Quotes About Impact

Nations are possessed with an insane ambition to perpetuate the memory of themselves by the amount of hammered stone they leave. What if equal pains were taken to smooth and polish their manners? One piece of good sense would be more memorable than a monument as high as the moon.

There are thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the root.

Behave so the aroma of your actions may enhance the general sweetness of the atmosphere.

Aim above morality. Be not simply good, be good for something.

Even music may be intoxicating. Such apparently slight causes destroyed Greece and Rome, and will destroy England and America.

We do not ride on the railroad; it rides upon us. Did you ever think what those sleepers are that underlie the railroad? Each one is a man, an Irishman, or a Yankee man. The rails are laid on them, and they are covered with sand, and the cars run smoothly over them. They are sound sleepers, I assure you. And every few years a new lot is laid down and run over; so that, if some have the pleasure of riding on a rail, others have the misfortune to be ridden upon.

I expect to pass through this world but once; any good thing therefore that I can do, or any kindness I can show to any fellow creature, let me do it now; let me not defer or neglect it for I shall not pass this way again.

An efficient and valuable man does what he can, whether the community pay him for it or not.

To affect the quality of the day, that is the highest of arts.

Nicht wir fahren auf den Eisenbahnschienen; die Eisenbahn fährt auf uns.

La meta de un buen gobierno es darle más valor a la vida; la de un mal gobierno, restarle valor.

To make a railroad round the world available to all mankind is equivalent to grading the whole surface of the planet.

I would not subtract anything from the praise that is due to philanthropy but merely demand justice for all who by their lives and works are a blessing to mankind.

To affect the quality of the day... that is the art of life.

I do not care to trace the course of my dollar, if I could, till it buys a man or a musket to shoot one with—the dollar is innocent—but I am concerned to trace the effects of my allegiance.

You will find, if you think for a moment, that the people who influence you are the people who believe in you.

I shall pass through this world but once. Any good therefore that I can do or any kindness that I can show to any human being, let me do it now. Let me not defer or neglect it, for I shall not pass this way again.

Any experiment that can benefit by one hairsbreadth any single human life is a thousand times worth trying.

You will find . . . that the people who influence you are people who believe in you.

the arrows of fortune ….. derive their force from the velocity with which they are discharged; for, when they approach you by slow and perceptible degrees, they have but very little power to do you mischief.

the belief that public works necessarily create new jobs is false. If the money was raised by taxation, we saw, then for every dollar that the government spent on public works one less dollar was spent by the taxpayers to meet their own wants, and for every public job created one private job was destroyed.

What inflation really does is to change the relationships of prices and costs.

Taxation for public housing destroys as many jobs in other lines as it creates in housing.

Inflation itself is a form of taxation. It is perhaps the worst possible form, which usually bears hardest on those least able to pay.