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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
1,993
  • Never spend your money before you have it. — Thomas Jefferson

    philosophy

  • Never tell people how to do things. Tell them what to do and they will surprise you with their ingenuity. — George S. Patton Jr

    philosophy

  • No Christian has ever been known to recant on his death bed. — C.M. Ward

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  • No matter how much you might like the ideal of loving yourself, in reality you may sometimes love yourself, and other times not. The attempts to change this are based on a myth: that people are obligated to love themselves. — Robert Fritz

    philosophy

  • No one can make you feel inferior without your consent. — Eleanor Roosevelt

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  • No one ever graduates from Bible study until he meets its Author face to face. — Everett Harris

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  • No person was ever honored for what he received. Honor has been the reward for what he gave. — Calvin Coolidge

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  • No warning can save a people determined to grow suddenly rich. — Lord Overstone

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  • Noble deeds that are concealed are most esteemed. — Blaise Pascal

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  • Noise proves nothing. Often a hen who has merely laid an egg cackles as if she laid an asteroid. — Mark Twain

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  • Not everything that is faced can be changed. But nothing can be changed until it is faced. — James Baldwin

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  • Nothing is easier than self-deceit. For what each man wishes, that he also believes to be true. — Demosthenes (384-322 BC), Third Olynthiac, sec 19

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  • Nothing is particularly hard if you divide it into small jobs. — Henry Ford

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  • Nothing will ever be attempted if all possible objections must first be removed. — Samuel Johnson

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  • Of all the systems of morality, ancient and modern, which have come under my observation, none appear so pure to me as that of Jesus. — Thomas Jefferson

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  • Oh, what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive! — Sir Walter Scott (1771–1832), Marmion, VI, introduction, st. 17

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  • One half of knowing what you want is knowing what you must give up before you get it. — Sidney Howard

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  • One of our biggest problems is rooted in our flawed belief that simply investing time in the things we care about will generate a positive return. — Jim Loehr

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  • One of the great disadvantages of hurry is that it takes such a long time. — G. K. Chesterton

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  • One of the most lasting pleasures you can experience is the feeling that comes over you when you genuinely forgive an enemy—whether he knows it or not. — O. A. Battista

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  • One thing I know: the only ones among you who will be really happy are those who will have sought and found how to serve. — Albert Schweitzer

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  • One thorn of experience is worth a whole wilderness of warning. — James Russell Lowell

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  • Order marches with weighty and measured strides; disorder is always in a hurry. — Napoleon Bonaparte

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  • Our culture is so individualistic and wired for success that we often miss the point of life. — Jeff Goins

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  • Our opinion of people depends less upon what we see in them than upon what they make us see in ourselves. — Sarah Grand

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  • Pain is what it took to teach me to pay attention. — Julia Cameron

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  • Patience is something you admire in the driver behind you and scorn in the one ahead. — Mac McCleary

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  • People are to be loved. Things are to be used. — Reuel Howe

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  • People don’t ask for facts in making up their minds. They would rather have one good, soul-satisfying emotion than a dozen facts. — Keith Leavitt

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  • People want to know how much you care before they care how much you know. — James F. Hind

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  • Perhaps the greatest barrier for any of us as we look for an expanded life is our own deeply held skepticism. — Julia Cameron

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  • Permission is the difference between pursuit and stalking. — Thomas Umstattd

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  • Prayer does not change God, but it changes him who prays. — Søren Kierkegaard, 1813–1855

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  • Prayer is like the turning on of an electric switch. It does not create the current. It simply provides a channel through which the electric current may flow. — Max Handel

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  • Rather than love, than money, than fame, give me truth. — Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862), Walden, 18, Conclusion

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  • Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one. — Albert Einstein

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  • Remember that time is money. — Benjamin Franklin (1706–1790), Advice to a Young Tradesman [1748]

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  • Satisfaction lies in the effort, not in the attainment. Full effort is full victory. — Mahatma Gandhi

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  • Satisfaction of one’s curiosity is one of the greatest sources of happiness in life. — Linus Pauling

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  • Science without religion is lame. Religion without science is blind. — Albert Einstein, 1879–1955

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