altruomics

The ideas of these minds may provide context to the principles of altruomics.

THE 4 WAY TEST
Of the things we think, say or do:
1. Is it the TRUTH?
2. Is it FAIR to all concerned?
3. Will it build GOODWILL and BETTER FRIENDSHIPS?
4. Will it be BENEFICIAL to all concerned?
- ROTARY INTERNATIONAL

"Life's Journey is not to arrive at the grave safely in a well preserved body, but rather to skid in sideways, totally worn out, shouting..Holy Shit!! What a Ride!!"
- ?

Be not afraid of growing slowly,
be afraid of standing still.
- ?

Luck is when preparation meets opportunity.
- ?

No act of kindness, no matter how small, is ever wasted.
- Aesop

Good acts are like good poems. One may easily get their drift, but they are not always rationally understood.
- Albert Einstein

Wisdom is not a product of schooling but of the lifelong attempt to acquire it.
- Albert Einstein

The only way to escape the corruption of praise is to go on working...There is nothing else.
- Albert Einstein

I have no special talents. I am only passionately curious.
- Albert Einstein

Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds. The mediocre mind is incapable of understanding the man who refuses to bow blindly to conventional prejudices and chooses instead to express his opinions courageously and honestly.
- Albert Einstein

Imagination is more important than knowledge.
- Albert Einstein

Concern for man himself and his fate must always be the chief interest of all technical endeavors... in order that the creations of our mind shall be a blessing and not a curse to mankind. Never forget this in the midst of your diagrams and equations.
- Albert Einstein

The years of searching in the dark for a truth that one feels but cannot express, the intense desire and the alternations of confidence and misgiving until one breaks through to clarity and understanding, are known only to him who has experienced them himself.
- Albert Einstein

Morality is not a fixed and stark system... It is a task never finished, something always present to guide our judgment and inspire our conduct.
- Albert Einstein

Whoever is careless with truth in small matters cannot be trusted in important affairs.
- Albert Einstein

Expect trouble as an inevitable part of life and repeat to yourself the most comforting words of all: "This, too, shall pass."
- Ann Landers

Happiness is the meaning and the purpose of life, the whole aim and end of human existence.
- Aristotle

Excellence is an art won by training and habituation. We do not act rightly because we have virtue or excellence, but we rather have those because we have acted rightly. We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit.
- Aristotle

Friends are an aid to the young, to guard them from error; to the elderly, to attend to their wants and to supplement their failing power of action; to those in the prime of life, to assist them to noble deeds.
- Aristotle

Character is that which reveals moral purpose, exposing the class of things a man chooses or avoids.
- Aristotle

The greatest virtues are those which are most useful to other persons.
- Aristotle

Good has two meanings: it means that which is good absolutely and that which is good for somebody.
- Aristotle

Men acquire a particular quality by constantly acting in a particular way.
- Aristotle

The arousing of prejudice, pity, anger, and similar emotions has nothing to do with the essential facts, but is merely a personal appeal to the man who is judging the case.
- Aristotle

The ideal man bears the accidents of life with dignity and grace, making the best of circumstances.
- Aristotle

When you counsel someone, you should appear to be reminding him of something he had forgotten, not of the light he was unable to see.
- Baltasar Gracian

When someone attaches unkindness to criticism, she's angry. Angry people need to criticize as an outlet for their anger. That's why you must reject unkind criticism. Unkind criticism is never part of a meaningful critique of you. Its purpose is not to teach or to help, its purpose is to punish.
- Barbara Sher

Life isn't supposed to be an all or nothing battle between misery and bliss. Life isn't supposed to be a battle at all. And when it comes to happiness, well, sometimes life is just okay, sometimes it's comfortable, sometimes wonderful, sometimes boring, sometimes unpleasant. When your day's not perfect, it's not a failure or a terrible loss. It's just another day.
- Barbara Sher

In the abundance of water
The fool is thirsty
- Bob Marley

We would accomplish many more things if we did not think of them as impossible.
- C. Malesherbes

To be able to practice five things everywhere under heaven constitutes perfect virtue. They are gravity, generosity of soul, sincerity, earnestness and kindness.
- Confucius

We have the need to be accepted and to be loved by others, but we cannot accept and love ourselves. The more self-love we have, the less we will experience self-abuse. Self-abuse comes from self-rejection, and self-rejection comes from having an image of what it means to be perfect and never measuring up to that ideal. Our image of perfection is the reason we reject ourselves the way we are, and why we don't accept others the way they are.
- Don Miguel Ruiz

Newborn ideas are fragile, like babies. They need nurturing, protecting, patience, loving, commitment. They require you to sit up with them at night, fret over their futures, watch them grow. And like babies, they can't be hurried. They unfurl and blossom in their own time.
- Doug Hall

All noise is waste. So cultivate quietness in your speech, in your thoughts, in your emotions. Speak habitually low. Wait for attention and then your low words will be charged with dynamite.
- Elbert Hubbard

To avoid criticism do nothing, say nothing, be nothing.
- Elbert Hubbard

A friend is a person who knows all about you--and still likes you.
- Elbert Hubbard

The happiness of this life depends less on what befalls you than the way in which you take it.
- Elbert Hubbard

Never explain--your friends don't need it, and your enemies won't believe you anyhow.
- Elbert Hubbard

The worst solitude is to be destitute of sincere friendship.
- Francis Bacon

The true way to render ourselves happy is to love our work and find in it our pleasure.
- Francoise de Motteville

Five minutes, just before going to sleep, given to a bit of directed imagination regarding achievement possibilities of the morrow, will steadily and increasingly bear fruit, particularly if all ideas of difficulty, worry or fear are resolutely ruled out and replaced by those of accomplishment and smiling courage.
- Fredrick Pierce

Creativity doesn't just leak away; it gets buried. Buried by years of looking for the one right answer in school, by hundreds of multiple choice tests and rigid lesson plans; buried by boring jobs, workplace politics, restrictive rules, and fear of failure, and it gets buried by our own definition of "noncreative." We don't need to learn how to be creative; we need to unlearn how to be uncreative!
- G. Lynne Snead and Joyce Wycoff

Optimists are right. So are pessimists. It's up to you to choose which you will be.
- Harvey Mackay

Think like a man of action, act like a man of thought.
- Henri Bergson

If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step in the music he hears, however measured or far away.
- Henry David Thoreau

When were the good and the brave ever in a majority?
- Henry David Thoreau

Did you ever hear of a man who had striven all his life faithfully and singly toward an object and in no measure obtained it? If a man constantly aspires, is he not elevated?
- Henry David Thoreau

Public opinion is a weak tyrant compared with our own private opinion. What a man thinks of himself, that it is which determines, or rather indicates, his fate.
- Henry David Thoreau

We cannot live only for ourselves. A thousand fibers connect us with our fellow-men; and along those fibers, as sympathetic threads, our actions run as causes, and they come back to us as effects.
- Herman Melville

Seize the day, and put the least possible trust in tomorrow.
- Horace

Happiness comes more from loving than being loved; and often when our affection seems wounded it is only our vanity bleeding. To love, and to be hurt often, and to love again--this is the brave and happy life.
- J.E. Buchrose

Success is not a destination that you ever reach. Success is the quality of your journey.
- Jennifer James

Always there will be, along the sidelines of life, inferior souls who throw mud at those whose attainments they do not quite understand. The man who really accomplishes doesn't pay attention to such detractors. If he did, he'd be on their level. He keeps an eye singled on the higher goal--and the mud never touches him.
- Jerome P. Fleishman

The measure of our future success and happiness will not be the quality of the cards we are dealt by unseen hands, but the poise and wisdom with which we play them. Choose to play each hand to the best of your ability without wasting the time or energy it takes to complain about either the cards or the dealer or the often unfair rules of the game. Play both the winning and the losing hands as best you can, then fold the cards and ante up for the next deal!
- Joe Klock

No man is old until regrets take place of dreams.
- John Barrymore

Fully to understand a grand and beautiful thought requires, perhaps, as much time as to conceive it.
- Joseph Joubert

A part of kindness consists in loving people more than they deserve.
- Joseph Joubert

All that is good in man lies in youthful feeling and mature thought.
- Joseph Joubert

Maturity is achieved when a person accepts life as full of tension; when he does not torment himself with childish guilt feelings, but avoids tragic adult sins; when he postpones immediate pleasures for the sake of long-term values... Our generation must be inspired to search for that maturity which will manifest itself in the qualities of tenacity, dependability, cooperativeness and the inner drive to work and sacrifice for a nobler future of mankind.
- Joshua L. Liebman

Say not, "I have found the truth," but rather, "I have found a truth."
- Kahlil Gibran

I have learned silence from the talkative, tolerance from the intolerant, and kindness from the unkind; yet strange, I am ungrateful to those teachers.
- Kahlil Gibran

We live only to discover beauty. All else is a form of waiting.
- Kahlil Gibran

The appearance of things changes according to the emotions, and thus we see magic and beauty in them, while the magic and beauty are really in ourselves.
- Kahlil Gibran

Iron rusts from disuse; stagnant water loses its purity and in cold weather becomes frozen; even so does inaction sap the vigor of the mind.
- Leonardo Da Vinci

Knowing when to keep your mouth shut is invariably more important than opening it at the right time.
- Malcolm Forbes

Always listen to a man when he describes the faults of others. Oft'times, most times, he's describing his own, revealing himself.
- Malcolm Forbes

All humanity is one undivided and indivisible family, and each one of us is responsible for the misdeeds of all the others.
- Mahatma Gandhi

How much more grievous are the consequences of anger than the causes of it.
- Marcus Aurelius

Very little is needed to make a happy life. It is all within yourself, in your way of thinking.
- Marcus Aurelius

Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you feel that you, too, can become great.
- Mark Twain

Never let formal education get in the way of your learning.
- Mark Twain

Let us live so that when we come to die even the undertaker will be sorry.
- Mark Twain

Great ideas start with completely unrealistic thoughts.
- Markus Mettler

I refuse to accept the idea that the "isness" of man's present nature makes him morally incapable of reaching up for the "oughtness" that forever confronts him.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.

Nothing in all the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientiousness stupidity.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.

Creativity is inventing, experimenting, growing, taking risks, breaking rules, making mistakes, and having fun.
- Mary Lou Cook

Each of us is born with two contradictory sets of instructions: a conservative tendency, made up of instincts for self-preservation, self-aggrandizement, and saving energy, and an expansive tendency made up of instincts for exploring, for enjoying novelty and risk--the curiosity that leads to creativity belongs to this set. But whereas the first tendency requires little encouragement or support from outside to motivate behavior, the second can wilt if not cultivated. If too few opportunities for curiosity are available, if too many obstacles are put in the way of risk and exploration, the motivation to engage in creative behavior is easily extinguished.
- Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

CAUTION: Nietzsche, although having extremely perceptive ideas, must be examined with the understanding that he had a very pessimistic viewpoint.
With that awareness, one can draw inspiration, or at least insightful thoughts, from the most negative opinions, be it Nietzche or your coworker.

There are no facts, only interpretations.
- Nietzsche

Whoever has overthrown an existing law of custom has always first been accounted a bad man: but when, as did happen, the law could not afterwards be reinstated and this fact was accepted, the predicate gradually changed; - history treats almost exclusively of these bad men who subsequently became good men!
- Nietzsche

It is not things, but opinions about things that have absolutely no existence, which have so deranged mankind!
- Nietzsche

People who comprehend a thing to its very depths rarely stay faithful to it forever. For they have brought its depths into the light of day: and in the depths there is always much that is unpleasant to see.
- Nietzsche

Life's blows cannot break a person whose spirit is warmed at the fire of enthusiasm.
- Norman Vincent Peale

Always forgive your enemies; nothing annoys them so much.
- Oscar Wilde

Ability and necessity dwell near each other.
- Pythagoras

There are two kinds of failures: The man who will do nothing he is told, and the man who will do nothing else.
- Perle Thompson

To laugh often and love much; to win the respect of intelligent persons and the affection of children, to earn the approbation of honest critics; to appreciate beauty; to give of one's self, to leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch or a redeemed social condition; to have played and laughed with enthusiasm and sung with exultation; to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived--that is to have succeeded.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

Our greatest glory is not in never failing, but in rising up every time we fail.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

It is one of the blessings of old friends that you can afford to be stupid with them.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

A friend is a person with whom I may be sincere. Before him, I may think aloud.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

Self-trust is the first secret of success.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

Adopt the pace of nature, her secret is patience.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

Passion, though(t) a bad regulator, is a powerful spring.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

I wish to say what I think and feel today, with the proviso that tomorrow perhaps I shall contradict it all.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

As to methods there may be a million and then some, but the principles are few. The man who grasps principles can successfully select his own methods. The man who tries methods, ignoring principles, is sure to have trouble.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

When a man is pushed, tormented, defeated, he has a chance to learn something.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

The things taught in schools and colleges are not an education, but the means of education.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

In every man there is something wherein I may learn of him, and in that I am his pupil.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

It is easy in the world to live after the world's opinion--it is easy in solitude to live after your own; but the great man is he who, in the midst of the world, keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

The greatest difficulty is that men do not think enough of themselves, do not consider what it is that they are sacrificing when they follow in a herd, or when they cater for their establishment...A man should learn to detect and foster that gleam of light which flashes across his mind from within far more than the luster of the whole firmament without. Yet he dismisses without notice his peculiar thought because it is peculiar. The time will come when he will postpone all acquired knowledge to this spontaneous wisdom, and will watch for this illumination more than those who watch for morning.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

For every minute you remain angry, you give up sixty seconds of peace of mind.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

It is one of the most beautiful compensations of this life that no man can sincerely try to help another without helping himself.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

Wisdom is like electricity. There is no permanently wise man, but men capable of wisdom, who, being put into certain company, or other favorable conditions, become wise for a while, as glasses being rubbed acquire electric power for a while.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

The music that can deepest reach,
And cure all ill, is cordial speech.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

Happiness is a perfume you cannot pour on others without getting a few drops on yourself.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

The search for someone to blame is always successful.
- Robert Half

Giving people a little more than they expect is a good way to get back more than you'd expect.
- Robert Half

No one is more definite about the solution than the one who doesn't understand the problem.
- Robert Half

We must live with the possibility that decisions made in good faith will turn out to be disasters. If so, then the movement of grace will consist in providing enough power to turn even a disaster toward good and useful ends.
- Robert McAfee Brown

...conflict is the primary engine of creativity and innovation. People don't learn by staring into a mirror; people learn by encountering difference.
- Ronald Heifetz

Remember, happiness is a way of travel, not a destination.
- Roy Goodman

Happiness and misery depend not on how high up or low down you are--they depend not upon these, but on the direction in which you are tending.
- Samuel Butler

It is more from carelessness about the truth than from intentional lying that there is so much falsehood in the world.
- Samuel Johnson

...start thinking of yourself as an artist and your life as a work-in-progress. Works-in-progress are never perfect. But changes can be made...Art evolves. So does life. Art is never stagnant. Neither is life. The beautiful, authentic life you are creating for yourself is your art. It's the highest art.
- Sarah Ban Breathnach

It's my rule never to lose me temper till it would be detrimental to keep it.
- Sean O'Casey

But men do not live only by fighting evils. They live by positive goals, individual and collective, a vast variety of them, seldom predictable, at times incompatible.
- Sir Isaiah Berlin

Those who bring sunshine to the lives of others cannot keep it from themselves.
- Sir James Barrie

There's no thrill in easy sailing when the skies are clear and blue,
there's no joy in merely doing things which any one can do.
But there is some satisfaction that is mighty sweet to take,
when you reach a destination that you thought you'd never make.
- Spirella

Seek first to understand, then to be understood.
- Steven Covey

Within us all there are wells of thought and dynamos of energy which are not suspected until emergencies arise. Then oftentimes we find that it is comparatively simple to double or treble our former capacities and to amaze ourselves by the results achieved. Quotas, when set up for us by others, are challenges which goad us on to surpass ourselves. The outstanding leaders of every age are those who set up their own quotas and constantly achieve them.
- Thomas J. Watson

Censure is often useful, praise often deceitful.
- Winston Churchill

An optimist sees an opportunity in every calamity; a pessimist sees a calamity in every opportunity.
- Winston Churchill

When you cannot make up your mind which of two evenly balanced course of action your should take--choose the bolder.
- W.J. Slim

Don’t speak unless you can improve on the silence
- Anonymous?