Ruth Simmons Quotes

#1. The humanities don't belong to some elitist group ... knowledge as a whole should be embraced.

Ruth Simmons

#2. I often say that shareholders should feel very responsible for how responsive corporations are to the public trust.

Ruth J. Simmons

#3. If I can give a very substantial injection of humanistic thinking into corporations, boy, that would change things a lot.

Ruth J. Simmons

#4. The most important thing one can do for children is not accept the limitations they are so willing to impose on themselves.

Ruth Simmons

#5. I was intent on doing something productive and on being everything my parents taught me to be. Their values were clear: do good work; don't ever get too big for your breeches; always be an authentic person; don't worry too much about being famous and rich because that doesn't amount to too much.

Ruth Simmons

#6. What after all, has maintained the human race on this old globe despite all the calamities of nature and all the tragic failings of mankind, if not faith in new possibilities, and courage to advocate them?

Jane Addams

#7. It really pains me greatly to hear from graduate students that graduate education is a lower priority here.

Ruth Simmons

#8. That I make poetry and give pleasure - if I give pleasure - are because of you.

Horace

#9. I'm the youngest of 12 children. And although I was the youngest, I tried to organize things in my family. When there were disputes, I tried to mediate.

Ruth J. Simmons

#10. You poor lonely boy,' she cried, 'it's so dreadful for you to have no parents.'
Well, as my mother was a whore, and my father a drunk, I daresay I don't miss much.

W. Somerset Maugham

#11. Probably the first time I was a boss was when I was associate dean of the graduate school at the University of Southern California. I was in my early 30s.

Ruth J. Simmons

#12. The committee's work is not about whether or how we should pay reparations. That was never the intent nor will the payment of reparations be the outcome. This is an effort designed to involve the campus community in a discovery of the meaning of our past.

Ruth J. Simmons

#13. There's nothing worse than a leader who lacks ambition.

Ruth J. Simmons

#14. It's very important in a leadership role not to place your ego at the foreground and not to judge everything in relationship to how your ego is fed.

Ruth J. Simmons

#15. Black men who have succeeded have an obligation to serve as role models for young men entrapped by a vicious cycle of poverty, despair, and hopelessness.

Benjamin Hooks

#16. They say that instead of cursing the darkness, one should light a candle. Nothing is mentioned, though, about cursing a lack of candles.

George Carlin

#17. Fear of failure is the fuel of achievement. If you weren't afraid to fail, you probably wouldn't be highly motivated to work at the level that most of us have to work at to do well.

Ruth Simmons

#18. I'm prepared to fight as hard as I can against unions entering the University on behalf of our students.

Ruth J. Simmons

#19. If you are the kind of person who listens to conservative advice, you may do okay in life, but you probably won't ever be a fantastic leader. You have to take risks, and you also have to go against conventional wisdom, because conventional wisdom doesn't make for startling advances in society.

Ruth Simmons

#20. There is strong mentoring of women in the academy. Corporations appear more willing to resist affirmative action to advance women, and boards and shareholders are more tolerant of this approach.

Ruth J. Simmons

#21. I came to understand the value of education, not just to enable me to make a good living, but to enable me to make a worthwhile life.

Ruth Simmons

#22. I've sort of grown into my cuteness.

Julia Roberts

#23. When ownership is local and national, and various stakeholders work together, program innovations have a greater chance to take root and survive.

Ruth Simmons

#24. Doctor says to a man, "You're pregnant!" The man says, "How does a man get pregnant?" The doctor says, "The usual way - a little wine, a little dinner ... "

Henny Youngman