Pearls of Wisdom

This story appears in the November 2004 issue of Entrepreneur. Subscribe »

Instead of having you listen to me this month, I want to share the wisdom of others who have far more worthy advice to offer. Here are a few of my favorite sayings:

"He that will not apply new remedies must expect new evils; for time is the greatest innovator."
Francis Bacon

" . . . the credit goes to the man who convinces the world, not to the man to whom the idea first occurs."
Sir Francis Darwin

"You see things, and you say, 'Why?' But I dream things that never were, and I say, 'Why not?'"
George Bernard Shaw

"Be not afraid of greatness: Some are born great, some achieve greatness and some have greatness thrust upon them."
William Shakespeare

"I was following a Nowhere Hunch,
A real dumb thing to do!
Everybody sometimes does it.
Even me. And even you.
Oh, you get so many hunches
that you don't know ever quite
if the right hunch is a wrong hunch!
Then the wrong hunch might be right!"
Dr. Seuss

"Life is both giving and receiving."
Mohawk Indian proverb

"Dreams are wiser than men."
Omaha Indian proverb

"There are no secrets. There is no mystery. There is only common sense."
Onondaga Indian proverb

"Experience is what we call the accumulation of our mistakes."
Yiddish folk saying

"The toughest thing about success is that you've got to keep on being a success."
Irving Berlin

"You may be disappointed if you fail, but you are doomed if you don't try."
Beverly Sills

"Opportunities are usually disguised as hard work, so most people don't recognize them."
Ann Landers

"A wise man changes his mind; a fool never will."
Spanish proverb

"America is a land of wonders in which everything is in constant motion and every change seems an improvement."
Alexis de Tocqueville

"Man is not the creature of circumstances. Circumstances are the creatures of men."
Benjamin Disraeli

"Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear-not absence of fear."
Mark Twain

"Opportunities do not come to those who wait. They are captured by those who attack."
General George S. Patton

"Only those who dare to fail miserably can achieve greatly."
Robert Kennedy

"A life spent making mistakes is not only more honorable, but more useful than a life spent doing nothing."
George Bernard Shaw

"If you think you can, you can. And if you think you can't, you're right."
Mary Kay Ash

"I think the one lesson I have learned is that there is no substitute for paying attention."
Diane Sawyer

"I believe in the adage: Hire people smarter than you, and get out of their way."
Howard Schultz, Starbucks Corp

"You either eat someone for lunch, or you can be lunch."
Scott McNealy, Sun Microsystems

"If one is lucky, a solitary fantasy can totally transform 1 million realities."
Maya Angelou