My Favourite Quotes for August 2025

I’ve always found that quotes, much like clichés, are little time capsules. They only reveal their real depth when you’ve lived enough to understand them.

When I was a child, my mum used to say, “You’ll understand when you grow up.” At the time, I’d scoff. Now, as I grow older, I see exactly what she meant.

Over the years, I’ve collected quotes , mostly tucked away in my memory. With the launch of this new website, I thought it would be the perfect moment to start keeping a record of them.

What I love is how a single line can capture something vast:

• Yuval Noah Harari once explained why Christianity and Islam spread so far compared to Judaism, Hinduism, or Taoism: they were missionary religions. That struck me as both obvious and profound.
• Vince Lombardi, the great football coach, was one of the first people I read who spoke with precision. His words on winning: habitual, relentless, uncompromising, stayed with me.
• Abraham Lincoln reminds us that today’s choices ripple far beyond today: doing the right thing now means doing it for all time.
• Kierkegaard cut straight to the truth of modern life: we demand free speech but often avoid the harder work of free thought.
• Peter Drucker’s wit and wisdom are evergreen: he could skewer gurus as charlatans one moment, then remind managers that they are society’s true leaders the next.
• Aldous Huxley showed me that experience is not what happens to us, but how we respond. From older generations I’ve learned both inspiration and warning signs, sometimes the lesson is simply “don’t be like that.”
• Woodrow Wilson once said, “Armed neutrality is ineffectual enough at best.” It echoes loudly when you think of today’s conflicts. It reminds me that broken systems can only be changed from the inside, by rising up and gaining the power to act.
• H.G. Wells perfectly captured our human tendency with the phrase: “Moral indignation is jealousy with a halo.”
• Jung taught me that the things that irritate us in others often reflect what we don’t like in ourselves. In recovery we say, “If you spot it, you got it.”
• Chekhov’s line, “Man is what he believes,” speaks directly to my own journey. For years I believed I was nothing. Now, I believe anything is possible, and that belief shapes reality.
• And then there are the practical reminders: Vidal Sassoon, Charlie Finley, Billy Graham: all insisting that hard work, sacrifice, and showing up consistently matter far more than cleverness or natural talent.

For me, quotes are not decoration. They are anchors, sparks, reminders. They help me frame both who I’ve been, and who I want to become.

The Quotes

• “When the white man came, we had the land and they had the Bibles; now they have the land and we have the Bibles.” — Dan George
• “Winning is not a sometime thing; it's an all time thing… Winning is habit. Unfortunately, so is losing.” — Vince Lombardi
• “The struggle of today, is not altogether for today—it is for a vast future also.” — Abraham Lincoln, 1861
• “People demand freedom of speech to make up for the freedom of thought which they avoid.” — Søren Kierkegaard
• “I have been saying for many years, that we are using the word ‘guru’ only because ‘charlatan’ is too long to fit into a headline.” — Peter F. Drucker
• “The fact is… in modern society there is no other leadership group but managers. If the managers of our major institutions, and especially of business, do not take responsibility for the common good, no one else can or will.” — Peter F. Drucker
• “Experience is not what happens to a man; it is what a man does with what happens to him.” — Aldous Huxley, Texts and Pretexts (1932)
• “Pray, n.: To ask that the laws of the universe be annulled in behalf of a single petitioner confessedly unworthy.” — Ambrose Bierce
• “The difference between a successful person and others is not a lack of strength, not a lack of knowledge, but rather a lack of will.” — Vince Lombardi
• “Armed neutrality is ineffectual enough at best.” — Woodrow Wilson, 1917
• “Sticks in a bundle are unbreakable.” — Kenyan proverb
• “Moral indignation is jealousy with a halo.” — H.G. Wells
• “Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves.” — Carl Jung
• “Man is what he believes.” — Anton Chekhov
• “I think there is a world market for maybe five computers.” — Thomas Watson, IBM, 1943
• “Success usually comes to those who are too busy to be looking for it.” — Henry David Thoreau
• “The only place where success comes before work is in the dictionary.” — Vidal Sassoon
• “Sweat plus sacrifice equals success.” — Charlie Finley
• “Only those who want everything done for them are bored.” — Billy Graham
• “Fear is that little darkroom where negatives are developed.” — Michael Pritchard