmus)

Chiasmus: two otherwise parallel phrases with the second being a reverse order of the first. A famous illustration is Cicero's “One should eat to live, not live to eat.”

This month's gathering saw the most famous wits and personalities vying for the Champion of Chiasmus title. The judges are none other than yourselves. Hear them out and support your favorite team by casting your vote below.

~ Round 1 – The Presidential Team ~

John F. Kennedy: And so, my fellow Americans: ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country.

Abraham Lincoln: It has been said of the world's history hitherto that might makes right. It is for us and for our time to reverse the maxim, and to say that right makes might.

Ronald Reagan: Nations do not mistrust each other because they are armed; they are armed because they mistrust each other.

Mao Zedong: Politics is war carried out without bloodshed, while war is politics carried out with bloodshed.

John F. Kennedy: Mankind must put an end to war or war will put an end to mankind.

Bill Clinton: As we have throughout this century, we will lead with the power of our example, but be prepared, when necessary, to make an example of our power.

Abraham Lincoln: It is true that you may fool all the people some of the time; you can even fool some of the people all the time; but you can't fool all of the people all the time.

Georges Pompidou: A statesman is a politician who places himself at the service of the nation. A politician is a statesman who places the nation at his service.

Jimmy Carter: America did not invent human rights. In a very real sense ... human rights invented America.

Franklin D. Roosevelt: We cannot always build the future for our youth, but we can build our youth for the future.

Woodrow Wilson: I would rather lose in a cause that will some day win, than win in a cause that will some day lose!

~ Round 2 – The Thinkers Team ~

Francis Bacon: If a man will begin with certainties, he shall end in doubts; but if he will be content to begin with doubts, he shall end in certainty.

Laozi: Failure is the foundation of success; success is the lurking place of failure.

Baruch Spinoza: Fear cannot be without some hope nor hope without some fear.

Bernard Baruch: Those who mind don't matter, and those who matter don't mind.

Benjamin Disraeli: Action may not always bring happiness ... but there is no happiness without action.

Leonardo da Vinci: Painting is poetry that is seen rather than felt, and poetry is painting that is felt rather than seen.

Havelock Ellis: Charm is a woman's strength just as strength is a man's charm.

Cicero: Natural ability without education has more often raised a man to glory and virtue than education without natural ability.

Confucius: The superior man is easy to serve, but difficult to please ... The inferior man is difficult to serve, but easy to please.

Erich Fromm: Infantile love follows the principle: 'I love because I am loved.' Mature love follows the principle: 'I am loved because I love.' Immature love says: 'I love you because I need you.' Mature love says: 'I need you because I love you.'

Alfred North Whitehead: The art of progress is to preserve order amid change, and to preserve change amid order.

Jefferson Davis: Never be haughty to the humble; never be humble to the haughty.

~ Round 3 – The Writers Team ~

Zig Ziglar: You don't have to be great to start, but you have to start to be great.

W. Somerset Maugham: At a dinner party one should eat wisely but not too well, and talk well but not too wisely.

Thomas Huxley: Try to learn something about everything and everything about something.

Phillips Brooks: Do not pray for tasks equal to your powers; pray for powers equal to your tasks.

Cyril Connolly: Better to write for yourself and have no public, than to write for the public and have no self.

F. Scott Fitzgerald: You don't write because you want to say something; you write because you've got something to say.

G. K. Chesterton: There is a great deal of difference between the eager man who wants to read a book and the tired man who wants a book to read.

Sam Ewing: It's not the hours you put in your work that count, it's work you put in the hours.

Edgar Watson Howe: A man has his clothes made to fit him; a woman makes herself fit her clothes.

Helen Rowland: To a woman the first kiss is just the end of the beginning but to a man it is the beginning of the end.

Peter De Vries: The value of marriage is not that adults produce children but that children produce adults.

Thomas à Kempis: A wise lover values not so much the gift of the lover as the love of the giver.

William Shakespeare: O powerful love, that in some respects makes a beast a man, in some other, a man a beast.

John Churton Collins: Half of our mistakes in life arises from feeling where we ought to think, and thinking where we ought to feel.

H. L. Mencken: It is the dull man who is always sure, and the sure man who is always dull.

Mark Twain: It is better to deserve honors and not have them than to have them and not deserve them.

Kahlil Gibran: When you love you should not say, 'God is in my heart,' but rather, 'I am in the heart of God.' And think not you can direct the course of love, for love, if it finds you worthy, directs your course.

Elbert Hubbard: If your religion does not change you, then you should change your religion.

~ Round 4 – The Underdogs Team ~

Mae West: It's not the men in my life, but the life in my men.

Anonymous: Marriage is the price men pay for sex; sex is the price women pay for marriage.

Jim Backus: Many a man owes his success to his first wife and his second wife to his success.

Amy Carmichael: You can give without loving, but you cannot love without giving.

E. Y. Harburg: To let a fool kiss you is stupid. To let a kiss fool you is worse.

Mason Cooley: Friendship is love minus sex and plus reason. Love is friendship plus sex and minus reason.

John D. Rockefeller, Jr.: A friendship founded on business is better than a business founded on friendship.

Thomas J. Watson, Sr.: You have to put your heart in the business and the business in your heart.

Gene Mauch: I'm not the manager because I'm always right, but I'm always right because I'm the manager.

Herb Kelleher: Think small and act small, and we'll get bigger. Think big and act big, and we'll get smaller.

Anonymous: Success is getting what you want; happiness is wanting what you get.

Jean Cocteau: Art produces ugly things which frequently become beautiful with time. Fashion ... produces beautiful things which always become ugly with time.

Anonymous: The secret of life is not to do what you like but to like what you do.

Kevin Costner: When a defining moment comes along, you define the moment, or the moment defines you.

Walter Winchell: Money sometimes makes fools of important persons, but it may also make important persons of fools.

The waist is a terrible thing to mind.

The mind is a terrible thing to waste.

And the Champion of Chiasmus is ...

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Tuesday, October 2, 2007

Ability - Education Quotes - Cicero

“Natural ability without education has more often raised a man to glory and virtue than education without natural ability.”

Cicero (106 – 43 B.C.) Roman orator and statesman

bizwhiz at 1:13 PM

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