Usefulness Quotes

• Consider the postage stamp: its usefulness consists in the ability to stick to one thing till it gets there.

  Josh Billings

  Inspirational, Funny, Motivational

  82 Copy quote

• Men are valued, not for what they are, but for what they seem to be.

  Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton

  Men, Appearance, Jackets

  43 Copy quote

• Anything you cannot relinquish when it has outlived its usefulness possesses you, and in this materialistic age a great many of us are possessed by our possessions.

  Peace Pilgrim

  Birthday, Peace, Age

  Peace Pilgrim (1992). “Peace Pilgrim: Her Life and Work in Her Own Words”, p.19, Friends of Peace PIlgrim

  77 Copy quote

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• Absorb what is useful, discard what is not, add what is uniquely your own.

  Bruce Lee

  Inspirational, Life, Motivational

  "Biography/ Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.

  111 Copy quote

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• To waste, to destroy our natural resources, to skin and exhaust the land instead of using it so as to increase its usefulness, will result in undermining in the days of our children the very prosperity which we ought by right to hand down to them amplified and developed.

  Theodore Roosevelt

  Inspirational, Nature, Children

  Theodore Roosevelt, Paul H. Jeffers (1998). “The Bully Pulpit: A Teddy Roosevelt Book of Quotations”, p.30, Taylor Trade Publications

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• We are so obsessed with doing that we have no time and no imagination left for being. As a result, men are valued not for what they are but for what they do or what they have - for their usefulness.

  Thomas Merton

  Inspirational, Courage, Men

  Thomas Merton (2009). “Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander”, p.312, Image

  42 Copy quote

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• A vote is like a rifle; its usefulness depends upon the character of the user.

  Theodore Roosevelt

  Character, Gun, Political

  Theodore Roosevelt (2013). “Autobiography of Theodore Roosevelt”, p.127, Simon and Schuster

  56 Copy quote

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• Friendship is the only thing in the world concerning the usefulness of which all mankind are agreed.

  Marcus Tullius Cicero

  Friendship, World, Mankind

  Marcus Tullius Cicero (1750). “Thoughts of Cicero: On the Following Subjects, Viz. I. Religion. II. Man. III. Conscience. IV. The Passions. V. Wisdom. VI. Probity. VII. Eloquence. VIII. Friendship. IX. Old Age. X. Death. XI. Scipio's Dream. XII. Miscellaneous Thoughts”, p.213

  13 Copy quote

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• Being the richest man in the cemetery doesn't matter to me ... Going to bed at night saying we've done something wonderful... that's what matters to me.

  Steve Jobs

  Inspirational, Attitude, Yoga

  The Wall Street Journa, Summer 1993.

  113 Copy quote

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• Always help people increase their own self-esteem. Develop your skill in making other people feel important. There is hardly a higher compliment you can pay an individual than helping him to be useful and to find satisfaction in his usefulness.

  Donald Laird

  Self Esteem, Compliments You, Skills

  11 Copy quote

• Usefulness, whatever form it may take, is the price we should pay for the air we breathe and the food we eat and the privilege of being alive.

  Eleanor Roosevelt

  Air, Alive, May

  Eleanor Roosevelt (1960). “You Learn by Living”, p.96, Westminster John Knox Press

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• The usefulness of the cup is its emptiness.

  Bruce Lee

  Art, Cups, Emptiness

  38 Copy quote

• It is a great misfortune to be of use to nobody; scarcely less to be of use to everybody.

  Baltasar Gracian

  Use, Misfortunes

  Baltasar Gracian, Baltasar Gracián y Morales (2004). “The Art of Worldly Wisdom”, p.49, Shambhala Publications

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• As with all children, the feeling that I was useful was perhaps the greatest joy I experienced.

  Eleanor Roosevelt

  Children, Joy, Feelings

  7 Copy quote

• Success can corrupt; usefulness can only exalt.

  Dimitris Mitropoulos

  Success, Achievement, Fortune Cookie

  8 Copy quote

• What is a good man?
  Simply one whose life is useful to the world.
  And a bad man is simply one whose life is harmful to others.
  There are, however, those who are harmful and yet enjoy a good reputation, and who manage to profit by a show of usefulness.
  These are the worst of all.

  Zhang Zhao

  Men, Good Man, World

  7 Copy quote

• The object of all education should be to increase the usefulness of man - usefulness to himself and others.

  Robert Green Ingersoll

  Education, Men, Increase

  Robert Green Ingersoll (1907). “The works of Robert G. Ingersoll”, p.4081, Library of Alexandria

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• We are a spectacular, splendid manifestation of life. We have language. . . . We have affection. We have genes for usefulness, and usefulness is about as close to a 'common goal' of nature as I can guess at.

  Lewis Thomas

  Life, Music, Science

  Lewis Thomas (1990). “A Long Line of Cells Collected Essays”

  13 Copy quote

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• Freedom is that faculty that enlarges the usefulness of all other faculties.

  Immanuel Kant

  Anarchy, Cannabis, Faculty

  13 Copy quote

• Be unselfish. That is the first and final commandment for those who would be useful and happy in their usefulness. If you think of yourself only, you cannot develop because you are choking the source of development, which is spiritual expansion through thought for others.

  Charles William Eliot

  Spiritual, Thinking, Expansion

  21 Copy quote

• Nothing in this world is so good as usefulness. It binds your fellow-creatures to you, and you to them; it tends to the improvement of your own character; and it gives you a real importance in society, much beyond what any artificial station can bestow.

  Sir Benjamin Collins Brodie, 1st Baronet

  Real, Character, Giving

  6 Copy quote

• I have known some men possessed of good qualities which were very serviceable to others, but useless to themselves; like a sun-dial on the front of a house, to inform the neighbours and passengers, but not the owner within.

  Jonathan Swift

  Men, House, Quality

  Jonathan Swift, David Laing Purves (1871). “The Works of Jonathan Swift, D.D.: Carefully Selected; with a Biography of the Author”, p.516

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• The vulgar crowd values friends according to their usefulness.

  Ovid

  Crowds, Vulgar, Values

  14 Copy quote

• It is my humble prayer that I may be of some use in my day and generation.

  Hosea Ballou

  Prayer, Humble, Generations

  6 Copy quote

• It is inevitable that those to whom is vouchsafed a long life of usefulness should outlive the friends of their youth.

  Cleveland Abbe

  Long, Youth, Should

  Alfred Goldsborough Mayer, Silas Weir Mitchell, Cleveland Abbe, Edward Leamington Nichols, Edwin Herbert Hall (1919). “Biographical Memoir of Theodore Nicholas Gill, 1837-1914: 1913”

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