F

Facts
It beareth the name of Vanity Fair, because the town where it is kept is higher than vanity.
BUNYAN, JOHN
Facts alone are wanted in life.
DICKENS, CHARLES
None but the brave deserves the fair.
DRYDEN, JOHN
Wonders will never cease.
DUDLEY, SIR HENRY BATE
The tide turns at low water as well as at high.
ELLIS, HENRY HAVELOCK
The axis of the earth sticks out visibly through the centre of each and every town or city.
HOLMES, OLIVER WENDELL
The miser is always in want.
HORACE
An old and haughty nation proud in arms.
MILTON, JOHN
It will be Eclipse first, the rest nowhere.
O’KELLY, DENNIS
You will go most safely in the middle.
OVID
We know what we are, but know not what we may be.
SHAKESPEARE, WILLIAM
Two stars keep not their motion in one sphere.
SHAKESPEARE, WILLIAM
Smooth runs the water where the brook is deep.
SHAKESPEARE, WILLIAM
The daintiest last, to make the end most sweet.
SHAKESPEARE, WILLIAM
A man is like a phonograph with a half a dozen records. You soon get tired of them all; and yet you have to sit at table whilst he reels them off to every new visitor.
SHAW, GEORGE BERNARD
Sensations sweet
Felt in the blood, and felt along the heart.
WORDSWORTH, WILLIAM
Procrastination is the thief of time.
YOUNG, EDWARD
Failure
Failed the bright promise of your early day!
HEBER, REGINALD
Look in my face: my name is Might have-been;
I am also called No-more, Too-late, Farewell.
ROSETTI, DANTE GABRIEL
We are all of us failure—at least, the best of us are.
James Matthew Barrie
I never blame failure—there are too many complicated situations in life—but I am absolutely merciless towards lack of effort.
F. Scott Fizgerald
One who fears failure limits his activities. Failure is only the opportunity to more intelligently begin again.
Henry Ford
Not failure, but low aim, is crime.
James Russell Lowell
It is hard to fail, but it is worse never to have tried to succeed.
Theodore Roosevelt
Ambition is the last refuge of the failure.
Oscar Wilde
Faith
I am convinced that we have a degree of delight, and that no small one, in the real misfortunes and pains of others.
BURKE, EDMUND
Such as do build their faith upon the holy text of pike and gun.
BUTLER, SAMUEL
A fellow-feeling makes one wondrous kind.
GARRICK, DAVID
What of the faith and fire within us
Men who march away ?
HARDY, THOMAS
But thinks, admitted to that equal sky,
His faithful dog shall bear him company.
POPE, ALEXANDER
He wears his faith but as the fashion of his hat.
SHAKESPEARE, WILLIAM
The will of the gods was otherwise.
VIRGIL
Hinduism, as a faith, is vague, amorphous, many-sided, all things to all men.
Jawaharlal Nehru
When you repose faith and trust in God, there is room for hope. If you have no faith, then you go about blaming others and God for all the ills of humankind.
Anonymous
By faith you shall be free and go beyond the world of death.
Sutta Nipata
You must not lose faith in humanity. Humanity is an ocean; if a few drops of the ocean are dirty, the ocean does not become dirty.
MAHATMA GANDHI
Faith is composed of the heart’s intention. Light comes through faith. Through faith men come to prayer. Faith in the morning, faith at noon and at the setting of the sun. O Faith, give us faith!
RIG VEDA
A man of faith, absorbed in faith, his senses controlled, attains
knowledge, and knowledge attained, quickly finds supreme peace. But the ignorant man, who is without faith, goes
doubting to destruction. For the doubting self there is neither this world, nor the next, nor joy.
BHAGAVAD GITA
He who has in his heart faith equal to a single grain of mustard seed will not enter hell, and who has in is heart as much pride as a grain of mustard seed will not enter paradise.
HADITH OF MUSLIM
Exhausted after all effort, to the Lord’s shelter I go, Now that to His shelter I have come, say I, “Lord, preserve me or ruin me as may please Thee!”
ADI GRANTH
Fame
I awoke one morning and found myself famous.
BYRON, GEORGE
Love and scandal are the best sweeteners of tea.
FIELDING, HENRY
Fame is no plant that grows on mortal soil.
MILTON, JOHN
Go where glory waits thee,
But, while fame elates thee,
Oh! still remember me.
MOORE, THOMAS
Nor fame I slight, nor for her favours call;
She comes unlook’d for, if she comes at all.
POPE, ALEXANDER
All crowd, who foremost shall be damned to fame.
POPE, ALEXANDER
Do good by stealth, and blush to find it fame.
POPE, ALEXANDER
I would applaud thee to the very echo,
That should applaud again.
SHAKESPEARE, WILLIAM
Fate
All human things are subject to decay,
And, when fate summons, monarchs must obey.
DRYDEN, JOHN
Unearned increment.
MILL, JOHN STUART
He either fears his fate too much,
Or his deserts are small,
That dares not put it to the touch,
To gain or lose it all.
MONTROSE, JAMES GRAHAM
Heaven from all creatures hides the book of Fate.
POPE, ALEXANDER
An honest man is the noblest work of God.
POPE, ALEXANDER
Though it be honest, it is never good to bring bad news.
SHAKESPEARE, WILLIAM
But yet I’ll make assurance double sure, and take bond of fate.
SHAKESPEARE, WILLIAM
Father
The child is father of the man.
WORDSWORTH, WILLIAM
He that has his father for judge goes safe to the trial.
Cervantes
One father is more than a hundred schoolmasters.
George Herbert
If a man strike his father his hand shall be cut off.
The Code of Hammurabi
A wise son maketh a glad father.
Proverb
The fundamental defect of fathers is that they want their children to be a credit to them.
Bertrand Russell
It is a wise father that knows his own child.
Shakespeare
Fault
A taste for drink, combined with gout, Had doubled him up for ever.
GILBERT, SIR WILLIAM, SCHWENCK
Dare to be true; nothing can need a lie;
A fault which needs it most grows two thereby.
HERBERT, GEORGE
And when I died—the neighbours came and buried brother John!
LEIGH, HENRY, SAMBROOKE
When he, who adores thee, has left but the name
Of his faults and his sorrows behind.
MOORE, THOMAS
The man who makes no mistakes does not ususally make anything.
PHELPS, EDWARD JOHN
The nature of bad news infects the teller.
SHAKESPEARE, WILLIAM
Every one fault seeming monstrous till his fellow-fault came to match it.
SHAKESPEARE, WILLIAM
So may he rests; his faults lie gently on him.
SHAKESPEARE, WILLIAM
Condemn the fault, and not the actor of it?
SHAKESPEARE, WILLIAM
Fear
Men fear death as children fear to go in the dark; and as that natural fear in children is increased with tales, so is the other.
BACON, FRANCIS
He that is down need fear no fall,
He that is low, no pride.
BUNYAN, JOHN
If I should meet thee
After long years,
How should I greet thee?-
With silence and tears.
BYRON, GEORGE
She feared no danger, for she knew no sin.
DRYDEN, JOHN
Ah, take the Cash, and let the Credit go, Nor heed the rumble of a distant Drum!
FITZGERALD, EDWARD
Let us never negotiate out of fear, But let us never fear to negotiate.
KENNEDY, JOHN F.
He never went out of bounds at all from fear and also from goodness, but cheifly from fear.
PHILLPOTTS, EDEN
Suspicion always haunts the guilty mind;
The thief doth fear each bush an officer.
SHAKESPEARE, WILLIAM
When our actions do not,
Our fears do make us traitors.
SHAKESPEARE, WILLIAM
A lion among ladies, is a most dreadful thing; for there is not a more fearful wild-fowl than your lion living.
SHAKESPEARE, WILLIAM
He by whom the world is not agitated and who cannot be agitated by the world, and who is free from joy, anger, fear and worry—he is dear to Me.
BHAGAVAD GITA
The secret of health for both mind and body is not to mourn for the past, not to worry about future, and not to anticipate troubles, but to live in the present moment wisely and earnestly.
GAUTAMA BUDDHA
For most of us, fear is a part of our mental make-up. Fear is a poison that quickly circulates through the entire system, paralysing the will, producing a queer sensation in some part or the other of the human body. Yes, fear is the cause of many diseases. Fearlessness ensures health. Do not fear, for God is near.
DADA J P VASWANI
Abandon all supports and look to me for protection. I shall purify you from the sins of the past; do not grieve.
BHAGAVAD GITA
Festival
Dance; stand up on your feet and dance. Be intoxicated; move intoxicated.
SRI SRI RAVI SHANKAR
The truth is that existence wants your life to become a festival… because when you are unhappy, you also throw unhappiness all around.
BHAGWAN RAJNEESH
You are invited to the festival of this world and your life is blessed.
RABINDRANATH TAGORE
Fidelity
Give me a man that is capable of a devotion to anything rather than a cold, calculating average of all the virtues.
Bret Harte
The fidelity of most men is merely an invention of selflove to win confidence…
Francois de la Rouchefoucauld
Fidelity bought with money is overcome by money.
Seneca
It goes far toward making a man faithful to let him understand that you think him so; and he that does but suspect I will deceive him gives me a sort of right to do it.
Seneca
Flattery
Imitation is the sincerest of flattery.
COLTON, CHARLES CALEB
Patron—Commonly a wretch who supports with insolence and is paid with flattery.
JOHNSON, SAMUEL
But when I tell him he hates flatterers,
He says he does, being then most flattered.
SHAKESPEARE, WILLIAM
The most skillful flattery is to let a person talk on, and be a listener.
Joseph Addison
Imitation is the sincerest flattery.
Nathaniel Cotton
When flatterers meet, the Devil goes to dinner.
John Ray
The art of flatteres is to take advantage of the foibles of the great, to foster their errors, and never to give advice which many annoy.
Moiliere
We sometimes think that we hate flattery, but we only hate the manner in which it is done.
Francois de la Rochefoucauld
Flattery is okay if you handle it right. It’s like smoking cigarettes. Quite all right, as long as you don’t inhale.
Adlia Ewing Stevenson
Flowers
When spring unlocks the flowers to paint the laughing soil.
HEBER, REGINALD
I cannot see what flowers are at my feet, Nor what soft incense hangs upon the boughs.
KEATS, JOHN
Flowers of all hue, and without thorn the rose.
MILTON, JOHN
You may break, you may shatter the vase, if you will,
But the scent of the roses will hang round it still.
MOORE, THOMAS
The flowers, anew, returning seasons bring!
But beauty faded has no second spring.
PHILIP, AMBROSE
Bread feeds the body. Indeed, but flowers feed the soul.
QURAN
If we could see the miracle of a single flower clearly, our whole life would change.
GAUTAM BUDDHA
If God is a flower, you should feel yourself a bee that sucks its honey.
SRI SATYA SAI BABA
Folly
His foe was folly and his weapon wit.
HOPE, ANTHONY
My only books
Were woman’s looks,
And folly’s all they’ve taught me.
MOORE, THOMAS
I am not a slut, though I thank the gods I am foul.
SHAKESPEARE, WILLIAM
He uses his folly like a stalking-horse and under the presentation of that he shoots his wit.
SHAKESPEARE, WILLIAM
Murder most foul, as in the best it is;
But this most foul, strange and unnatural.
SHAKESPEARE, WILLIAM
But love is blind and lovers cannot see,
The pretty follies that themselves commit.
SHAKESPEARE, WILLIAM
Food for thought
Foods that promote longevity, virtue, strength, health, happiness and joy are juicy, smooth, substantial and agreeable to the stomach.
BHAGAVAD GITA
Man seeks to change natural foods to suit his tastes, thereby putting an end to the very essence of life contained in them.
SRI SATYA SAI BABA
If people let governments decide what foods they eat and what medicines they take, their bodies will soon be in as sorry a state as are the souls of those who live under tyranny.
THOMAS JEFFERSON
He that takes medicine and neglects diet, wastes the skills of physician.
CHINESE PROVERB
One should eat to live not live to eat.
CICERO
It is not the horse that draws the cart, but the oats.
RUSSIAN PROVERB
The best way to lose weight is to close your mouth…Or watch your food—just watch it, don’t eat it.
EDWARD KOCH
Food is an important part of a balanced diet.
FRAN LEBOWITZ
Fools
Examinations are formidable even to the best prepared, for the greatest fool may ask more than the wisest man can answer.
COLTON, CHARLES CALEB
No man but a blockhead ever wrote except for money.
JOHNSON, SAMUEL
Saw a wedding in the church…and strange to see what delight we married people have to see these poor fools decoyed into our condition.
PEPYS, SAMUEL
Pride, the never-failing vice of fools.
POPE, ALEXANDER
For fools rush in where angels fear to tread.
POPE, ALEXANDER
No creature smarts so little as a fool.
POPE, ALEXANDER
He lives to build, not boast, a generous race:
No tenth transmitter of a foolish face.
SAVAGE, RICHARD
Lord, what fools these mortals be!
SHAKESPEARE, WILLIAM
So true a fool is love that in your will,
Though you do anything, he thinks no ill.
SHAKESPEARE, WILLIAM
A man who knows the price of everything, and the value of nothing.
WILDE, OSCAR
Foreign Policy
Peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations entangling allicances with none.
Thomas Jefferson
By this I mean That a political society does not live to conduct foreign policy; it would be more correct to say that it conducts foreign polity in order to live.
George F. Kennan
The purpose of foreign policy is not to provide an outlet for our own sentiments of hope or indignation; it is to shape real events in a real world.
John F. Kennedy
Forgetfulness
Here lies one whose name was writ in water.
KEATS, JOHN
Like following life through creatures you dissect,
You lose it in the moment you detect.
POPE, ALEXANDER
The forgotten man at the bottom of the economic pyramid.
ROOSEVELT, FRANKLIN
A man must get a thinking before he can forget it.
Oliver wendell holmes
Blessed are the forgetful; for they get the better of even their blunders.
Friedrick Nietzsche
We bury love,
Forgetfulness grows over it like grass;
That is a thing to weep for, not the dear.
Alexander Smith
Forgiveness
Forgiveness to the injured does belong;
For they never pardon who have done the wrong.
DRYDEN, JOHN
To err is human, to forgive, divine.
POPE, ALEXANDER
Those who deny freedom to others deserve it not for themselves.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN
He that cannot forgive others breaks the bridge over which he must pass himself; for every man has need to be forgive.
THOMAS FULLER
Forgive my past sins and show me the path now, Killing my ego, I should remain in God’s service.
GURU AMAR DAS
Compassion and forgiveness should be your attainments.
GURU GOBIND SINGH
Whatever defect I have of eye, of heart, of mind or whatever excess there is, may God remedy it. Gracious to us be the Lord of the world.
YAJUR VEDA
Carry us across, as by a boat across the sea, for our good
Shining bright, drive away our sin.
RIG VEDA
Forgiveness is a virtue of the weak, and an ornament of the strong. Forgiveness subdues (all) in this world; what is there that forgiveness cannot achieve? What can a wicked person do unto him who carries the sabre of forgiveness in his hand?
VIDURA to DHRITARASHTRA
“He abused me, he struck me, he overcome me, he robbed me”—in those who harbour such thoughts hatred will never cease, in those who do not harbour such thoughts hatred will cease.
DHAMMAPADA
Fortune
Too poor for a bribe, and too proud to importune;
He had not the method of making a fortune.
GRAY, THOMAS
My pride fell with my fortunes.
SHAKESPEARE, WILLIAM
Call me not fool till heaven hath sent me fortune.
SHAKESPEARE, WILLIAM
Fortune is a god and rules men’s lives.
Aeschylus
All fortune is to be conquered by bearing it.
Francis Bacon
It is fortune, not wisdom, that rules man’s life.
Cicero
Every man is the architect of his own fortune.
Appius Claudius
Ill fortune seldom comes alone.
John Dryden
Human life is more governed by fortune than by reason.
David Hume
Not many men have both good fortune and good sense.
Livy
I have a wife, I have sons; all these hostages have I given to fortune.
Lucan
The power of fortune is confessed only by the miserable, for the happy inpute all their success to prudence or merit.
Jonathan Swift
Fortune knocks at every man’s door, but in a good many cases the man is in neighbouring saloon and does not hear.
Mark Twain
Freedom
You should never put on your best trousers when you go out to fight for freedom and truth.
IBSEN, HENRIK JOHAN
The cause of freedom is the cause of God.
William Lisie Bowles
For what avail the plough or sail,
Or land or life, if freedom fail ?
Ralph Waldo Emerson
No man is free who is not master of himself.
Epictetus
When we lose the right to be different, we lose the privilege to be free.
Charles Evans Hughes
A man’s worst difficulties begin when he is able to do as he likes.
Thomas Henry Huxley
Is any man free except the one who can pass his life as he pleases?
Persius
Man is born free—and everywhere he is in irons.
Jean Jacques Rousseau
No one can be perfectly free till all are free.
Herbert Spencer
A hungry man is not a free man.
Adlai E. Stevenson
Freedom is not worth having if it does not connote freedom to err. It passes my comprehension how human beings, be they ever so experienced and able, can delight in depriving other human beings of that precious right.
MAHATMA GANDHI
People demand freedom of speech to make up for the freedom of thought which they avoid.
SOREN ABABYE
Friendship
There’s nothing worth the wear of winning
But laughter and the love of friends.
BELLOC, JOSEPH HILAIRE PIERRE
I wish my deadly foe no worse
Than want of friends, and empty purse.
BRETON, NICHOLAS
A sudden thought strikes me, let us swear an eternal friendship.
CANNING, GEORGE
Be kind to my remains; and O defend,
Against your judgement, your departed friend!
DRYDEN, JOHN
I have no talent for making new friends, but oh, such a genius for fidelity to old ones.
DU MAURIER, GEORGE LOUIS PALMELLA BUSSON
The only reward of virtue is virtue; the only way to have a friend is to be one.
EMERSON, RALPH WALDO
A favourite has no friend.
GRAY, THOMAS
A man, Sir, should deep his friendship in constant repair.
JOHNSON, SAMUEL
And choose an author as you choose a friend.
ROSCOMMON, WENTWORTH DILLON
To desire the same and to reject the same, that indeed is true friendship.
SALLUST
Most friendship is feigning, most loving mere folly.
SHAKESPEARE, WILLIAM
I count myself in nothing else so happy.
As in a soul remembering my good friends.
SHAKESPEARE, WILLIAM
I shall never befriends again with roses.
SWINBURNE, ALGERNON CHARLES
Future
We are always doing something for Posterity, but I would fain see Posterity do something for us.
Joseph Addsion
You can never plan the future by the past.
Edmind Burke
I never think of the future. It comes soon enough.
Albert Einstein
The future is a convenient place for dreams.
Anatole France
I know of no way of judging the future but by the past.
Patrick Henry
But this long run is a misleading guide to current affairs. In the long run we are all dead.
John Maynard Keynes
The mind that is anxious about the future is miserable.
Seneca
We know what we are, but know not what we may be.
Shakespeare