Quotes of wisdom
Man is the only animal that can remain on friendly terms with the victims he intends to eat until he eats them. -Samuel Butler (1835-1902)
We do not inherit the land, we borrow it from our children. -Native American saying
Man is the only animal that laughs and weeps; for he is the only animal that is struck with the difference between what things are and what they ought to be. -William Hazlitt
If you pick up a starving dog and make him prosperous, he will not bite you; that is the principal difference between a dog and a man. -Mark Twain
Man is a complex thing: he makes deserts bloom and lakes die. -Gil Stern
Outside of a dog, a book is a man's best friend: and inside a dog,it's too dark to read. -Groucho Marx
Somebody told me it was frightening how much topsoil we are losing each year, but I told that story around the campfire and nobody got scared. -Jack Handey, Deep Thoughts
When men and women think, the first step to progress is taken. -Elizabeth C. Stanton
All censorships exist to prevent any one from challenging current conceptions and existing institutions. All progress is initiated by challenging current conceptions, and executed by supplanting existing institutions. Consequently the first condition of progress is the removal of censorships. -George Bernard Shaw
Every great advance in natural knowledge has involved the absolute rejection of authority. -Thomas Henry Huxley (1825-1895)
Until the lions have their historians, tales of the hunt shall always glorify the hunter. -African Proverb
The most damaging phrase in the language is: `It's always been done that way.' -Rear Admiral Grace Hopper
Not to know what has been transacted in former times is to be always a child. If no use is made of the labors of past ages, the world must remain always in the infancy of knowledge. -Cicero
If we keep doing what we're doing, we're going to keep getting what we're getting. -Stephen Covey, First Things First
Unquestionably, there is progress. The average American now pays out twice as much in taxes as he formerly got in wages. -H. L. Mencken
Yesterday's the past and tomorrow's the future. Today is a gift-- which is why they call it the present. -Bill Keane
People that are really very weird can get into sensitive positions and have a tremendous impact on history. -Former Vice President Dan Quayle
The chief obstacle to the progress of the human race is the human race. -Don Marquis (1878-1937)
History is a set of lies agreed upon. -Napoleon Bonaparte (1769-1821)
History repeats itself; that's one of the things that's wrong with history. -Clarence Darrow (1857-1938)
America is the only nation in history which miraculously has gone directly from barbarism to degeneration without the usual interval of civilization. -George Clemenceau (1841-1929) (also attributed to Oscar Wilde)
Progress might have been all right once but it has gone on too long. -Ogden Nash (1902-1971)
Nostalgia: When you find the present tense and past perfect. -The Lion
Change is inevitable- except from a vending machine. -Robert C. Gallagher
Based on what you know about him in history books, what do you think Abraham Lincoln would be doing if he were alive today?
1. Writing his memoirs of the Civil War.
2. Advising the President.
3. Desperately clawing at the inside of his coffin.
-David Letterman
If our founding fathers were alive today, they'd roll over in their graves.
-Dwight D. Eisenhower
A student who changes the course of history is probably taking an exam.
Things have never been more like they are today in history.
-Dwight D. Eisenhower
The world will little note nor long remember what we say here.
-Abraham Lincoln, Gettysburg Address
Nothing.
-Louis XVI (entry in his diary for July 14, 1789, the day the mob stormed the Bastille)
History is the short trudge from Adam to atom.
-Leonard Louis Levinson
I think it would be a good idea.
-Mahatma Ghandi (regarding Western Civilization)
A `No' uttered from deepest conviction is better and greater than a `Yes' merely uttered to please, or what is worse, to avoid trouble.
-Mahatma Gandhi
Blessed is the match consumed by kindling flame.
-Hannah Sennesh
The hottest places in hell are reserved for those who in times of great moral crises maintain their neutrality. -Dante Aleghieri (1265-1321)
Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.
-Martin Luther King, Jr.
My strength lies mainly in my tenacity.
-Louis Pasteur
There are several good precautions against temptation, but the surest is cowardice.
-Mark Twain
I believe that people would be alive today if there were a death penalty.
-Nancy Reagan
I regret to say that we of the FBI are powerless to act in cases of oral-genital intimacy, unless it has in some way obstructed interstate commerce.
-J. Edgar Hoover
The prisoners will not be harmed, until they are found guilty.
-Q, Star Trek
For three days after death, hair and fingernails continue to grow, but phone calls taper off.
-Johnny Carson
I don't want to achieve immortality through my work. I want to achieve it through not dying.
-Woody Allen
It's not that I'm afraid to die. I just don't want to be there when it happens.
-Woody Allen
The mediocre teacher tells. The good teacher explains. The superior teacher demonstrates. The great teacher inspires.
-William Arthur Ward
A teacher is one who makes himself progressively unnecessary.
-Thomas Carruthers
Only the educated are free.
-Epictetus
To educate a man in mind, and not in morals, is to educate a menace to society.
-Theodore Roosevelt
A large part of [the purpose] of education may well be what men have most feared and most desired -- the achievements of moments of ecstasy.
-George Leonard
I am always willing to learn, however I do not always like to be taught.
-Winston Churchill
...our schools have been scientifically designed to prevent overeducation from happening.
-William Troy Harris, U.S. Commissioner of Education 1889-1906
The true object of education should be to train one to think clearly and act rightly.
The secret of teaching is to appear to have known all your life what you just learned this morning.
The juvenile sea squirt wanders through the ocean searching for a suitable rock or hunk of coral to cling to and make its home for life. When it finds its spot and takes root, it doesn't need its brain any more, so it eats it. It's rather like getting tenure.
-Michael Scriven
I've often gotten the feeling that the only people who have learned from computer assisted instruction are the authors.
-Ben Schneiderman
In large states public education will always be mediocre, for the same reason that in large kitchens the cooking is usually bad.
-F. W. Nietzsche, Human All-too-Human, I,1878
Be careful what you know... you might have to teach it one day.
-Fido Fisher
I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use.
-Galileo Galilei
Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction.
-Blaise Pascal (1623-1662)
The church ought to be separated from the state, and the state from the church.
-Pope Pius IX (1792-1878)
Sin is geographical.
-Bertrand Russell (1872-1970)
The government of the United States is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion.
-George Washington
A Sunday school is a prison in which children do penance for the evil conscience of their parents.
-H.L. Mencken (1880-1956)
The world holds two classes of men - intelligent men without religion, and religious men without intelligence.
-Abu'l-Ala-Al-Ma'arri (973-1057)
Even God cannot change the past.
-Agathon (447-401 B.C.E.)
Faith may be defined briefly as an illogical belief in the occurrence of the impossible.
-H.L. Mencken
Religion is a monumental chapter in the history of human egotism.
-William James (1842-1910)
Impiety, noun. Your irreverence toward my deity.
-Ambrose Pierce (1842-1914?)
Maybe this world is another planet's hell.
-Aldous Huxley (1894-1963)
The temperature of Heaven can be rather accurately computed. Our authority is Isaiah 30:26, "Moreover, the light of the Moon shall be as the light of the Sun and the light of the Sun shall be sevenfold, as the light of seven days." Thus Heaven receives from the Moon as much radiation as we do from the Sun, and in addition 7*7 (49) times as much as the Earth does from the Sun, or 50 times in all. The light we receive from the Moon is one 1/10,000 of the light we receive from the Sun, so we can ignore that ... The radiation falling on Heaven will heat it to the point where the heat lost by radiation is just equal to the heat received by radiation, i.e., Heaven loses 50 times as much heat as the Earth by radiation. Using the Stefan-Boltzmann law for radiation, (H/E)^4 =50, where E is the absolute temperature of the earth (-300K), gives H as 798K (525C). The exact temperature of Hell cannot be computed ... [However] Revelations 21:8 says "But the fearful, and unbelieving ... shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone." A lake of molten brimstone means that its temperature must be at or below the boiling point, 444.6C. We have, then, that Heaven, at 525C is hotter than Hell at 445C.
From "Applied Optics" vol. 11, A14, 1972
If a kid asks where rain comes from, I think a cute thing to tell him is "God is crying." And if he asks why God is crying, another cute thing to tell him is, "Probably because of something you did."
-Jack Handey, Deep Thoughts
The United States Supreme Court has handed down the eleventh commandment,
"Thou shalt not, in any classroom, read the first ten."
Reality is whatever refuses to go away when I stop believing in it.
-Philip K. Dick
If I spit, they will take my spit and frame it as great art.
-Pablo Picasso
You have been my friends, that in itself is a tremendous thing...
-E. B. White
Never shall I forget the days I spent with you. Continue to be my friend, as you will always find me yours.
-Ludwig van Beethoven
The Bible tells us to love our neighbors and also to love our enemies; probably because they are generally the same people.
-Mark Twain
Isn't there any other part of the matzo you can eat?
-Marilyn Monroe (1926-1962) on being served matzo ball soup three meals in a row
When we lose, I eat. When we win, I eat. I also eat when we're rained out.
-Tommy Lasorda
Living is a dangerous business, and simple pleasures should not be denied. I for one plan to enjoy my fettuccine Alfredo.
-Gabe Mejias
It would be nice if the Food and Drug Administration stopped issuing warnings about toxic substances and just gave me the names of one or two things still safe to eat.
-Robert Fuoss
I hope they never find out that lightning has a lot of vitamins in it, because do you hide from it or not?
-Jack Handey, Deep Thoughts
May you never meet a mouse in your cupboard with tears in his eyes!
-J. C. Furnas
Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty.
-Wendell Phillips (1811-1844)
Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel.
-Samuel Johnson (1709-1784)
The right to do something does not mean that doing it is right.
-William Safire
You can't hold a man down without staying down with him.
-Booker T. Washington
I disapprove with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.
-Evelyn Beatrice Hall, paraphrasing Voltaire
Civil liberties are always safe as long as their exercise doesn't bother anyone.
-New York Times editorial, 1-3-41
Patriotism is often an arbitrary veneration of real estate above principles.
-George Jean Nathan (1882-1958)
All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.
-George Orwell, Animal Farm
I myself have never been able to find out precisely what feminism is; I only know that people call me a feminist whenever I express sentiments that differentiate me from a doormat.
-Rebecca West
But our culture is in truly bad shape if we have come to define respecting something as the failure to set it on fire.
-Barbara Ehrenreich (regarding flag burning)
Liberty cannot be preserved without a general knowledge among the people, who have ...a right, an indisputable, unalienable, indefeasible, divine right to that most dreaded and envied kind of knowledge, I mean the character and conduct of their rulers.
-John Adams
They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.
-Benjamin Franklin
Our Constitution is color-blind. The arbitrary separation of citizens, on the basis of race... is a badge of servitude wholly inconsistent with civil freedom.
-U.S. Justice John Harlan, Plessy v. Ferguson, 1896
The mass of mankind has not been born with saddles on their backs, nor a favored few booted and spurred , ready to ride them legitimately, by the grace of God.
-Thomas Jefferson, 1826
Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, to assure the survival and the success of liberty.
-John F. Kennedy
"What would you do? Cut a great road through the law to get after the Devil?"
"I'd cut down every law in England to do that."
"Oh? And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned round on you - where would you hide...the laws all being flat?"
-Robert Bolt, "A Man for All Seasons"
The danger is not that a particular class is unfit to govern. Every class is unfit to govern.
-Lord Acton
But how is this legal plunder to be identified? Quite simply. See if the law takes from some persons what belongs to them, and gives it to other persons to whom it does not belong. See if the law benefits one citizen at the expense of another by doing what the citizen himself cannot do without committing a crime.
-Frederic Bastiat, The Law
Society is well governed when the people obey the magistrates, and the magistrates obey the laws.
-Solon
The proper function of a government is to make it easy for the people to do good and difficult for them to do evil.
-Gladstone (paraphrased)
Democracy is more cruel than wars or tyrants.
-Seneca, Epistulae morales ad Lucilium CIV, c. 63
Today the nations of the world may be divided into two classes - the nations in which the government fears the people, and the nations in which the people fear the government.
-Amos R. E. Pinochet
...wise and frugal government which shall restrain men from injuring one another, [and] shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits.
-Thomas Jefferson, 1801 Inaugural Address
Government is a trust, and the officers of the government are trustees. And both the trust and the trustees are created for the benefit of the people.
-Henry Clay
Fire, water and government know nothing of mercy.
-Albanian Proverb
An elephant: A mouse built to government specifications.
The Lord's Prayer is 66 words, the Gettysburg Address is 286 words, there are 1,322 words in the Declaration of Independence, but government regulations on the sale of cabbage total 26,911 words.
-National Review
We must fall back on the old axiom that when other contingencies fail, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.
-Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
All great truths begin as blasphemies.
-George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950)
I am not young enough to know everything.
-Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)
Think for yourselves and let others enjoy the privilege to do so, too.
-Voltaire
Imagination is more important than knowledge.
-Albert Einstein
I think, therefore I am.
-Rene Descartes
Discovery is seeing what everybody else has seen, and thinking what nobody else has thought.
-Albert Szent-Gyorgi
And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.
-John VII
You see things and you say, 'Why?' But I dream things that never were and say, 'Why not?'
-George Bernard Shaw
The best way to have a good idea is to have a lot of ideas.
-Linus Pauling
Truth is not determined by majority vote.
-Doug Gwyn
The greatest homage we can pay to truth is to use it.
-Ralph Waldo Emerson
I believe that it is better to tell the truth than a lie. I believe it is better to be free than to be a slave. And I believe it is better to know than to be ignorant.
-H. L. Mencken
What luck for rulers, that men do not think.
-Adolph Hitler
Well what is the answer? But, what, then, is the question?
-Gertrude Stein (last words)
The universe is full of magical things patiently waiting for our wits to grow sharper.
-Bertrand Russell
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical.
-Niels Bohr
The mind is never blank, if it were, how would you know? -Ed Foreman, Texas Association of State Systems for Computing and
Communications Conference July 94, Ft. Worth, TX
The pure and simple truth is rarely pure and never simple.
-Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)
When I was a boy of fourteen my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be twenty-one, I was astonished at how much he had learned in seven years.
-Mark Twain
Truth is the most valuable thing we have -- so let us economize it.
-Mark Twain
It's so simple to be wise. Just think of something stupid to say and say the opposite.
-Sam Levenson
The mind is not a vessel to be filled but a fire to be kindled.
-Plutarch
What a distressing contrast there is between the radiant intelligence of the child and the feeble mentality of the average adult.
-Sigmund Freud
We are not afraid to entrust the American people with unpleasant facts, foreign ideas, alien philosophies, and competitive values. For a nation that is afraid to let its people judge the truth and falsehood in an open market is a nation that is afraid of its people.
-John F. Kennedy
What a terrible thing to have lost one's mind. Or not to have a mind at all. How true that is.
-Dan Quayle
The face of a child can say it all, especially the mouth part of the face.
-Jack Handey, Deep Thoughts
I know a lot of people without brains who do an awful lot of talking.
-The Scarecrow, Wizard of Oz
If you tell the truth you don't have to remember anything.
-Mark Twain
It is better to keep your mouth shut and appear stupid than to open it and remove all doubt.
-Mark Twain
The poets have been mysteriously silent on the subject of cheese.
-G.K. Chesterton (1874-1936)
Asking a working writer what he thinks about critics is like asking a lamp-post how it feels about dogs.
-Christopher Hampton
Do not put statements in the negative form.
And don't start sentences with a conjunction.
If you reread your work, you will find on rereading that a great deal of repetition can be avoided by rereading and editing.
Never use a long word when a diminutive one will do.
Unqualified superlatives are the worst of all.
De-accession euphemisms.
If any word is improper at the end of a sentence, a linking verb is.
Avoid trendy locutions that sound flaky.
Last, but not least, avoid cliches like the plague.
-William Safire's Great Rules of Writing
If you can't answer a man's argument, all is not lost; you can still call him vile names.
-Elbert Hubbard
Wafting zephyrs had quit vexing Jack.
-C. C. Bombaugh (Shortest English sentence containing all 26 letters, paraphrased)
The most important political office is that of private citizen.
-Louis Brandeis
I start with the premise that the function of leadership is to produce more leaders, not more followers.
-Ralph Nader
I must acknowledge, once and for all, that the purpose of diplomacy is to prolong a crisis.
-Mr. Spock, Star Trek
Am I not destroying my enemies when I make friends of them?
-Abraham Lincoln
Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect.
-Mark Twain
I must follow the people. Am I not their leader?
-Benjamin Disraeli
Under democracy one party always devotes its chief energies to trying to prove that the other party is unfit to rule-- and both commonly succeed, and are right.
-H.L. Mencken, Minority Report, 1956
When I face an issue of great import that cleaves both constituents and colleagues, I always take the same approach. I engage in deep deliberation and quiet contemplation. I wait to the last available minute and then I always vote with the losers. Because, my friend, the winners never remember and the losers never forget.
-Thomas H. Kean
Those who are too smart to engage in politics are punished by being governed by those who are dumber.
-Plato
Who's in or out, who moves the grand machine,
Nor stirs my curiosity, or spleen;
Secrets of state no more I wish to know
Than secret movements of a puppet-show;
Let but the puppets move, I've my desire,
Unseen the hand which guides the master wire.
-Sir Winston Churchill
The people of Nebraska are for free silver. Therefore, I am for free silver. I'll look up the reasons later.
-U.S. Representative William Jennings Bryan
If voting changed anything, they'd make it illegal.
Vote early and vote often.
-Al Capone (1899-1947)
Suppose you were an idiot and suppose you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself.
-Mark Twain (1835-1910)
Power corrupts. Absolute power is kind of neat.
-John Lehman, Secretary of the Navy 1981-1987
Politicians are people who, when they see light at the end of the tunnel, go out and buy some more tunnel.
-John Quinton
It's important to remember that just because there are crooks, zealots and morons supporting a position, it does not automatically follow that the position is wrong.
-Jan D. Wolter
The mockingbird can change its tune eighty-seven times in seven minutes.
Politicians regard this interesting fact with envy.
Ninety-eight percent of the adults in this country are decent, hardworking, honest Americans. It's the other lousy two percent that get all the publicity. But then, we elected them.
-Lily Tomlin
I predict, sir, that you will die either by hanging or of some vile disease.
-Gladstone
That all depends, sir, upon whether I embrace your principles or your mistress.
-Disraeli
One word sums up probably the responsibility of any vice president, and that one word is 'to be prepared'.
-Dan Quayle
Politics would be a helluva good business if it weren't for the goddamned people.
-Richard M. Nixon
It might be more worthwhile if we stopped wringing our hands and started ringing our congressmen.
Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character give him power.
How can one conceive of a one-party system in a country that has over two hundred varieties of cheese?
-Charles deGalle
I wanted a perfect ending ... Now I've learned, the hard way, that some poems don't rhyme, and some stories don't have a clear beginning, middle, and end. Life is about not knowing, having to change, taking the moment and making the best of it, without knowing what's going to happen next. Delicious ambiguity.
-Gilda Radner
The unexamined life is not worth living.
-Socrates (470-399 B.C.E.)
There is no free lunch.
-Milton Friedman
Life is a great big canvas, and you should throw all the paint on it you can.
-Danny Kaye
For every problem, there is one solution which is simple, neat and wrong.
-H.L. Mencken
There are some things that are so serious that you have to laugh at them.
-Niels Bohr
The map is not the territory.
-Alfred Korzbyski
A hen is only an egg's way of making another egg.
-Samuel Butler
You have succeeded in life when all you really want is only what you really need.
-Vernon Howard
One of the oldest human needs is having someone wonder where you are when you don't come home at night.
-Margaret Meade
"The point I have been patiently trying to make," Godwin said impatiently, "is that you expect far too much of a first sentence. Think of it as analogous to a good country breakfast: what we want is something simple, but nourishing to the imagination. Hold the philosophy, hold the adjectives, just give us a plain subject and perhaps a wholesome, nonfattening adverb or two."
-Godwin to Danny Deck, Some Can Whistle
Do not regret growing older. It is a privilege denied to many.
A man who carries a cat by the tail learns something he can learn in no other way.
-Mark Twain
My uncle ordered popovers
from the restaurant's bill of fare.
And, when they were served,
he regarded them with a penetrating stare.
Then he spoke great Words of Wisdom
as he sat there on that chair:
"To eat these things," said my uncle,
"You must exercise great care.
You may swallow down what's solid,
BUT...you must spit out the air!"
And as you partake of the world's bill of fare,
that's darned good advice to follow.
Do a lot of spitting out the hot air.
And be careful what you swallow.
-Theodor Seuss Geisel (Dr. Seuss), From a commencement address
It is better to place a fence at the edge of a cliff than to have an ambulance waiting at the bottom.
A FENCE OR AN AMBULANCE
'Twas a dangerous cliff, and it fair scared folks stiff,
But the view from the top was so pleasant,
That they swallowed their fear, and there crashed down each year
Full many a squire and peasant.
"Something's got to be done.", said the people as one,
But answers did not at all tally.
Some said, "Put a fence 'round the edge of the cliff."
Some, "An ambulance down in the valley!"
Debate raged and stormed, and a Study was formed,
And they might have been arguing yet,
But a solution was found: "Let's pass the hat 'round,
And see how much money we get."
A collection was made to accumulate aid,
And dwellers in byway and alley
Gave pounds, shillings and pence - not to furnish a fence
But an ambulance down in the valley.
"For the cliff is all right if you're careful," they said;
"And if folks ever slip and are dropping,
It isn't the slipping that hurts them so much
As the shock down below - when they're stopping."
So for years (you'll have heard) as these mishaps occurred
Quick forth would the rescuers sally,
To pick up the victims who fell from the cliff,
With the ambulance down in the valley.
Then an old sage remarked: "It's a marvel to me
That people give far more attention
To repairing results than to stopping the cause,
When they'd much better aim at prevention.
Let us stop at its source all this mischief," cried he,
"Come, neighbors and friends let us rally,
If the cliff we will fence we might almost dispense
With the ambulance down in the valley."
"He is wrong in his head," the majority said;
"He would end all our earnest endeavor.
"He's a man who would shirk this responsible work
But we will support it forever.
Aren't we picking up all, just as fast as they fall,
In giving them care we don't dally?
It's plain that a fence is of no consequence,
If the ambulance works in the valley."
-Joseph Malins
One ship drives east and the other drives west
With the selfsame winds that blow.
'Tis the set of the sails and not the gales
Which tells us the way to go.
-Ella Wheeler Wilcox, Winds of Fate
EXCERPTS FROM LIFE'S LITTLE INSTRUCTION BOOK, VOLUMES I AND II
35. Plant a tree on your birthday.
47. Don't waste time learning the "tricks of the trade." Instead, learn the trade.
53. Vote.
68. Be brave. Even if you're not, pretend to be. No one can tell the difference.
100. Read the Bill of Rights.
198. Feed a stranger's expired parking meter.
209. Observe the speed limit.
267. Lie on your back and look at the stars.
271. When facing a difficult task, act as though it is impossible to fail. If you're going after Moby Dick, take along the tartar sauce.
322. Don't say you don't have enough time. You have exactly the same number of hours per day that were given to Helen Keller, Pasteur, Michaelangelo, Mother Teresea, Leonardo da Vinci, Thomas Jefferson, and Albert Einstein.
393. Learn how to operate a Macintosh computer.
513. Never laugh at anyone's dreams.558. Never betray a confidence.595. Be the first to fight for a just cause.817. Share your knowledge. It's a way to achieve immortality.939. Never be ashamed of your patriotism.-H. Jackson
Brown, Jr.
To laugh often and much; to win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children; to earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends; to appreciate beauty, to find the best in others; to leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch or a redeemed social condition; to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded.
-Ralph Waldo Emerson
Far and away the best prize that life offers is the chance to work hard at work worth doing.
-Theodore Roosevelt
Don't part with your illusions. When they are gone, you may still exist, but you have ceased to live.
-Mark Twain
The secret of success is to know something nobody else knows.
-Aristotle Onassis
We protest against unjust criticism but we accept unearned applause.
-Jose Narosky
Even moderation ought not to be practiced to excess.
To succeed in the world it is not enough to be stupid; you must also be well-mannered.
-Voltaire (1694-1778)
Life is anything that dies when you stomp on it.
-Dave Barry
EVERYTHING I NEED TO KNOW I LEARNED IN CORPORATE AMERICA
1. Indecision is the key to flexibility.
2. You can't tell which way the train went by looking at the track.
3. There is absolutely no substitute for a genuine lack of preparation.
4. Happiness is merely the remission of pain.
5. Nostalgia isn't what it used to be.
6. Sometimes too much to drink is not enough.
7. The facts, although interesting, are irrelevant.
8. The careful application of terror is also a form of communication.
9. Someone who thinks logically is a nice contrast to the real world.
10. Things are more like they are today than they ever were before.
11. Anything worth fighting for is worth fighting dirty for.
12. Everything should be made as simple as possible, but no simpler.
13. Friends may come and go, but enemies accumulate.
14. I have seen the truth and it makes no sense.
15. Suicide is the most sincere form of self-criticism.
16. If you think there is good in everybody, you haven't met everybody.
17. All things being equal, fat people use more soap.
18. If you can smile when things go wrong, you have someone in mind to blame.
19. One seventh of your life is spent on Monday.
20. By the time you make ends meet, they move the ends.
21. Not one shred of evidence supports the notion that life is serious.
22. The more you run over a dead cat, the flatter it gets.
23. There is always one more imbecile than you counted on.
24. This is as bad as it can get, but don't count on it.
25. Never wrestle a pig. You both get dirty and the pig likes it.
26. The trouble with life is, you're halfway through it before you realize it's a do-it-yourself thing.
27. Youth and skill are no match for experience and treachery.
28. No amount of advance planning will ever replace dumb luck.
29. Anything you do can get you fired; this includes doing nothing.
30. Money can't buy happiness; it can, however, rent it.
31. Never pass a snow plow on the right.
-Gregory Singleton
"I quite agree with you," said the Duchess; "and the moral of that is --
`Be what you would seem to be' -- or, if you'd like it put more simply --
`Never imagine yourself not to be otherwise than what it might appear to others that what you were or might have been was not otherwise than what you had been would have appeared to them to beotherwise.'"
-Lewis Carrol, Alice in Wonderland
The clinching proof of my reasoning is that I will cut anyone who argues further into dogmeat.
-Sir Geoffery de Tourneville (ca. 1350)
Perfection is our goal. Excellence will be tolerated.
-TQM Motto from the International Association of Business Communication
The secret of managing is to keep the guys who hate you away from the guys who are undecided.
-Casey Stengel
Confidence is the feeling you sometimes have before you fully understand the situation.
It usually takes more than three weeks to prepare a good impromptu speech.
-Mark Twain
There comes a time in every man's life, and I've had many of them.
-Casey Stengel
I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I've watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhauser Gate. All these moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain.
-Roy Baty, "Blade Runner"
It is well to remember that the entire universe, with one trifling exception, is composed of others.
-John Andrew Holmes
If you want a guarantee, buy a toaster.
-Clint Eastwood
If we do not succeed, then we run the risk of failure.
-Dan Quayle
I believe in making the world safe for our children, but not our children's children, because I don't think children should be having sex.
-Jack Handey, Deep Thoughts
Don't approach a goat from the front, a horse from the back, or a fool from any side.
-Yiddish proverb
The trouble with being punctual is that nobody's there to appreciate it.
-Franklin P. Jones
This taught me a lesson, but I'm not quite sure what it is.
-John MacEnroe
Don't swap horses in the middle of the stream.
-1864 Abraham Lincoln Re-Election Slogan
Age is something that doesn't matter unless you are a cheese.
-Billie Burke
It is the heart afraid of breaking
that never learns to dance.
It is the dream afraid of waking
that never takes a chance.
It is the one who won't be taken
who cannot seem to give.
And the soul afraid of dying
that never learns to live.
-Bette Midler, The Rose
Was she so loved because her eyes were so beautiful or were her eyes so beautiful because she was loved?
-Anzia Yezierska
Love does not consist in gazing at each other but in looking outward together in the same direction.
-Antoine de Saint-Exupery
That best portion of a good man's life,
His little, nameless, unremembered acts
Of kindness and love.
-William Wordsworth
A child's spirit is like a child, you can never catch it by running after it; you must stand still, and, for love, it will soon itself come back.
-Arthur Miller, The Crucible
I'm tired of all this nonsense about beauty being only skin-deep. That's deep enough. What do you want, an adorable pancreas?
-Jean Kerr
While money doesn't buy love, it puts you in a great bargaining position.
"You, sir, are drunk."
-Woman
"Yes. But you, madam, are ugly, and I shall be sober in the morning."
-Winston Churchill
It was not until I attended a few postmortems that I realized that even the ugliest exteriors may contain the most beautiful viscera, and was able to console myself for the facial drabness of my neighbors in omnibuses by dissecting them in my imagination.
-J. B. S. Haldane
We shape our buildings; thereafter they shape us.
-Winston Churchill
Every great advance in science has issued from a new audacity of imagination.
-John Dewey
To make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe.
-Carl Sagan
Not even computers will replace committees, because committees buy computers.
-Marshall McCluhan
Several errant electrons jumped when they shouldn't have at a place they shouldn't have, resulting in what shouldn't have. In short, a short.
-Bloom County
It's a very sobering feeling to be up in space and realize that one's safety factor was determined by the lowest bidder on a government contract.
-Alan Shepherd
Duct tape is like the force. It has a light side, a dark side, and it holds the universe together.
-Carl Zwanzig
Philosophical habits of mind do not come quicker through fiber optics. Clear thinking is not aided by better dot resolution. Understanding ourselves and feeling for others does not come with a software upgrade.
-Linda Ray Pratt, Academe, Nov,Dec 1994
Beware of bugs in the above code; I have only proved it correct, not tried it.
-Donald Knuth
Memory is like an orgasm. It's a lot better if you don't have to fake it.
-Seymore Cray, on virtual memory
A computer lets you make more mistakes faster than any invention in human history - with the possible exceptions of handguns and tequila.
-Mitch Ratliffe, _Technology Review_ April, 1992
Beware of programmers who carry screwdrivers.
-Leonard Brandwein
At Group L, Stoffel oversees six first-rate programmers, a managerial challenge roughly comparable to herding cats.
-The Washington Post Magazine, June 9, 1985
Television: chewing gum for the eyes.
-Frank Lloyd Wright (1869-1959)
We can lick gravity, but sometimes the paperwork is overwhelming.
-Wernher von Braun, commenting on bureaucracy
The cable TV sex channels don't expand our horizons, don't make us better people, and don't come in clearly enough.
-Bill Maher
For a list of all the ways technology has failed to improve the quality of life, please press 3.
-Alice Kahn
A day without fusion is like a day without sunshine.
-T-Shirt Saying from the Henry Cate, III Life Collection
There are three kinds of researchers: Those who can do math and those who cannot.
-Tom Rusk Vickery
Linux IS user friendly. It's just not very promiscuous about whom it's user friendly WITH.
-Button at Science Fiction Convention
Never underestimate the bandwidth of a station wagon full of tapes hurtling down the highway.
-Andrew Tannenbaum
Out the 10Base-T, through the router, down the T1, over the leased line, off the bridge, past the firewall...nothing but Net.
There's so much comedy on television. Does that cause comedy in the streets?
-Dick Cavett
On two occasions I have been asked [by members of Parliament], 'Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?' I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question.
-Charles Babbage
Commander, have you been able to determine the cause of the warp breach?
-Captain Jean-Luc Picard, Star Trek
No, sir. Everything was normal, and then, suddenly, it's like the laws of physics went right out the window.
-Lt. Cmdr. Geordi LaForge, Star Trek
And why shouldn't they? They're so inconvenient.
-Q, Star Trek
I could never make out what those damned dots meant.
-Lord Randolph Churchill, former Chancellor of the Exchequer (regarding decimal points)
Media
Treat the media as you would any other watchdog. Stay calm, be friendly, let them sniff your hand and never turn your back.
-Amy Sprinkles, Public Information Officer, City of Grand Prairie (TX)
How come there's only one Monopolies Commission?
-Nigel Rees
It is better to have a permanent income than to be fascinating.
-Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)
I used to think I was poor. Then they told me I wasn't poor, I was needy. Then they told me it was self-defeating to think of myself as needy. I was deprived. (Oh not deprived but rather underprivileged.) Then they told me that underprivileged was overused. I was disadvantaged. I still don't have a dime. But I have a great vocabulary.
-Jules Feiffer (1965)
If a million people believe a foolish thing, it is still a foolish thing.
-Anatole France
If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away.
-Henry David Thoreau
Men have become the tools of their tools.
-Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862)
You think the only people who are people,
Are the ones who look and think the way you do,
But if you walk the footsteps of a stranger,
You'll learn the things you never knew you never knew...
You can own the Earth and still,
All you'll own is earth until
You can paint with all the colors of the wind.
-Stephen Schwartz, Colors of the Wind
There is no room in this country for hyphenated Americanism.
-Theodore Roosevelt
I am not an Athenian or a Greek, I am a citizen of the world.
-Socrates
It is well, when judging a friend, to remember that he is judging you with the same godlike and superior impartiality.
-Arnold Bennett
Some people are born on third base and go through life thinking they hit a triple.
-Barry Switzer
There are two kinds of people, those who do the work and those who take the credit. Try to be in the first group; there is less competition there.
-Indira Gandhi
You can't make one thin dime giving people what they need. You've got to give 'em what they want.
-Angel Martin
P.S. It is my observation that too many of us are spending money we haven't earned to buy things we don't need to impress people we don't like.
-H. Jackson Brown's mom (from P. S. I Love You)
I do not care to belong to a club that accepts people like me as members.
-Groucho Marx (1890-1977)
I loathe people who keep dogs. They are cowards who haven't got the guts to bite people themselves.
-August Strindberg
Glory is fleeting, but obscurity is forever.
-Napoleon Bonaparte (1769-1821)
People who are funny and smart and return phone calls get much better press than people who are just funny and smart.
-Howard Simons, The Washington Post
Some folks never exaggerate- they just remember big.
-Audrey Snead
Human beings, who are almost unique in having the ability to learn from the experience of others, are also remarkable for their apparent disinclination to do so.
-Douglas Adams
The things we fear most in organization - fluctuations, disturbances, imbalances - are the primary sources of creativity.
-Margaret J. Wheatley
I've always wanted to be somebody, but I see now I should have been more specific.
-Lily Tomlin
Maybe in order to understand mankind, we have to look at the word itself. Mankind. Basically, it's made up of two separate words-- "mank" and "ind". What do these words mean? It's a mystery, and that's why so is mankind.
-Jack Handey, Deep Thoughts
If we're going to be damned, let's be damned for who we really are.
-Captain Jean-Luc Picard, Star Trek
I'm not good in groups. It's difficult to work in a group when you're omnipotent.
-Q, Star Trek
No one will ever win the battle of the sexes; there's too much fraternizing with the enemy.
-Henry Kissinger
If I am not for myself, who will be for me? If I am only for myself, what am I? And if not now, when?
-Hillel
Don't try to be different. Just be good. To be good is different enough.
-Arthur Freed
If you have to swallow a frog, try not to think about it. If you have to swallow two frogs, don't swallow the smaller one first.
Oh, my friend, it's not what they take away from you that counts. It's what you do with what you have left.
-Hubert Humphrey
First they went after the Communists,
and I did not stand up, because I was not a Communist.
Then they went after the homosexuals and infirm,
and I did not stand up, because I was neither.
Then they went after the Jews,
and I did not stand up, because I was not a Jew.
Then they went after the Catholics,
and I did not stand up, because I was Protestant.
Finally, they went after me,
and there was no one left to stand up for me.
-Pastor Martin Neimoller
Give me a lever long enough, and a prop strong enough. I can single-handed move the world. / Give me a place to stand, and I will move the earth.
-Archimedes (287-212 B.C.E.)
To err is human, to forgive divine.
-Alexander Pope
Better to light a candle than to curse the darkness.
-Chinese Proverb
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I ... I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference.
-Robert Frost
If there is no wind, row.
-Latin Proverb
Avoid suspicion: when you're walking through your neighbor's melon patch, don't tie your shoe.
-Chinese Proverb
When a dog runs at you, whistle for him.
-Henry David Thoreau
This is my chosen fast: to loosen all the bonds that bind men unfairly, to let the oppressed go free, to break every yoke. Share your bread with the hungry, take the homeless into your home. Clothe the naked when you see him, do not turn away from people in need. . . . If you remove from your midst the yoke of oppression, the finger of scorn and the tongue of malice, if you put yourself out for the hungry and relieve the wretched, then shall your light shine in darkness, and your gloom shall be as noonday. . . . And you shall be like a watered garden, like a never-failing spring. And you shall rebuild ancient ruins, restoring old foundations. You shall be known as the rebuilder of broken walls, the restorer of dwelling places.
-Book of Isaiah
Use what talents you possess: The woods would be very silent if no birds sang there except those that sang best.
-Henry Van Dyke
Know yourself. Don't accept your dog's admiration as conclusive evidence that you are wonderful.
-Ann Landers
To err is human; to forgive is simply not our policy.
-MIT Assassination Club slogan
The voice of protest, of warning, of appeal is never more needed than when the clamor of fife and drum, echoed by the press and too often by the pulpit, is bidding all men fall in step and obey in silence the tyrannous word of command. Then, more than ever, it is the duty of the good citizen not to be silent.
-Charles Eliot Norton, True Patriotism, 1898
I will permit no man to narrow and degrade my soul by making me hate him.
-Booker T. Washington
A Freudian slip is when you say one thing but mean your mother.
If you want to take long walks, take long walks. If you want to hit things with a stick, hit things with a stick. But there's no excuse for combining the two and putting the results on TV. Golf is not so much a sport as an insult to lawns.
-National Lampoon
If I had my way, any man guilty of golf would be ineligible for any office of trust in the United States.
-H.L. Mencken (1880-1956)
Golf is a good walk spoiled.
-Mark Twain (1835-1910)
Decisions of the judges will be final unless shouted down by a really overwhelming majority of the crowd present. Abusive and obscene language may not be used by contestants when addressing members of the judging panel, or, conversely, by members of the judging panel when addressing contestants (unless struck by a boomerang).
-Mudgeeraba Creek Emu-Riding and Boomerang-Throwing Assoc.
War and Peace
Now the trumpet summons us again, not as a call to bear arms, though arms we need, not as a call to battle, though embattled we are, but as a call to bear the burden of a long twilight struggle - a struggle against the common enemies of man - tyranny, poverty, disease, and war itself.
-John F. Kennedy
What a beautiful fix we are in now; peace has been declared.
-Napoleon Bonaparte (1769-1821) after the Treaty of Amiens, 1802
EXCERPTS FROM MURPHY'S LAWS OF COMBAT
1. If the enemy is in range, so are you.
2. Incoming fire has the right of way.
3. Don't look conspicuous, it draws fire.
8. The enemy invariably attacks on two occasions: a) when you're ready for
them and b) when you're not ready for them.
9. Teamwork is essential, it gives them someone else to shoot at.
12. A "sucking chest wound" is nature's way of telling you to slow down.
14. Never draw fire, it irritates everyone around you.
19. When you have secured an area, don't forget to tell the enemy.
20. Never forget that your weapon is made by the lowest bidder.
21. Friendly fire isn't.
27. Remember, a retreating enemy is probably just falling back and regrouping.
71. When both sides are convinced they are about to lose, they're both right.
I took a speed-reading course and read War and Peace in twenty minutes. It involves Russia.
-Woody Allen
There is nothing more exhilarating than to be shot at without result.
-Winston Churchill (1874-1965)
How come the dove gets to be the peace symbol? How about the pillow? It has more feathers than the dove, and it doesn't have that dangerous beak.
-Jack Handey, Deep Thoughts
I can picture in my mind a world without war, a world without hate. And I can picture us attacking that world, because they'd never expect it.
-Jack Handey, Deep Thoughts
When you have shot and killed a man, you have in some measure clarified your attitude toward him. You have given a definite answer to a definite problem. For better or for worse, you have acted decisively. In a way the next move is up to him!
-Robert Heinlein
No matter what happens, the U.S. Navy is not going to be caught napping.
-Secretary of the Navy Frank Knox, December 5, 1941
Threats don't work with the person who's got nothing to lose."
Maduro Ash
"An idea is salvation by imagination."
Frank Lloyd Wright
Explanation separates us from astonishment, which is the only gateway to the incomprehensible."
Eugene Ionesco
"To know when to be generous and when to be firm - this is wisdom."
Elbert Hubbard
Conway's Law:
In any organization there will always be one person who knows what is going on.
This person must be fired.
"There are no facts, only interpretations."
Friedrich Nietzsche
Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely. - Lord Acton
No man means all he says, and yet very few say all they mean, for words are slippery and thought is viscous. - Henry B. Adams
It is easier to fight for one's principles than to live up to them. - Alfred Adler
Be content with your lot; one cannot be first in everything. - Aesop
We would often be sorry if our wishes were gratified. - Aesop
The paper burns, but the words fly away. - Ben Joseph Akiba
Leisure time is that five or six hours when you sleep at night. - George Allen
I don't want to achieve immortality through my work. I want to acheive it through not dying. - Woody Allen
The difference between sex and death is that with death you can do it alone and no one is going to make fun of you. - Woody Allen
Service to others is the rent you pay for your room here on earth. - Muhammad Ali
Women like silent men. They think they're listening. - Marcel Archard
Doing easily what others find difficult is talent; doing what is impossible for talent is genius. - Henri-Frederic Amiel
In any country there must be people who have to die. They are the sacrafices any nation has to make to achieve law and order. - Idi Amin Dada
God has been replaced, as he has all over the West, with respectability and air conditioning. - Imamu Amiri Baraka
Never argue with a fool - people might not know the difference. - Anonymous
What is a friend? A single soul dwelling in two bodies. - Aristotle
That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind. - Neil Armstrong
Hope is a good breakfast, but it is a bad supper. - Francis Bacon
It is good to be without vices, but it is not good to be without tempetations. - Walter Bagehot
The future is like heaven - everyone exalts it, but no one wants to go there now. - James Baldwin
It's the good girls who keep diaries; the bad girls never have the time. - Tallulah Bankhead
Television is the first truly democratic culture - the first culture available to everybody and entirely governed by what the people want. the most terrifying thing is what people do want. - Clive Barnes
The most important things to do in the world are to get something to eat, something to drink and somebody to love you. - Brandan Behan
Time is a great teacher, but unfortunately it kills all its pupils. - Hector Berlioz
Marriage, n: the state or condition of a community consisting of a master, a mistress, and two slaves, making in all, two. - Ambrose Bierce
The first sign of a nervous breakdown is when you start thinking your work is terribly important. - Milo Bloom
An expert is a man who has made all the mistakes which can be made, in a narrow field. - Niels Bohr
If you think education is expensive, try ignorance. - Derek Bok
The test of the morality of a society is what it does for its children. - Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Censorship, like charity, should begin at home, but unlike charity, it should end there. - Clare Boothe Luce
No good deed goes unpunished. - Clare Boothe Luce
When in doubt, mumble; when in trouble, delegate; when in charge, ponder. - James H. Boren
Nothing is built on stone; all is built on sand, but we must build as if the sand were stone. - Jorge Luis Borges
Ours is a world of nuclear giants and ethical infants. If we continue to develop our technology without wisdom or prudence, our servant may prove to be our executioner. - General Omar Bradley
An expert is one who knows more and more about less and less. - Nicholas Murray Butler
Friendship is like money, easier made than kept. - Samuel Butler
I either want less corruption, or more chance to participate in it. - Ashleigh Brilliant
Please don't ask me what the score is, I'm not even sure what the game is. - Ashleigh Brilliant
To be sure of hittinh the target, shoot first, and call whatever you hit the target. - Ashleigh Brilliant
Never do today what you can put off till tomorrow. - Mathew Browne
As a mother, I know that homosexuals cannot biologically reproduce children; therefore, they must recruit our children. - Anita Bryant
Before you kill something make sure you have something better to replace it with; something better than political oppurtunist slamming hate horseshit in the public park. - Charles Bukowski
We love your adherence to democratic principles. - William F. Buckley
One was never married, and that's his hell; another is, and that's his plague. - Robert Burton
The optimist proclaims we live in the best of all possible worlds; and the pessimist fears this is true. - James B. Cabell
It is better to be defeated on principle than to win on lies. - Arthur Calwell
An honest politician is one who when he is bought will stay bought. - Simon Cameron
You can get much farther with a kind word and a gun than you can with a kind word alone. - Al Capone
Anyone who can walk to the welfare office can walk to work. - Al Capp
In time of war the first casuilty is truth. - Boake Carter
Diplomacy is the art of saying "Nice Doggie!" till you can find a rock. - Wynn Catlin
As long as people will accept crap, it will be financially profitable to dispense it. - Dick Cavett
In some cases non-violence requires more militancy than violence. - Cesar Chavez
He who asks is a fool for five minutes, but he who does not ask remains a fool forever. - Chinese proverb
The man who strikes first admits that his ideas have given out. - Chinese Proverb
I like a man who grins when he fights. - Winston Churchill
I like pigs. Dogs look up to use. Cats look down on us. Pigs treat us as equals. - Winston Churchill
It is a good thing for an uneducated man to read books of quotations. - Winston Churchill
Man will occasionally stumble over the truth, but most times he will pick himself up and carry on. - Winston Churchill
The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings; the inherent virtue of socialism is the equal sharing of miseries. - Winston Churchill
Everyone has his day and some days last longer than others. - Winston Churchill
Who will protect the public when the police violate the law? - Ramsey Clark
War is much too serious a matter to be entrusted to the military. - Georges Clemenceau
When you have nothing to say, say nothing. - Charles Caleb Colton
America is the only nation in history which miraculously has gone directly from barbarism to degeneration without the usual interval of civilisation. - Georges Clemenceau
I hear and I forget. I see and I remember. I do and I understand. - Confucius
Real knowledge is to know the extent of one's ignorance. - Confucius
Always be nive to those younger than you, because they are the ones who will be writing about you. - Cyril Connolly
The first half of our lives is ruined by our parents, and the second half by our children. - Clarence Darrow
When I was a boy I was told that anybody could become President; I'm beginning to believe it. - Clarence Darrow
There are a million ways to lose a work day, but not even a single way to get one back. - Tom DeMarco and Timothy Lister
We spend the first twelve months of our children's lives teaching them to walk and talk and the next twelve telling them to sit down and shut up. - Phyllis Diller
I never deny, I never contradict. I sometimes forget. - Benjamin Disraeli
There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics. - Benjamin Disraeli
Mediocrity knows nothing higher than itself, but talent instantly recognizes genius. - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
Education is a progressive discovery of our own ignorance. - Will Durant
History teaches us that men and nations behave wisely once they have exausted all other alternatives. - Abba Eban
I never think of the future - it comes soon enough. - Albert Einstein
Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen. - Albert Einstein
The important thing is not to stop questioning. - Albert Einstein
The release of atomic energy has not created a new problem. It has merely made more urgent the necessity of solving an existing one. - Albert Einstein
Before God we are equally wise - and equally foolish. - Albert Einstein
The most incomprehensible thing about the world is that it is comprehensible. - Albert Einstein
We are going to have peace even if we have to fight for it. - Dwight D. Eisenhower
A people that values its priveleges above its principles soon loses both. - Dwight D. Eisenhower
I think that people want peace so much that one of these days government had better get out of their way and let them have it. - Dwight D. Eisenhower
What counts is not necessarily the size of the dog in the fight - it's the size of the fight in the dog. - Dwight D. Eisenhower
This is the way the world ends. Not with a bang but a whimper. - T. S. Eliot
What we call "morals" is simply blind obedience to words of command. - Havelock Ellis
Always do what you are afraid to do. - Ralph Waldo Emerson
What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us. - Ralph Waldo Emerson
To different minds, the same world is a hell, and a heaven. - Ralph Waldo Emerson
A friend is a person with whom I may be sincere. Before him, I may think aloud. - Ralph Waldo Emerson
I like the silent church before the service begins, batter than any preaching. - Ralph Waldo Emerson
Beauty without grace is the hook without the bait. - Ralph Waldo Emerson
Hitch your wagon to a star. - Ralph Waldo Emerson
Every man I meet is in some way my superior. - Ralph Waldo Emerson
We have two ears and one mouth so that we can listen twice as much as we speak. - Epictetus
War is delightful to those who have had no experience of it. - Desiderius Erasmus
There's a difference between beauty and charm. A beautiful woman is one I notice. A charming woman is one who notices me. - John Erskine
Millions long for immortality who do not know what to do with themselves on a rainy Sunday afternoon. - Susan Ertz
Talk sense to a fool and he calls you foolish. - Euripides
The camera cannot lie. But it can be an accessory to untruth. - Harold Evans
When you read a classic you do not see in the book more than you did before. You see more in you than there was before. - Clifton Fadiman
If people really liked to work, we'd still be plowing the land with sticks and transporting goods on our backs. - Eilliam Feather
Computer : a million morons working at the speed of light. - David Ferrier
I am free of all prejudices. I hate everyone equally. - W.C. Fields
It isn't what they say about you, it's what they whisper. - Errol Flynn
Nothing is particularly hard if you divide it into small jobs. - Henry Ford
I am responsible only to God and history. - Francisco Franco
Experience is a dear teacher, but fools will learn at no other. - Benjamin Franklin
In this world, nothing is certain but death and taxes. - Benjamin Franklin
Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar. - Sigmund Freud
The news is the one thing the networks can point to with pride. Everything else they do is crap - and they know it. - Fred Friendly
The successful revolutionary is a statesman, the unsuccessful one a criminal. - Erich Fromm
A bank is a place where they lend you an umbrella in fair weather and ask for it back when it begins to rain. - Robert Frost
A diplomat is a man who always remembers a woman's birthday but never remembers her age. - Robert Frost
A jury consists of twelve persons chosen to decide who has the better lawyer. - Robert Frost
The world is full of willing people; some wiling to work, the rest willing to let them. - Robert Frost
We compound our suffering by victimising each other. - Athol Fugard
The end move in politics is always to pick up a gun. - R. Buckminster Fuller
It's not your blue blood, your pedigree or your college degree. It's what you do with your life that counts. - Millard Fuller
Getting divorced just because you don't love a man is almost as silly as getting married just because you do. - Zsa Zsa Gabor
Nothing is so admirable in politics as a short memory. - John Kenneth Galbraith
Politics is not the art of the possible. It consists in choosing between the disastrous and the unpalatable. - John Kenneth Galbraith
The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness. - John Kenneth Galbraith
One of the greatest pieces of economic eisdom is to know what you do not know. - John Kenneth Galbraith
A country can be judged by the quality of its proverbs. - German Proverb
If you can count your money you don't have a billion dollars. - J. Paul Getty
Believe those who are seeking the truth; doubt those who find it. - Andr Gide
The secret of success is sincerity. Once you can fake that you've got it made. - Jean Giraudoux
Expecting something for nothing is the most popular form of hope. - Arnold Glasow
We are not abandoning our convictions, our philosophy or traditions, nor do we urge anyone to abandon theirs. - Mikhail Gornachov
Heresy is another word for freedom of thought. - Graham Greene
Figures won't lie, but liars will figure. - Charles H. Grosvenor
Those who stand for nothing fall for anything. - Alex Hamilton
War will cease when men refuse to fight. - Fridtjof Hansen
Nobody can be so ammusingly arrogant as a young man who has just discovered an old idea and thinks it is his own. - Sydney Harris
In times like these, it is helpful to remember that there have always been times like these. - Paul Harvey
Prosperity is a great teacher; adversity a greater. - William Hazlitt
Opinions founded on prejudice are always sustained with the greatest violence. - Hebrew Proverb
Plain women know more about men than beautiful ones do. But beautiful women don't need to know about men. It's the men who have to know about beautiful women. - Katherine Hepburn
There is nothing permanent except change. - Heraclitus
Great deeds are usually wrought at great risks. - Herodotus
Drama is life with the dull bits cut out. - Alfred Hitchcock
The victor will never be asked if he told the truth. - Adolf Hitler
What luck for the rulers that men do not think. - Adolf Hitler
Strength lies not in defense but in attack. - Adolf Hitler
Success is the sole earthly judge of right and wrong. - Adolf Hitler
The great masses of the people... will more easily fall victims to a big lie than to a small one. - Adolf Hitler
You can discover what your enemy fears most by observing the means he uses to frighten you. - Eric Hoffer
The first duty of a revolutionary is to get away with it. - Abbie Hoffman
Justice is incidental to law and order. - J. Edgar Hoover
Genius may have its limitations, but stupidity is not thus handicapped. - Elbert Hubbard
Boys will be boys, and so will a lot of middle-aged men. - Kin Hubbard
When a fellow says it ain't the money but the principle of the thing, it's the money. - Kin Hubbard
Now and then an innocent man is sent to the legislature. - Kin Hubbard
The right to be heard does not automatically include the right to be taken seriously. - Hubert H. Humphrey
The death of democracy is not likely to be an assassination from ambush. It will be a slow exticntion from apathy, indifference, and undernourishment. - Robert Hutchins
Maybe this world is another planet's Hell. - Aldous Huxley
Experience is not what happens to you. It is what you do with what happens to you. - Aldous Huxley
A community is like a ship; everyone ought to be prepared to take the helm. - Henrik Ibsen
The strongest man in the world ishe who stands alone. - Henrik Ibsen
Few rich men own theirown property. The property owns them. - Robert G. Ingersoll
The will to win is worthless if you don't get paid for it. - Reggie Jackson
It is only when they go wrong that machines remind you how powerful they are. - Clive James
A great many people think they are thinking when they are merely rearranging their prejudices. - William James
The deepest principle in human nature is the craving to be appreciated. - William James
In every country and every age, the priest had been hostile to Liberty. - Thomas Jefferson
It is always the best policy to tell the truth, unless, of course, you are an exceptionally good liar. - Jerome K. Jerome
Men are like wine - some turn to vinegar, but the best improve with age. - Pope John XXIII
Patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel. - Samuel Johnson
An ounce of emotion is equal to a ton of facts. - John Junor
In the fight between you and the world, back the world. - Franz Kafka
You do not destroy an idea by killing people; you replace it with a better one. - Edward Keating
College isn't the place to go for ideas. - Hellen Keller
Mankind must put an end to war, or war will put an end to mankind. - John F. Kennedy
If a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich. - John F. Kennedy
Those who make peacful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable. - John F. Kennedy
We have the power to make this the best generation of mankind in the history of the world - or to make it the last. - John F. Kennedy
And so, my fellow Americans, ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country. - John F. Kennedy
Only those who dare to fail greatly can ever achieve greatly. - Robert F. Kennedy
Some men see things as they are and say why? I dream things that never were and say "Why not?" - Robert F. Kennedy
In the long run we are all dead. - John Maynard Keynes
Politicians are the same all over. They promise to build bridges even when there are no rivers. - Nikita Khruschev
Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. - Martin Luther King Jr.
The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy. - Martin Luther King Jr
Words are, of course, the most powerful drug used by mankind. - Rudyard Kipling
The illegal we do immediately. The unconstitutional takes a little longer. - Henry Kissinger
Television - a medium. So called because it is neither rare nor well-done. - Ernie Kovacs
Pick battles big enough to matter, small enough to win. - Jonathan Kozol
People don't ask for facts in making up their minds. They would rather have one good, soul-satisfying emotion than a dozen facts. - Robert Keith Leavitt
It is well that war is so terrible, or we should get too fond of it. - Robert E. Lee
It is true that liberty is precious - so precious that it must be rationed. - Nikolai Lenin
The world began without man, and it will complete itself without him. - Claude Levi-Strauss
Statistics are like a bikini. What they reveal is suggestive, but what they conceal is vital. - Aaron Levenstein
Ask a man which way he is going to vote, and he will probably tell you. Ask him, however, why, and vagueness is all. - Bernard Levin
Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, give him power. - Abraham Lincoln
Whenever I hear anyone arguing for slavery, I feel a strong impulse to see it tried on im personally. - Abraham Lincoln
You can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time. - Abraham Lincoln
Good communication is as stimulating as black coffee, and just as hard to sleep after. - Anne Morrow Lindbergh
Where all men think alike, no one thinks very much. - Walter Lippmann
I have always thought the actions of men the best interpreters of their thoughts. - John Locke
Winning is not everything. It's the only thing. - Vince Lombardi
Everybody wants to go to heaven, but nobody wants to die. - Joe Louis
In war there is no substitute for victory. - General Douglas MacArthur
It is much more secure to be feared than to be loved. - Niccolo Machiavelli
All our knowledge merely helps us to die a more painful death than animals that know nothing. - Maurice Maeterlinck
Politics is war without bloodshed while war is politics with bloodshed. - Mao Zedong
An optimist is a guy that has never had much experience. -Donald R. Perry Marquis
From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs. - Karl Marx
Religion... is the opium of the masses. - Karl Marx
Love is only the dirty trick played on us to achieve continuation of the species. - W. Somerset Maugham
A politician is an animal which can sit on a fence and yet keep both ears to the ground. - H. L. Mencken
Love is the triumph of imagination over intelligence. - H. L. Mencken
No one ever went broke underestimating the taste of the American public. - H. L. Mencken
Time is the great legalizer, even in the field of morals. - H. L. Mencken
The older I grow themore I distrust the familiar doctrine that age brings wisdom. - H. L. Mencken
A good listener is not only popular everywhere, but after a while he gets to know something. - Wilson Mizner
Conscience is the inner voice that warns us that someone might be looking. - H. L. Mencken
When you take stuff from one writer it's plagiarism; but when you take it from many writers, it's research. - Wilson Mizner
Gambling: The sure way of getting nothing for something. - Wilson Mizner
Obstacles are tose frightful things you see when you take your eyes off the goal. - Hannah More
You have not converted a man because you have silenced him. - John Morley
Any party which takes credit for the rain must not be surprised if its opponents blame it for the drought. - Dwight Morrow
Anyone who isn't confused really doesn't understand the situation. - Edward R. Murrow
The big majority of Americans, who are comparitevly well off, have developed an ability to have enclaves of people living in the greatest misery without almost noticing them. - Gunnar Myrdal
Ten people who speak make more noise than ten thousand who are silent. - Napoleon
In politics stupidity is not a handicap. - Napoleon
If you wish to be a success in the world, promise everything, deliver nothing. - Napoleon
A man will fight harder for his interests than for his rights. - Napoleon
History is the version of past events that people have decided to agree upon. - Napoleon
Bad officials are elected by good citizens who do not vote. - George Jean Nathan
Nobody believes the official spokesman... but everybody trusts an unidentified source. - Ron Nesen
Lack of will power has caused more failure than lack of intelligence or ability. - Flower A. Newhouse
One should dies proudly when itis no longer possible to live proudly. - Friedrich Nietzsche
What does not destroy me, makes me strong. - Friedrich Nietzsche
Is not life a hundred times too short for us to bore ourselves? - Friedrich Nietzsche
A ship is always referred to as "she" because it costs so much to keep one in paint and powder. - Chester Nimitz
I would have made a good pope. - Richard Nixon
Voters quickly forget what a man says. - Richard Nixon
When the president does it, thats means it is not illegal. - Richard Nixon
Laws were made to be broken. - Christopher North
The optimist thinks that this is the best of all possible worlds, and the pessimist knows it. - J. Robert Oppenheimer
On the whole himan beings want to be good, but not to good and not quite all the time. - George Orwell
Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past. - George Orwell
To be loved, be lovable. - Ovid
The chief product of an automated society is a widespread and deepening sense of boredom. - Cyril Parkinson
The cure forboredom is curiosity. There is no cure for curiosity. - Ellen Parr
If all men knew what others say of them, there would not be four friends in the world. - Blaise Pascal
I have one great fear in my heart, that one day when they (the whites of South Africa) have turned to loving, they will find we (the blacks) are turned to hating. - Alan Paton
What broke in a man when he could bring himself to kill another? - Alan Paton
Who knows whatwe live, and struggle, and die?... Wise men write many books, in words too hard to understand. But this, the purpose of our lives, the end of all our struggle, is beyond all human wisdom. - Alan Paton
To give up the task of reforming society is to give up one's responsibility as a free man. - Alan Paton
Watch what people are cynical about, and one can often discover what they lack. - George S. Patton
Never tell people how to do things. Tell them what to do and they will surprise you with their ingenuity. - George S. Patton
Public office is the last refuge of a scoundrel. - Boies Penrose
An economist is an expert who will know tommorow why the things he predicted yesterday didn't happen today. - Laurence J. Peter
Education is a method whereby one acquires a higher grade of prejudices. - Laurance Peter
Originality is the fine art of remembering what you hear but forgetting where you heard it. - Laurance Peter
In a hierarchy every employee tends to rise to his level of incompetence. - Laurence Peter
Democracy is a process by which the people are free to choose the man who will get the blame. - Laurance Peter
Difference of religion breeds more quarrels than difference of politics. - Wendell Phillips
Sometimes democracy must be bathed in blood. - Augusto Pinochet
The measure of a man is what he does with power. - Pittacus
Cinema should make you forget you are sitting in a theater. - Roman Polanski
Under capitalism man exploits man; under socialism the reverse is true. - Polish proverb
One lives in the hope of becoming a memory. - Antonio Porchia
They talk most who have the least to say. - Mathew Prior
A city is a large community where people are lonesome together. - Herbert Prochnow
Power always has to be kept in check; power exercised in secret, especially under the cloak of national security, is doubly dangerous. - William Proxmire
Practice is the best of all instructors. - Publilius Syrus
If we don't succeed, we run the risk of failure. - J. Danforth Quayle
Happy campers you have been, happy campers you are, and happy campers you will always be. - J. Danforth Quayle
I was recently on a tour of Latin America, and the only regret I have was that I didn't study Latin harder in school so I could converse with those people. - J. Danforth Quayle
A nuclear power plant is infinently safer than eating, because 300 people choke to death on food every year. - Dixy Lee Ray
Politics is not a bad profession. If you succeed there are many rewards, if you disgrace yourself you can always write a book. - Ronald Reagan
Government is like a baby. An alimentary canal with a big appetite at one end and no sense of responsibility at the other. - Ronald Reagan
I favor the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and itmust be enforced at gunpoint if necessary. - Ronald Reagan
I would have voted against the Civil Rights Act of 1964. - Ronald Reagan
The scientists split the atom; now the atom is splitting us. - Quentin Reynolds
The streets are safe in Philadelphia, it's only the people who make them unsafe. - Frank Rizzo
If it takes a lot of words to say what you have in mind, give it more thought. - Dennis Roch
Diplomats are just as essential to starting a war as soldiers are for finishing it.... You take diplomacy out of war, and the thing would fall flat in a week. - Will Rogers
We always love those who admire us, but we do not always love those whom we admire. - Francois
We can't all be heroes becuase someone has to sit on the curb and clap as they go by. - Will Rogers
Everything is funny as long as it is happening to someone else. - Will Rogers
No one can make you feel inferior without your consent. - Eleanor Roosevelt
The only thing we have to fear is fear itself. - Franklin D. Roosevelt
People who know little are usually great talkers, while men who know much say little. - Jean Jacques Rousseau
The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, but wiser people so full of doubts. - Bertrand Russel
You can outdistance that which is running after you, but not what is running inside you. - Rwandan proverb
A dress makes no sense unless it inspires men to want to take it off you. - Francois Sagan
A man's feet should be planted in his country, but his eyes should survey the world. - George Santayana
When the rich make war it's the poor that die. - Jean-Paul Sartre
Assassination is the extreme form of censorship. - George Bernard Shaw
A single death is a tragedy, a million deaths is a statistic. - Joseph Stalin
The time to stop a revolution is at the beginning, not the end. - Adlai Stevenson
There is nothing in this world constant but inconstancy. - Swift
The hunger for love is much more difficult to remove than the hunger for bread. - Mother Teresa
That government is best which governs least. - Henry David Thoreau
The trouble with the rat-race is that even if you win, you're still a rat. - Lily Tomlin
If you can't convince them, confuse them. - Harry S. Truman
It is amazing what you can accomplish if you do not care who gets the credit. - Harry S. Truman
Whenever you have an efficient government you have a dictatorship. - Harry S. Truman
I like thinking big. If you're going to be thinking anything, you might as well think big. - Donald Trump
Words divide us, actions unite us. - Slogan of the Tupamaros
Man is the only animal that blushes - or needs to. - Mark Twain
The Vice Presidency is sort of like the last cookie on the plate. Everybody insists he won't take it, but somebody always does. - Bill Vaughan
The sports page records people's accomplishments; The front page nothing but their failures. - Jutice Earl Warren
Too much of a good thing is wonderful. - Mae West
No man is rich enough to buy back his past. - Oscar Wilde
We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars. - Oscar Wilde
There is only one thing in the world worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about. - Oscar Wilde
Only the winners decide what were war crimes. - Gary Wills
If you think nobody cares if you're alive, try missing a couple of car payments. - Earl Wilson
It is better to die on your feet than to live on your knees! - Emiliano Zapata
All easy problems have already been solved.
All men should freely use those seven words which have the power to make any marriage run smoothly: You know dear, you may be right.
Always borrow money from a pessimist; they don't expect to be paid back.
Always try to do things in chronological order; it's less confusing that way.
Anarchy may not be the best form of government, but it's better than no government at all.
An armed society is a polite society.
An expert is a person who avoids the small errors while sweeping on to the grand fallacy.
Anyone can count the seeds in an apple.
No one can count the apples in a seed.
Any technology distinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced.
Applying computer technology is simply finding the right wrench to pound in the correct screw.
Artificial Intelligence is the study of how to make real computers act like the ones in movies.
As a general rule, the freedom of any people can be judged by the volume of their laughter.
As of 1992, they'll be called European Economic Community fries.
Be kind to unkind people - they need it the most.
A bore is someone who persists in holding his own views after we have enlightened him with ours.
Business is like a wheelbarrow. Nothing ever happens until you start pushing.
Children are natural mimics who act like their parents despite every effort to teach them good manners.
Cole's Law: Thinly sliced cabbage.
Computers are not intelligent. They only think they are.
Condense soup, not books!
Conscious is when you are aware of something, and conscience is when you wish you weren't.
A day without sunshine is like night.
Democracy is mob rule, but with income taxes.
Do not follow where the path may lead....go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.
Don't have a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent.
Drawing on my fine command of language, I said nothing.
A Freudian slip is when you say one thing but mean your mother.
The goal of science is to build better mousetraps. The goal of nature is to build better mice.
The greatest threat towards future is indifference.
Half of the people in the world are below average.
He is truly wise who gains wisdom from another's mishap.
The high cost of living hasn't affected its popularity.
Hindsight is an exact science.
Horses just naturally have Mohawk haircuts.
How can you tell when sour cream goes bad?
The human mind ordinarily operates at only ten percent of its capacity. The rest is overhead for the operating system.
If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.
If the car industry behaved like the computer industry over the last 30 years, a Rolls-Royce would cost $5, get 300 miles per gallon, and blow up once a year killing all passengers inside.
If the odds are a million to one against something occurring, chances are 50-50 it will.
If you believe that feeling bad or worrying long enough will change a past or future event, then you are residing on another planet with a different reality system.
If you hear an onion ring, answer it.
If you're not part of the solution, then you're part of the precipitate.
I have often regretted my speech, never my silence.
In a survey taken several years ago, all incoming freshman at MIT were asked if they expected to graduate in the top half of their class. Ninety-seven percent responded that they did.
Include the success of others in your dreams for your own success.
In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice, however, there is.
Is the glass half empty, half full, or twice as large as it needs to
I still miss my ex-wife, but my aim is getting better.
It may be that your whole purpose in life is simply to serve as a warning to others.
I think animal testing is a terrible idea; they get all nervous and give the wrong answers.
It's a small world, but I wouldn't want to paint it.
It's hard to make a program foolproof because fools are so ingenious.
Just because your doctor has a name for your condition doesn't mean he knows what it is.
Keep your head and your heart going in the right direction and you will not have to worry about your feet.
Life would be so much easier if everyone read the manual.
The light at the end of the tunnel is usually a "No Exit" sign.
Like winter snow on summer lawn, time past is time gone.
Madness takes its toll. Please have exact change.
A metaphor is like a simile.
Minds are like parachutes - they only function when open.
Mistakes are often the stepping stones to utter failure.
Never appeal to a man's "better nature." he might not have one.
Never ascribe to malice that which can adequately be explained by stupidity.
Never put off until tomorrow what you can put off indefinitely.
The nice thing about standards is, there are so many to choose from.
No man knows what true happiness is until he gets married. By then, of course, its too late.
The number you have dialed is imaginary. Please divide by 0 and try again.
Objects in mirror are closer than they appear.
Of all the things I've lost, I miss my mind the most.
One essential to success is that you desire be an all-obsessing one, your thoughts and aims be co-ordinates, and your energy be concentrated and applied without letup.
The one who says it cannot be done should never interrupt the one who is doing it.
The only time the world beats a path to your door is when you are in the bathroom.
People with narrow minds usually have broad tongues.
The philosophy exam was a piece of cake - which was a bit of a surprise, actually, because I was expecting some questions on a sheet of paper.
Philosophy is a game with objectives and no rules.
Mathematics is a game with rules and no objectives.
Q: How do you spell "onomatopoeia"?
A: The way it sounds.
Q: What do you get when you cross an Ethernet with an income statement?
A: A local area net-worth.
Quantum particles: The dreams that stuff is made of.
A rolling stone gathers momentum.
Some people march to the beat of a different drummer. And some people tango!
Sorry, but my karma just ran over your dogma.
The speed of time is one second per second.
A Stanford research group advertised for participants in a study of obsessive-compulsive disorder. They were looking for therapy clients who had been diagnosed with this disorder. The response was gratifying; they got 3,000 responses about three days after the ad came out. All from the same person.
Success in marriage is not so much finding the right person as it is being the right person.
There are some strings. They're just not attached.
There has been an alarming increase in the number of things you know nothing about.
There's an old proverb that says just about whatever you want it to.
There's an old story about the person who wished his computer were as easy to use as his telephone. That wish has come true, since I no longer know how to use my telephone.
There's no future in time travel.
Thought for the day: What if there were no hypothetical situations?
To be a winner, all you need to give is all you have.
Today is the yesterday you worried about tomorrow.
Two wrongs don't make a right, but three rights make a left.
We, the unwilling,
led by the unknowing,
are doing the impossible
for the ungrateful.
We have done so much,
for so long,
with so little,
we are now qualified to do anything
with nothing.
When the tide of life turns against you
And the current upsets your boat
Don't waste tears on what might have been
Just lie on your back and float.
What's the sound a name makes when it's dropped?
What was sliced bread the greatest thing since?
When all is said and done, more is said than done.
Where would we be without rhetorical questions?
While money can't buy happiness, it certainly lets you choose your own form of misery.
While most peoples' opinions change, the conviction of their correctness never does.
Why can you only have two doors on a chicken coop? If it had four it would be a chicken sedan.
Work 8 hours, sleep 8 hours; but not the same 8 hours.
You can only live once, but if you do it right, once is enough.
You cannot propel yourself forward by patting yourself on the back.
You don't have to stay up nights to succeed; you have to stay awake days.
Politics makes estranged bedfellows.
Goodman Ace
A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government.
Edward Abbey
There is no such thing as an underestimate of average intelligence.
Henry Adams
Most of the time I don't have much fun. The rest of the time I don't have any fun at all.
Woody Allen
I will not eat oysters. I want my food dead. Not sick, not wounded, dead.
Woody Allen
Jack Benny played Mendelsson last night. Mendelsson lost.
Anonymous
I don't mind what language an opera is sung in so long as it is a language I don't understand.
Sir Edward Appleton
People seem to enjoy things more when they know a lot of other people have been left out of the pleasure.
Russel Baker
A bureaucrat is a Democrat who holds some office that a Republican wants.
Alben W. Barkley
Life is a long lesson in humility.
James M. Barrie
If you surveyed a hundred typical middle-aged Americans, I bet you'd find that only two of them could tell you their blood types, but every last one of them would know the theme song from the 'Beverly Hillbillies'.
Dave Barry
The word aerobics comes from two Greek words: aero, meaning "ability to," and bics, meaning "withstand tremendous boredom."
Dave Barry
The old system of having a baby was much better than the new system, the old system being characterized by the fact that the man didn't have to watch.
Dave Barry
I've noticed that one thing about parents is that no matter what stage your child is in, the parents who have older children always tell you the next stage is worse.
Dave Barry
It is not necessary to understand things in order to argue about them.
Caron de Beaumarchais
It is quite untrue that British people don't appreciate music. They may not understand it but they absolutely love the noise it makes.
Sir Thomas Beecham
Everything is worth precisely as much as a belch, the difference being that a belch is more satisfying.
Ingmar Bergman
The gambling known as business looks with austere disfavor upon the business known as gambling.
Ambrose Bierce
Calamities are of two kinds: misfortunes to ourselves, and good fortune to others.
Ambrose Bierce
Rugby is a beastly game played by gentlemen; soccer is a gentleman's game played by beasts; football is a beastly game played by beasts.
Henry Blaha
One thing they never tell you about child raising is that for the rest of your life, at the drop of a hat, you are expected to know your child's name and how old he or she is.
Erma Bombeck
I do not participate in any sport with ambulances at the bottom of a hill.
Erma Bombeck
Guidelines for Bureaucrats: 1. When in charge, ponder. 2. When in trouble, delegate. 3. When in doubt, mumble.
James H. Borden
The one function that TV news performs very well is that when there is no news we give it to you with the same emphasis as if it were.
David Brinkley
The difference between a violin and a viola is that a viola burns longer.
Victor Borge
You can't make up anything anymore. The world itself is satire. All you're doing is recording it.
Art Buchwald
Man is the only animal that can remain on friendly terms with the victims he intends to eat until he eats them.
Samuel Butler
I can't understand why people are frightened of new ideas. I'm frightened of old ones.
John Cage
We're having something a little different this year for Thanksgiving. Instead of a turkey, we're having a swan. You get more stuffing.
George Carlin
An economist is a surgeon with an excellent scalpel and a rough-edged lancet, who operates beautifully on the dead and tortures the living.
Nicholas Chamfort
You don't have to suffer to be a poet; adolescence is enough suffering for anyone.
John Ciardi
I find it rather easy to portray a businessman. Being bland, rather cruel and incompetent comes naturally to me.
John Cleese
I believe in luck: how else can you explain the success of those you don't like?
Jean Cocteau
Cookbooks bear the same relation to real books that microwave food bears to your grandmother's.
Andrei Codrescu
I don't believe in astrology. The only stars I can blame for my failures are those that walk about the stage.
Noel Coward
The trouble with children is that they are not returnable.
Quentin Crisp
An appeal is when you ask one court to show it's contempt for another court.
Finley Peter Dunne
Most vegetarians look so much like the food they eat that they can be classified as cannibals.
Finley Peter Dunne
Never judge a book by its movie.
J.W. Eagan
History teaches us that men and nations behave wisely once they have exhausted all other alternatives.
Abba Eban
Canada has never been a melting pot; more like a tossed salad.
Arnold Edinborough
For most men life is a search for the proper manilla envelope in which to get themselves filed.
Clifton Fadiman
Early morning cheerfulness can be extremely obnoxious.
William Feather
You can't find any true closeness in Hollywood., because everybody does the fake closeness so well.
Carrie Fisher
Instant gratification takes too long.
Carrie Fisher
To be stupid, selfish, an have good health are three requirements for happiness, though if stupidity is lacking, all is lost.
Gustave Flaubert
Health nuts are going to feel stupid someday, lying in hospitals dying of nothing.
Redd Foxx
Hell hath no fury like a bureaucrat scorned.
Milton Friedman
I believe in equality for everyone, except reporters and photographers.
Gandhi
The meek shall inherit the earth, but not the mineral rights.
J. Paul Getty
Not a shred of evidence exists in favor of the idea that life is serious.
Brendan Gill
People come to Washington believing it is the center of power. I know I did. It was only much later that I learned that Washington is a steering wheel that's not connected to an engine.
Richard Goodwin
I like a friend better for having faults that one can talk about.
William Hazlitt
There are more fools in the world than there are people.
Heinrich Heine
Death will be a great relief. No more interviews.
Katherine Hepburn
This paperback is very interesting, but I find it will never replace a hardcover book -- it makes a very poor doorstop.
Alfred Hitchcock
I understand the inventor of the bagpipes was inspired when he saw a man carrying an indignant, asthmatic pig under his arm. Unfortunately, the manmade sound never equaled the purity of the sound achieved by the pig.
Alfred Hitchcock
There are several differences between a football game and a revolution. For one thing, a football game usually lasts longer and the participants wear uniforms. Also there are more injuries at a football game.
Alfred Hitchcock
Seeing a murder on television can help work off one's antagonisms. And if you haven't any antagonisms, the commercials will give you some.
Alfred Hitchcock
When people are free to do as they please, they usually imitate each other.
Eric Hoffer
A pessimist is a man who has been compelled to live with an optimist.
Elbert Hubbard
A good listener is usually thinking about something else.
Kin Hubbard
Nothing is as irritating as the fellow who chats pleasantly while he's overcharging you.
Kin Hubbard
The fellow that agrees with everything you say is either a fool or he is getting ready to skin you.
Kin Hubbard
One of the simple but genuine pleasures in life is getting up in the morning and hurrying to a mousetrap you set the night before.
Kin Hubbard
Classical music is the kind we keep thinking will turn into a tune.
Kin Hubbard
Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you mad.
Aldous Huxley
Most human beings have an almost infinite capacity for taking things for granted.
Aldous Huxley
Events in the past may be roughly divided into those which probably never happened and those which do not matter.
W. R. Inge
Everyone has a right to a university degree in America, even if it's in Hamburger Technology.
Clive James
We English are good at forgiving our enemies; it releases us from the obligation of liking our friends.
P.D. James
Banking establishments are more dangerous than standing armies.
Thomas Jefferson
The avoidance of taxes is the only intellectual pursuit that carries any reward.
John Maynard Keynes
The nice thing about being a celebrity is that when you bore people, they think it's their fault.
Henry Kissinger
Ninety percent of the politicians give the other ten prevent a bad name.
Henry Kissinger
Everyone who ever walked barefoot into his child's room late at night hates Legos.
Tony Kornheiser
An economist is a man who states the obvious in terms of the incomprehensible.
Alfred A. Knopf
Both the cockroach and the bird could get along very well without us, although the cockroach would miss us most.
Joseph Wood Krutch
The trouble with America isn't that the poetry of life has turned to prose, but that it has turned to advertising copy.
Louis Kronenberger
Radio news is bearable. This is due to the fact that while the news is being broadcast, the disk jockey is not allowed to talk.
Fran Lebowitz
Advertising is a valuable economic factor because it is the cheapest way of selling goods, especially if they are worthless.
Sinclair Lewis
People will buy anything that is 'one to a customer.'
Sinclair Lewis
Once a newspaper touches a story, the facts are lost forever, even to the protagonists.
Norman Mailer
Not even computers will replace committees, because committees buy computers.
Edward Shepherd Mead
It is even harder for the average ape to believe that he has descended from man.
H.L. Mencken
Say what you will about the ten commandments, you must always come back to the pleasant fact that there are only ten of them.
H.L. Mencken
Nothing fixes a thing so intensely in memory as the wish to forget it.
Montaigne
Our national flower is the concrete cloverleaf.
Lewis Mumford
The trouble with a kitten is that it eventually becomes a cat.
Ogden Nash
I don't understand the appeal of Spuds McKenzie. He's always surrounded by beautiful women. Now, I'm single, and I know the pickin's can be mighty slim, but you have to be really desperate to date out of your own species.
Susan Norfleet
Never raise your hand to your children; it leaves your midsection unprotected.
Robert Orben
Cab drivers are living proof that practice does not make perfect.
Howard Ogden
Politics is the skilled use of blunt objects.
Lester Pearson
Bureaucracy defends the status quo long past the time when the quo has lost its status.
Laurence J. Peter
Equal opportunity means everyone will have a fair chance at being incompetent.
Laurence J. Peter
A financier is a pawnbroker with imagination.
Arthur Wing Pinero
Americans will put up with anything provided it doesn't block traffic.
Dan Rather
It is after you have lost your teeth that you can afford to buy steaks.
Pierre August Renoir
There ought to be one day -- just one -- where there is open season on senators.
Will Rogers
When those waiters ask me if I want some fresh ground pepper, I ask if they have any aged pepper.
Andy Rooney
No degree of dullness can safeguard a work against the determination of critics to find it fascinating.
Harold Rosenberg
I don't like food that's too carefully arranged; it makes me think that the chef is spending
too much time arranging and not enough time cooking. If I wanted a picture I'd buy a painting.
Andy Rooney
If I had a hammer, I'd use it on Peret, Paul, and Mary.
Howard Rosenberg
In Hollywood a marriage is a success if it outlasts milk.
Rita Rudner
Most turkeys taste better the day after; my mother's tasted better the day before.
Rita Rudner
My husband gave me a necklace. It's fake. I requested fake. Maybe I'm paranoid, but in this day and age, I don't want something around my neck that's worth more than my head.
Rita Rudner
My husband and I are either going to buy a dog or have a child. We can't decide whether to ruin our carpet or ruin our lives.
Rita Rudner
I want to have children and I know my time is running out: I want to have them while my parents are still young enough to take care of them.
Rita Rudner
I love being married. It's so great to find that one special person you want to annoy for the rest of your life.
Rita Rudner
Someday I want to be rich. Some people get so rich they lose all respect for humanity. That's how rich I want to be.
Rita Rudner
Beethoven always sounds to me like the upsetting of a bag of nails, with here and there an also dropped hammer.
John Ruskin
I squirm when I see athletes praying before a game. Don't they realize that if God took sports seriously he never would have created George Steinbrenner.
Mark Russel
Acting is like roller skating. Once you know how to do it, it is neither stimulating nor exciting.
George Sanders
In order to fully realize how bad a popular play can be, it is necessary to see it twice.
George Bernard Shaw
There are only two classes in good society in England: the equestrian class and the neurotic class.
George Bernard Shaw
The English are not very spiritual people, so they invented cricket to give them some idea of eternity.
George Bernard Shaw
If the French were really intelligent, they'd speak English.
Wilfred Sheed
There are more bad musicians than there is bad music.
Isaac Stern
Politics is perhaps the only profession for which no preparation is thought necessary.
Robert Louis Stevenson
The best reason I can think of for not running for president of the United States is that you have to shave twice a day.
Adlai Stevenson
Skill without imagination is craftsmanship and gives us many useful objects such as wickerwork and picnic baskets. Imagination without skill gives us modern art.
Tom Stoppard
Blessed is he who expects nothing, for he shall never be disappointed.
Johnathan Swift
Ants are so much like human beings as to be an embarrassment...They do everything but watch television.
Lewis Thomas
I am not a cat man, but a dog man, and all felines can tell this at a glance -- a sharp, vindictive glance.
James Thurber
If I have any beliefs about immortality, it is that certain dogs I have known will go to heaven, and very, very few persons.
James Thurber
Progress was all right. Only it went on too long.
James Thurber
I personally think we developed language because of our deep need to complain.
Lily Tomlin
The national sport of England is obstacle racing. People fill their rooms with useless and cumbersome furniture, and spend the rest of their lives trying to dodge it.
Herbert Beerbohm Tree
Canada is a country whose main exports are hockey players and cold fronts. Our main imports are baseball players and acid rain.
Pierre Trudeau
Reader, suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself.
Mark Twain
Familiarity breeds contempt -- and children.
Mark Twain
Honesty is the best policy -- when there is money in it.
Mark Twain
I would like to live in Manchester, England. The transition between Manchester and death would be unnoticeable. Mark Twain
Under certain circumstances, profanity provides a relief denied even to prayer. Mark Twain
If you can find something everyone agrees on, it's wrong. Mo Udall
A healthy adult male bore consumes each year one and a half times his own weight in other people's patience. John Updike
If the world should blow itself up, the last audible voice would be that of an expert saying it can't be done. Peter Ustinov
Muscles come and go; flab lasts. Bill Vaughan
An ugly baby is a very nasty object, and the prettiest is frightful when undressed. Queen Victoria
Today's public figures can no longer write their own speeches or books, and there is some evidence that they can't read them either. Gore Vidal
Having the critics praise you is like having the hangman say you've got a pretty neck. Eli Wallach
Actions lie louder than words. Carolyn Wells
Perhaps, after all, America never has been discovered. I myself would say that it merely had been detected. Oscar Wilde
The basis of action is lack of imagination. It is the last resource of those who know not how to dream. Oscar Wilde
It is only the intellectually lost who ever argue. Oscar Wilde
When good Americans die they go to Paris. When bad Americans die they go to America. Oscar Wilde
I love acting. It is so much more real than life. Oscar Wilde
It is only by not paying one's bills that one can hope to live in the memory of the commercial classes. Oscar Wilde
No woman should ever be quite accurate about her age. It looks so calculating. Oscar Wilde
Between men and women there is no friendship possible. There is passion, enmity, worship, love, but no friendship. Oscar Wilde
Women are never disarmed by compliments. Men always are. That is the difference between the sexes. Oscar Wilde
Creative semantics is the key to contemporary government; it consists of talking in strange tongues lest the public learn the inevitable inconveniently early. George Will
I did a picture in England one winter and it was so cold I almost got married. Shelley Winters
All the things I really like to do are either illegal, immoral, or fattening. Alexander Wolcott
There's a fine line between fishing and just standing on the shore like an idiot. Steven Wright
An incompetent attorney can delay a trial for months or years. A competent attorney can delay one even longer. Evelle J. Younger
The United States is a nation of laws: badly written and randomly enforced. Frank Zappa
It is a fitting irony that under Richard Nixon, 'launder' became a dirty word. William Zinsser