• Abraham Lincoln's "House Divided Speech"
• Pope Benedict XVI's Resignation Speech
• Barack Obama's State of the Union Address
• Steve Jobs "If today were the last day of my life..."
• Who does Bruce Lee fear?
• Albert Einstein "The most important thing is not to stop thinking."
• Martin Luther King on the ultimate measure of a man
• William Shakespeare "A fool thinks himself to be wise"
• Aristotle's take on anger
• The right film in Woody Allen's eyes
• Lady Thatcher on the difference between man and woman
• Florentijn Hofman talks about the Duck
• Buddha on friends to be feared
• Mother Teresa on smiles
• Dalai Lama on the passing of days
• George Bush on leadership
• David Beckham on criticism
• Angelina Jolie on femininity
• J.K. Rowling on human's knack for choosing the worst
• Jesus Christ on treasure in heaven
• Oscar Wilde“True friends stab you in the front”
• Jane Austen on friendship
• Barack Obama congratulated the royal couple
• Chris Hemsworth's personal heroes
• Charles Darwin on adaptability
• Princess Diana "Whoever is in distress can call on me"
• Benjamin Franklin "Beauty and folly are old companions"
• C.S. Lewis "Hatch, or go bad"
• J.F. Kennedy on knowledge and ignorance
• Henry David Thoreau on the value of a house
• Brad Pitt on family
• Francis Bacon on commanding nature
• William Gladstone on the essence of liberalism
• Zola "I'm coming to live out loud"
• Gandhi on the freedom to err
• Jules Verne on the law of nature
• Samuel Butler on human-animal relationship
• Mark Twain on Ageing
• Winston Churchill on art
• Nelson Mandela's definition of freedom
• Ronald Reagan "Inflation is... as deadly as a hit man"
• Balzac "Behind every great fortune lies a great crime"
• Discover a person through play
• Nixon likening Olympics to politics
• Gina McCarthy on fine particle pollution
• Mia Hamm on athletic training
• Henry Adams "Everyone carries his own rule of taste..."
• Alfred Hitchcock thankful to be a coward
• Emerson "You can never say anything but what you are"
• Nile Rodgers thinks he's like a shark?
• Donald Rumsfeld on the "unknown unknowns"
• A rock pile in Saint-Exupery's eyes
• Khalil Gibran is ungrateful to some teachers
• "Dogs are wise." Agatha Christie tells you why
• Karl Marx "History repeats itself, first as tragedy, second as farce."
• Edmund Burke on slavery
• John Lennon "Love is the flower you've got to let grow"
• Malala is not afraid
• Issac Asimov the speed understander
• Aung San Suu Kyi on the democratic process
• George Orwell "Serious sport is war minus the shooting"
• Pele's guitar string/enthusiasm analogy
• Roy Jenkins rethinking the "permissive society"
• Hillary Clinton on dignity
• Carl Jung "The shoe that fits one person pinches another"
• Jimi Hendrix "Power of love vs. Love of power"
• Orlando Bloom's rite of passage
• Robert Kiyosaki on toughness
• Bill Gates reviewing modern pandemic
• Gandhi on the greatness of a nation
• Sean Connery on cultivating an English accent
• Al Gore: Let's get down to reality!
• Chaz Bono "Gender is not between your legs"
• Plato on the reason to speak
• Edward Snowden on terrorism
• What type of girls does Shia LaBeouf like?
• Edmund Burke on the way of reading
• Fred Allen "I sued the college the day I graduated"
• Karen Armstrong on the way to deal with the gritty realities
• Percy Shelley on the veil of death
• James Faust "Cheating is self-deception"
• Sugar Ray Leonard on the idea of contract
• Gilbert Chesterton on Buddhism
• Does a single man of wealth need a wife?
• Cheese is milk’s leap toward immortality
• Mother Teresa "Being unloved is the greatest poverty"
• Winston Churchill on the most abhorrent act against democracy
• Who's playing God in documentary?
• What did Alexander the Great fear most?
• Humour is the weapon of unarmed people
• Taylor Swift on fairy tales
• Hamlin Garland's escape from city life
• Elisha Cuthbert"I'm sort of a control freak, but..."
• Polly Toynbee on the clash of civilisations
• Alan Kay's take on AI
• Herb Caen "Eternal conflict may produce eternal truths"
• Roger Ebert"Your intellect may be confused"
• Dr. Seuss "Never too wacky to read to a child"
• Good weather in John Ruskin's opinion
• Buddha "Holding on to anger is like grasping a hot coal"
• Eleanor Roosevelt"A woman is like a tea bag"
• James Hutton's explanations about the globe
• Bruce Barton on the rhythm of living
• Napoleon on public opinion
• Audrey Hepburn "Beauty of a woman must be seen from her eyes"
• Eleanor Roosevelt "Most useful gift for a child"
• Lincoln "If you want to test a man's character, give him power"
• Albert Einstein "God does not play dice"
• Gilbert K. Chesterton "A stiff apology is a second insult"
• Doug Larson "Nostalgia is..."
• How to portray the ideal types of beauty?
• Thomas Fuller "In fair weather prepare for foul"
• Gustave Flaubert "Life must be a constant education"
• What did Galileo think about Nature?
• William A. Dembski on the question of legitimacy
• Brooke Foss Westcott on the nature of crisis
• Samuel Ullman "Youth is not a time of life"
• Arthur Erickson's take on tourism
• Pope John Paul II "The great danger for family life lies in..."
• A. C. Benson "A change of self is needed more than a change of scene"
• Erik Erikson on the sense of identity
• H. L. Mencken "It doesn't take a majority to make a rebellion"
• Robin Williams on comedy and trauma
• Dorothea Lange "Photography alters life by holding it still"
• Jackie Kennedy "I want to live my life, not record it"
• Margaret Mead on stages of life
• Doug Larson "If green vegetables smelled as good as bacon..."
• Vincent Van Gogh "Knowledge of fallibility cannot keep me from making mistakes"
• Saint Augustine "What does love look like? "
• Victor Hugo "Concision, precision, decision"
• 1st Duke of Wellington "Be discreet in all things"
• Stephen Hawking "Life on Earth is at the ever-increasing risk of being wiped out by a disaster"
• Paul Prudhomme "You don't need a silver fork to eat good food."
• David Lynch on absurdity
• Abu Bakr "Too much knowledge leads to exploitation"
• David Cameron "Flexibility over rigidity"
• Jann Wenner "Clean up after yourself!"
• Salman Rushdie "Dance on"
• Kierkegaard "Life is not a problem to be solved"
• T. S. Eliot "We shall not cease from exploration"
• Jesse Owens "Awards become corroded, friends gather no dust"
• Thich Nhat Hanh on the way to success
• Mahatma Gandhi "Learn as if you were to live forever"
• John D. MacDonald "Integrity is not a conditional word"
• Abraham Lincoln "The ballot is stronger than the bullet."
• Dennis Christopher "Work has been my lover..."
• Goethe on the biggest problem of art
• Somerset Maugham "Perfection has one grave defect: it is apt to be dull"
• George Santayana "Those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it"
• Virginia Woolf on the first gift to perish in a foreign language
• Indira Gandhi "You cannot shake hands with a clenched fist"
• Plato "Let parents bequeath to their children not riches..."
• Montesquieu on tyranny under the shield of law
• Why did Aesop prefer a crust than a banquet?
• What happens when people merely follow their hopes?
• Exercise your mind!
• What is the purpose of education?
• The father of Snoopy "Dread one day at a time"
• Karl Marx "Social progress can be measured by the social position of the female sex"

J.K. Rowling on human's knack for choosing the worst

 

“Humans have a knack for choosing precisely the things that are worst for them.”

by J. K. Rowling

 

選擇，有時會造成煩惱，特別是社會富足，我們常受「選擇困難症」折磨，要真正明思慎選也殊不容易。《哈利波特》系列的作者J. K.羅琳看得透徹：花花世界選擇多的是，人類的天賦，就是為自己選最差的。「天賦」英文是 knack ，讀音是 \’nak\ ，雖然以 “k” 字起首，卻不發 “k” 音，例子還多的是呢！信手拈來就有：knee、kneel、know、knight。

 

knack 天賦

(noun 名詞)

 

例子：Some people seem to have a knack for making money.

 

knack 傾向

(noun 名詞)

 

例子：Whenever he is nervous, he has a knack of saying the wrong thing.

 

knacker 令人筋疲力盡

(verb 動詞)

 

例子：Slow down or you will knacker yourself out!