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Frank Ball writing in his study

The quote library

Frankisms

Short truths, collected over a lifetime of writing and teaching. Read a few, or lose an afternoon.

Collected
224
  • “The lowest ebb is the turn of the tide. — Henry Wadsworth Longfellow”

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  • “The man who is incapable of making a mistake is incapable of anything. — Abraham Lincoln”

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  • “The man who makes no mistakes does not usually make anything. — Edward J. Phelps”

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  • “The meaning of the Bible must be known and understood if it is to make a difference in our lives. — Ronald Reagan”

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  • “The most powerful weapon on earth is the human soul on fire. — Ferdinand Foch”

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  • “The only people who make no mistakes are dead people. I saw a man last week who had not made a mistake for four thousand years. He was a mummy in the Egyptian department of the British Museum. — H. L. Wayland”

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  • “The problem is not to start writing, but to keep writing and renewing inspiration. — Robert McKee”

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  • “The reward of a thing well done, is to have done it. — Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882), Essays: Second Series. Nominalist and Realist”

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  • “The secret of getting ahead is getting started. The secret to getting started is breaking your complex overwhelming tasks into small manageable tasks and then starting on the first one. — Mark Twain”

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  • “The time to repair the roof is when the sun is shining. — John F. Kennedy”

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  • “The trouble with most people is they quit before they start. — Thomas Edison”

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  • “The way to gain a good reputation is to endeavor to be what you desire to appear. — Socrates”

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  • “The world is moving so fast these days that the man who says it can’t be done is generally interrupted by someone doing it. — Elbert Hubbard”

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  • “The worst thing in your life may contain seeds of the best. When you can see crisis as an opportunity, your life becomes not easier, but more satisfying. — Joe Kogel”

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  • “The Wright brothers flew right through the smoke screen of impossibility. — Charles F. Kettering”

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  • “There are no gains without pains. — Benjamin Franklin”

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  • “There are really only three types of people: those who make things happen, those who watch things happen, and those who say, What happened? — Ann Landers”

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  • “There is no comparison between that which is lost by not succeeding and that which is lost by not trying. — Francis Bacon”

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  • “There is no security in this life, only opportunity. — Douglas MacArthur”

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  • “There’s something ultimately unfulfilling about a promise of a “better you” that doesn’t involve pain and sacrifice. — Jeff Goins”

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  • “Those who bring sunshine to the lives of others cannot keep it from themselves. — James M. Barrie”

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  • “To be successful, you need to set yourself on fire. — Thomas Umstattd”

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  • “To change, you have to stop doing what you know how to do—and start doing something you don’t know how to do. — Ray Considine”

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

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  • “Trouble starts when we think too big. — Jane Anne Staw”

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  • “Until you’ve been in the battle, don’t tell me what the war is all about. — Dennis Hensley”

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  • “Use what talents you possess. The woods would be very silent if no birds sang there except those that sang best. — Henry Van Dyke”

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  • “Watch for big problems. They disguise big opportunities. — H. Jackson Brown Jr”

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  • “We all have possibilities we don’t know about. We can do things we don’t even dream we can do. — Dale Carnegie”

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  • “We can enrich ourselves, thereby enhancing our ability to continue to enrich others. We might as well get good at it. — Alan Weiss”

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  • “We don’t have time for everything. — Thomas Harris”

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  • “We don’t know who we are until we can see what we can do. — Martha Grimes”

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  • “We have to knock on a lot of wrong doors to find the right one. — Terry Burns”

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  • “We must not sit still and look for miracles. — John Eliot”

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  • “Well begun is half done. — Aristotle”

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  • “What costs little is valued less. — Miguel de Cervantes”

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  • “What we have to learn to do is lean into the things that hold us back, to move through the pain and push forward. — Jeff Goins”

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  • “What you did years ago doesn’t matter. What matters is what you do today. — Jeff Goins”

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  • “When good men die, their goodness does not perish. — Euripedes”

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  • “When it is dark enough, men see the stars. — Ralph Waldo Emerson”

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