Great Throughts Treasury

This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.

Opportunity

"The Chinese use two brush strokes to write the word 'crisis.' One brush stroke stands for danger; the other for opportunity. In a crisis, be aware of the danger - but recognize the opportunity." -

"He that tears away a man's good name tears his flesh from his bones, and by letting him live gives him only a cruel opportunity of feeling his misery, of burying his better part and surviving himself." -

"No matter what happened to you in the past, your future is spotless. Realize that every dawn brings with it the corresponding opportunity to begin a completely new life." - Robin Sharma

"At the heart of all religions is the certainty that there is a fundamental truth, and that this life is a sacred opportunity to evolve and realize it." - Sogyal Rinpoche

"Opportunity is the best captain of all endeavor." - Sophocles NULL

"Effective people are not problem-minded; they're opportunity-minded. They feed portunities and starve problems." - Stephen Covey, fully Stephen Richards Covey

"An empowered organization is one in which individuals have the knowledge, skill, desire, and opportunity to personally succeed in a way that leads to collective organizational success." - Stephen Covey, fully Stephen Richards Covey

"I feel the responsibility of the occasion. Responsibility is proportionate to opportunity." - Woodrow Wilson, fully Thomas Woodrow Wilson

"Man can preserve a vestige of spiritual freedom, of independence of mind, even in such terrible conditions of psychic and physical stress... Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms - to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way. And there is always a choice to make. Every day, every hour, offered the opportunity to make a decision, a decision which determined whether you would or would not submit to those powers which threatened to rob you of your very self, your inner freedom; which determine whether or not you would become the plaything of circumstance, renouncing freedom and dignity to become molded into the form of the typical inmate" -

"An active life serves the purpose of giving man the opportunity to realize values in creative work, while a passive life of enjoyment affords him the opportunity to obtain fulfillment in experiencing beauty, art, or nature. But there is also purpose in that life which is almost barren of both creation and enjoyment and which admits of but one possibility of behavior: namely, in man's attitude to this existence, an existence restricted by external forces. A creative life and a life of enjoyment are banned to him. But not only creativeness and enjoyment are meaningful. If there is a meaning in life at all, then there must be a meaning in suffering. Suffering is an ineradicable part of life, even as fate as death. Without suffering and death human life cannot be complete." -

"Opportunity often makes the thief." - William Shakespeare

"Hiding your faults from others so they won’t correct you might save you from momentary unpleasantness, but you will remain with your faults... Fear of criticism stems from inferiority feelings... If you feel hurt by someone’s criticism, remember it is your choice to feel hurt. You can choose self-statements that allow you to feel grateful for the opportunity to improve yourself." - Zelig Pliskin

"Opportunity rarely knocks on your door. Knock rather on opportunity's door if you ardently wish to enter." -

"Creation is a continuing process... One meaning of our life, then, is the opportunity and challenge it presents to us for participation in the continuous process of creation - through discussion and cooperative work rather than conflict." - Chinua Achebe, formally Albert Chinụalụmọgụ Achebe

"Freedom means the opportunity to be what we never thought we would be. " - Daniel Boorstin, fully Daniel Joseph Boorstin

"Life and death are of supreme importance. Time swiftly passes by and opportunity is lost. Each of us should strive to awaken. Awaken. Take heed, do not squander your life." -

"We have overdeveloped the individualism that arose in a pioneer country. We are destined to become more co-operative, more collectivistic, and to find in this direction still greater opportunity for the individual, not so much restricted and defeated by competition but enlarged and enhanced by the support of a common will. It may be that the problem of material goods--of the necessary but yet external goods of food, clothing, shelter, and money-is about to be solved through new discoveries and developments, with the energies of men left freer than they have ever been to cultivate on higher levels the sharable goods of life, such as love and wisdom. These values grow with use and multiply by being freely shared." -

"The only opportunity you will ever have to live by faith is in the circumstances you are provided this very day: this house you live in, this family you find yourself in, this job you have been given, the weather conditions that prevail at the ...moment." - Eugene Peterson

"So never lose an opportunity of urging a practical beginning, however small, for it is wonderful how often in such matters the mustard-seed germinates and roots itself. " - Florence Nightingale

"Equal justice and equal opportunity are ideals we should seek, but we should recognize that humans administer the ideals and that humans do not have equal ability." - Frank Herbert, formally Franklin Patrick Herbert, Jr.

"Knowing that we can be loved exactly as we are gives us all the best opportunity for growing into the healthiest of people. " - Fred Rogers, "Mister Rogers," born Frederick McFeely Rogers

"Freedom is the opportunity to make decisions." - Geoffrey Francis Fisher

"Freedom is often for man no more than his opportunity to choose his own servitude." - Gustave Le Bon

"Remember, the storm is a good opportunity for the pine and the cypress to show their strength and their stability. " - Ho Chi Minh

"Time goes by so fast, people go in and out of your life. You must never miss the opportunity to tell these people how much they mean to you." - Isak Dinesen, pen name of Baroness Karen Blixen

"Awareness is observation without choice, condemnation, or justification. Awareness is silent observation from which there arises understanding without the experiencer and the experienced. In this awareness, which is passive, the problem or the cause is given an opportunity to unfold itself and so give its full significance. In awareness there is no end in view to be gained, and there is no becoming, the 'me' and the 'mine' not being given the continuity." - Jiddu Krishnamurti

"The American Dream is that dream of a land in which life should be better and richer and fuller for everyone, with opportunity for each according to ability or achievement. It is a difficult dream for the European upper classes to interpret adequately, and too many of us ourselves have grown weary and mistrustful of it. It is not a dream of motor cars and high wages merely, but a dream of social order in which each man and each woman shall be able to attain to the fullest stature of which they are innately capable, and be recognized by others for what they are, regardless of the fortuitous circumstances of birth or position." - James Truslow Adams

"Some tension is necessary for the soul to grow, and we can put that tension to good use. We can look for every opportunity to give and receive love, to appreciate nature, to heal our wounds and the wounds of others, to forgive, and to serve. " - Joan Borysenko

"The soul attracts that which it secretly harbors; that which it loves, and also that which it fears; it reaches the height of its cherished aspirations; it falls to the level of its unchastened desires. Every thought-seed sown or allowed to fall into the mind, and to take root there, produces its own, blossoming sooner or later into act, and bearing its own furtive of opportunity and circumstance. Good thoughts bear good fruit; bad thoughts, bad fruit." - James Allen

"The lure of the distant and the difficult is deceptive. The great opportunity is where you are. " - John Burroughs

"To find out what one is fitted to do, and to secure an opportunity to do it, is the key to happiness. " - John Dewey

"I believe in the dignity of labor, whether with head or hand; that the world owes no man a living but that it owes every man an opportunity to make a living. " - John D. Rockefeller, fully John Davidson Rockefeller I

"There is the greatest difference between presuming an opinion to be true, because, with every opportunity for contesting it, it has not been refuted, and assuming its truth for the purpose of not permitting its refutation. Complete liberty of contradicting and disproving our opinion is the very condition which justifies us in assuming its truth for purposes of action; and on no other terms can a being with human faculties have any rational assurance of being right." - John Stuart Mill

"The reward for work well done is the opportunity to do more. " - Jonas Salk

"He who dictates and formulates the words and phrases we use, he who is master of the press and radio, is master of the mind. Repeat mechanically your assumptions and suggestions, diminish the opportunity for communicating dissent and opposition. This is the formula for political conditioning of the masses." - Joost Meerloo. fully Joost Abraham Maurits Meerlo

"Democracy means the opportunity to be everyone's slave." - Karl Kraus

"Freedom is the opportunity to make decisions." - Kenneth Hildebrand

"Life and death are of supreme importance. Time swiftly passes by and opportunity is lost. Each of us should strive to awaken. Awaken. Take heed, do not squander your life." - Dōgen, aka Dōgen Kigen, Eihei Dōgen, titled as Dōgen Zenji NULL

"Do not miss the opportunity of offering even a single drop into the ocean of merit or a grain atop the mountain of the roots of beneficial activity. " - Dōgen, aka Dōgen Kigen, Eihei Dōgen, titled as Dōgen Zenji NULL

"The responsibility which rests upon man is proportional to the ability which he possesses and the opportunity which he faces. Perhaps that responsibility is no greater for him than was that of Notharctus or Eohippus or a trilobite, each in his own day, but because of man's unique abilities it is the greatest responsibility that has ever rested upon any of the earth's offspring. " - Kirtley Mather, fully Kirtley Fletcher Mathew

"Seven Laws of Salem: Give children the opportunity for self-discovery. [Give them a chance to discover themselves.] Make the children meet with triumph and defeat. [See to it that they experience both success and defeat.] Give the children the opportunity of self-effacement in the common cause. [See to it that they have the chance to forget themselves in the pursuit of a common cause.] Provide periods of silence. [See to it that there are periods of silence.] Train the imagination. [Train the imagination, the ability to participate and plan.] Make games important but not predominant. [Take sports and games seriously, but only as part of the whole.] Free the sons of the wealthy and powerful from the enervating sense of privilege. [Free them of the rich and influential parents and from the paralysing influence of wealth and privelege.] " - Kurt Hahn, fully Kurt Martin "the rod" Hahn

"The pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; the optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty." - L. P. Jacks, fully Lawrence Pearsall Jacks

"Luck? I don't know anything about luck. I've never banked on it, and I'm afraid of people who do. Luck to me is something else: Hard work -- and realizing what is opportunity and what isn't." - Lucille Ball, fully Lucille Désirée Ball

"Until justice is blind to color, until education is aware of race, until opportunity is unconcerned with the color of men's skins, emancipation will be a proclamation but not a fact." - Lyndon Johnson, fully Lyndon Baines Johnson, aka LBJ

"10 point formula for success: 1. Learn to remember names. Inefficiency at this point may indicate that your interest is not sufficiently outgoing. 2. Be a comfortable person so there is no strain in being with you. Be an old-shoe, old-hat kind of individual. 3. Acquire the quality of relaxed easy-going so that things do not ruffle you. 4. Don't be egotistical. Guard against the impression that you know it all. 5. Cultivate the quality of being interesting so people will get something of value from their association with you. 6. Study to get the "scratchy" elements out of your personality, even those of which you may be unconscious. 7. Sincerely attempt to heal, on an honest Christian basis, every msiunderstanding you have had or now have. Drain off your grievances. 8. Practice liking people until you learn to do so genuinely. 9. Never miss an opportunity to say a word of congratulation upon anyone's achievement, or express sympathy in sorrow or disappointment. 10. Give spiritual strength to people, and they will give genuine affection to you" - Lyndon Johnson, fully Lyndon Baines Johnson, aka LBJ

"Do not waste what remains of your life in speculating about your neighbors, unless with a view to some mutual benefit. To wonder what so-and-so is doing and why, or what he is saying, or thinking, or scheming -- in a word, anything that distracts you from fidelity to the ruler within you -- means a loss of opportunity for some other task." - Marcus Aurelius, Marcus Aurelius Antoninus Augustus

"At no time in life is there a lack of opportunity to rebuild and regroup." - Maggie Kuhn

"Nothing is so often irrevocably neglected as an opportunity of daily occurrence." - Maria Von Ebner-Eschenbach, or Marie von Ebner-Eschenbachová, Marie Freifrau von Ebner-Eschenbach

"Always acknowledge a fault. This will throw those in authority off their guard and give you an opportunity to commit more." - Mark Twain, pen name of Samuel Langhorne Clemens

"Annihilation has no terrors for me, because I have already tried it before I was born /a hundred million years /and I have suffered more in an hour, in this life, than I remember to have suffered in the whole hundred million years put together. There was a peace, a serenity, an absence of all sense of responsibility, an absence of worry, an absence of care, grief, perplexity; and the presence of a deep content and unbroken satisfaction in that hundred million years of holiday which I look back upon with a tender longing and with a grateful desire to resume, when the opportunity comes." - Mark Twain, pen name of Samuel Langhorne Clemens