Brainy Thoughts

“Time and money spent in helping men to do more for themselves is far better than mere giving.”

Attributed to Henry Ford (1863 - 1947)

Henry Ford was the founder of the Ford Motor Company and father of modern assembly lines used in mass production. His introduction of the Model T automobile revolutionized transportation and American industry. He was a prolific inventor and was awarded 161 U.S. patents. He is credited with “Fordism”, that is, the mass production of large numbers of inexpensive automobiles using the assembly line which would finish a car in 98 minutes, coupled with high wages for his workers—notably the $5.00 a day pay scale adopted in 1914. Ford, though poorly educated, had a global vision, with consumerism as the key to peace. His intense commitment to lowering costs resulted in many technical and business innovations, including a franchise system that put a dealership in every city in North America, and in major cities on six continents.

“No credit can be given for predicting rain - only for building arks.”

Louis V Gerstner, Jr.
Former CEO, IBM

“Some men are born with greatness, some men achieve greatness, and some men have greatness thrust upon them.”

William Shakespeare (1564-1616) English poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world’s pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England’s national poet. His surviving works consist of 38 plays, 154 sonnets, two long narrative poems, and several other poems. His plays have been translated into every major living language, and are performed more often than those of any other playwright.

“Anyone who considers protocol unimportant has never dealt with a cat.”

Robert Anson Heinlein (1907 - 1988) American novelist and science fiction writer. Often called “the dean of science fiction writers”, he is one of the most popular, influential, and controversial authors of “hard science fiction”.

“Courage is the capacity to go from failure to failure with increased enthusiasm!”

Paraphrased Winston Churchill

“The truth is merely a matter of fact whereas honesty is a question of attitude.”

Tim Maher-DeTroyer

“To be sure of hitting the target, shoot first, and call whatever you hit the target.”

Ashleigh Brilliant (Ashley Brilliant)

“You are neither right nor wrong because others agree with you. You are right because your facts are right.”

Warren Buffett (1930 - ) American investor, businessman and philanthropist.

He is regarded as one of the world’s greatest stock market investors, and is the largest shareholder and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway. With an estimated net worth of around US$62 billion, he was ranked by Forbes as the richest person in the world as of March 5, 2008.

Buffett is noted for his adherence to the value investing philosophy and for his personal frugality despite his immense wealth. His 2006 annual salary is about $100,000, which is on the low side of senior executive remuneration in other comparable companies, and when he spent $9.7 million of Berkshire’s funds on a business jet in 1989, he jokingly named it “The Indefensible” because of his past criticisms of such purchases by other CEOs. He lives in the same house in the central Dundee neighborhood of Omaha that he bought in 1958 for $31,500, today valued at around $700,000.

“The energy and anxiety that you invest in putting off an activity can consume more energy than is required to perform the activity.”

Jeff Davidson

“Problems are those things we see when we take our eyes off the goal.”

Author Unknown

“If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants.”

Sir Isaac Newton (1643 - 1727) English physicist, mathematician, astronomer, alchemist, inventor and natural philosopher. He is often regarded as the most influential scientist in history and is best known for discovering the Laws of Gravity.

“Life is an attitude. It’s what you choose to believe, always.”

Dr. Wayne Dyer (1940 -) American author and lecturer. His 1976 book Your Erroneous Zones has sold over 30 million copies and is one of the best-selling books of all time. It is said to have “brought humanistic ideas to the masses”

“Man cannot discover new oceans unless he has the courage to lose sight of the shore.”

André Gide (1869 - 1951) - French author and winner of the Nobel Prize in literature in 1947. Gide’s career ranged from its beginnings in the symbolist movement, to the advent of anticolonialism between the two World Wars.

“A rat, even if he gets out of the rat race, is still a rat”

Author Unknown

“A fool with a tool is still a fool”

Author Unknown

“You can choose your family but you can’t choose your friends. Or is it the other way around?”

Brainy Thought 2008

“Longevity, like intelligence or good looks, is largely a matter of heredity: choose your parents with care.”

Author: Edward Paul Abbey

“Nothing is true, but that which is simple.”

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749 - 1832) German writer of poetry, drama, literature, theology, humanism, and science.

“I long to accomplish great and noble tasks, but it is my chief duty to accomplish humble tasks as though they were great and noble. The world is moved along, not only by the mighty shoves of its heroes, but also by the aggregate of the tiny pushes of each honest worker.”

Helen Keller (1880 - 1968) American author, activist and lecturer. She was the first deafblind person to graduate from college.

“It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it.”

Original Author: Upton Sinclair
More recently used by Al Gore (born 1948) in the documentary movie “An Inconvenient Truth” 2006.

Al Gore was forty-fifth vice president of the United States, serving from 1993 to 2001 under President Bill Clinton. Gore was awarded the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize, which was shared by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, headed by Rajendra K. Pachauri (Delhi, India). The award was given “for their efforts to build up and disseminate greater knowledge about man-made climate change, and to lay the foundations for the measures that are needed to counteract such change” on October 12, 2007.

An Inconvenient Truth documents the evidence for anthropogenic global warming and warns of the consequences of people not making immediate changes to their behavior. In late July, it surpassed Bowling for Columbine as the third-highest-grossing documentary in U.S. history

“You get treated in life the way you teach people to treat you.”

Dr. Wayne Dyer (born 1940) Popular American author and lecturer.

Dyer spent much of his adolescence in an orphanage. He has a Doctorate of Education in counseling, and was a guidance counselor in Detroit at the high school level and a professor of counselor education at St. John’s University in New York.

“A baby is God’s opinion that the world should go on.”

Author: Carl August Sandburg (1878 - 1967) American poet, historian, novelist, journalist, biographer, and autobiographer. During the course of his career, Sandburg won two Pulitzer Prizes, one for his biography of Abraham Lincoln (Abraham Lincoln: The War Years) and one for his collection The Complete Poems of Carl Sandburg.

“No one lives long enough to learn everything they need to learn starting from scratch. To be successful, we absolutely, positively have to find people who have already paid the price to learn the things that we need to learn to achieve our goals.”

Brian Tracy

“It is preoccupation with possession, more than anything else, that prevents men from living freely and nobly.”

Bertrand Russell (1872 - 1970). British philosopher, historian, logician, mathematician, advocate for social reform, pacifist, and prominent rationalist.

“Hear and you forget; see and you remember; do and you understand.”

“See one, do one, teach one.”

Authors Unknown.

“Spoon feeding in the long-run teaches us nothing but the shape of the spoon.”

Edward Morgan Forster (1879 - 1970) was an English novelist, short story writer, and essayist.
He is known best for his ironic and well-plotted novels examining class difference and hypocrisy in early 20th-century British society.

“I find my mistakes interesting, my confusions even more so — they are like windows into my thinking.”

Author Unknown

“Courage is what it takes to stand up and speak, Courage is also what it takes to sit down and listen”

Sir Winston Churchill

“The era of procrastination, of half-measures, of soothing and baffling expedients, of delays, is coming to a close. In its place, we are entering a period of consequences.”

Sir Winston Churchill (30 November 1874 - 24 January 1965) was a British politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1940 to 1945 and again from 1951 to 1955. A noted statesman, orator and strategist, Churchill was also an officer in the British Army. He has been studied to a unique extent as part of modern British and world history. A prolific author, he won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1953 for his own historical writings.

“It is not the will to win that counts, it’s the will to prepare to win that makes all the difference.”

Author Unknown.

“If you think you are beaten, you are,
If you think you dare not, you don’t
If you like to win, but you think you can’t,
It is almost certain you won’t.

“Life’s battles don’t always go
To the stronger or faster man,
But soon or late the man who wins
Is the man WHO THINKS HE CAN!”

Author Unknown

“People are always blaming circumstances for what they are. I do not believe in circumstances. The people who get on in this world are the people who get up and look for the circumstances they want, and if they cannot find them, they make them.”

George Bernard Shaw

Irish dramatist, literary critic, and socialist. During his career Shaw wrote more than sixty plays. He was uniquely honoured by being awarded both a Nobel Prize (1925) for his contribution to literature and an Oscar (1938) for Pygmalion. He was a strong advocate for socialism and women’s rights, a vegetarian and teetotaller, and a harsh critic of formal education.

“Give a man a fish, and he will eat for today. Teach a man to fish, and he will eat for a lifetime. Teach a man to learn, and he will not always have to eat fish.”

Author Unknown.

“Chance favours the prepared mind”

Louis Pasteur (1822 - 1895) was a French chemist best known for his remarkable breakthroughs in microbiology. His experiments confirmed the germ theory of disease, also reducing mortality from puerperal fever (childbed), and he created the first vaccine for rabies. He is best known to the general public for showing how to stop milk and wine from going sour - this process came to be called pasteurization.

“What an odd thing tourism is. You fly off to a strange land, eagerly abandoning all the comforts of home, and then expend vast quantities of time and money in a largely futile attempt to recapture the comforts that you wouldn’t have lost if you hadn’t left home in the first place.”

Bill Bryson, OBE (1951 - ) is a best-selling American-born author of humorous books on travel, as well as books on the English language and on scientific subjects (A Short History of Nearly Everything). He has lived for most of his adult life in England.

“Thunder is impressive, but it is lightning that does the work.”

Mark Twain (1835 - 1910) (real name Samuel Langhorne Clemens), was an American humorist, satirist, writer, and lecturer. Twain is most noted for his novels Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, which has since been called the Great American Novel, and The Adventures of Tom Sawyer.

“The trouble with ignorance is that it picks up confidence as it goes along. “

Famous Quote, author unknown

“I know God will not give me anything I can’t handle. I just wish that He didn’t trust me so much.”

Mother Teresa, (1910 - 1997), was an Albanian Roman Catholic nun who founded the Missionaries of Charity and won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1979 for her humanitarian work.

For over forty years, she ministered to the needs of the poor, sick, orphaned, and dying of Calcutta (Kolkata). As her religious order grew she expanded her ministry to other countries. By the 1970s she had become internationally famed as a humanitarian and advocate for the poor and helpless, due in part to a documentary, and book Something Beautiful for God by Malcolm Muggeridge

“I am a little pencil in the hand of a writing God who is sending a love letter to the world.”
Brainy Quotes from Mother Teresa

“Do not wait for leaders; do it alone, person to person.”
Brainy Quotes from Mother Teresa

“The time for action is past! Now is the time for senseless bickering!”
Brainy Quotes by: Ashleigh Brilliant (Ashley Brilliant)

“My life has been greatly influenced by many books which I have never read.”
Brainy Quotes by: Ashleigh Brilliant (Ashley Brilliant)

“I am irrevocably committed to being permanently indecisive.”
Brainy Quotes by: Ashleigh Brilliant (Ashley Brilliant)

“I have you, you have me. At least one of us is lucky.”
Brainy Quotes by: Ashleigh Brilliant (Ashley Brilliant)

“Some of my troubles are so familiar, I know them by their first names.”
Brainy Quotes by: Ashleigh Brilliant (Ashley Brilliant)

“I arise in the morning torn between a desire to improve (or save) the world and a desire to enjoy (or savour) the world. This makes it hard to plan the day.”

Elwyn Brooks White (1899 - 1985) American essayist, author, humorist, poet and literary stylist.

“No fear, no surprise, no hesitation, no doubt.”

Miyamoto Musashi (1584 - 1645) also known as Shinmen Takezo, Miyamoto Bennosuke, or by his Buddhist name Niten Doraku, was a famous Japanese samurai.

Miyamoto Musashi is considered by many to have been one of the most skilled swordsmen in history. Musashi, as he is often simply known, became legendary through his outstanding swordsmanship in numerous duels, even from a very young age. He is the founder of the Hyoho Niten Ichi-ryu or Niten-ryu style of swordsmanship and wrote The Book of Five Rings, a book on strategy, tactics, and philosophy that is still studied today.

“If I’d asked people what they wanted, they would have asked for a better horse. “

Henry Ford

“Chop your own wood, and it will warm you twice.”

Henry Ford

Not only do I not know the answer, I have no idea what the question is!

Author Unknown

“Wealth, like happiness, is never attained when sought after directly. It comes as a by-product of providing a useful service.”

Attributed to Henry Ford (1863 - 1947)

Henry Ford was the founder of the Ford Motor Company and father of modern assembly lines used in mass production. His introduction of the Model T automobile revolutionized transportation and American industry. He was a prolific inventor and was awarded 161 U.S. patents. He is credited with “Fordism”, that is, the mass production of large numbers of inexpensive automobiles using the assembly line which would finish a car in 98 minutes, coupled with high wages for his workers notably the $5.00 a day pay scale adopted in 1914. Ford, though poorly educated, had a global vision, with consumerism as the key to peace. His intense commitment to lowering costs resulted in many technical and business innovations, including a franchise system that put a dealership in every city in North America, and in major cities on six continents.

“I am the master of my fate; I am the captain of my soul.”

William Ernest Henley (1849 - 1903). An English poet, critic and editor.

“To be without some of the things you want is an indispensable part of happiness.”

Bertrand Russell (1872 - 1970) British philosopher, logician, mathematician and advocate for social reform.

“A mind, once stretched by a new idea, never regains its original dimensions.”

Oliver Wendell Holmes

“Only the guy who isn’t rowing has time to rock the boat.”

Jean-Paul Sartre - French Philosopher (1905 - 1980)

“Don’t steal a police car unless you’re prepared to floor it all the way to Mexico.”

Author Unknown

“Everything that deceives may be said to enchant.”

Plato, The Republic (428BC - 348BC) was an ancient Greek philosopher, the second of the great trio of ancient Greeks (Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle) who between them laid the philosophical foundations of Western culture.

Edmund Burke in his speech to the Electors of Bristol during the 1774 election, on the duties of a Member of Parliament:

“Your representative owes you, not his industry only, but his judgment; and he betrays instead of serving you if he sacrifices it to your opinion.”

Edmund Burke (12 January 1729 - 9 July 1797) was an Anglo-Irish statesman, author, orator, political theorist, and philosopher, who served for many years in the British House of Commons as a member of the Whig party. He is chiefly remembered for his support of the American colonies in the dispute with King George III and Great Britain that led to the American Revolution and for his strong opposition to the French Revolution.

“Catch a man a fish, and you can sell it to him. Teach a man to fish, and you ruin a wonderful business opportunity.”

Author: Karl Heinrich Marx (May 5, 1818, Trier, Prussia - March 14, 1883, London) was a German philosopher, political economist, and revolutionary.

Marx addressed a wide range of issues; he is most famous for his analysis of history, summed up in the opening line of the introduction to the Communist Manifesto (1848): “The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles.” Marx believed that capitalism would be replaced by communism.

“I am that, you are that, all this is that, and that is all there is.”

Vedic Seer

“Without a rich heart, wealth is an ugly beggar.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson Ralph Waldo Emerson (May 25, 1803 - April 27, 1882) was an American essayist, poet, and leader of the Transcendentalist movement in the early nineteenth century.

“All matter is merely energy condensed to a slow vibration; We are all one consciousness experiencing itself subjectively. There’s no such thing as death, life is only a dream, and we’re the imagination of ourselves.”

Original author unknown. Used/publicised by William Melvin Hicks (Bill Hicks)

“Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.”

Soren Aabye Kierkegaard (5 May 1813 - 11 November 1855) Danish philosopher and theologian, considered to be a founder of existentialist thought.

“The ultimate test for the ability to control the quality of experience is what a person does in solitude, with no external demands to give structure to attention. To fill free time with activities that require concentration, that increase skills, that lead to a development of the self, is not the same as killing time by watching television or taking recreational drugs.”

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, From his book The Psychology of Optimal Experience

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi: born in 1934, is a psychology professor at Claremont Graduate University in Claremont, California and is the former head of the department of psychology at the University of Chicago and of the the department of sociology and anthropology at Lake Forest College. He is noted for his work in the study of happiness, creativity, subjective well-being, and fun, but is best known as the architect of the notion of flow and for his years of research and writing on the topic. He is the author of many books and over 120 articles or book chapters. Martin Seligman, former president of the American Psychological Association, described Csikszentmihalyi as the world’s leading researcher on positive psychology.[1] He is one of the most widely cited psychologists today, in a variety of fields related to psychology and business.

“He who grasps things loses them.”

Author: Lao Tzu

“Truth, like gold, is to be obtained not by its growth, but by washing away from it all that is not gold.”

Leo Tolstoy Quote: (September 9, 1828, November 20, 1910) Russian novelist, writer, essayist, philosopher, Christian anarchist, pacifist, educational reformer, vegetarian, and moral thinker.

Count Leo Tolstoy is widely regarded as one of the greatest of all novelists, particularly noted for his masterpieces War and Peace and Anna Karenina; in their scope, breadth and realistic depiction of Russian life, the two books stand at the peak of realistic fiction. As a moral philosopher he was notable for his ideas on nonviolent resistance through his work The Kingdom of God is Within You, which in turn influenced such twentieth-century figures as Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr.

“Why does it so often take a genius to see the obvious?”

Famous Quote by: Ashleigh Brilliant (Ashley Brilliant)

“Victorious warriors win first and then go to war, while defeated warriors go to war first and then seek to win.”
Sun Tzu quote

“If you know the enemy and know yourself you need not fear the results of a hundred battles.”
Sun Tzu quote

“Fanaticism consists of redoubling your efforts when you have forgotten your aim.”

George Santayana (December 16, 1863, Madrid, September 26, 1952, Rome). Philosopher, essayist, poet, and novelist.

“My opinions may have changed, but not the fact that I am right.”

“My sources are unreliable, but their information is fascinating.”

Ashleigh Ellwood Brilliant (born December 9, 1933 in London, England) is an author and syndicated cartoonist living in Santa Barbara, California. He is best known for Pot-Shots, a single-panel comic of illustrated one-liners, which began syndication in the United States in 1975.
More Ashley Brilliant Quotes here

“Your true value depends entirely on what you are compared with.”

“You’re not drunk if you can lie on the floor without holding on.”

Authors Unknown.

“As a solid rock is not shaken by the wind, so wise men are not moved amidst praise and blame.”

The Buddha

The Buddha (Siddhartha Gautama) was a spiritual teacher from ancient India and the historical founder of Buddhism. He is universally recognized by Buddhists as the Supreme Buddha of our age. The time of his birth and death are uncertain; most modern historians date his lifetime from 563 BCE to 483 BCE.

“The path of excess leads to the tower of wisdom”

William Blake (November 28, 1757, August 12, 1827) was an English poet, painter, and printmaker.

“Quality is never an accident; it is always the result of high intention, sincere effort, intelligent direction and skillful execution; it represents the wise choice of many alternatives.”

William A. Foster

“You can’t win a war against your brother.”

Brainythoughts.com 2006

“Those that make the worst use of their time are the first to complain of its shortness.”

Jean de La Bruysre

“Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever.”

Mohandas Karamchand “Mahatma” Gandhi (October 2 1869 - January 30 1948) was an advocate and pioneer of nonviolence. He led the struggle for India’s independence from British colonial rule.

“When you find yourself in a hole, stop digging”

Will Rogers (November 4, 1879, August 15, 1935) was an American comedian, humorist, social commentator, vaudeville performer, and actor.

“There are some oddities in the perspective with which we see the world. The fact that we live at the bottom of a deep gravity well, on the surface of a gas-covered planet going around a nuclear fireball 90 million miles away and think this to be normal is obviously some indication of how skewed our perspective tends to be.”

Douglas No�l Adams (March 11, 1952, May 11, 2001). British author, comic radio dramatist, and amateur musician. He is known most notably as author of the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy series.

Douglas Adams died of a heart attack at the age of 49 on Friday 11 May 2001, while working out at a private gym in California.

“Age is a very high price to pay for maturity.”

Anonymous

“A closed mouth gathers no foot.”

Anonymous

“You’ve got to think about the big things when you’re doing the small things so that all the small things go in the right direction.”

Alvin Toffler (born October 3, 1928) is an American writer and futurist, known for his works discussing the digital revolution, communications revolution, corporate revolution and technological singularity.

“Family are important, but climate has so much more to offer.”

Author: Unknown

“Luck affects everything. Let your hook always be cast; in the stream where you least expect it there will be fish.”

Publius Ovidius Naso (20 March 43 BC - AD 17) was a Roman poet known to the English-speaking world as Ovid, wrote on topics of love, abandoned women, and mythological transformations. Ranked alongside Virgil and Horace as one of the three canonical poets of Latin literature.

“Life’s big fallacy is security. There is none, ever. And I love that. I love the lack of security, of not knowing where the next buck’s going to come from. I love the need for adaptability. My kids can do anything they like as long as they don’t become lazy. If they become hoods, let them be the hardest working hoods around, not the footsoldiers.”

Alan Duff (b. 1950). New Zealand novelist (famous for Once Were Warriors), newspaper columnist, and polemicist. born and raised in a State housing area in Rotorua, New Zealand.

The Books in Homes scheme, launched in 1995 by Duff with commercial sponsorship and government support, aims to alleviate poverty and illiteracy by providing low-cost books to underprivileged children, thus encouraging them to read. In its first year alone it put about 180,000 new books in the hands of about 38,000 children.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Duff

“I’d rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy.”

Thomas Alan Waits (born December 7, 1949), American singer-songwriter, composer, and actor.

“Give me a lever long enough, and a place to stand and I will move the entire earth.”

Archimedes (C. 287 - 212 B.C.), ancient Greek mathematician, physicist, engineer, astronomer, and philosopher

Archimedes is creditied to have discovered the principles of density and buoyancy, also known as Archimedes’ principle, while taking a bath. The story goes that he then took to the streets naked, being so elated with his discovery that he forgot to dress, crying “Eureka!” (”I have found it!”).

“Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back, always ineffectiveness. Concerning all acts of initiative (and creation) there is one elementary truth, the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then Providence moves too. All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one’s favor all manner of unforeseen incidents and meetings and material assistance, which no man could have dreamed would have come his way. I have learned a deep respect for one of Goethe’s couplets:

“Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it.”
“

Author: William Hutchinson Murray (18 March 1913 - 19 March 1996), from the The Scottish Himalayan Expedition (1951)

“The noblest dog is the hot dog. It feeds the hand that bites it.”

“Television has changed the American child from an irresistible force into an immovable object.”

Laurence J Peter

“Enlightenment is always preceded by confusion”

Milton Hyland Erickson, MD (1901 - 1980) American psychiatrist and founding president of the American Society for Clinical Hypnosis

Milton Hyland Erickson was also a fellow of the American Psychiatric Association, the American Psychological Association, and the American Psychopathological Association. He is noted for his often unconventional approach to psychotherapy.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milton_H._Erickson

“Some problems are so complex that you have to be highly intelligent and well informed just to be undecided about them.”

Dr Laurence J. Peter (September 16, 1919 - January 12, 1990)

Laurence J. Peter was an educator and “hierarchiologist”, best known to the general public for the formulation of the Peter Principle, which states which states: “In a hierarchy every employee tends to rise to his level of incompetence”.

“When the winds of change come, some people build walls, others build windmills.”

Author: Brian Mayne

“Sometimes it’s very difficult to keep momentum when it’s you that you are following.”

Eva Mar�a Duarte de Per�n (also known as Evita) (May 7, 1919, July 26, 1952)

Eva Per�n was the second wife of Argentine President Juan Domingo Per�n (18951974) and the First Lady of Argentina from 1946 until her death in 1952. Though she was never an officially elected political figure, most scholars agree that by her husband’s second term in office she had come to exercise more power and influence within the government than anyone but her own husband.

Analysis paralysis is when the opportunity cost of decision analysis exceeds the benefits.

“Celebrate any progress. Don’t wait to get perfect.”

Ann McGee Cooper

“Grant me the strength to focus on the most important things, the clarity of thought to determine which things are important, and the energy to carry them out.”

Author: Brainy Thoughts, 2006

“A diamond is a piece of coal that stuck to the job.”

Thomas A. Edison

“I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.”

Thomas Alva Edison (February 11, 1847, October 18, 1931)

American inventor and businessman who developed many devices which greatly influenced life in the 20th century. Dubbed “The Wizard of Menlo Park” by a newspaper reporter, he was one of the first inventors to apply the principles of mass production to the process of invention, and can therefore be credited with the creation of the first industrial research laboratory. Some of the inventions credited to him were not completely original, but improvements of earlier inventions, or were actually created by his numerous employees working under his direction. Nevertheless, Edison is considered one of the most prolific inventors in history, holding 1,097 U.S. patents in his name, as well as many patents in the United Kingdom, France, and Germany.

Someone said to Voltaire, “Life is hard.” Voltaire replied, “Compared to what?”

Fran�ois-Marie Arouet (21 November 1694, 30 May 1778), better known by the pen name Voltaire, was a French Enlightenment writer, essayist, deist and philosopher.

Voltaire is known for his sharp wit, philosophical writings, and defense of civil liberties, including freedom of religion and the right to a fair trial. He was an outspoken supporter of social reform despite strict censorship laws in France and harsh penalties for those who broke them. A satirical polemicist, he frequently made use of his works to criticize Church dogma and the French institutions of his day. Voltaire is considered one of the most influential figures of his time.

“Never let your sense of morals prevent you from doing what is right.”

Author Unknown

“There can be no keener revelation of a society’s soul than the way in which it treats its children.”

Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela OM, CC, AC, QC (born July 18, 1918)

First President of South Africa to be elected in fully-representative democratic elections. Before his presidency he was a prominent anti-apartheid activist who, while imprisoned for 27 years, was involved in the planning of underground armed resistance activities. The armed struggle was, for Mandela, a last resort; he remained steadfastly committed to non-violence. Through his 27-year imprisonment, much of it spent in a cell on Robben Island, Mandela became the most widely-known figure in the struggle against South African apartheid. Although the apartheid regime and nations sympathetic to it considered him and the ANC to be terrorists, the armed struggle was an integral part of the overall campaign against apartheid. The switch in policy to that of reconciliation, which Mandela pursued upon his release in 1990, facilitated a peaceful transition to fully-representative democracy in South Africa.

Having received over a hundred awards over four decades, Mandela is currently a celebrated elder statesman who continues to voice his opinion on topical issues. In South Africa he is often known as Madiba, an honorary title adopted by elders of Mandela’s clan. The title has come to be synonymous with Nelson Mandela. Many South Africans also refer to him reverently as ‘mkhulu’ (grandfather).