O

[a b c d e f g  h i j k l m n  o p q r s t u  v w x y z]

[a]▲

Oaks may fall when reeds stand the storm.

[b]▲

The object of government in peace and in war is not the glory of rulers or of races, but the happiness of the common man.  --Sir William Henry Beveridge (1879-1963)

[f]▲

Of course there is no formula for success except, perhaps, an unconditional acceptance of life and what it brings.  --Art(h)ur Rubinstein (1887-1982)  

Of everything, too much is hurtful.

Of two disputants, the warmer is generally in the wrong.

Of two evils choose the lesser.

Offense is the best defense.

Often you have to rely on your intuition.  --William (Henry) [Bill] Gates (1955-)

[l]▲

Old garden lake!
The frog thy depths doth seek,
And sleeping echoes wake.  --Matsuo Bashô (1644-94); trans. by Hidesaburo Saito [斎藤秀三郎] (1866-1929)

The old law of an eye for an eye leaves everybody blind.  --Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929-68)

Old men are twice children.

Old soldiers never die, they just fade away.  --Douglas MacArthur (1880-1964): Address in Congress, 19 Apr 1951 (Perhaps from a folk song in WW1)

An old thing becomes new if you detach it from what usually surrounds it.  --Robert Bresson (1907-99)

[n]▲

On a long enough time line, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero.  --Chuck Palahniuk: Fight Club

Once a beggar, always a beggar.

Once a thief, always a thief.

Once bit [bitten], twice shy.

Once I make up my mind, I'm full of indecision.  --Oscar Levant (1906-1972)

Once on shore, we pray no more.

Once the game is over, the king and the pawn go back in the same box.  --Italian Proverb

Once you replace negative thoughts with positive ones, you'll start having positive results.  --Willie Nelson (1933-)

Once Zhuang Zhou dreamed he was a butterfly, a fluttering butterfly. What fun he had, doing as he pleased! He did not know he was Zhou. Suddenly he woke up and found himself to be Zhou. He did not know whether Zhou had dreamed he was a butterfly or a butterfly had dreamed he was Zhou.  --Chuang-tzu (c.300B.C.) (trans. by Patricia Ebrey)

One always has to spoil a picture a little bit, in order to finish it.  --(Ferdinand Victor) Eugène Delacroix (1798-1863)  

One bad apple spoils the barrel.

One cannot create an art that speaks to men when one has nothing to say.  --André Malraux (1901-76)

One cannot put back the clock.

One day in retrospect the years of struggle will strike you as the most beautiful.  --Sigmund Freud (1856-1939)

One day we must come to see that peace is not merely a distant goal we seek, but that it is a means by which we arrive at that goal. We must pursue peaceful ends through peaceful means.  --Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929-68)

One doesn't discover new lands without consenting to lose sight of the shore for a very long time.  --André Gide (1869-1951)

One father is more than a hundred schoolmasters.

One good turn deserves another.

One hates not the person, but the vice.

One hath more ado to preserve than to get.

One ill word asks another.

One lie calls for many.

One man's fault is another man's lesson.

One man's meat is another man's poison.

One man's trash is another man's treasure.

One misfortune rides upon another's back.

One must draw the line somewhere.

One of the basic causes for all the trouble in the world today is that people talk too much and think too little. They act impulsively without thinking. I always try to think before I talk.  --Margaret Chase Smith (1897-1995): Speech, Westbrook Junior College, 7 Jun 1953

One of the greatest labor-saving inventions of today is tomorrow.  --Vincent T. Foss

One of the symptoms of an approaching nervous breakdown is the belief that one's work is terribly important.  --Bertrand (Arthur William) Russel (1872-1970)  

One of these days is none of these days.

One should examine oneself for a very long time before thinking of condemning others.  --Molière (1622-73)

One swallow does not make a summer.

One thing about being successful is that I stopped being afraid of dying.  --Dustin (Lee) Hoffman (1937-)

One who plays with edged tools will cut himself.

The one word you'll need is no.  --Bette [Ruth Elizabeth] Davis (1908-89)

One’s eyes are what one is, one’s mouth what one becomes.  --John Galsworthy (1867-1933)

One’s home is one’s capital.

The only cure for grief is action.  --George Henry Lewes (1817-78)

Only great minds can afford a simple style.  --Stendhal (1783-1842): Fragments  28

The only means of strengthening one's intellect is to make up one's mind about nothing--to let the mind be a thoroughfare for all thoughts. Not a select party.  --John Keats (1795-1821): Letters of John Keats  (ed. by Frederick Page)

The only place where success comes before work is in a dictionary.  --Vidal Sassoon (1928-)

The only real mistake is the one from which we learn nothing.  --John Powell (1882-1963)

The only thing that's constant is change.

The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.   --Franklin Delano Roosevelt (1882-1945)

Only those who dare to fail greatly can ever achieve greatly.  --Robert Francis Kennedy (1925-68)

The only true happiness comes from squandering ourselves for a purpose.  --William Cowper (1731-1800)

Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former.  --Albert Einstein (1879-1955)  

The only way of finding the limits of the possible is by going beyond them into the impossible.  --Arthur C(harles) Clarke (1917-): The Lost Worlds of 2001  

The only way to avoid being miserable is not to have enough leisure to wonder whether you are happy or not.  --George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950)  

[p]▲

Opportunities are usually disguised as hard work, so most people don't recognize them.  --Ann Landers (1918-)

Opportunity knocks but [only] once.

Opportunity seldom knocks twice.

Opposites attract.

The optimist proclaims that we live in the best of all possible worlds; the pessimist fears this is true.  --James Branch Cabell (1879-1958)

[t]▲

Other times, other manners.

[u]▲

Our business in life is not to get ahead of others, but to get ahead of ourselves--to break our own records, to outstrip our yesterday by our today.  --Stewart B. Johnson

Our business in this world is not to succeed, but to continue to fail in good spirits.  --Robert Louis [Lewis Balfour] Stevenson (1850-94)

Our greatest glory consists not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall.  --Oliver Goldsmith (1728-74)

Our humanity is a poor thing, except for the divinity that stirs within us.  --Francis Bacon (1561-1626)

Our knowledge is a little island in a great ocean of nonknowledge.  --Isaac (Bashevis) Singer (1904-91)

Our scientific power has outrun our spiritual power. We have guided missiles and misguided men.  --Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929-68): Strength to Love

Out of debt, out of danger.

Out of intense complexities intense simplicities emerge.  --Sir Winston (Leonard Spencer) Churchill (1874-1965)

Out of our quarrels with others we make rhetoric. Out of our quarrels with ourselves we make poetry.  --W(illiam) B(utler) Yeats (1865-1939)

Out of sight, out of mind.

Out of the frying pan into the fire.

Out of the mouth comes [proceeds] evil.

[v]▲

Over shoes, over boots.

[w]▲

The owl thinks her own young fairest.