Tag Archives: wisdom

Life advice from Anya Hindmarch, Stephen Fry, Joanna Lumley – A Few Wise Words

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There are two types of people in this world: those who think they know everything, and everyone else. The everyone else read great books like this and implement it into their lives. Compiled and edited by Peter Mukherjee, this book is the inspiration we all need after a tough year.

The contributors are a rich and varied bunch. There is something here for everyone. A Few Wise Words is an essential guide on conquering challenges and becoming successful. This book would make a perfect Christmas present. I cannot recommend it enough.
‘I was once told that I had three strikes against me – I was black, I was a girl and I was poor. But I was also raised to believe that I could do whatever I wanted and whatever I set my mind to achieve.’

Ursula Burns – US business leader, former CEO of Xerox

 

‘Almost everyone I have known that has found fulfilment in life, was invariably shocked

to discover that hard work is actually what they want to do, and is an

extraordinary pleasure and the most fulfilling of all things.’

Stephen Fry – Actor, television personality and writer

 

‘I do think that opportunities come along all the time for all of us, and you have

got to be ready to seize them when they do. ‘

Sir Keith Mills – Founder of Air Miles and Nectar Card

 

‘Success is often about how you deal with failure. When something goes seriously wrong, you can either give up or you can dig deep, recover your self-belief, and focus once more upon your goal. It’s all about your attitude and being positive, even when everything sometimes seems stacked against you.’

Tanni, Baroness Grey-Thompson – Politician, TV presenter and former Paralympic champion

 

 

In order to find success, we first need to find our direction…

 

When we are young, the greatest challenge we face is knowing how to find our initial direction. Where do we look? What exactly are we looking for? What talents do we have? When we are older and our journey is already underway, the questions change. How can we become the very best version of ourselves? How can we improve our game and move up? What resources can we tap into to help us?

 

A Few Wise Words is jam-packed with wisdom and advice from twenty-two exceptional individuals, all of whom have already achieved extraordinary success in their own lives. This book has been crafted to present the ultimate travelling companion and guide for our journey, enabling us to plan carefully for what lies ahead, learn how to find our passion, and discover our motivation. It will then help us to move forward with confidence and a clear understanding of what we need to do next. There are, of course, many routes that can lead to success and this book can help anyone to explore which path is the right one for them.

 

In this book – the first volume of a series – each contributor has their own unique chapter in which they define what success has meant for them, what their own journey was like, and how they managed to conquer the many challenges they had to confront along the way. Each then shares in a clear and easy to follow way, what they believe are the most important values, disciplines and actions that we should take, to enable us to successfully negotiate our own special and unique journey. Additional guidance is also provided for parents, covering the crucial role that they can play to prepare their children early, while enabling them to ‘hit the ground running’ when the serious part of their journey begins in earnest later on.

 

Compiled and edited by Peter Mukherjee, A Few Wise Words delivers a rich and varied collection of personal insights, knowledge, and advice from this exceptional group of individuals, all of whom are willing to share what they believe will enable any one of us to find our success, purpose and happiness in life. It will guide any young person, young adult or indeed, any person who has aspirations to do well in life, on how to get started and then how to stay on track. It is a book we can dip in and out of at any time during our journey for inspiration, advice and the guidance we need.

 

Contributor Chapters

 

Sir Ben Ainslie • Frank Arnesen • Zak Brown • Ursula Burns • Sir Roger Carr • Sherry Coutu • Pablo Ettinger

Mikhail Fridman • Stephen Fry • Dame Katherine Grainger • Tanni, Baroness Grey-Thompson • Anya Hindmarch

Declan Kelly • Martha, Baroness Lane-Fox • Joanna Lumley • Dame Carolyn McCall • Sir Keith Mills • Vin Murria

Danielle de Niese • Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks • Shriti Vadera • Sir Clive Woodward

 

A Few Wise Words is out on 16th November and available from Amazon and leading booksellers. www.afewwisewords.com

 

Quotes About Marriage

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The problem with marriage is that it ends every night after making love, and it must be rebuilt every morning before breakfast. – Gabriel García Márquez.
quotesonmarriage
Believing in marriage and not in divorce is like believing in joint stock companies and not in bankruptcy. – Neil Ferguson

 

Marriage is a wonderful institution, but who wants to live in an institution? – Groucho Marx

 

Where there’s marriage without love, there will be love without marriage. – Benjamin Franklin

 

If I get married, I want to be very married. – Audrey Hepburn

 

When you make the sacrifice in marriage, you’re sacrificing not to each other but to unity in a relationship. – Joseph Campbell

 

When marrying, ask yourself this question: Do you believe that you will be able to converse well with this person into your old age? Everything else in marriage is transitory. – Friedrich Nietzsche

 

Every good relationship, especially marriage, is based on respect. If it’s not based on respect, nothing that appears to be good will last very long. – Amy Grant

 

I love being married. It’s so great to find that one special person you want to annoy for the rest of your life. – Rita Rudner

 

My most brilliant achievement was my ability to be able to persuade my wife to marry me. – Winston Churchill

 

Let the wife make the husband glad to come home, and let him make her sorry to see him leave.
– Martin Luther

 

Don’t marry the person you think you can live with; marry only the individual you think you can’t live without. – James C. Dobson

 

It is not a lack of love, but a lack of friendship that makes unhappy marriages. – Friedrich Nietzsche

 

Let us now set forth one of the fundamental truths about marriage: the wife is in charge. – Bill Cosby

 

Do you know what it means to come home at night to a woman who’ll give you a little love, a little affection, a little tenderness? It means you’re in the wrong house, that’s what it means.- Henny Youngman

 

One advantage of marriage is that, when you fall out of love with him or he falls out of love with you, it keeps you together until you fall in again. – Judith Viorst

 

To keep your marriage brimming, With love in the loving cup, Whenever you’re wrong, admit it; Whenever you’re right, shut up. – Ogden Nash

 

If you want to sacrifice the admiration of many men for the criticism of one, go ahead, get married. – Katharine Hepburn

 

I’d marry again if I found a man who had fifteen million dollars, would sign over half to me, and guarantee that he’d be dead within a year. – Bette Davis

 

Never get married in college; it’s hard to get a start if a prospective employer finds you’ve already made one mistake. – Elbert Hubbard

 

A good husband makes a good wife. – John Florio

 

Marrying an old bachelor is like buying second-hand furniture. – H. Jackson Brown, Jr.

 

When a man steals your wife, there is no better revenge than to let him keep her. – Sacha Guitry

 

For years my wedding ring has done its job. It has led me not into temptation. It has reminded my husband numerous times at parties that it’s time to go home. It has been a source of relief to a dinner companion. It has been a status symbol in the maternity ward. – Erma Bombeck

 

Bachelors have consciences, married men have wives. – Samuel Johnson

 

Love: A temporary insanity curable by marriage. – Ambrose Bierce

 

Marriage is an adventure, like going to war. – Gilbert K. Chesterton

 

When a man opens a car door for his wife, it’s either a new car or a new wife. – Prince Philip

 

Men have a much better time of it than women. For one thing, they marry later; for another thing, they die earlier. – H. L. Mencken

 

There is nothing nobler or more admirable than when two people who see eye to eye keep house as man and wife, confounding their enemies and delighting their friends. – Homer

 

The first time you marry for love, the second for money, and the third for companionship. – Jackie Kennedy

 

There were three of us in this marriage, so it was a bit crowded. – Princess Diana

 

Marriage is a series of desperate arguments people feel passionately about. – Katharine Hepburn

 

The true index of a man’s character is the health of his wife. – Cyril Connolly

 

Maya Angelou Quotes

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One of my favourite books is I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou. In fact, Maya Angelou is one of my favourite writers full stop. She has had an amazing life and has overcame so many obstacles. She truly is an inspiring person so I thought I would source some of her quotes for you. I hope they add to your life in the same way they did mine.

Maya_Angelou quotes

‘There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.’

 

‘You can’t forgive without loving. And I don’t mean sentimentality. I don’t mean mush. I mean having enough courage to stand up and say, ‘I forgive. I’m finished with it.’

 

‘All great achievements require time.’

 

‘Bitterness is like cancer. It eats upon the host. But anger is like fire. It burns it all clean.’

 

‘Love recognizes no barriers. It jumps hurdles, leaps fences, penetrates walls to arrive at its destination full of hope.’

 

‘My great hope is to laugh as much as I cry; to get my work done and try to love somebody and have the courage to accept the love in return.’

 

‘No sun outlasts its sunset but will rise again and bring the dawn.’

 

‘I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.’

 

‘A wise woman wishes to be no one’s enemy; a wise woman refuses to be anyone’s victim.’

 

‘You may not control all the events that happen to you, but you can decide not to be reduced by them.’

 

‘If you don’t like something, change it. If you can’t change it, change your attitude. Don’t complain.’

 

‘When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time.’

 

‘Whatever you want to do, if you want to be great at it, you have to love it and be able to make sacrifices for it.’

 

‘I work very hard, and I play very hard. I’m grateful for life. And I live it – I believe life loves the liver of life. Live it.’

 

‘When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time.’

 

‘I’ve learned that you shouldn’t go through life with a catcher’s mitt on both hands; you need to be able to throw something back.’

 

‘Courage is the most important of all the virtues, because without courage you can’t practice any other virtue consistently. You can practice any virtue erratically, but nothing consistently without courage.’

 

‘We have to confront ourselves. Do we like what we see in the mirror? And, according to our light, according to our understanding, according to our courage, we will have to say yea or nay – and rise!’

 

‘My mother said I must always be tolerant of ignorance but understanding of illiteracy. That some people, unable to go to school, were more educated and more intelligent than college professors.’

 

‘Nothing will work unless you do.’

 

‘I learned a long time ago the wisest thing I can do is be on my own side, be an advocate for myself and others like me.’

 

‘It’s one of the greatest gifts you can give yourself, to forgive. Forgive everybody.’

 

‘I’ve learned that you shouldn’t go through life with a catcher’s mitt on both hands; you need to be able to throw something back.’

 

‘We may encounter many defeats but we must not be defeated.’

 

‘Music was my refuge. I could crawl into the space between the notes and curl my back to loneliness.’

 

‘One isn’t necessarily born with courage, but one is born with potential. Without courage, we cannot practice any other virtue with consistency. We can’t be kind, true, merciful, generous, or honest.’

 

 

Gore Vidal Dies: His Greatest Quotes

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Gore Vidal died yesterday at the age of 86. Frost has gathered some great quotes, a story and a video of his wit and genius. Enjoy and RIP Gore. The New York Times’s brilliant obituary has this gem:

In 1968, while covering the Democratic National Convention on television, he called William F. Buckley a “cryptofascist.” Buckley responded by calling Mr. Vidal a “queer,” and the two were in court for years. In a 1971 essay he compared Norman Mailer to Charles Manson, and a few months later Mailer head-butted him in the green room while the two were waiting to appear on the Dick Cavett show. They then took their quarrel on the air in a memorable exchange that ended with Mr. Cavett’s telling Mailer to take a piece of paper on the table in front of them and “fold it five ways and put it where the moon don’t shine.” In 1975 Mr. Vidal sued Truman Capote for libel after Capote wrote that Mr. Vidal had been thrown out of the Kennedy White House. Mr. Vidal won a grudging apology.


“As the age of television progresses the Reagans will be the rule, not the exception. To be perfect for television is all a President has to be these days.”

“A good deed never goes unpunished.”

“All children alarm their parents, if only because you are forever expecting to encounter yourself.”

“Andy Warhol is the only genius I’ve ever known with an IQ of 60”

“There is no human problem which could not be solved if people would simply do as I advise.”

“Sex is. There is nothing more to be done about it. Sex builds no roads, writes no novels and sex certainly gives no meaning to anything in life but itself.”

“The more money an American accumulates, the less interesting he becomes.”

“The four most beautiful words in our common language: I told you so.”

“Congress no longer declares war or makes budgets. So that’s the end of the constitution as a working machine.”

“We should stop going around babbling about how we’re the greatest democracy on earth, when we’re not even a democracy. We are a sort of militarised republic.”

“Think of the earth as a living organism that is being attacked by billions of bacteria whose numbers double every forty years. Either the host dies, or the virus dies, or both die.”

“There is no such thing as a homosexual or a heterosexual person. There are only homo- or heterosexual acts. Most people are a mixture of impulses if not practices.”

“Apparently, a democracy is a place where numerous elections are held at great cost without issues and with interchangeable candidates.”

“Fifty percent of people won’t vote, and fifty percent don’t read newspapers. I hope it’s the same fifty percent.”

“I never miss a chance to have sex or appear on television.”

“It is not enough to succeed. Others must fail.”

“A narcissist is someone better looking than you are.”

“Any American who is prepared to run for president should automatically by definition be disqualified from ever doing so.”

“Democracy is supposed to give you the feeling of choice like, Painkiller X and Painkiller Y. But they’re both just aspirin.”

“Envy is the central fact of American life.”

“Every time a friend succeeds, I die a little.”

“Some writers take to drink, others take to audiences.”

“The genius of our ruling class is that it has kept a majority of the people from ever questioning the inequity of a system where most people drudge along, paying heavy taxes for which they get nothing in return”

“Style is knowing who you are, what you want to say, and not giving a damn.”

And check out this great video: