Franz Kafka
A book must be the ax
for the frozen sea within us.
~Franz Kafka~
Madame Chiang Kai-Shek
We become what we do.
~Madame Chiang Kai-Shek~
Immanuel Kant
We are not rich by what we possess
but rather by what we can do without.
~ Immanuel Kant~
Barry Neil Kaufman
A loud voice cannot compete with a clear voice,
even if it's a whisper.
~Barry Neil Kaufman~
Alfred Kazin
The writer writes in order
to teach himself,
to understand himself,
to satisfy himself;
the publishing of his ideas,
though it brings gratification,
is a curious anticlimax.
~Alfred Kazin~
John Keats
A proverb is no proverb to you
until life has illustrated it.
~John Keats~
Garrison Keillor
Beauty isn't worth thinking about;
what's important is your mind.
You don't want a fifty-dollar haircut on a fifty-cent head.
~Garrison Keillor~
Some luck lies in not getting
what you thought you wanted,
but getting what you have,
which once you have got it you may be smart enough
to see is what you would have wanted
had you known.
~Garrison Keillor~
Kip Keino
This life we have is short,
so let us leave a mark for people to remember.
~Kip Keino~
It is for us to pray not for tasks
equal to our powers,
but for powers equal to our tasks,
to go forward with a great desire
forever beating at the door of our hearts
as we travel towards our distant goal.
~Helen Keller~
To
me a lush carpet of pine needles
or spongy grass is more welcome
than the most luxurious Persian rug.
~Helen Keller~
The
world is moved along,
not only by the mighty shoves
of its heroes, but also by the
aggregate of tiny pushes
of each honest worker.
~Helen Keller~
Optimism is the faith
that leads to achievement.
Nothing can be done without
hope or confidence.
~Helen Keller~
Security
is mostly a superstition.
It does not exist in nature,
nor do the children of men
as a whole experience it.
Avoiding danger is no safer
in the long run than outright exposure.
Life is either a daring adventure,
or nothing.
~Helen Keller~
We could never learn to be brave and
patient
if there were only joy in the world.
~Helen Keller~
Once I knew only darkness and stillness...
.my life was without past or future...
but a little word from the fingers of another
fell into my hand that clutched at emptiness,
and my heart leaped to the rapture of living.
~Helen Keller~
Faith
is the strength by which
a shattered world shall emerge into the light.
~Helen Keller~
Life
is an exciting business,
and most exciting when it is lived for others.
~Helen Keller~
The
best and most beautiful things in the world
cannot be seen or even touched.
They must be felt with the heart.
~Helen Keller~
Character
cannot be developed in ease and quiet.
Only through experience of trial and suffering
can the soul be strengthened, vision cleared,
ambition inspired, and success achieved.
~Helen Keller~
The
marvelous richness of human experience
would lose something of rewarding joy
if there were no limitations to overcome.
The hilltop hour would not be half so wonderful
if there were no dark valleys to traverse.
~Helen Keller~
I
long to accomplish a great and noble task,
but it is my chief duty to accomplish
small tasks as if they were great and noble.
~Helen Keller~
When
we do the best that we can,
we never know what miracle is wrought in our life,
or in the life of another.
~Helen Keller~
The
most pathetic person in the world
is someone who has sight but has no vision.
~Helen Keller~
Everything has its wonders,
even darkness and silence,
and I learn, whatever state I may be in,
therein to be content.
~Helen Keller~
Many
persons have a wrong idea
of what constitutes true happiness.
It is not attained through self-gratification
but through fidelity to a worthy purpose.
~Helen Keller~
Your success and happiness lie within you.
External conditions are the accidents of life,
its outer trappings.
~Helen Keller~
A child must feel the flush of victory
and the heart-sinking of disappointment
before he takes with a will to the tasks
distasteful to him and resolves to dance
his way through a dull routine of textbooks.
~Helen Keller~
As selfishness and complaint pervert and cloud the mind,
so love with its joy clears and sharpens the vision.
~Helen Keller~
As the eagle was killed by the arrow
winged with his own feather,
so the hand of the world
is wounded by its own skill.
~Helen Keller~
Be of good cheer.
Do not think of today's failures,
but of the success that may come tomorrow.
You have set yourself a difficult task,
but you will succeed if you persevere;
and you will find a joy in overcoming obstacles.
~Helen Keller~
Believe, when you are most unhappy,
that there is something for you to do in the world.
So long as you can sweeten another's pain,
life is not in vain.
~Helen Keller~
Children who hear acquire language
without any particular effort;
the words that fall from others' lips
they catch on the wing,
as it were, delightedly,
while the little deaf child must
trap them by a slow and often painful process.
But whatever the process,
the result is wonderful.
Gradually from naming an object
we advance step by step
until we have traversed the vast distance
between our first stammered syllable
and the sweep of thought
in a line of Shakespeare.
~Helen Keller~
I am only one, but still I am one.
I cannot do everything,
but still I can do something;
And because I cannot do everything
I will not refuse to do the something that I can do.
~Helen Keller~
I can say with conviction that the struggle
which evil necessitates is one of the greatest blessings.
It makes us strong, patient, helpful men and women.
It lets us into the soul of things and teaches us
that although the world is full of suffering,
it is full also of the overcomings of it.
My optimism, then, does not rest on the absence of evil,
but on a glad belief in the preponderance of good
and a willing effort always to cooperate with the good,
that it may prevail.
~Helen Keller~
I can see, and that is why I can be happy,
in what you call the dark,
but which to me is golden.
I can see a God-made world,
not a manmade world.
~Helen Keller~
I thank God for my handicaps,
for through them I have found myself, my work,
and my God.
~Helen Keller~
It gives me a deep comforting sense that
things seen are temporal and things unseen are eternal.
~Helen Keller~
It is a terrible thing to see and have no vision.
~Helen Keller~
It is wonderful how much time
good people spend fighting the devil.
If they would only expend the
same amount of energy loving their fellow men,
the devil would die in his own tracks of ennui.
~Helen Keller~
It's wonderful to climb the liquid mountains of the sky.
Behind me and before me is God and I have no fears.
~Helen Keller~
Knowledge is love and light and vision.
~Helen Keller~
''Knowledge is power.'' Rather, knowledge is happiness,
because to have knowledge -- broad, deep knowledge --
is to know true ends from false, and lofty things from low.
To know the thoughts and deeds that have
marked man's progress is to feel the
great heartthrobs of humanity through the centuries;
and if one does not feel in these pulsations
a heavenward striving, one must indeed be deaf
to the harmonies of life.
~Helen Keller~
Life is a succession of lessons
which must be lived to be understood.
~Helen Keller~
Literature is my Utopia.
Here I am not disfranchised.
No barrier of the senses shuts me out
from the sweet, gracious discourse of my book-friends.
They talk to me without embarrassment or awkwardness.
~Helen Keller~
Love is like a beautiful flower
which I may not touch,
but whose fragrance makes the garden
a place of delight just the same.
~Helen Keller~
Museums and art stores are also sources
of pleasure and inspiration.
Doubtless it will seem strange to many
that the hand unaided by sight can feel action,
sentiment, beauty in the cold marble;
and yet it is true that I derive genuine pleasure
from touching great works of art.
As my finger tips trace line and curve,
they discover the thought and emotion
which the artist has portrayed.
~Helen Keller~
My share of the work may be limited,
but the fact that it is work makes it precious.
~Helen Keller~
Never bend your head.
Always hold it high.
Look the world right in the eye.
~Helen Keller~
No pessimist ever discovered the secret of the stars,
or sailed to an uncharted land,
or opened a new doorway for the human spirit.
~Helen Keller~
Of all the senses,
sight must be the most delightful.
~Helen Keller~
Relationships are like Rome.
Difficult to start out,
incredible during the prosperity of the 'Golden Age',
and unbearable during the fall.
Then, a new kingdom will come along
and the whole process will repeat itself
until you come across a kingdom like Egypt...
that thrives, and continues to flourish.
This kingdom will become
your best friend, your soulmate, and your love.
~Helen Keller~
Self-pity is our worst enemy and if we yield to it,
we can never do anything good in the world.
~Helen Keller~
The highest result of education is tolerance.
~Helen Keller~
There is no king who has not had a slave
among his ancestors, and no slave who has
not had a king among his.
~Helen Keller~
To keep our faces toward change,
and behave like free spirits in the presence of fate,
is strength undefeatable.
~Helen Keller~
To think clearly without hurry or confusion;
To love everybody sincerely;
To act in everything with the highest motives;
To trust God unhesitatingly.
~Helen Keller~
Toleration is the greatest gift of the mind;
it requires the same effort of the brain
that it takes to balance oneself on a bicycle.
~Helen Keller~
Unless we form the habit of going
to the Bible in bright moments
as well as in trouble,
we cannot fully respond to its consolations
because we lack equilibrium
between light and darkness.
~Helen Keller~
When one door closes, another opens.
But we often look so regretfully
upon the closed door that we don't see
the one that has opened for us.
~Helen Keller~
Vista M. Kelly
Snowflakes are one of
nature’s most fragile things,
but just look what they can do
when they stick together.
~Vista M. Kelly~
Thomas a Kempis
Love
feels no burden,
thinks nothing of trouble,
attempts what is above its strength,
pleads no excuse of impossibility...
It is therefore able to undertake all things,
and it completes many things,
and warrants them to take effect,
where he who does not love would faint and lie down.
Love is watchful and sleeping, slumbereth not.
Though weary, it is not tired;
though pressed, it is not straitened;
though alarmed, it is not confounded...
~Thomas a Kempis~
John F. Kennedy
When
written in Chinese the word
"crisis" is composed of two characters -
one represents danger and
the other represents opportunity.
~John F. Kennedy~
As
we express our gratitude,
we must never forget
that the highest appreciation
is not to utter words,
but to live by them.
~John F. Kennedy~
Too often we... enjoy the comfort
of opinion without the discomfort of thought.
~John F. Kennedy~
We
are not afraid to entrust the
American people with unpleasant facts,
foreign ideas, alien philosophies,
and competitive values. For a nation
that is afraid to let its people judge the truth
and falsehood in an open market
is a nation that is afraid of its people.
~John F. Kennedy~
Peace is a daily, a weekly,
a monthly process,
gradually changing opinions,
slowly eroding old barriers,
quietly building new structures.
~John F. Kennedy~
Let us not seek the Republican answer
or the Democratic answer,
but the right answer.
Let us not seek to fix the blame for the past.
Let us accept our own responsibility
for the future.
~John F. Kennedy~
The star of Bethlehem was
a star of hope that led
the wise men to the fulfillment
of their expectations,
the success of their expedition.
Nothing in this world is more fundamental
for success in life than hope,
and this star pointed to our
only source for true hope:
Jesus Christ.
~D. James Kennedy~
In the long history of the world,
only a few generations have been granted
the role of defending freedom in its hour
of maximum danger.
I do not shrink from this responsibility-
I welcome it.
~John F. Kennedy~
Let every nation know,
whether it wishes us well or ill,
we shall pay any price,
bear any burden, meet any hardship,
support any friend, oppose any foe,
to assure the survival and success of liberty.
~John F. Kennedy~
Let the word go forth from this time and place,
to friend and foe alike,
that the torch has been passed
to a new generation of Americans,
born in this century,
tempered by war,
disciplined by a hard and bitter peace,
proud of our ancient heritage,
and unwilling to witness or permit
the slow undoing of those human rights
to which this nation has always been committed,
and to which we are committed today,
at home and around the world!
~John F. Kennedy~
The freedom of the city is not negotiable.
We cannot negotiate with those who say,
"What's mine is mine
and what's yours is negotiable."
~John F. Kennedy~
There are many people in the world
who really don't understand
-or say they don't-
what is the great issue
between the free world
and the Communist world.
... Let them come to Berlin.
~John F. Kennedy~
To exclude from positions of trust
and command all those below the age of 44
would have kept Jefferson from writing
the Declaration of Independence,
Washington from commanding
the Continental Army,
Madison from fathering
the Constitution,
Hamilton from serving
as secretary of the treasury,
Clay from being elected
speaker of the House and
Christopher Columbus from discovering America.
~John F. Kennedy~
To those people in the huts
and villages of half the globe
struggling to break the bonds of mass misery,
we pledge our best efforts to help them
help themselves, for whatever period is required,
not because the Communists may be doing it,
not because we seek their votes,
but because it is right.
If a free society cannot help the many who are poor,
it cannot save the few who are rich.
~John F. Kennedy~
Robert F. Kennedy
Each
time a person stands up
for an ideal, or acts to improve
the lot of others, or strikes out
against injustice, he sends forth
a tiny ripple of hope,
and crossing each other
from a million different centers
of energy and daring,
these ripples build a current
that can sweep down the mightiest walls
of oppression and resistance.
~Robert F. Kennedy~
What is objectionable,
what is dangerous,
about extremists is not
that they are extreme,
but that they are intolerant.
The evil is not what they say
about their cause, but what they say
about their opponents.
~Robert Kennedy~
Ken Keyes, Jr.
A loving person lives in a loving world.
A hostile person lives in a hostile world;
everyone you meet is your mirror.
~Ken Keyes, Jr.~
John M. Keynes
Words ought to be a little wild,
for they are the assault
of thoughts on the unthinking.
~John M. Keynes~
Søren Kierkegaard
If I were to wish for anything,
I should not wish for wealth and power,
but for the passionate sense of potential --
for the eye which,
ever young and ardent,
sees the possible.
Pleasure disappoints;
possibility never.
~Søren Kierkegaard~
Ari Kiev
In my practice as a psychiatrist,
I have found that helping people
to develop personal goals has proven
to be the most effective way to help them
cope with problems.
Observing the lives of people
who have mastered adversity,
I have noticed that they have
established goals and sought with all their effort
to achieve them. From the moment they
decided to concentrate all their energies
on a specific objective,
they began to surmount the most difficult odds.
~Ari Kiev~
Harmon Killebrew
My
father used to play with
my brother and me in the yard.
Mother would come out and say,
"You're tearing up the grass."
"We're not raising grass,"
Dad would reply.
"We're raising boys."
~Harmon Killebrew~
Martin Luther King, Jr.
Almost always the creative, dedicated minority
has made the world better.
~Martin Luther King, Jr.~
The
first question which the priest
and the Levite asked was:
"If I stop to help this man,
what will happen to me?"
But... the good Samaritan
reversed the question:
"If I do not stop to help this man,
what will happen to him?"
~Martin Luther King, Jr.~
I look to a day
when people will not
be judged by the color of their skin,
but by the content of their character.
~Martin Luther King, Jr.~
He
who passively accepts evil
is as much involved in it as he
who helps to perpetrate it.
He who accepts evil without protesting
against it is really cooperating with it.
~Martin Luther King, Jr.~
The
ultimate measure of a man is
not where he stands in moments of comfort,
but where he stands
at times of challenge and controversy.
~Martin Luther King, Jr.~
Take
the first step in faith.
You don't have to see the whole staircase,
just take the first step.
~ Martin Luther King, Jr.~
Cowardice
asks the question,
"Is it safe?"
Expediency asks the question,
"Is it political?."
Vanity asks the question,
"Is it popular?."
But, conscience asks the question,
"Is it right?."
And there comes a time when
one must take a position that is
neither safe, nor political, nor popular,
but one must take it
because one's conscience tells one
that it is right.
~ Martin Luther King, Jr.~
If
a man is called to be a streetsweeper,
he should sweep streets even as Michelangelo painted,
or Beethoven played music,
or Shakespeare wrote poetry.
He should sweep streets so well
that all the hosts of heaven and earth
will pause to say, here lived a great streetsweeper
who did his job well.
~Martin Luther King, Jr.~
Everybody
can be great ...
because anybody can serve.
You don't have to have a
college degree to serve.
You don't have to make your subject
and verb agree to serve.
You only need a heart full of grace.
A soul generated by love.
~Martin Luther King, Jr.~
Darkness
can not drive out darkness
only light can do that.
Hate cannot drive out hate
only love can do that.
~Martin Luther King, Jr.~
Our
lives begin to end
the day we become silent
about things that matter.
~Martin Luther King, Jr.~
Peace
is not merely a distant goal
that we seek, but a means by which
we arrive at that goal.
~Martin Luther King, Jr.~
Science
investigates, religion interprets.
Science gives man knowledge
which is power,
religion gives man wisdom which is control.
~Martin Luther King, Jr.~
I have a dream that one day
this nation will rise up,
live out the true meaning of its creed:
We hold these truths to be self-evident,
that all men are created equal.
~Martin Luther King, Jr.~
If the cruelties of slavery
could not stop us,
the opposition we now face
will surely fail....Because
the goal of America is freedom,
abused and scorned tho' we may be,
our destiny is tied up
with America's destiny.
~Martin Luther King, Jr.~
Change does not roll in
on the wheels of inevitability,
but comes through continuous struggle.
And so we must straighten our backs
and work for our freedom.
A man can't ride you unless your back is bent.
~Martin Luther King, Jr.~
In the End, we will remember
not the words of our enemies,
but the silence of our friends.
~Martin Luther King Jr.~
One who condones evils
is just as guilty as the one
who perpetrates it.
~Martin Luther King, Jr.~
We must accept finite disappointment,
but never lose infinite hope.
~Martin Luther King, Jr.~
Stephen King
Hope
is a good thing--
maybe the best thing,
and no good thing ever dies.
~Stephen King~
You
can't deny laughter;
when it comes,
it plops down in your favorite chair
and stays
as long as it wants.
~Stephen King~
Charles Kingsley
Except
a living man there is nothing
more wonderful than a book!
A message to us from the dead,
- from human souls whom we never saw,
who lived perhaps thousands of miles away;
and yet these, on those little sheets of paper,
speak to us, teach us, comfort us,
open their hearts to us as brothers.
~Charles Kingsley~
Thank God--
every morning when you get up--
that you have something to do
which must be done,
whether you like it or not.
Being forced to work,
and forced to do your best,
will breed in you a hundred virtues
which the idle never know.
~Charles Kingsley~
We act as though comfort and luxury
were the chief requirements of life,
when all that we need to make us happy
is something to be enthusiastic about.
~Charles Kingsley~
Barbara Kingsolver
Close the door.
Write with no one looking over your shoulder.
Don't try to figure out what other people
want to hear from you;
figure out what you have to say.
It's the one and only thing
you have to offer.
~Barbara Kingsolver~
People's dreams are made out of
what they do all day.
The same way a dog that
runs after rabbits will dream of rabbits.
It's what you do that makes your soul,
not the other way around.
~Barbara Kingsolver~
Thomas Kinkade
It's when I let myself get little
that I tumble head over heels into joy.
~Thomas Kinkade~
When I find my focus and keep my balance--
I find that all is right with my world.
~Thomas Kinkade~
My joy burns brighter when
I tend to the glowing hearth fires of home.
~Thomas Kinkade~
Rudyard Kipling
Our England is a garden,
and such gardens are not made by singing:
"Oh, how beautiful!" and sitting in the shade.
~Rudyard Kipling~
I
keep six honest serving men,
They taught me all I knew,
Their names are
What and Why and When,
And How and Where and Who.
~Rudyard Kipling~
All
the people like us are We,
And everyone else is They.
~Rudyard Kipling
Until thy feet have trod the Road
Advise not wayside folk.
~Rudyard Kipling~
Grayson Kirk
The most important function of education
at any level is to develop the personality
of the individual and the significance of his life
to himself and to others.
This is the basic architecture of a life;
the rest is ornamentation
and decoration of the structure.
~Grayson Kirk~
The most important function of education
at any level is to develop the personality
of the individual and the significance of his life
to himself and to others.
This is the basic architecture of a life;
the rest is ornamentation
and decoration of the structure.
~Grayson Kirk~
Lisa Kirk
A gossip is one who talks to you
about others;
a bore is one who talks to you
about himself;
and a brilliant conversationalist
is one who talks to you
about yourself.
~Lisa Kirk~
George R.
Kirkpatrick
Nature gave men two ends -
one to sit on and one to think with.
Ever since then man's success or failure
has been dependent on
the one he used most.
~George R. Kirkpatrick~
Henry Alfred Kissinger
If peace is equated simply with the absence of war,
it can become abject pacifism
that turns the world over to the most ruthless.
~Henry Alfred Kissinger~
Karl von Knebel
He who can take advice
is sometimes superior
to him who can give it.
~Karl von Knebel~
Judith M.
Knowlton
I discovered I always have choices
and sometimes it's only a choice of attitude.
~Judith M. Knowlton~
Anita Koddick
If you think you're too small
to have an impact try going to bed
with a mosquito in the room.
~Anita Koddick~
Arthur Koestler
War is a ritual, a deadly ritual,
not the result of aggressive self-assertion,
but of self-transcending identification.
Without loyalty to tribe, church, flag or ideal,
there would be no wars.
~Arthur Koestler~
Dean Koontz
We are an arrogant species,
full of terrible potential,
but we also have a great capacity
for love, friendship, generosity,
kindness, faith, hope, and joy.
~Dean Koontz~
The Koran
And when a man injures and oppresses you
and deals unjustly with you,
you should deal kindly with him and forgive him.
This you will strike at the root of hatred and enmity
and he who is your enemy
will become your friend.
~The Koran~
Bread feeds the body, indeed,
but flowers feed also the soul.
~The Koran~
Elisabeth Kubler-Ross
We
are not powerless specks of dust
drifting around in the wind,
blown by random destiny.
We are, each of us,
like beautiful snowflakes unique,
and born for a specific reason and purpose.
~Elisabeth Kubler-Ross~
You
will not grow if
you sit in a beautiful flower garden,
but you will grow if you are sick,
if you are in pain,
if you experience losses,
and if you do not put your head in the sand,
but take the pain and learn to accept it,
not as a curse or punishment
but as a gift to you with a very,
very specific purpose.
~Elizabeth Kubler-Ross~
If
we make our goal to live a life
of compassion and unconditional love,
then the world will indeed become
a garden where all kinds of
flowers can bloom and grow.
~Elisabeth Kubler-Ross~
To
love means not to impose your own powers
on your fellow man but offer him your help.
And if he refuses it,
to be proud that he can do it
on his own strength.
~Elisabeth Kubler-Ross~
Should
you shield the valleys from the windstorms,
you would never see the beauty of their canyons.
~Elisabeth Kubler-Ross~
Learn
to get in touch
with the silence within yourself,
and know that everything in life has purpose.
There are no mistakes,
no coincidences,
all events are blessings
given to us to learn from.
~Elizabeth Kubler-Ross~
I
have never met a person
whose greatest need was anything
other than real, unconditional love.
You can find it in a simple act
of kindness toward someone who needs help.
There is no mistaking love.
You feel it in your heart.
It is the common fiber of life,
the flame that heals our soul,
energizes our spirit and supplies
passion to our lives.
It is our connection to God
and to each other.
~Elisabeth Kubler-Ross~
People
are like stained glass windows:
they sparkle and shine when the sun is out,
but when the darkness sets in
their true beauty is revealed only if there is a light within.
~Elisabeth Kubler-Ross~
I
believe that we are solely responsible for our choices,
and we have to accept the consequences of every
deed, word, and thought throughout our lifetime.
~Elisabeth Kubler-Ross~
How
do the geese know when
to fly to the sun?
Who tells them the seasons?
How do we, humans,
know when it is time to move on?
As with the migrant birds,
so surely with us,
there is a voice within,
if only we would listen to it,
that tells us so certainly
when to go forth into the unknown.
~Elisabeth Kubler-Ross~
If
we make our goal to live a life of
compassion and unconditional love,
then the world will indeed become a garden
where all kinds of flowers can bloom
and grow.
~Elisabeth Kubler-Ross~
We need to teach the next generation of children
from Day One that they are responsible for their lives.
Mankind's greatest gift, also its greatest curse,
is that we have free choice.
We can make our choices built from love or from fear.
~Elizabeth Kubler-Ross~
Maggie Kuh
A healthy community is one
in which the elderly protect,
care for, love and assist
the younger ones
to provide continuity and hope.
~Maggie Kuh~
Rabbi Harold Kushner
God is like a mirror. The mirror never changes,
but everybody who looks at it sees something different.
~Rabbi Harold Kushner~
Harold S. Kushner
In the final analysis,
the questions of why bad things happen to good people
transmutes itself into some very different questions,
no longer asking why something happened,
but asking how we will respond,
what we intend to do now that it happened.
~Harold S. Kushner~
song playing....What the World Needs Now
Previous Quote Collection Back to Quote Index Next Quote Collection