by Elizabeth M Young

Created on: August 18, 2009   Last Updated: August 19, 2009

I am a lover of quotations. These compact bits of wisdom offer so much when there is not time or opportunity to work our way around to an impressive set of words. There are quotations that express disapproval, praise, wonder, advice, philosophy, and spiritual guidance.

Some quotations offer the truth about people and history. Most of us believe that Rosa Parks only said that she was tired. That's why she sat in the front of the bus. At another time, she said that "The only tired I was, was tired of giving in."

The great quotations are so full of wit, sometimes sharp as a knife, that they cut to the fundamentals of a situation, aspect of life in general or a person in particular.

Dorothy Parker was a master of such quotations:

"I might repeat to myself slowly and soothingly, a list of quotations beautiful from minds profound - if I can remember any of the damn things. "

"If you want to know what God thinks of money, just look at the people he gave it to."

"I know that there are things that never have been funny, and never will be. And I know that ridicule may be a shield, but it is not a weapon."

"She runs the gamut of emotions from A to B."

I've always relished quotations that contained concentrated encouragement:

"No one can make you feel inferior without your consent. "
-Eleanor Roosevelt

"Friendship with oneself is all important because without it one cannot be friends with anybody else in the world."
-Eleanor Roosevelt

And I love a good combination of joke and advice to live it up a little, in the form of a witty quip. Mae West was the Queen of quip:

"Too much of a good thing can be wonderful."

"I used to be Snow White, but I drifted."

"Those who are easily shocked should be shocked more often."

Much of life's lessons are buried in the greatest of quotes. The lessons might seem to be on the surface, but there are deeper meanings, which make the great quotes readable again and again at different times in our lives.

The great Pearl Bailey truly gave us "pearls of wisdom".

"When we swallow a little knowledge of ourselves, it becomes either good or sour inside."

"My kitchen is a mystical place, a kind of temple for me. It is a place where the surfaces seem to have significance, where the sounds and odors carry meaning that transfers from the past and bridges to the future."

"A man without ambition is dead. A man with ambition but no love is dead. A man with ambition and love for his blessings here on earth is ever so alive. Having been alive, it won't be so hard in the end to lie down and rest."


And sometimes, the great spiritual uplifts that I need from time to time are beautifully encapsulated in very few words.


"I see God in every human being. When I wash the leper's wounds, I feel I am nursing the Lord himself. Is it not a beautiful experience?"
-Mother Theresa

I love great quotations as they are a form of shorthand for all of the interminable lectures that we have to sit through in life.

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