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A<     

I never doubted my ability, but when you hear all your life you're inferior, it makes you wonder if the other guys have something you've never seen before. If they do, I'm still looking for it.
— Hank Aaron (Henry Louis Aaron), 1992

Death is a black camel, which kneels at the gates of all.
— Abd-el-Kader (1807–1883), Algerian Arab poet

The most important thing about having goals is having one.
— Geoffrey F. Abert

Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely.
— John Emerich Edward Dalberg, 1st Baron Acton (1834–1902), British historian. Letter, April 3, 1887, to Bishop Mandell Creighton. The Life and Letters of Mandell Creighton, Vol. 1, Chapter 13, ed. Louise Creighton (1904).

... whilst you are proclaiming peace and good will to men, Emancipating all Nations, you insist upon retaining absolute power over wives. But you must remember that Arbitrary power is like most other things which are very hard, very liable to be broken—and notwithstanding all your wise Laws and Maxims we have it in our power not only to free ourselves but to subdue our Masters, and without violence throw both your natural and legal authority at our feet ...
— Abigail Adams (1744–1818), wife of President John Adams and mother of President John Quincy Adams. In a letter dated May 7, 1776 and written from Braintree, Mass. to her husband, John Adams, reprinted in The Feminist Papers, Part 1, by Alice S. Rossi (1973).

A common mistake that people make when trying to design something completely foolproof is to underestimate the ingenuity of complete fools.
— Douglas Adams

I love deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly by.
— Douglas Adams

When people talk of the freedom of writing, speaking or thinking I cannot choose but laugh. No such thing ever existed. No such thing now exists; but I hope it will exist. But it must be hundreds of years after you and I shall write and speak no more.
— John Adams. U.S. president

Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passions, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence.
— John Quincy Adams. U.S. president. (see Tobias Smollett)

Creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes. Art is knowing which ones to keep.
— Scott Adams

I'm slowly becoming a convert to the principle that you can't motivate people to do things, you can only demotivate them. The primary job of the manager is not to empower but to remove obstacles.
— Scott Adams

 

More on    Aeschylus (525 BC–456 BC) Greek tragic poet

Call no man happy till he is dead.
— Aeschylus (525 BC–456 BC), Greek tragic poet, Agamemnon (938)

God is not averse to deceit in a holy cause.
— Aeschylus (525 BC–456 BC), Greek tragic poet

It is always in season for old men to learn.
— Aeschylus (525 BC–456 BC), Greek tragic poet

Necessity is stronger far than art.
— Aeschylus (525 BC–456 BC), Greek tragic poet, Prometheus Chained (line 513)

So, in the Libyan fable it is told
 That once an eagle, stricken with a dart,
  Said, when he saw the fashion of the shaft,
   "With our own feathers, not by others' hand
    Are we now smitten."
— Aeschylus (525 BC–456 BC), Greek tragic poet, Fragment (Plumptre's translation), line123

The reward of suffering is experience.
— Aeschylus (525 BC–456 BC), Greek tragic poet, Agamemnon (185)

There is no pain so great as the memory of joy in present grief.
— Aeschylus (525 BC–456 BC), Greek tragic poet

To be rather than to seem.
Latin, Esse quam videri.
— Aeschylus (525 BC–456 BC), Greek tragic poet, Siege of Thebes

Any excuse will serve a tyrant.
— Aesop, The Wolf and the Lamb

Beware that you do not lose the substance by grasping at the shadow.
— Aesop

Outside show is a poor substitute for inner worth.
— Aesop

We hang the petty thieves and appoint the great ones to public office.
— Aesop

In union there is strength.
— Aesop

In the United States today, we have more than our share of the nattering nabobs of negativism.
— Spiro Agnew, American politician, Nixon's vice-president (1918–1996), in a speech at San Diego

To one extent, if you've seen one city slum, you've seen them all.
— Spiro Agnew, American politician, Nixon's vice-president (1918–1996)

Ultra-liberalism today translates into a whimpering isolationism in foreign policy, a mulish obstructionism in domestic policy, and a pusillanimous pussyfooting on the critical issue of law and order.
— Spiro Agnew, American politician, Nixon's vice-president (1918–1996), before he pled nolo contendere on charges of tax evasion on bribes taken when he was governor of Maryland.

Set your expectations high; find men and women whose integrity and values you respect; get their agreement on a course of action; and give them your ultimate trust.
— John Akers

Adversity is the seed of well-doing: it is the nurse of heroism and boldness; who that hath enough, will endanger himself to have more? who that is at ease, will set his life on the hazard?
— Akhenaton? (Egyptian pharaoh, c. B.C. 1375)

Labour not after riches first, and think thou afterwards wilt enjoy them. He who neglecteth the present moment, throweth away all that he hath. As the arrow passeth through the heart, while the warrior knew not that it was coming; so shall his life be taken away before he knoweth that he hath it.
— Akhenaton? (Egyptian pharaoh, c. B.C. 1375)

To be satisfied with a little, is the greatest wisdom;
and he that increaseth his riches, increaseth his cares;
but a contented mind is a hidden treasure,
and trouble findeth it not.
— Akhenaton? (Egyptian pharaoh, c. B.C. 1375)

A positive attitude may not solve all your problems, but it will annoy enough people to make it worth the effort.
— Herm Albright

If at first you don't succeed, you're running about average.
— M.H. Alderson

Had I been present at the creation, I would have given some useful hints for the better ordering of the universe.
— Alfonso X, the Wise, Spanish king of Castile (1226–1284)

Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee.
— Muhammed Ali [Cassius Marcellus Clay]

I always liked to chase the girls. Parkinson's stops all that. Now I might have a chance to go to heaven.
— Muhammed Ali, [Cassius Marcellus Clay] calling his Parkinson's Disease a blessing.

I am America. I am the part you won't recognize. But get used to me. Black, confident, cocky; my name, not yours; my religion, not yours; my goals, my own; get used to me.
— Muhammed Ali [Cassius Marcellus Clay], 1975

I am the greatest.
— Muhammed Ali [Cassius Marcellus Clay]

I figured that if I said it enough, I would convince the world that I really was the greatest.
— Muhammed Ali [Cassius Marcellus Clay]

It's just a job. Grass grows, birds fly, waves pound the sand. I just beat people up.
— Muhammed Ali [Cassius Marcellus Clay]

It's lack of faith that makes people afraid of meeting challenges, and I believe in myself.
— Muhammed Ali [Cassius Marcellus Clay]

Service to others is the rent you pay for your room here on earth.
— Muhammed Ali [Cassius Marcellus Clay]

The man who views the world at fifty the same as he did at twenty has wasted thirty years of his life.
— Muhammed Ali [Cassius Marcellus Clay]

 

More on    Dante Alighieri (1265–1321) Italian poet

Abandon all hope, all ye who enter here.
Italian: Lasciate ogni speranza voi ch'entrate.
— Dante Alighieri, Italian poet (1265–1321)

For what is liberty but the unhampered translation of will into act?
— Dante Alighieri, Italian poet (1265–1321)

My soul tasted that heavenly food, which gives new appetite while it satiates.
Italian: L'anima mia gustava di quel cibo,
Che saziando di se, di se s'asseta.
— Dante Alighieri, Italian poet (1265–1321), Purgatorio (XXXI, 128)

Pride, envy, avarice — these are the sparks have set on fire the souls of man.
— Dante Alighieri, Italian poet (1265–1321)

The customs and fashions of men change like leaves on the bough, some of which go and others come.
— Dante Alighieri, Italian poet (1265–1321), Paradiso (XXVI, 137)

The hottest places in hell are reserved for whose who, in a period of moral crisis, maintain their neutrality.
— Dante Alighieri, Italian poet (1265–1321)

This audacity of theirs is not new.
Italian: Questa lor tracotanza non e nuova.
— Dante Alighieri, Italian poet (1265–1321), Inferno (VIII, 124)

In those parts of the world where learning and science have prevailed, miracles have ceased; but in those parts of it as are barbarous and ignorant, miracles are still in vogue.
— Ethan Allen (1738–1789) American Revolutionary, Reason the Only Oracle of Man (1784)

I have generally been denominated a Deist, the reality of which I never disputed, being conscious I am no Christian, except mere infant baptism makes me one; and as to being a Deist, I know not strictly speaking, whether I am one or not.
— Ethan Allen (1738–1789) American Revolutionary, Reason the Only Oracle of Man (1784)

I have just returned from Boston. It is the only thing to do if you find yourself up there.
— Fred Allen

You will become as small as your controlling desire, as great as your dominant aspiration.
— James Allen

I didn't accept it. I received it.
— Richard Allen, National Security Advisor to President Reagan, explaining the $1000 in cash and two watches he was given by two Japanese journalists after he helped arrange a private interview for them with First Lady Nancy Reagan.

I don't want to achieve immortality through my work; I want to achieve immortality through not dying.
— Woody Allen (1935–) American comic actor, writer, and filmmaker

To YOU I'm an atheist; to God, I'm the Loyal Opposition.
— Woody Allen (1935–) American comic actor, writer, and filmmaker

Sex without love is an empty experience, but as empty experiences go it's one of the best.
— Woody Allen (1935–) American comic actor, writer, and filmmaker

Money is better than poverty, if only for financial reasons.
— Woody Allen (1935–) American comic actor, writer, and filmmaker

How can I believe in God when just last week I got my tongue caught in the roller of an electric typewriter?
— Woody Allen (1935–) American comic actor, writer, and filmmaker, Without Feathers, 1975

If it turns out that there is a God, I don't think that he's evil. But the worst that you can say about him is that basically he's an underachiever.
— Woody Allen (1935–) American comic actor, writer, and filmmaker

As a nation we have revisited that bitter lesson all too often since the school prayer decision of 1962. In the name of prayer and "family values," large numbers of citizens have reacted to their neighbors with hate and anger when public school religious practices have been challenged as violating the Bill of Rights. It is astounding and depressing to witness people who claim that school prayer is necessary to return the nation to spiritual values, attacking with vicious and intemperate behavior fellow citizens who disagree with their solution. In the name of their deity, these self-styled keepers of public morality exhibit the most outrageous forms of discrimination, hate, and intimidation against those who challenge organized prayer in public schools. And the venom has not been diluted over the thirty-four years since Engle. Further, on those occasions where the challenge to school prayer originated with Jewish citizens, the ugly head of anti-Semitism lurks all too close to the surface.
— Robert S. Alley, Without a Prayer: Religious Expression in Public Schools, page 22

Over and over again throughout this book we witness the majority of citizens in a given community, in the name of prayer, abusing and tyrannizing those who have challenged local-or-state-endorsed religious practices. And these represent only a few examples: the problem itself is too widespread for every instance to be included here. Establishment in the name of the majority has bred hooligans ready to threaten fellow citizens, harassing both adults and children alike in the name of prayer. The disease of de facto religious establishments is evident today in the vicious treatment by community majorities of those courageous citizens who seek protection under the First Amendment.
— Robert S. Alley, Without a Prayer: Religious Expression in Public Schools, (back cover)

Old wood best to burn, old wine to drink, old friends to trust, and old authors to read.
— Alonzo of Aragon, as quoted by Francis Bacon in Apothegm

What's a cult? It just means not enough people to make a minority.
— Robert Altman, film director, Interview, The Observer (London), April 11, 1981

Politics is the gentle art of getting votes from the poor and campaign funds from the rich by promising to protect each from the other.
— Oscar Ameringer (from Politicians and Other Scoundrels by Ferdinand Lundberg)

No power or virtue of man could ever have deserved that what has been fated should not have taken place. Latin, Nulla vis humana vel virtus meruisse unquam potuit, ut, quod praescripsit fatalis ordo, non fiat.
Marcellinus Ammianus (–c. 395), Roman historian from Antioch, Historia (XXIII)

Wicked acts are accustomed to be done with impunity for the mere desire of occupation. Latin, Solent occupationis spe vel impune quaedam scelesta committi.
Marcellinus Ammianus (–c. 395), Roman historian from Antioch, Historia (XXX)

Wicked deeds are generally done, even with impunity, for the mere desire of occupation.
Latin, Solent occupationis spe vel impune quaedam scelesta committi.
Marcellinus Ammianus (–c. 395), Roman historian from Antioch, Annales (XXX, 9)

Wise men argue cases, fools decide them.
— Anacharsis

Just living is not enough. One must have sunshine, freedom, and a little flower.
— Hans Christian Andersen

 

More on    Dwayne Andreas U.S. businessman, head of Archer Daniels Midland

There isn't one grain of anything in the world that is sold in a free market. Not one! The only place you see a free market is in the speeches of politicians. People who are not in the Midwest do not understand that this is a socialist country.
— Dwayne Andreas

If everything's under control, you're going too slow.
— Mario Andretti, race car driver

I find it interresting that the meanest life, the poorest existence, is attributed to God's will, but as human beings become more affluent, as their living standard and style begin to ascend the material scale, God descends the scale of responsibility at commensurate speed.
— Maya Angelou (Marguerite Johnson)(1928–) American poet, writer, activist, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings

We really are 15 countries, and it's remarkable that each of us thinks we represent the real America. The Midwesterner in Kansas, the black American in Durham — both are certain they are the real American.
— Maya Angelou (Marguerite Johnson)(1928–) American poet, writer, activist, quoted by Dr. Paul Gorski, "Multicultural Pavilion: Quotations and Proverbs"

The plague of racism is insidious, entering into our minds as smoothly and quietly and invisibly as floating airborne microbes enter into our bodies to find lifelong purchase in our bloodstreams.
— Maya Angelou (Marguerite Johnson)(1928–) American poet, writer, activist, quoted by Dr. Paul Gorski, "Multicultural Pavilion: Quotations and Proverbs"

The need for change bulldozed a road down the center of my mind.
— Maya Angelou (Marguerite Johnson)(1928–) American poet, writer, activist, quoted by Dr. Paul Gorski, "Multicultural Pavilion: Quotations and Proverbs"

Self-pity in its early stage is as snug as a feather mattress. Only when it hardens does it become uncomfortable.
— Maya Angelou (Marguerite Johnson)(1928–) American poet, writer, activist

Among the more irritating consequences of our flagrantly religious society is the special dispensation that mainstream religions receive. We all may talk about religion as a powerful social force, but unlike other similarly powerful institutions, religion is not to be questioned, criticized or mocked.
— Natalie Angier, "Confessions of a Lonely Atheist," in New York Times Magazine, January 14, 2001

 

More on    Susan Brownell Anthony (1820–1906), American feminist leader and suffragist

Join the union, girls, and together say Equal Pay for Equal Work.
— Susan Brownell Anthony (1820–1906), American feminist leader and suffragist, The Revolution (woman suffrage newspaper) March 18, 1869

The religious persecution of the ages has been done under what was claimed to be the command of God.
— Susan Brownell Anthony (1820–1906), American feminist leader and suffragist, from Rufus K. Noyes, Views of Religion

There are only two people who can tell you the truth about yourself — an enemy who has lost his temper and a friend who loves you dearly.
— Antisthenes (444? BC–after 371 BC), Greek philosopher, founder of the Cynics.

We must not contradict, but instruct him that contradicts us; for a madman is not cured by another running mad also.
— Antisthenes (444? BC–after 371 BC), Greek philosopher, founder of the Cynics.

Choose your friends carefully. Your enemies will choose you.
— Yassir Arafat

 

More on    Aristotle (384–322 B.C.), Greek philosopher

A democracy is a government in the hands of men of low birth, no property, and unskilled labor.
— Aristotle

A human being is a naturally political [animal].
— Aristotle

A tyrant must put on the appearance of uncommon devotion to religion. Subjects are less apprehensive of illegal treatment from a ruler whom they consider god-fearing and pious. On the other hand, they do less easily move against him, believing that he has the gods on his side.
— Aristotle

All paid jobs absorb and degrade the mind.
— Aristotle

All who have meditated on the art of governing mankind have been convinced that the fate of empires depends on the education of youth.
— Aristotle

Anyone can become angry — that is easy. But to be angry with the right person, to the right degree, at the right time, for the right purpose, and in the right way; this is not easy.
— Aristotle

Civil confusions often spring from trifles but decide great issues.
— Aristotle

Democracy arose from men's thinking that if they are equal in any respect, they are equal absolutely.
— Aristotle

Dignity does not consist in possessing honors, but in deserving them.
— Aristotle

For one swallow does not make a summer, nor does one day; and so too one day, or a short time, does not make a man blessed and happy.
— Aristotle

For though we love both the truth and our friends, piety requires us to honor the truth first.
— Aristotle

How many a dispute could have been deflated into a single paragraph if the disputants had dared to define their terms.
— Aristotle

If the hammer and the shuttle could move themselves, slavery would be unnecessary.
— Aristotle

It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.
— Aristotle

Men come together in cities in order to live: they remain together in order to live the good life.
— Aristotle

Men create gods after their own image, not only with regard to their form but with regard to their mode of life.
— Aristotle

The aim of art is to represent not the outward appearance of things, but their inward significance.
— Aristotle

The best political community is formed by citizens of the middle class.
— Aristotle

The end of labor is to gain leisure.
— Aristotle

The generality of men are naturally apt to be swayed by fear rather than reverence, and to refrain from evil rather because of the punishment that it brings than because of its own foulness.
— Aristotle

The gods too are fond of a joke.
— Aristotle

The law is reason free from passion.
— Aristotle

The ultimate value of life depends upon awareness, and the power of contemplation rather than upon mere survival.
— Aristotle

The vigorous are no better than the lazy during one half of life, for all men are alike when asleep.
— Aristotle

The worst form of inequality is to try to make unequal things equal.
— Aristotle

There are some jobs in which it is impossible for a man to be virtuous.
— Aristotle

We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence then, is not an act, but a habit.
— Aristotle

We make war that we may live in peace.
— Aristotle

Wit is educated insolence.
— Aristotle

Without friends no one would choose to live, though he had all other goods.
— Aristotle

You cannot get ahead while you are getting even.
— Dick Armey

Those who await not gifts from chance have conquered fate.
— Matthew Arnold, Victorian English poet

Miracles are doomed; they will drop out like fairies and witchcraft, from among the matter which serious people believe.
— Matthew Arnold, Victorian English poet, Literature and Dogma

If you think you can, you can. And if you think you can't, you're right.
— Marykay Ash

 

More on    Isaac Asimov (1920–1992) Russian-born scientist and author

I do not fear computers. I fear the lack of them.
— Isaac Asimov

If mankind recognizes that war is impossible...that all national rivalries are foolish...if they get together any kind of an extension of detente ... then we may pull out of it all the better for it.
— Isaac Asimov

It pays to be obvious, especially if you have a reputation for subtlety.
— Isaac Asimov

Life is pleasant. Death is peaceful. It's the transition that's troublesome.
— Isaac Asimov

Never let your sense of morals get in the way of doing what's right.
— Isaac Asimov

Our lifetime may be the last that will be lived out in a technological society.
— Isaac Asimov

The first law of dietetics seems to be: if it tastes good, it's bad for you.
— Isaac Asimov

The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new discoveries, is not "Eureka!" (I found it!) but "That's funny ..."
— Isaac Asimov

Thin people are thin because they don't know any better.
— Isaac Asimov

Things do change. The only question is that since thiings are deteriorating so quickly, will society and man's habits change quickly enough?
— Isaac Asimov

Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent.
— Isaac Asimov

No opera plot can be sensible, for people do not sing when they are feeling sensible.
— W H Auden, poet

Among those whom I like or admire, I can find no common denominator, but among those whom I love, I can: all of them make me laugh.
— W H Auden, poet

It takes little talent to see what is under one's nose, a good deal of it to know in what direction to point that organ.
— W H Auden, poet

O Lord, help me to be pure, but not yet.
— Saint Augustine

We ought to do good to others as simply as a horse runs, or a bee makes honey, or a vine bears grapes season after season without thinking of the grapes it has borne.
— Marcus Aurelius

B      

Errors using inadequate data are much less than those using no data at all.
— Charles Babbage, English mathematician and inventor (1792–1871)

I wish to God these calculations had been executed by steam.
— Charles Babbage, English mathematician and inventor (1792–1871), quoted in "In Mathematical Circles" by H. Eves

The successful man is the one who had the chance and took it.
— Roger Babson

If things go wrong, don't go with them.BR> — Roger Babson

 

More on    Francis Bacon (1561–1626) English philosopher, statesman and writer

A trust is an obligation of conscience of one to the will of another.
— Francis Bacon

All rising to great place is by a winding stair.
— Francis Bacon

Anger makes dull men witty, but it keeps them poor.
— Francis Bacon, Certain Apophthegms of Lord Bacon (no. IV)

Be so true to thyself, as thou be not false to others.
— Francis Bacon

But the images of men's wits and knowledges remain in books, exempted from the wrong of time, and capable of perpetual renovation.
— Francis Bacon, Advancement of Learning (book I, Advantages of Learning)

Come home to men's business and bosoms.
— Francis Bacon, Essays (dedication of 9th Edition)

For all knowledge and wonder (which is the seed of knowledge) is an impression of pleasure in itself.
— Francis Bacon

For cleanness of body was ever esteemed to proceed from a due reverence to God, to society, and to ourselves.
— Francis Bacon

Fortune hath somewhat the nature of a woman; if she be too much wooed, she is the farther off.
— Francis Bacon

He that hath wife and children hath given hostages to fortune; for they are impediments to great enterprises, either of virtue or mischief.
— Francis Bacon

Hope is a good breakfast, but it is a bad supper.
— Francis Bacon

I do not believe that any man fears to be dead, but only the stroke of death.
— Francis Bacon

I have taken all knowledge to be my province.
— Francis Bacon

I would live to study, and not study to live.
— Francis Bacon

If a man will begin with certainties, he shall end in doubts; but if he will be content to begin with doubts he shall end in certainties. (1605)
— Francis Bacon

[It has been well said that] the arch-flatterer with whom all the petty flatterers have intelligence is a man's self.
— Francis Bacon, quoted in Essays

It is a strange desire to seek power and to lose liberty.
— Francis Bacon

Knowledge is power. — Nam et ipsa scientia potestas est.
— Francis Bacon: 12 Meditationes Sacraelig. De Haeligresibus.

Men of age object too much, consult too long, adventure too little, repent too soon, and seldom drive business home to the full period, but content themselves with a mediocrity of success.
— Francis Bacon, Essay XLII, "Of Youth and Age"

Natural abilities are like natural plants, that need pruning by study; and studies themselves do give forth directions too much at large, except they be bounded in by experience.
— Francis Bacon

Nature, to be commanded, must be obeyed.
— Francis Bacon

Nothing doth more hurt in a state than that cunning men pass for wise.
— Francis Bacon

Reading maketh a full man, conference a ready man, and writing an exact man.
— Francis Bacon

Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested.
— Francis Bacon, Essay, "Of Studies"

Stay a little, that we may make an end the sooner.
— Francis Bacon

The desire of power in excess caused the angels to fall; the desire of knowledge in excess caused man to fall; but in charity there is no excess, neither can angel or man come in danger by it.
— Francis Bacon, Essay, "On Goodness"

The laws of the most kingdoms and states have been like buildings of many pieces, and patched up from time to time according to occasion, without frame or model. ... This continual heaping up of laws without digesting them maketh but a chaos and confusion, and turneth the laws many times to become but snares for the people. ... Then look into the state of your laws and justice of your land: purge out multiplicity of laws: clear the incertainty of them: repeal those that are snaring; and press the execution of those that are wholesome and necessary ...
— Francis Bacon

The mould of a man's fortune is in his own hands.
— Francis Bacon

The wisdom of our ancestors.
— Francis Bacon

The World's a bubble, and the Life of Man Less than a span
— Francis Bacon, poem, "Life"

They are ill discoverers that think there is no land, when they can see nothing but sea.
— Francis Bacon

We are much beholden to Machiavel and others, that write what men do, and not what they ought to do.
— Francis Bacon

What then remains but that we still should cry
For being born, and, being born, to die?
— Francis Bacon, paraphrase of a Greek epigram

The rights and interests of the laboring man will be protected and cared for not by our labor agitators, but by the Christian men to whom God in his infinite wisdom has given control of property interests of the country, and upon the successful management of which so much remains.
— George F. Baer (railroad industrialist)

They don't suffer. They can't even speak English.
— George F. Baer, answering a reporters' question about the suffering of starving miners

The world of humanity has two wings, one is women and the other men. Not until both wings are equally developed can the bird fly.
— Abdu'l-Baha

A man without ambition is dead. A man with ambition but no love is dead. A man with ambition and love for his blessings here on earth is ever so alive.
— Pearl Bailey, 1971

When you're young, the silliest notions seem the greatest achievements.
— Pearl Bailey, 1968

There is a way to look at the past. Don't hide from it. It will not catch you if you don't repeat it.
— Pearl Bailey, 1993

The things we truly love stay with us always, locked in our hearts as long as life remains.
— Josephine Baker, 1940

A violinist had a violin, a painer his palette. All I had was myself. I was the instrument that I must care for.
— Josephine Baker

Freedom is not something that anybody can be given, freedom is something people take.
— James Baldwin: Nobody Knows My Name

Children have never been very good at listening to their elders, but they have never failed to imitate them.
— James Baldwin

Any writer, I suppose, feels that the world into which he was born is nothing less than a conspiracy against the cultivation of his talent.
— James Baldwin, 1955

Hatred, which could destroy so much, never failed to destroy the man who hated, and this was an immutable law.
— James Baldwin, Notes of a Native Son, 1955

I imagine that one of the reasons that people cling to their hates so stubbornly is becaue they sense, once hate is gone, that they will be forced to deal with the pain.
— James Baldwin, 1955

I want to be an honest man and a good writer.
— James Baldwin, 1955

The price one pays for pursuing any profession, or calling, is an intimate knowledge of its ugly side.
— James Baldwin, 1961

There is never time in the future in which we will work out our salvation. The challenge is in the moment; the time is always now.
— James Baldwin, 1961

People pay for what they do, and still more for what they have allowed themselves to become. And they pay for it very simply; by the lives they lead.
— James Baldwin, 1961

The world is before you and you need not take it or leave it as it was when you came in.
— James Baldwin, 1961

No people come into possession of a culture without having paid a heavy price for it.
— James Baldwin

To be sensual, I think, is to respect and rejoice in the force of life, of life itself, and to be present in all that one does, from the effort of loving to the making of bread.
— James Baldwin, 1962

The power of the white world is threatened whenever a black man refuses to accept the white world's definitions.
— James Baldwin, 1962

The most dangerous creation of any society is the man who has nothing to lose.
— James Baldwin, 1962

Life is tragic simply because the earth turns and the sun inexorably rises and sets, and one day, for each of us, the sun will go down for the last, last time.
— James Baldwin, 1962

One is responsible to life: It is the small beacon in that terrifying darkness from which we come and to which we shall return.
— James Baldwin, 1962

The only thing that white people have that black people need, or should want, is power — and no one holds power forever.
— James Baldwin, 1962

I am what time, circumstance, history, have made of me, certainly, but I am also, much more than that. So are we all.
— James Baldwin, 1984

Bureaucracy is a giant mechanism operated by pygmies.
— Honorι de Balzac

Power is not revealed by striking hard or often, but by striking true.
— Honorι de Balzac

Behind every great fortune there is a crime.
— Honorι de Balzac

Misfortune, no less than happiness, inspires us to dream.
— Honorι de Balzac

I'm as pure as the driven slush.
— Tallulah Bankhead

If I had to live my life again, I'd make the same mistakes, only sooner.
— Tallulah Bankhead

Nobody can be exactly like me. Even I have trouble doing it.
— Tallulah Bankhead

Whatever you do, do it with all your might. Work at it, early and late, in season and out of season, not leaving a stone unturned, and never deferring for a single hour that which can be done just as well as now.
— P.T. Barnum

Always be a little kinder than necessary.
— James M. Barrie

Die? I should say not, dear fellow. No Barrymore would allow such a conventional thing to happen to him.
— John Barrymore's dying words

The absurd man is he who never changes.
— Auguste Barthelemy

It is by universal misunderstanding that all agree. For if, by ill luck, people understood each other, they would never agree.
— Charles Baudelaire (1821–1867), French poet

There are as many kinds of beauty as there are habitual ways of seeking happiness.
— Charles Baudelaire (1821–1867), French poet

You need only reflect that one of the best ways to get yourself a reputation as a dangerous citizen these days is to go about repeating the very phrases which our founding fathers used in the struggle for independence.
— Charles Beard (1874–1948), American historian

One is not born a genius, one becomes a genius.
— Simone De Beauvoir

One's life has value so long as one attributes value to the life of others, by means of love, friendship, indignation and compassion.
— Simone De Beauvoir

Speak when you're angry and you'll make the best speech you'll ever regret
— Henry Ward Beecher

Strength is a matter of the made-up mind.
— John Beecher

When one door closes, another opens; but we often look so long and so regretfully upon the closed door that we do not see the one which has opened for us.
— Alexander Graham Bell

It appears that my worst fears have been realized: we have made progress in everything yet nothing has changed.
— Derrick Bell, 1987

Anything I've ever done that ultimately was worthwhile... initially scared me to death.
— Betty Bender

Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it whether it exists or not, diagnosing it incorrectly, and applying the wrong remedy.
— Ernest Benn

Your life is the sum result of all the choices you make, both consciously and unconsciously. If you can control the process of choosing, you can take control of all aspects of your life. You can find the freedom that comes from being in charge of yourself.
— Robert F. Bennett

The most dangerous leadership myth is that leaders are born-that there is a genetic factor to leadership. This myth asserts that people simply either have certain charismatic qualities or not. That's nonsense; in fact, the opposite is true. Leaders are made rather than born.
— Warren G. Bennis

Failing organizations are usually over-managed and under-led.
— Warren G. Bennis

The rewards in business go to the man who does something with an idea.
— William Benton

Think like a man of action, act like a man of thought.
— Henri Bergson

Life is 10% what you make it, and 90% how you take it.
— Irving Berlin

Happiness is good health and a bad memory.
— Ingrid Bergman

Time is a great teacher, but unfortunately it kills all its pupils.
— Hector Berlioz

Always go to other people's funerals, otherwise they won't come to yours.
—Yogi Berra

Even Napoleon had his Watergate.
— Yogi Berra (on Frenchmen in American politics)

Baseball is 90 percent mental and the other half is physical.
— Yogi Berra

It's tough to make predictions, especially about the future.
— Yogi Berra

You can observe a lot by just watching.
— Yogi Berra

We made too many wrong mistakes.
— Yogi Berra

We have deep depth.
— Yogi Berra

We have a powerful potential in our youth, and we must have the courage to change old ideas and practices so that we may direct their power toward good ends.
— Mary MacLeod Bethune, 1955

Knowledge is the prime need of the hour.
— Mary MacLeod Bethune, 1955

If the radiance of a thousand suns
Were to burst at once into the sky,
That would be like the splendor of the Mighty One...
I am become Death,
The shatterer of Worlds.
— The Bhagavad-Gita (quoted by Robert Openheimer after the first test of an atomic bomb)

 

More on    Ambrose Bierce 1842–1914?, American satirist, journalist

Ability, n. The natural equipment to accomplish some small part of the meaner ambitions distinguishing able men from dead ones. In the last analysis ability is commonly found to consist mainly in a high degree of solemnity.
— Ambrose Bierce: The Devil's Dictionary, 1911

Abnormal, adj. Not conforming to standard. In matters of thought and conduct, to be independent is to be abnormal, to be abnormal is to be detested. Wherefore the lexicographer adviseth a striving toward the straiter [sic] resemblance of the Average Man.
— Ambrose Bierce: The Devil's Dictionary, 1911

Abrupt, adj. Sudden, without ceremony, like the arrival of a cannon-shot and the departure of the soldier whose interests are most affected by it.
— Ambrose Bierce: The Devil's Dictionary, 1911

Abscond, v.i. To "move in a mysterious way," commonly with the property of another.
— Ambrose Bierce: The Devil's Dictionary, 1911

Abstainer, n. A weak person who yields to the temptation of denying himself a pleasure. A total abstainer is one who abstains from everything but abstention, and especially from inactivity in the affairs of others.
— Ambrose Bierce: The Devil's Dictionary, 1911

Absurdity, n.: A statement or belief manifestly inconsistent with one's own opinion.
— Ambrose Bierce: The Devil's Dictionary, 1911

Accuse, v.t. To affirm another's guilt or unworth; most commonly as a justification of ourselves for having wronged him.
— Ambrose Bierce: The Devil's Dictionary, 1911

Accountability, n. The mother of caution.
— Ambrose Bierce: The Devil's Dictionary, 1911

Acquaintance, n.: A person whom we know well enough to borrow from, but not well enough to lend to.
— Ambrose Bierce: The Devil's Dictionary, 1911

Admiration, n.: Our polite recognition of another's resemblance to ourselves
— Ambrose Bierce

Alliance: In international politics, the union of two thieves who have their hands so deeply inserted into each others' pockets that they cannot separately plunder a third.
— Ambrose Bierce: The Devil's Dictionary, 1911

Barometer, n.: An ingenious instrument which indicates what kind of weather we are having.
— Ambrose Bierce: The Devil's Dictionary, 1911

Bore, n.: A person who talks when you wish him to listen.
— Ambrose Bierce: The Devil's Dictionary, 1911

Brain: an apparatus with which we think we think.
— Ambrose Bierce

Cabbage: A... vegetable about as large and wise as a man's head.
— Ambrose Bierce

Calamities are of two kinds: misfortunes to ourselves, and good fortune to others.
— Ambrose Bierce

Clairvoyant, n. A person, commonly a woman, who has the power of seeing that which is invisible to her patron — namely, that he is a blockhead.
— Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary (1911)

Clergyman, n. A man who undertakes the management of our spiritual affairs as a method of bettering his temporal ones.
— Ambrose Bierce

Cogito cogito ergo cogito sum" (I think that I think, therefore I think that I am.)
— Ambrose Bierce

Conservative, n: a statesman who is enamoured of existing evils, as distinguished from a Liberal who wishes to replace them with others.
— Ambrose Bierce: The Devil's Dictionary, 1911

Corporation: An ingenious device for obtaining individual profit without individual responsibility.
— Ambrose Bierce: The Devil's Dictionary, 1911

Diplomacy: The patriotic art of lying for one's country.
— Ambrose Bierce: The Devil's Dictionary, 1911

Faith, n. Belief without evidence in what is told by one who speaks without knowledge, of things without parallel.
— Ambrose Bierce: The Devil's Dictionary, 1911

The gambling known as business looks with austere disfavor upon the business known as gambling.
— Ambrose Bierce

In our civilization, and under our republican form of government, intelligence is so highly honored that it is rewarded by exemption from the cares of office.
— Ambrose Bierce

Painting: The art of protecting flat surfaces from the weather and exposing them to the critic.
— Ambrose Bierce

In Dr. Johnson's famous dictionary, "patriotism" is defined as the last resort of the scoundrel. With all due respect to an enlightened but inferior lexicographer, I beg to submit that it is the first.
— Ambrose Bierce

Politics, noun. A strife of interests masquerading as a contest of principles. The conduct of public affairs for private advantage.
— Ambrose Bierce: The Devil's Dictionary, 1911

To be positive: To be mistaken at the top of one's voice.
— Ambrose Bierce

Pray, v. To ask that the laws of the universe be annulled in behalf of a single petitioner, confessedly unworthy.
— Ambrose Bierce: The Devil's Dictionary, 1911

Quotation, n: The act of repeating erroneously the words of another.
— Ambrose Bierce: The Devil's Dictionary, 1911

Religion, n. A daughter of Hope and Fear, explaining to Ignorance the nature of the Unknowable.
— Ambrose Bierce: The Devil's Dictionary, 1911

Saint, n. A dead sinner revised and edited.
— Ambrose Bierce: The Devil's Dictionary, 1911

Scriptures, n.: The sacred books of our holy religion, as distinguished from the false and profane writings on which all other faiths are based.
— Ambrose Bierce: The Devil's Dictionary, 1911

Vote: the instrument and symbol of a freeman's power to make a fool of himself and a wreck of his country.
— Ambrose Bierce: The Devil's Dictionary, 1911

We know what happens to people who stay in the middle of the road. They get run over.
— Ambroise Bierce

 

More on    Steve Biko (1946–1977), founder and martyr of the Black Consciousness movement in South Africa.

The most potent weapon in the hands of the oppressor is the mind of the oppressed.
— Steve Biko

The power of a movement lies in the fact that it can indeed change the habits of people. This change is not the result of force but of dedication, of moral persuasion.
— Steve Biko, Interview, July 1976. Quoted in: Donald Woods, Biko, (1978).

 

More on    Josh Billings

Life consists not in holding good cards but in playing those you hold well.
— Josh Billings

As scarce as the truth is, the supply is always greater than the demand.
— Josh Billings

Reason often makes mistakes, but conscience never does.
— Josh Billings

The best time to hold your tongue is the time you feel you must say something or bust.
— Josh Billings

The most serious doubt that has been thrown on the authenticity of the biblical miracles is the fact that most of the witnesses in regard to them were fishermen.
— Arthur Binstead (1846–1915), Pitcher's Proverbs (1909),

On the edge of destiny, you must test your strength.
— Billy Bishop

 

More on    Prince Otto Eduard Leopold von Bismarck (1815–1898) German statesman

To retain respect for sausages and laws, one must not watch them in the making.
— Prince Otto Eduard Leopold von Bismarck

Politics is the art of the possible.
— Prince Otto Eduard Leopold von Bismarck

The Catholic priest, from the moment he becomes a priest, is a sworn officer of the pope.
— Prince Otto Eduard Leopold von Bismarck, speech in the Prussian upper house, April 12, 1886

When a man says he approves of something in principle, it means he hasn't the slightest intention of carrying it out in practice.
— Prince Otto Eduard Leopold von Bismarck

Freedom of speech means that you shall not do something to people either for the views they express, or the words they speak or write.
— Hugo Black (1886–1971) U.S. Supreme Court Justice (1937–1971), One Man's Stand For Freedom (1963)

The "establishment of religion" clause of the First Amendment means at least this: Neither a state nor the Federal Government can set up a church. Neither can pass laws which aid one religion, aid all religions, or prefer one religion over another. Neither can force nor influence a person to go to or to remain away from church against his will or force him to profess a belief or disbelief in any religion.
— Hugo Black (1886–1971) U.S. Supreme Court Justice (1937–1971), Majority opinion, Everson v Board of Education

I don't have any bad habits. They might be bad habits for other people, but they're all right for me.
— Eubie Blake, 1979

If I'd known I was going to live this long, I'd have taken better care of myself.
— Eubie Blake, 1980

 

More on    William Blake (1757–1827), English poet, engraver, publisher and artist

I must create a system, or be enslaved by another man's.
— William Blake

It is easier to forgive an enemy than to forgive a friend.
— William Blake

No bird soars too high if he soars with his own wings.
— William Blake

Nothing can be more contemptible than to suppose public records to be true.
— William Blake, Annotations to Bishop Watson, An Apology for the Bible in a Series of Letters Addressed to Thomas Paine (1798; published in Complete Writings, ed. by Geoffrey Keynes, 1957).

To see a world in a grain of sand,
 And a heaven in a wild flower:
  Hold infinity in the palm of your hand,
   And eternity in an hour.
— William Blake, Auguries of Innocence

What is now proved was once only imagin'd.
— William Blake, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell

The key to successful leadership today is influence, not authority.
— Kenneth Blanchard

If your project doesn't work, look for the part that you didn't think was important.
— Arther Bloch

Overachievement is giving yourself a high colonic with a Roto-Rooter.
— Robert Bloch

I have the heart of a child. I keep it in a jar on my shelf.
— Robert Bloch

Beauty is only skin deep, but ugly goes clear to the bone.
— Block's Murphy's Law

Nothing is predestined: The obstacles of your past can become the gateways that lead to new beginings.
— Ralph Blum

They'll nail anyone who ever scratched his ass during the National Anthem.
— Humphrey Bogart, speaking of the House Un-American Activities Committee

 

More on    Niels Bohr

There are two kinds of truths: small truth and great truth. You can recognize a small truth because its opposite is a falsehood. The opposite of a great truth is another great truth.
— Niels Bohr

The opposite of a correct statement is a false statement. The opposite of a profound truth may well be another profound truth.
— Niels Bohr

You're not thinking, you're merely being logical!
— Niels Bohr

If you think education is expensive, try ignorance.
— Derek Bok

 

More on    Napoleon Bonaparte (1769–1821) French general and emperor

A leader is a dealer in hope.
— Napoleon Bonaparte

A man will fight harder for his interests than for his rights.
— Napoleon Bonaparte

Ability is of little account without opportunity.
— Napoleon Bonaparte

Circumstances!?! I make circumstances.
— Napoleon Bonaparte

Courage is like love, it must have hope for nourishment.
— Napoleon Bonaparte

From the sublime to the ridiculous is but a step.
— Napoleon Bonaparte

Glory is fleeting, but obscurity is forever.
— Napoleon Bonaparte

Here, Gentlemen, a dog teaches us a lesson in humanity.
— Napoleon Bonaparte

History is the version of past events that people have decided to agree upon.
— Napoleon Bonaparte

I closed the gulf of anarchy and brought order out of chaos. I rewarded merit regardless of birth or wealth, wherever I found it. I abolished feudalism and restored equality to all regardless of religion and before the law. I fought the decrepit monarchies of the Old Regime because the alternative was the destruction of all this. I purified the Revolution.
— Napoleon Bonaparte

I fear three newspapers more than a hundred thousand bayonets.
— Napoleon Bonaparte

If you wish to be a success in the world, promise everything, deliver nothing.
— Napoleon Bonaparte

In politics stupidity is not a handicap.
— Napoleon Bonaparte

It is astonishing what power words have over a man.
— Napoleon Bonaparte

Never awake me when you have good news to announce, because with good news nothing presses; but when you have bad news, arouse me immediately, for then there is not an instant to be lost.
— Napoleon Bonaparte

Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake.
— Napoleon Bonaparte

One must change one`s tactics every ten years if one wishes to maintain one's superiority.
— Napoleon Bonaparte

Take time to deliberate, but when the time for action has arrived, stop thinking and go in.
— Napoleon Bonaparte

Ten people who speak make more noise than ten thousand who are silent.
— Napoleon Bonaparte

The best way to keep one's word is not to give it.
— Napoleon Bonaparte

The most dangerous moment comes with victory.
— Napoleon Bonaparte

Tragedy warms the soul, elevates the heart, can and ought to create heroes.
— Napoleon Bonaparte

Victory belongs to the most persevering.
— Napoleon Bonaparte

We must laugh at man, to avoid crying for him.
— Napoleon Bonaparte

What is history but a fable agreed upon?
— Napoleon Bonaparte

The need to be right all the time is the biggest bar to new ideas. It is better to have enough ideas for some of them to be wrong than to be always right by having no ideas at all.
— Edward de Bono

Good government generally begins in the family, and if the moral character of a people once degenerate, their political character must soon follow.
— Elias Boudinot

From now on I hope always to stay alert, to educate myself the best I can. But lacking this, in the future I will relaxedly turn back to my secret mind and see what it has observed when I thought I was sitting this one out. We never sit anything out. We are cups, constantly and quietly being filled. The trick is, knowing how to tip ourselves over and let the beautiful stuff out.
— Ray Bradbury

We are an impossibility in an impossible universe.
— Ray Bradbury

You can't try to do things; you simply must do them.
— Ray Bradbury

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

 

More on    Bertolt Brecht

Love is also like a coconut which is good while it is fresh, but you have to spit it out when the juice is gone, what’s left tastes bitter.
— Bertolt Brecht

What is the robbing of a bank compared to the founding of a bank?
— Bertolt Brecht

Who struggles can fail. Who doesn't struggle has already failed!
— Bertolt Brecht

Would it not be easier for the government to dissolve the people and elect another?
— Bertolt Brecht

Please don't lie to me, unless you're absolutely sure I'll never find out the truth.
— Ashleigh Brilliant

To be sure of hitting the target, shoot first, and call whatever you hit the target.
— Ashleigh Brilliant

Please don't ask me what the score is, I'm not even sure what the game is.
— Ashleigh Brilliant

I either want less corruption, or more chance to participate in it.
— Ashleigh Brilliant

The one function TV news performs very well is that when there is no news we give it to you with the same emphasis as if there were.
— David Brinkley

If God wanted us to fly, He would have given us tickets.
— Mel Brooks

Those who have easy, cheerful attitudes tend to be happier than those with less pleasant temperaments, regardless of money, "making it", or success.
— Dr. Joyce Brothers

Act as if it were impossible to fail.
— Dorothea Broude

Education makes people easy to lead, but difficult to drive; easy to govern, but impossible to enslave.
— Henry Brougham

A new idea is delicate. It can be killed by a sneer or a yawn; it can be stabbed to death by a joke or worried to death by a frown on the right person's brow.
— Charles Brower

The next time you face a customer who has every right to be upset, say something like this: "I don't blame you for feeling as you do. If I were you, I'd feel exactly the same way. What would you like for me to do?' These are magical, healing words, and you'll be surprised at how reasonable people become when they believe you are on their side.
— H. Jackson Brown, Jr.

If you are angry, why not try this. Write a letter. Pour out all of your feelings, describe your anger and disappointment. Don't hold anything back. Then put the letter in a drawer. After two days, take it out and read it. Do you still want to send it? I've found that anger and pie crusts soften after two days.
— H. Jackson Brown, Jr.

When you are angry or frustrated, what comes out? Whatever it is, it's a good indication of what you're made of.
— H. Jackson Brown, Jr.

When you have nothing important or interesting to say, don't let anyone persuade you to say it.
— H. Jackson Brown, Jr.

Find a job you like and you add five days to every week.
— H. Jackson Brown, Jr.

Be smarter than other people, just don't tell them so.
— H. Jackson Brown, Jr.

You either make dust or eat dust.
— H. Jackson Brown, Jr.

Shoot for the moon. Even if you miss it you will land among the stars.
— Les Brown

The sins of the nation will only be purged with blood.
— John Brown, abolitionist, as he was being led to the gallows.

The statistics on sanity are that one out of every four Americans is suffering from some form of mental illness. Think of your three best friends. If they are okay, then it's you.
— Rita Mae Brown

Never offend people with style when you can offend them with substance.
— Sam Brown

 

More on    William Jennings Bryan

The way to develop self-confidence is to do the thing you fear and get a record of successful experiences behind you.
— William Jennings Bryan

Destiny is not a matter of chance, it is a matter of choice; it is not a thing to be waited for, it is a thing to be achieved.
— William Jennings Bryan

No one can earn a million dollars honestly.
— William Jennings Bryan

If anything goes bad, I did it. If anything goes semi-good, we did it. If anything goes really good, then you did it. That's all it takes to get people to win football games for you.
— Paul "Bear" Bryant, football coach

 

More on    Pat Buchanan

...integration of blacks and whites — but even more so, poor and well-to-do — is less likely to result in accommodation than it is in perpetual friction, as the incapable are placed consciously by government side by side with the capable.
— Pat Buchanan, memo to President Nixon, quoted in Washington Post, 1/5/92

Though Hitler was indeed racist and anti-Semitic to the core, a man who without compunction could commit murder and genocide, he was also an individual of great courage, a soldier's soldier in the Great War, a leader steeped in the history of Europe, who possessed oratorical powers that could awe even those who despised him.
— Pat Buchanan, 1977

There is a legitimate grievance in my view of white working-class people that every time, on every issue, that the black militants loud-mouth it, we come up with more money.... If we can give 50 Phantoms [jet fighters] to the Jews, and a multi-billion dollar welfare program for the blacks...why not help the Catholics save their collapsing school system.
— Pat Buchanan, memo to President Nixon, quoted in Boston Globe, 1/4/92

Hunger makes thief of any man.
— Pearl S. Buck

Praise out of season, or tactlessly bestowed, can freeze the heart as much as blame.
— Pearl S. Buck

The person who tries to live alone will not succeed as a human being. His heart withers if it does not answer another heart. His mind shrinks away if he hears only the echoes of his own thoughts and finds no other inspiration.
— Pearl S. Buck

The young do not know enough to be prudent, and therefore they attempt the impossible, and achieve it, generation after generation.
— Pearl S. Buck

The academic community has in it the biggest concentration of alarmists, cranks and extremists this side of the giggle house.
— William F. Buckley Jr.

There is an inverse relationship between reliance on the state and self-reliance.
— William F. Buckley Jr.

The only time to buy these is on a day with no "y" in it.
— Warren Buffet, investor

Patience is not passive; on the contrary, it is active; it is concentrated strength.
— Edward G. Bulwer-Lytton

H. L. Mencken said one time that anytime you hear someone say, "It's not about money," it's about money! And when you hear anyone say, "It's not about sex," it's about sex!
— Retired Senator Dale Bumpers

God doesn’t make no mistakes. That’s how he got to be God.
— Archie Bunker

Don't take life too seriously. You'll never get out alive.
— Bugs Bunny

Good order is the foundation of all things.
— Edmund Burke

The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.
— Edmund Burke

But if the young are never tired of erring in conduct, neither are the older in erring of judgment ...
— Fanny Burney (1752–1840) English novelist, letter writer, Cecilia, Bk. IV, Ch. 11, 1782.

A child on the farm sees a plane fly overhead and dreams of a faraway place. A traveler on the plane sees the farmhouse and thinks of home.
— Carl Burns

Aim for success, not perfection. Never give up your right to be wrong, because then you will lose the ability to learn new things and move forward with your life. Remember that fear always lurks behind perfectionism. Confronting your fears and allowing yourself the right to be human can, paradoxically, make yourself a happier and more productive person.
— Dr. David M. Burns

Never do today what you can put off till tomorrow. Delay may give clearer light as to what is best to be done.
— Aaron Burr

The rule of my life is to make business a pleasure, and pleasure my business.
— Aaron Burr

Happiness is having a large, loving, caring, close-knit family in another city.
— George Burns

The people in power will not disappear voluntarily, giving flowers to the cops just isn't going to work. This thinking is fostered by the establishment; they like nothing better than love and nonviolence. The only way I like to see cops given flowers is in a flower pot from a high window.
— William S. Burroughs (b. 1914), U.S. author. The Job: Interviews with Daniel Odier, Prisoners of the Earth Come Out (1969).

A paranoid is someone who knows a little of what's going on.
— William S. Burroughs (b. 1914), U.S. author.

Broke is a temporary condition, poor is a state of mind.
— Sir Richard Francis Burton (1821–1890), British explorer, tranlator, author and orientalist

The more I study religions the more I am convinced that man never worshipped anything but himself.
— Sir Richard Francis Burton (1821–1890), British explorer, tranlator, author and orientalist

I say with Didacus Stella, a dwarf standing on the shoulders of a giant may see farther than a giant himself.
— Robert Burton (1577–1640), Anatomy of Melancholy. Democritus to the Reader.

I have opinions of my own — strong opinions — but I don't always agree with them.
— George H.W. Bush

The California crunch really is the result of not enough power-generating plants and then not enough power to power the power of generating plants.
— George W. Bush

I appreciate that question because I, in the state of Texas, had heard a lot of discussion about a faith-based initiative eroding the important bridge between church and state.
— George W. Bush, speaking to reporters, Jan. 29, 2001

I'm hopeful. I know there is a lot of ambition in Washington, obviously. But I hope the ambitious realize that they are more likely to succeed with success as opposed to failure.
— George W. Bush, Jan. 18, 2001

First, we would not accept a treaty that would not have been ratified, nor a treaty that I thought made sense for the country.
— George W. Bush, on the Kyoto accord, April 24, 2001

My advice is, don't peak too early.
— George W. Bush, at the White House Correspondents' Association dinner, showing off his first-grade report card, in which he received all As

Probably wearing a red tie too many times.
— George W. Bush, reflecting on his biggest mistake during the first hundred days

Well, I think if you say you are going to do something and don't do it, that's trustworthiness.
— George W. Bush

This administration is doing everything we can to end the stalemate in an efficient way. We're making the right decisions to bring the solution to an end.
— George W. Bush, April 10, 2001

It's very important for folks to understand that when there's more trade, there's more commerce.
— George W. Bush, at the Summit of the Americas in Quebec City

I want it to be said that the Bush administration was a results-oriented administration, because I believe the results of focusing our attention and energy on teaching children to read and having an education system that's responsive to the child and to the parents, as opposed to mired in a system that refuses to change, will make America what we want it to be — a more literate country and a hopefuller country.
— George W. Bush, Jan. 2001

 

More on    Samuel Butler (1612–1680), English poet, author

A hen is only an egg's way of making another egg.
— Samuel Butler

All progress is based upon a universal innate desire on the part of every organism to live beyond its income.
— Samuel Butler

Any fool can tell the truth, but it requires a man of some sense to know how to lie well.
— Samuel Butler

Every man's work, whether it be literature or music or pictures or architecture or anything else, is always a portrait of himself.
— Samuel Butler

For truth is precious and divine; Too rich a pearl for carnal swine.
— Samuel Butler

Friendship is like money, easier made than kept.
— Samuel Butler

God cannot alter the past, but historians can.
— Samuel Butler

He that is down can fall no lower.
— Samuel Butler

I do not mind lying but I hate inaccuracy.
— Samuel Butler

It has been said that the love of money is the root of all evil. The want of money is so quite as truly.
— Samuel Butler

It is better to have loved and lost than never to have lost at all.
— Samuel Butler

It is in the uncompromisingness with which dogma is held and not in the dogma, or want of dogma, that the danger lies.
— Samuel Butler

Life is like music, it must be composed by ear, feeling and instinct, not by rule. Nevertheless one had better know the rules, for they sometimes guide in doubtful cases, though not often.
— Samuel Butler

Life is like playing a violin solo in public and learning the instrument as one goes on.
— Samuel Butler

Life is the art of drawing sufficient conclusions from insufficient premises.
— Samuel Butler

Man is the only animal that laughs and has a state legislature.
— Samuel Butler

Man is the only animal that can remain on friendly terms with the victims he intends to eat until he eats them.
— Samuel Butler

The advantage of doing one's praising for oneself is that one can lay it on so thick and in exactly the right places.
— Samuel Butler

The course of true anything does not run smooth.
— Samuel Butler

The man who lets himself be bored is even more contemptible than the bore.
— Samuel Butler

There are two great rules in life, the one general and the other particular. The first is that every one can in the end get what he wants if he only tries. This is the general rule. The particular rule is that every individual is more or less of an exception to the general rule.
— Samuel Butler

'Tis better to have loved and lost, than never to have lost at all.
— Samuel Butler

To do great work a man must be very idle as well as very industrious.
— Samuel Butler

Truth is generally kindness, but where the two diverge and collide, kindness should override truth.
— Samuel Butler

You will never find time for anything. If you want time you must make it.
— Charles Buxton

Those who will not reason, are bigots, those who cannot, are fools, and those who dare not, are slaves.
— Lord Byron (1788–1824)

Let these describe the indescribable.
— Lord Byron (1788–1824)

But words are things, and a small drop of ink,
Falling, like dew, upon a thought produces
That which makes thousands, perhaps millions think.
— Lord Byron (1788–1824)

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The optimist proclaims we live in the best of all possible worlds; and the pessimist fears this is true.
— James B. Cabell

I came, I saw, I conquered.
— Julius Caesar

As a rule, men worry more about what they can't see than about what they can.
— Julius Caesar

I can't understand why people are frightened of new ideas. I'm frightened of the old ones.
— John Cage

Be like a duck. Calm on the surface, but always paddling like the dickens underneath.
— Michael Caine

My audience was my life. What I did and how I did it, was all for my audience.
— Cab Calloway, 1988

It is better to be defeated on principle than to win on lies.
— Arthur Calwell

When I give food to the poor, they call me a saint. When I ask why the poor have no food, they call be a Communist...
— Dom Helder Camara

An honest politician is one who, when he is bought, will stay bought.
— Simon Cameron

I don't believe people are looking for the meaning of life as much as they are looking for the experience of being alive.
—Joseph Campbell

Life is a sum of all your choices.
— Albert Camus

Charm is a way of getting the answer yes without asking a clear question.
— Albert Camus

Nobody realizes that some people expend tremendous energy merely to be normal.
— Albert Camus

Too many have dispensed with generosity in order to practice charity.
— Albert Camus

Successful salesmanship is 90% preparation and 10% presentation.
— Bertrand R. Canfield

It takes 20 years to make an overnight success.
— Eddie Cantor

The American system of ours, call it Americanism, call it Capitalism, call it what you like, gives each and every one of us a great opportunity if we only seize it with both hands and make the most of it.
— Al Capone

You can get much farther with a kind word and a gun than you can with a kind word alone.
— Al Capone

I don't even know what street Canada is on.
— Al Capone

Vote early and vote often.
— Al Capone

Writing has laws of perspective, of light and shade, just as painting does, or music. If you are born knowing them, fine. If not, learn them. Then rearrange the rules to suit yourself.
— Truman Capote

Life is a moderately good play with a badly written third act.
— Truman Capote

Weather forecast for tonight: dark.
— George Carlin

I'm not concerned about all hell breaking loose, but that a part of hell will break loose... it'll be much harder to detect.
— George Carlin

Well, if crime fighters fight crime and fire fighters fight fire, what do freedom fighters fight? They never mention that part to us, do they?
— George Carlin

It is not to die, nor even to die of hunger, that makes a man wretched. Many men have died; all men must die. But it is to live miserable, we know not why; to work sore, and yet gain nothing; to be heart-worn, weary, yet isolated, unrelated, girt in with a cold, universal *laissez-faire*.
— Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881), English author, b. Scotland.

No man will make a great leader who wants to do it all himself, or to get all the credit for doing it.
— Andrew Carnegie

The first man gets the oyster, the second man gets the shell.
— Andrew Carnegie

Here lies a man who knew how to enlist the service of better men than himself.
— Tombstone of Andrew Carnegie

Most of the important things in the world have been accomplished by people who have kept on trying when there seemed to be no help at all.
— Dale Carnegie

Fear doesn't exist anywhere except in the mind.
— Dale Carnegie

 

More on    Lewis Carroll (1832–1898) [Charles Lutwidge Dodgson] British mathematician, writer, and poet

A loaf of bread, the Walrus said,
 Is what we chiefly need:
  Pepper and vinegar besides
   Are very good indeed —
    Now if you're ready, Oysters, dear,
     We can begin to feed!
— Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking-Glass (1872)

Alice laughed. "There's no use trying," she said. "One can't believe impossible things." "I daresay you haven't had much practice," said the Queen. "When I was your age, I always did it half an hour a day. Why, sometimes, I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast."
— Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking-Glass, Chapter 5 (1872)

As large as life, and twice as natural.
— Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking-Glass, Chapter 7 (1872)

Brave men are all vertebrates; they have their softness on the surface and their toughness in the middle.
— Lewis Carroll

"Contrariwise", continued Tweedledee, "if it was so, it might be, and if it were so, it would be; but as it isn't, it ain't. That's logic!"
— Lewis Carroll, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

Everything's got a moral, if only you can find it.
— Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking-Glass, Chapter 5 (1872)

How cheerfully he seems to grin,
 How neatly spreads his claws,
  And welcomes little fishes in
   With gently smiling jaws!
— Lewis Carroll, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland , referring to crocodiles

"The time has come," the Walrus said,
 "To talk of many things:
Of shoes — and ships--and sealing-wax —
 Of cabbages — and kings —
And why the sea is boiling hot —
 And whether pigs have wings."
— Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking-Glass (1872)

"When I use a word," Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, "it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less."
— Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking-Glass (1872)

"Will you walk a little faster?" said a whiting to a snail,
 "There's a porpoise close behind us, and he's treading on my tail!
  See how eagerly the lobsters and the turtles all advance:
   They are waiting on the shingle — will you come and join the dance?"
— Lewis Carroll, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

I've looked on many women with lust. I've committed adultery in my heart many times. God knows I will do this and forgives me.
— Jimmy Carter, in an interview with Playboy one month prior to the 1976 election

A leader takes people where they want to go. A great leader takes people where they don't necessarily want to go but ought to be.
— Rosalynn Carter

We have become ninety-nine percent money mad. The method of living at home modestly and within our income, laying a little by systematically for the proverbial rainy day which is due to come, can almost be listed among the lost arts.
— George Washington Carver, 1931

The basic difference between an ordinary person and a warrior is that a warrior takes everything as a challenge while an ordinary person takes everything as a blessing or a curse.
— Carlos Castaneda

The trick is what one emphasizes. We either make ourselves miserable or we make ourselves strong. The amount of work is the same.
—Carlos Castaneda

Revolution is not a bed of roses. A revolution is a struggle to the death between the future and the past.
— Fidel Castro

That gentleman has arrived there, and hopefully he is not as stupid as he seems, nor as mafia-like as his predecessors were.
— Fidel Castro on George W. Bush

The problem with political jokes is they get elected.
— Henry Cate

Your wits make others witty.
— Catherine the Great (1729–1796) Russian empress, Letter to Voltaire, In The Complete Works of Catherine II, ed. Evdokimov, 1893.

As long as people will accept crap, it will be financially profitable to dispense it.
— Dick Cavett

Eloquence is vehement simplicity.
— Richard Cecil

Virtue consisted in avoiding scandal and venereal disease.
— Robert Cecil, Marquess of Salisbury (1830–1903), English political leader, Life in Edwardian England

They improvidentially piped growing volumes of sewage into the sea, the healing virtues of which were advertised on every railway station.
— Robert Cecil, Marquess of Salisbury (1830–1903), English political leader, referring to seaside resorts, Life in Edwardian England

Prudence which degenerates into timidity is very seldom the path to safety.
— Viscount Cecil

Most great men and women are not perfectly rounded in their personalities, but are instead people whose one driving enthusiasm is so great it makes their faults seem insignificant.
— Charles A. Cerami

Gross ignorance — 144 times worse than ordinary ignorance.
— Bennett Cerf

 

More on    Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra (1547–1616) Spanish novelist, dramatist, and poet

A closed mouth catches no flies.
— Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Italian proverb quoted by Sancho Panza in Don Quixote, Part 1, Book 3, Chapter 11

Alas! all music jars when the soul’s out of tune.
— Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Don Quixote, Part 2, Book 6, Chapter 11

Be slow of tongue and quick of eye.
— Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

Can we ever have too much of a good thing?
— Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Don Quixote,, Part 1, Book 1, Chapter 6
see Shakespeare

It is good to live and learn.
— Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Don Quixote, Part 2, Chapter 32

Love and war are the same thing, and stratagems and policy are as allowable in the one as in the other.
— Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Don Quixote,, Part 2, Book 5, Chapter 21

One of the most considerable advantages the great have over their inferiors is to have servants as good as themselves.
— Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Don Quixote,, Part 2, Book 5, Chapter 31

The greatest foes, and whom we must chiefly combat, are within.
— Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

There is a remedy for all things but death, which will be sure to lay us out flat some time or other.
— Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Don Quixote, Part 2, Chapter 10

When the severity of the law is to be softened, let pity, not bribes, be the motive.
— Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Don Quixote’s advice to Sancho Panza, in Don Quixote, Part 2, Book 6, Chapter 9

Which I have earned with the sweat of my brows.
— Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Don Quixote, Part 1, Book 1, Chapter 4

Learn and think imperially.
— Joseph Chamberlian

It is better to wear out than to rust out.
— Richard Chamberland

I reject foreign intervention in my country. Naturally, it follows that that I do not approve of invasions into other countries, be they Panama, or Grenada, or any other.
— Violeta Barrios de Chamorro, president of Nicaragua, Dreams of the Heart, 1996

Opportunity does not knock, it presents itself when you beat down the door.
— Kyle Chandler

The office of government is not to confer happiness, but to give men the opportunity to work out happiness for themselves.
— W. E. Channing

Love is a special word, and I use it only when I mean it. You say the word too much and it becomes cheap.
— Ray Charles, Brother Ray, 1978

I was born with music inside me. Music was one of my parts. Like my ribs, my kidneys, my liver, my heart. Like my blood. It was a force already within me when I arrived on the scene. It was a necessity for me — like food or water.
— Ray Charles, 1978

Affluence separates people. Poverty knits 'em together. You got some sugar and I don't; I borrow some of yours. Next month you might not have any flour; well, I'll give you some of mine.
— Ray Charles, 1978

My music had roots which I'd dug up from my own childhood, musical roots buried in the darkest soil.
— Ray Charles, 1978

Truth is the highest thing that man may keep.
— Geoffrey Chaucer (c. 1342–1400) English poet, Canterbury Tales. The Frankeleines Tale. Line 11789

But all thing which that shineth as the gold
Ne is no gold, as I have herd it told.
— Geoffrey Chaucer (c. 1342–1400) English poet, Canterbury Tales. The Chanones Yemannes Tale. Line 16430.

One eare it heard, at the other out it went.
— Geoffrey Chaucer (c. 1342–1400) English poet, Troilus and Creseide. Book iv. Line 435.

A writer is not a confectioner, a cosmetic dealer, or an entertainer.
— Anton Chekhov

Any idiot can face a crisis, it is this day-to-day living that wears you out.
— Anton Chekhov

Doctors are the same as lawyers; the only difference is that lawyers merely rob you, whereas doctors rob you and kill you too.
— Anton Chekhov

Love, friendship, respect, do not unite people as much as a common hatred of something.
— Anton Chekhov: Notebooks

Man is what he believes.
— Anton Chekhov

No psychologist should pretend to understand what he does not understand... Only fools and charlatans know everything and understand nothing.
— Anton Chekhov

Only he is an emancipated thinker who is not afraid to write foolish things.
— Anton Chekhov

The more refined one is, the more unhappy.
— Anton Chekhov

To judge between good or bad, between successful and unsuccessful would take the eye of a God.
— Anton Chekhov

You must trust and believe in people or life becomes impossible.
— Anton Chekhov

Impossibilities are merely things of which we have not learned, or which we do not wish to happen.
— Charles W. Chesnutt, 1901

The workings of the human heart are the profoundest mystery of the universe. One moment they make us despair of our kind, and the next we see in them the reflection of the divine image.
— Charles W. Chesnutt, 1901

There's time enough, but none to spare.
— Charles W. Chesnutt, 1901

As man sows, so shall he reap. In works of fiction, such men are sometimes converted. More often, in real life, they do not change their natures until they are converted into dust.
— Charles W. Chesnutt, 1901

Selfishness is the most constant of human motives. Patriotism, humanity, or the love of God may lead to sporadic outbursts sweep away the heaped-up wrongs of centuries; but they languish at times, while the love of self works on ceaselessly, unwearyingly, burrowing always at the very root of life, and heaping up fresh wrongs for other centuries to sweep away.
— Charles W. Chesnutt, 1901

Sins, like chickens, come home to roost.
— Charles W. Chesnutt, 1901

 

More on    Lord Chesterfield   (1694–1773), Philip Dormer Stanhope, Fourth Earl of Chesterfield, English politician.

An injury is much sooner forgotten than an insult.
— Lord Chesterfield (1694–1773), Letter to his son, October 9, 1746

Be wiser than other people, if you can; but do not tell them so.
— Lord Chesterfield (1694–1773)

I am convinced that a light supper, a good night's sleep, and a fine morning, have sometimes made a hero of the same man, who, by an indigestion, a restless night, and rainy morning, would have proved a coward.
— Lord Chesterfield (1694–1773)

I recommend you to take care of the minutes, for the hours will take care of themselves.
— Lord Chesterfield (1694–1773), Letter to his son, April 30, 1750

If you are not in fashion, you are nobody.
— Lord Chesterfield (1694–1773)

In my mind, there is nothing so illiberal and so ill bred as audible laughter.
— Lord Chesterfield (1694–1773)

Men, as well as women, are much oftener led by their hearts than by their understandings.
— Lord Chesterfield (1694–1773)

Modesty is the only sure bait when you angle for praise.
— Lord Chesterfield (1694–1773)

Most people enjoy the inferiority of their best friends.
— Lord Chesterfield (1694–1773)

Never seem wiser, nor more learned, than the people you are with. Wear your learning, like your watch, in a private pocket: and do not merely pull it out and strike it; merely to show that you have one.
— Lord Chesterfield (1694–1773)

Whatever is worth doing at all is worth doing well.
— Lord Chesterfield (1694–1773)

Women who are either indisputably beautiful, or indisputably ugly, are best flattered upon the score of their understandings; but those who are in a state of mediocrity are best flattered upon their beauty, or at least their graces: for every woman who is not absolutely ugly, thinks herself handsome.
— Lord Chesterfield (1694–1773)

You must embrace the man you hate, if you cannot be justified in knocking him down.
— Lord Chesterfield (1694–1773)

Young men are apt to think themselves wise enough, as drunken men are apt to think themselves sober enough.
— Lord Chesterfield (1694–1773)

A change of opinions is almost unknown in an elderly military man.
— G.K. Chesterton, A Utopia of Usurers, CW, V, p396

All but the hard hearted man must be torn with pity for this pathetic dilemma of the rich man, who has to keep the poor man just stout enough to do the work and just thin enough to have to do it.
— G.K. Chesterton, A Utopia of Usurers, 1917

Bigotry may be roughly defined as the anger of men who have no opinions.
— G.K. Chesterton

Journalism largely consists of saying "Lord Jones is Dead" to people who never knew that Lord Jones was alive.
— G.K. Chesterton

Misers get up early in the morning; and burglars, I am informed, get up the night before.
— G.K. Chesterton, Tremendous Trifles

The really great person is the person who makes every person feel great.
— G.K. Chesterton

The president responds very favorably when Laura refers to him in those terms, but the rest of us would not use that phrase, I don't believe.
— Dick Cheney, on reports the First Lady calls the President "Bushie"

Prefer a loss to a dishonest gain; the one brings pain at the moment, the other for all time.
— Chilton

He who asks is a fool for five minutes, but he who does not ask remains a fool forever.
— Chinese proverb

The gem cannot be polished without friction.
— Chinese proverb

If you are planning for a year, sow rice; if you are planning for a decade, plant trees; if you are planning for a lifetime, educate people.
— Chinese proverb

The man who strikes first admits that his ideas have given out.
— Chinese Proverb

If you have an important point to make, don't try to be subtle or clever. Use a pile driver. Hit the point once. Then come back and hit it again. Then hit it a third time a tremendous whack.
— Winston Churchill

Men occasionally stumble on the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing had happened.
— Winston Churchill

I am ready to meet my maker, but whether my maker is prepared for the great ordeal of meeting me is another matter.
— Winston Churchill

Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.
— Winston Churchill

The Americans will always do the right thing... After they've exhausted all the alternatives.
— Winston Churchill

The farther back you can look, the farther forward you are likely to see.
— Winston Churchill

By swallowing evil words unsaid, no one has ever harmed his stomach.
— Winston Churchill

It is a good thing for an uneducated man to read books of quotations.
— Winston Churchill

Without courage, all other virtues lose their meaning.
— Winston Churchhill

The price of greatness is responsibility.
— Winston Churchill

I like a man who grins when he fights.
— Winston Churchill

 

More on    Marcus Tullius Cicero   (106–43 BC), Roman orator, philosopher
or the Cicero Collection.

A home without books is a body without soul.
— Marcus Tullius Cicero

Brevity is the best recommendation of speech, whether in a senator or an orator.
— Marcus Tullius Cicero

Justice consists in doing no injury to men; decency in giving them no offence.
— Marcus Tullius Cicero, De Officiis, book 1, ch. 28, sct. 99, 44 BC

Nothing is so secure that money will not defeat it.
— Marcus Tullius Cicero

Six mistakes mankind keeps making centruy after century: Believing that personal gain is made by crushing others; Worrying about things that cannot be changed or corrected; Insisting that a thing is impossible because we cannot accomplish it; Refusing to set aside trivial preferences; Neglecting development and refinement of the mind; Attempting to compel others to believe and live as well as we do.
— Marcus Tullius Cicero

Take from a man his reputation for probity, and the more shrewd and clever he is, the more hated and mistrusted he becomes.
— Marcus Tullius Cicero, De Officiis, II, 34, 44 BC

Times are bad. Children no longer obey their parents, and everyone is writing a book.
— Marcus Tullius Cicero

The budget should be balanced, the treasury refilled, public debt reduced, the arrogance of officialdom tempered and controlled, and the assistance to foreign lands curtailed, lest Rome become bankrupt.
— Marcus Tullius Cicero

There is nothing so absurd but some philosopher has said it.
— Marcus Tullius Cicero, De Divinatione, book. 2, sct. 58 (45 BC)

We are slaves of the laws in order that we may be able to be free.
— Marcus Tullius Cicero

While the sick man has life there is hope.
— Marcus Tullius Cicero, Epistolarum ad Atticum, ix. 10, 4

The difference between fiction and reality? Fiction has to make sense.
— Tom Clancy

The labor of a human being is not a commodity or article of commerce.
— The Clayton Anti-Trust Act, VI, 1914

A faith that cannot survive collision with the truth is not worth many regrets.
— Arthur C. Clarke

All explorers are seeking something they have lost. It is seldom that they find it, and more seldom still that the attainment brings them greater happiness than the quest.
— Arthur C. Clarke

Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.
— Arthur C. Clarke

Chemistry is a trade for people without enough imagination to be physicists.
— Arthur C. Clarke

Human judges can show mercy. But against the laws of nature, there is no appeal.
— Arthur C. Clarke

I don't pretend we have all the answers. But the questions are certainly worth thinking about.
— Arthur C. Clarke

If an elderly but distinguished scientist says that something is possible he is almost certainly right, but if he says that it is impossible he is very probably wrong.
— Arthur C. Clarke

It has yet to be proven that intelligence has any survival value.
— Arthur C. Clarke

It may be that our role on this planet is not to worship God, but to create him.
— Arthur C. Clarke

New ideas pass through three periods:
It can't be done.
It probably can be done, but it's not worth doing
I knew it was a good idea all along !
— Arthur C. Clarke

The best measure of a man's honesty isn't his income tax return. It's the zero adjust on his bathroom scale.
— Arthur C. Clarke

The future isn't what it used to be.
— Arthur C. Clarke

The moon is the first milestone on the road to the stars.
— Arthur C. Clarke

The only way to discover the limits of the possible is to go beyond them into the impossible.
— Arthur C. Clarke

There is hopeful symbolism in the fact that flags do not wave in a vacuum.
— Arthur C. Clarke

The backbone of surprise is fusing speed with secrecy.
— Carl von Clausewitz: On War

The best defense is a good offense.
— Carl von Clausewitz: On War

You're either part of the solution or part of the problem.
— Eldridge Cleaver, 1968

History could pass for a scarlet text, its jot and title graven red in human blood.
— Eldridge Cleaver, 1968

Respect commands itself and can neither be given nor withheld when it is due.
— Eldridge Cleaver, 1968

The struggle of our people for freedom has progressed to the form where all of us must take a stand either for or against the freedom of our people You are either with Your People or against them. You are either part of the solution or part of the problem.
— Eldridge Cleaver, To My Black Brothers In Vietnam

We have dedicated our lives, our blood, to the freedom and liberation of our people, and nothing, no force can stop us from achieving our goal. If it is necessary to destroy the United States of America, then let us destroy it with a smile on our faces.
— Eldridge Cleaver, To My Black Brothers In Vietnam

You don't have to teach people how to be human. You have to teach them how to stop being inhuman.
— Eldridge Cleaver, 1970

Leaders who win the respect of others are the ones who deliver more than they promise, not the ones who promise more than they can deliver.
— Mark A. Clement

I thought Missouri was the Show-Me State.
— Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, lampooning Attorney General John Ashcroft's (former senator from Missouri) decision to spend more than $8,000 to cover statues of bare-breasted women in the Justice Department building

Imagine a school with children that can read or write, but with teachers who cannot, and you have a metaphor of the Information Age in which we live.
— Peter Cochrane

 

More on    Sir Edward Coke  (1552–1634) English jurist

They (corporations) cannot commit treason, nor be outlawed nor excommunicated, for they have no souls.
— Sir Edward Coke, Case of Sutton’s Hospital, 10 Rep. 32.

The house of every one is to him as his castle and fortress, as well for his defence against injury and violence as for his repose.
— Sir Edward Coke, Semayne’s Case, 5 Rep. 91.

You don't drown by falling in the water; you drown by staying there.
— Edwin Louis Cole

When you educate a man you educate an individual, but when you educate a woman, you educate a nation.
— Johnetta B. Cole, 1993

I'm a musician at heart, I know I'm not really a singer. I couldn't compete with real singers. But I sing because the public buys it.
— Nat King Cole [Nathaniel Adams Coles] 1949

Critics don't buy records. They get 'em free.
— Nat King Cole [Nathaniel Adams Coles]

Common sense in an uncommon degree is what the world calls wisdom.
— Samuel Coleridge

Success doesn't come to you, you go to it.
— Marva Collins

Happiness, wealth, and success are the by-products of goal setting, they cannot be the goals themselves.
— John Condry

Anger and humor are like the left and right arm. They complement each other. Anger empowers the poor to declare their uncompromising opposition to opression, and humor prevents them from being consumed by their fury.
— James Cone, 1991

Truth knows no color; it appeals to intelligence.
— James Cone, 1986

A man who has committed a mistake and doesn't correct it is committing another mistake.
— Confucius

The superior man is modest in his speech, but excels in his actions.
— Confucius

Real knowledge is to know the extent of one's ignorance.
— Confucius

When prosperity comes, do not use all of it.
— Confucius

Heav'n hath no rage like love to hatred turn'd, Nor Hell a fury, like a woman scorn'd.
— William Congreve

All ambitions are lawful except those which climb upward on the miseries or credulities of mankind
— Joseph Conrad: A Personal record, 1912, preface

Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination are omnipotent. The slogan "press on" has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race.
— Calvin Coolidge

When more and more people are thrown out of work, unemployment results.
— Calvin Coolidge

No person was ever honored for what he received. Honor has been the reward for what he gave.
— Calvin Coolidge

The cause of freedom is not the cause of a race or a sect, a party or a class — it is the cause of human kind, the very birthright of humanity.
— Anna Julia Cooper, 1892

Bullies are always cowards at heart and may be credited with a pretty safe instinct in scenting their prey.
— Anna Julia Cooper, 1892

I'm just glad it'll be Clark Gable who's falling on his face and not Gary Cooper.
— Gary Cooper on his decision not to take the leading role in "Gone With the Wind."

To get something done, a committee should consist of no more than three people, two of whom are absent.
— Robert Copeland

Ideas are precious. An idea is the only lever which moves the world.
— Arthur F. Corey

Never hate your enemies, it affects your judgment.
— Michael Corleone

I don't know the key to success, but the key to failure is trying to please everybody.
— Bill Cosby, 1977

A word to the wise ain't necessary — it's the stupid ones who need advice.
— Bill Cosby, Fat Albert's Survival Kit, 1975

When you become senile, you won't know it.
— Bill Cosby, 1987

There is hope for the future because God has a sense of humor and we are funny to God.
— Bill Cosby, 1978

Poets have said that the reason to have children is to give yourself immortality. Immortality? Now that I have five children, my only hope is that they are all out of the house before I die.
— Bill Cosby, Fatherhood 1986

Always end the name of your child with a vowel, so that when you yell the name will carry.
— Bill Cosby, 1986

The truth is that parents are not really interrested in justice. They just want quiet.
— Bill Cosby, 1986

Like everyone else who makes the mistake of getting older, I begin each day with coffee and obituaries.
— Bill Cosby, Time Flies, 1987

The past is a ghost, the future a dream, and all we ever have is now.
— Bill Cosby, 1987

Let us now set forth one of the fundamental truths about marriage: the wife is in charge.
— Bill Cosby, Love and Marriage, 1989

Men and women belong to different species and communications between them is still in its infancy.
— Bill Cosby, 1989

The heart of marriage is memories; and if the two of you happen to have the same ones and can savor your reruns, then your marriage is a gift from the gods.
— Bill Cosby, 1989

I am certainly not an authority on love because there are no authorities on love, just those who've had luck with it and those who haven't.
— Bill Cosby, 1989

My childhood should have taught me lessons for my own fatherhood, but it didn't because parenting can only be learned by people who have no children.
— Bill Cosby, Childhood, 1991

Civilization had too many rules for me, so I did my best to rewrite them.
— Bill Cosby, 1991

The essence of childhood, of course, is play, which my friends and I did endlessly on streets that we reluctantly shared with traffic.
— Bill Cosby, 1991

Children today know more about sex than I or my father did.
— Bill Cosby, 1991

Obstacles are things a person sees when he takes his eyes off his goal.
— E. Joseph Cossman

Good manners and bad breath get you nowhere.
— Elvis Costello

The road to the future leads us smack into the wall. We simply ricochet off the alternatives that destiny offers: a demographic explosion that triggers social chaos and spreads death, nuclear delirium and the quasi-annihilation of the species... Our survival is no more than a question of 25, 50 or perhaps 100 years.
— Jacques Cousteau

While we are free to choose our actions, we are not free to choose the consequences of our actions.
— Stephen Covey

The man who rolls up his sleeves seldom loses his shirt.
— Thomas Cowan

Variety’s the very spice of life.
— William Cowper (1731–1800)

Congealed thinking is the forerunner of failure... make sure you are always receptive to new ideas.
— George Crane

Only after the last tree has been cut down, only after the last river has been poisoned, only after the last fish has been caught, only then will you realize that money cannot be eaten.
— Cree Indian prophecy

Do not trust to the cheering, for those persons would shout as much if you and I were going to be hanged.
— Oliver Cromwell

I desire you would use all your skill to paint my picture truly like me; but remark all these roughnesses, pimples, warts, and everything as you see me, otherwise I will not pay a farthing for it.
— Oliver Cromwell

It is better to wear out than to rust out.
— Richard Cumberland (1631–1718), in G. Horne, The Duty of Contending for the Faith (1786) p. 21

Nothing in life is to be feared. It is only to be understood.
—Marie Curie

It is odd, is it not, that a person's worth to society is measured by their wealth, when instead their wealth should be measured by their worth to society.
— A. Cygni

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When a dog bites a man that is not news, but when a man bites a dog that is news.
— Charles Anderson Dana (1819–1897), American newspaper editor, publisher

Dante — see Dante Alighieri

 

More on    Leonardo Da Vinci (1452–1519) Italian painter, sculptor, architect, musician, engineer, and scientist

Audacity, more audacity and always audacity.
— Georges Jacques Danton (1759–1794), French revolutionary leader

Every now and then go away, have a little relaxation, for when you come back to your work your judgement will be surer since to remain constant at work will cause you to lose power of judgement. Go some distance away because then the work appears smaller and more of it can be taken in at a glance and a lack of harmony and proportion is more readily seen.
— Leonardo Da Vinci

Anyone who conducts an argument by appealing to authority is not using his intelligence; he is just using his memory.
— Leonardo Da Vinci

The noblest pleasure is the joy of understanding.
— Leonardo Da Vinci

He didn't say that. He was reading what was given to him in a speech.
— Richard Darman, director of OMB, explaining why President Bush (Senior) wasn't following up on his campaign pledge that there would be no loss of wetlands.

Fight for your opinions, but do not believe that they contain the whole truth or the only truth.
— Charles A. Dana

 

More on    Clarence Darrow (1857–1938) U.S. lawyer

As long as the world shall last there will be wrongs, and if no man objected and no man rebelled, those wrongs would last forever.
— Clarence Darrow

Chase after the truth like all hell and you'll free yourself, even though you never touch its coat-tails.
— Clarence Darrow

I do not pretend to know what many ignorant men are sure of.
— Clarence Darrow

If you lose the power to laugh, you lose the power to think.
— Clarence Darrow

Even if you do learn to speak correct English, whom are you going to speak it to?
— Clarence Darrow

Industrial contests take on all the attitudes and psychology of war, and both parties do many things that they should never dream of doing in times of peace. Whatever may be said, the fact is that all strikes and all resistance to strikes take on the psychology of warfare, and all parties in interest must be judged from that standpoint.
— Clarence Darrow

Liberty is the most jealous and exacting mistress that can beguile the soul and brain of man.
— Clarence Darrow

None meet life honestly and few heroically.
— Clarence Darrow

To think is to differ.
— Clarence Darrow

The man who fights for his fellow-man is a better man than the one who fights for himself.
— Clarence Darrow

The first half of our lives is ruined by our parents, and the second half by our children.
— Clarence Darrow

There is no such thing as justice — in or out of court.
— Clarence Darrow

To think is to differ.
— Clarence Darrow

True patriotism hates injustice in its own land more than anywhere else.
— Clarence Darrow

When I was a boy I was told that anybody could become president. Now I'm beginning to believe it.
— Clarence Darrow

With all their faults, trade-unions have done more for humanity than any other organization of men that ever existed.
— Clarence Darrow

You can only protect your liberties in this world by protecting the other man's freedom. You can only be free if I am free.
— Clarence Darrow

 

More on    Charles Darwin (1809–1882) English naturalist

A man who dares to waste one hour of time has not discovered the value of life.
— Charles Darwin

A man who has no assured and ever present belief in the existence of a personal God or of future existence with retribution and reward, can have for his rule of life, as far as I can see, only to follow those impulses and instincts which are the strongest or which seem to him the best ones.
— Charles Darwin

Everything in nature is the result of fixed laws.
— Charles Darwin

It is not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change.
— Charles Darwin

Man in the distant future will be a far more perfect creature than he now is.
— Charles Darwin

The mystery of the beginning of all things is insoluble to us, and I for one must be content to remain an Agnostic.
— Charles Darwin

The universe we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but blind, pitiless indifference.
— Charles Darwin

Thus, from the war of nature, from famine and death, the most exalted object we are capable of conceiving, namely, the production of the higher animals, directly follows. There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed by the creator into a few forms or into one, and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from a simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being evolved.
— Charles Darwin

We can no longer argue that, for instance, the beautiful hinge of a bivalve shell must have been made by an intelligent being, like the hinge of a door by man.
— Charles Darwin

Whenever I have found that I have blundered, or that my work has been imperfect, and when I have been contemptuously criticized, and even when I have been overpraised, so that I have felt mortified, it has been my greatest comfort to say hundreds of times to myself that I have worked as hard and as well as I could, and no man can do more than this.
— Charles Darwin

I enjoy pressure, can't do without it.
— George Davies

Revolution is a serious thing, the most serious thing about a revolutionary's life. When one commits oneself to the struggle, it must be for a lifetime.
— Angela Davis, 1974

Jails and prisons are designed to break human beings, to convert the population into specimens in a zoo — obedient to our keepers, but dangerous to each other.
— Angela Davis, 1974

A legend is an old man with a cane known for what he used to do. I'm still doing it.
— Miles Davis (1926–1991), U.S. jazz musician, composer, 1989

For me, music and life are all about style.
— Miles Davis (1926–1991), U.S. jazz musician, composer, 1989

I'll play it first and tell you what it is later.
— Miles Davis (1926–1991), U.S. jazz musician, composer

It's always been a gift with me, hearing music the way I do. I don't know where it comes from, it's just there and I don't question it.
— Miles Davis (1926–1991), U.S. jazz musician, composer, 1989

Any form of art is a form of power; it has impact, it can effect change — it can not only move us, it makes us move.
— Ossie Davis, 1974

Fame comes with its own standard. A guy who twitches his lips is just another guy with a lip twitch — unless he's Humphrey Bogart.
— Sammy Davis, Jr., Yes I Can, 1965

Being a star has made it possible for me to get insulted in places where the average Negro could never hope to go and get insulted.
— Sammy Davis, Jr., Yes I Can, 1965

Society cares for the individual only so far as he is profitable.
— Simone De Beauvoir: The Coming of Age, 1970

 

More on    Eugene V. Debs (1855–1926) U.S. Socialist leader

I have no country to fight for; my country is the earth, and I am a citizen of the world.
— Eugene V. Debs

I'd rather vote for something I want and not get it than vote for something I don't want, and get it.
— Eugene V. Debs

If it had not been for the discontent of a few fellows who had not been satisfied with their conditions, you would still be living in caves. Intelligent discontent is the mainspring of civilization. Progress is born of agitation. It is agitation or stagnation.
— Eugene V. Debs

The rights of one are as sacred as the rights of a million.
— Eugene V. Debs

When great changes occur in history, when great principles are involved, as a rule the majority are wrong. The minority are right.
— Eugene V. Debs

Genius is nothing but a great aptitude for patience.
— George Louis DeBuffon

We don't like their sound, and guitar music is on the way out.
— Decca Recording Co. rejecting the Beatles, 1962.

The best of men cannot suspend their fate: The good die early, and the bad die late.
— Daniel Defoe (1660–1731), English journalist and novelist

 

More on    Charles de Gaulle (1890–1970) French leader

A great country worthy of the name does not have any friends.
— Charles de Gaulle, 1958

Diplomats are useful only in fair weather. As soon as it rains they drown in every drop.
— Charles de Gaulle, 1958

How can you expect to govern a country that has two hundred and forty-six kinds of cheese?
— Charles de Gaulle, 1958

I have against me the bourgeois, the military and the diplomats, and for me, only the people who take the Mιtro.
— Charles de Gaulle

I have come to the conclusion that politics are too serious a matter to be left to the politicians.
— Charles de Gaulle

I respect only those who resist me, but I cannot tolerate them.
— Charles de Gaulle

In order to become the master, the politician poses as the servant.
— Charles de Gaulle

In politics it is necessary either to betray one's country or the electorate. I prefer to betray the electorate.
— Charles de Gaulle

It will not be any European statesman who will unite Europe: Europe will be united by the Chinese.
— Charles de Gaulle

Nothing great will ever be achieved without great men, and men are great only if they are determined to be so.
— Charles de Gaulle

Nothing strengthens authority so much as silence.
— Charles de Gaulle

Patriotism is when love of your own people comes first; nationalism, when hate for people other than your own comes first.
— Charles de Gaulle

Since a politician never believes what he says, he is surprised when others believe him.
— Charles de Gaulle

The graveyards are full of indispensable men.
— Charles Charles de Gaulle

To govern is always to choose among disadvantages.
— Charles Charles de Gaulle

Treaties are like roses and young girls — they last while they last.
— Charles Charles de Gaulle

You may be sure that the Americans will commit all the stupidities they can think of, plus some that are beyond imagination.
— Charles de Gaulle

A little kindness from person to person is better than a vast love for all humankind.
— Richard Dehmel (1863–1920), German poet and playwright

 

More on    Martin Delany (1812–1885) Afro-American leader

Every people should be originators of their own destiny.
— Martin Delany, 1852

A serpent is a serpent, and none the less a viper, because it is nestled in the bosom of an honest-hearted man.
— Martin Delany, 1852

Life is short, and it is up to you to make it sweet.
— Sarah Louise Delany, 1993

In our dreams we are always young.
— Sarah Louise Delany, 1993

When you get real old, honey, you realizre there are certain things that just don't matter anymore. You lay it all on the table. There's a saying: Only little children and old folks tell the truth.
— Sarah Louise Delany, 1993

It is easier to forgive an enemy that a friend.
— Madame Dorthee Deluzy

It is not necessary to change. Survival is not mandatory.
— W. Edwards Deming

Beware lest in your anxiety to avoid war you obtain a master.
— Demosthenes

Each problem that I solved became a rule which served afterwards to solve other problems.
— Rene Descartes

I think, therefore I am.
Latin: Cogito, ergo, sum.
— Rene Descartes

There are two dilemmas that rattle the human skull: How do you hang on to someone who won't stay? And how do you get rid of someone who won't go?
— Danny DeVito, from "The War of the Roses"

To gain that worth having, it may be necessary to lose everything else.
— Bernadette Devlin

Economics is war pursued by other means.
— Raymond F. DeVoe Jr.

Intellectually, religious emotions are not creative but conservative. They attach themselves readily to the current view of the world and consecrate it.
— John Dewey

Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away.
— Philip K Dick, science fiction writer

Happy, happy Christmas, that can win us back to the delusions of our childhood days, recall to the old man the pleasures of his youth, and transport the traveler back to his own fireside and quiet home!
— Charles Dickens

Have a heart that never hardens, a temper that never tires, a touch that never hurts.
— Charles Dickens

I do come home at Christmas. We all do, or we all should. We all come home, or ought to come home, for a short holiday - the longer, the better - from the great boarding school where we are forever working at our arithmetical slates, to take, and give a rest.
— Charles Dickens

I will honor Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year.
— Charles Dickens: Ebeneezer Scrooge, A Christmas Carol

It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to than I have ever known.
— Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities

It is a melancholy truth that even great men have their poor relations.
— Charles Dickens, Bleak House

It was always said of him, that he knew how to keep Christmas well, if any man alive possessed the knowledge. May that be truly said of us, and all of us! And so, as Tiny Tim observed, "God Bless Us, Every One!"
— Charles Dickens

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way.
— Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities

Never sign a valentine with your own name.
— Charles Dickens

No one is useless in this world who lightens the burden of it for anyone else.
— Charles Dickens

Reflect upon your present blessings, of which every man has many - not on your past misfortunes, of which all men have some.
— Charles Dickens

This is a world of action, and not for moping and droning in.
— Charles Dickens

Time was with most of us, when Christmas Day, encircling all our limited world like a magic ring, left nothing out for us to miss or seek; bound together all our home enjoyments, affections, and hopes; grouped everything and everyone round the Chrismtas fire, and make the little picture shining in our bright young eyes, complete.
— Charles Dickens

A word is dead when it is said, some say.
I say it just begins to live that day.
— Emily Dickenson

Parting is all we know of heaven, and all we need of hell.
— Emily Dickenson

Success is counted sweetest by those who ne'er succeed.
— Emily Dickenson

A King, realizing his incompetence, can either delegate or abdicate his duties. A Father can do neither.
— Marlene Dietrich

It is the friends you can call up at 4 AM that matter.
— Marlene Dietrich

Sleeping alone, except under doctor's orders, does much harm. Children will tell you how lonely it is sleeping alone. If possible, you should always sleep with someone you love. You both recharge your mutual batteries free of charge.
— Marlene Dietrich, Marlene Dietrich's ABC (1962)

The question of whether a computer can think is no more interesting than the question of whether a submarine can swim.
— Edsger W. Dijkstra

All things are in common among friends.
— Diogenes Laλrtius (early 3rd century), Greek biographer

Bury me on my face, because in a little while everything will be turned upside down.
— Diogenes Laλrtius (early 3rd century), Greek biographer

I am a citizen of the world.
— Diogenes Laλrtius (early 3rd century), Greek biographer

It takes a wise man to discover a wise man.
— Diogenes Laλrtius (early 3rd century), Greek biographer

Not to unlearn what you have learned.
— Diogenes Laλrtius (early 3rd century), Greek biographer, when asked what learning was the most necessary

Nothing can be produced out of nothing.
— Diogenes Laλrtius (early 3rd century), Greek biographer

The mob is the mother of tyrants.
— Diogenes Laλrtius (early 3rd century), Greek biographer

There is one only good, namely, knowledge; and one only evil, namely, ignorance.
— Diogenes Laλrtius (early 3rd century), Greek biographer

We have two ears and only one tongue in order that we may hear more and speak less.
— Diogenes Laλrtius (early 3rd century), Greek biographer

The art of being a slave is to rule one’s master.
— Diogenes of Sinope (c. 410 BC–c. 320 BC), Greek philosopher, moralist. Herakleitos and Diogenes, fragment 20, pt. 2, trans. by Guy Davenport (1976).

[When asked what was the proper time for supper] If you are a rich man, whenever you please; and if you are a poor man, whenever you can.
— Diogenes of Sinope (c. 410 BC–c. 320 BC), Greek philosopher, moralist, from Diogenes Laertius, Lives of Eminent Philosophers

In science one tries to tell people, in such a way as to be understood by everyone, something that no one ever knew before. But in poetry, it's the exact opposite.
— Paul Dirac

A billion here, a billion there, pretty soon it adds up to real money.
— Senator Everett Dirksen

As a rule, he or she who has the most information will have the greatest success in life.
— Benjamin Disraeli

He is a self-made man, very much in love with his creator.
— Benjamin Disraeli

It is much easier to be critical than to be correct.
— Benjamin Disraeli

Like all great travellers, I have seen more than I remember, and remember more than I have seen.
— Benjamin Disraeli

Man is not the creature of circumstances. Circumstances are the creatures of men.
— Benjamin Disraeli

Mediocrity can talk; but it is for genius to observe.
— Benjamin Disraeli

Never complain and never explain.
— Benjamin Disraeli

The secret of success is constancy to purpose.
— Benjamin Disraeli

The wisdom of the wise and the experience of the ages are perpetuated by quotations.
— Benjamin Disraeli

Upon the education of the people of this country the fate of this country depends.
— Benjamin Disraeli

Our desires attract supporting reasons as a magnet the iron fillings.
— W. MacNeile Dixon

 

More on    Bob Dole U.S. politician

Our intent will not be to create gridlock. Oh, except maybe from time to time.
— Bob Dole, on working with the Clinton administration

There they are. See no evil, hear no evil, and...evil.
— Bob Dole, watching former presidents Carter, Ford and Nixon standing by each other at a White House event

Well, he got this new globe for Christmas.
— Bob Dole, dispelling rumors that George W. Bush lacks a grasp of foreign affairs

When these political action committees give money, they expect something in return other than good government.
— Bob Dole, 1983 (before he got lots of PAC money)

No man is an Island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the Continent, a part of the main; if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friends or of thine own were; any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in Mankind; And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; It tolls for thee.
— John Donne: Meditation XVII

Pain and suffering are always inevitable for a large intelligence and a deep heart. The really great men must, I think, have great sadness on Earth.
— Fyodor Dostoevsky (1821–1881), Russian novelist

The secret of man's being is not only to live but to have something to live for.
— Fyodor Dostoevsky (1821–1881), Russian novelist

I expose slavery in this country, because to expose it is to kill it. Slavery is one of those monsters of darkness to whom the light of truth is death.
— Frederick Douglass, Abolitionist

If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom and yet deprecate agitation are people who want crops without plowing up the ground. They want rain without thunder and lightening. That struggle might be a moral one; it might be a physical one; it might be both moral and physical, but it must be struggle. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and never will. People might not get all that they work for in this world, but they must certainly work for all they get.
— Frederick Douglass, Abolitionist

It is a great mistake for any class of laborers to isolate itself and thus weaken the bond of brotherhood between those on whom the burdens and hardship of labor (fall). The fortunate ones of the Earth, who are abundant in land and money and know nothing of the anxious care and pinching poverty of the laboring classes, may be indifferent to the appeal to justice at this point, but the laboring classes cannot afford to be indifferent. What labor everywhere wants, what it ought to have, and will someday demand and receive, is an honest day's pay for an honest day's work. As the laborer becomes more intelligent he will develop what capital he already possesses —that is the power to organize and combine for its own protection.
— Frederick Douglass

I've been wrestling with reality for 35 years and I'm happy, doctor; I've finally won out over it.
— Elwood P. Dowd (played by Jimmy Stewart in the movie "Harvey" ca 1950)

It is a capital mistake to theorize before you have all the evidence. It biases the judgment.
— Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (1858–1930), British writer, physician, creator of Sherlock Holmes

It is stupidity rather than courage to refuse to recognize danger when it is close upon you.
— Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (1858–1930), British writer, physician, creator of Sherlock Holmes

Mediocrity knows nothing higher than itself, but talent instantly recognizes genius.
— Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (1858–1930), British writer, physician, creator of Sherlock Holmes, The Valley of Fear

There comes a time when for every addition of knowledge you forget something that you knew before. It is of the highest importance, therefore, not to have useless facts elbowing out the useful ones.
— Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (1858–1930), British writer, physician, creator of Sherlock Holmes

When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.
— Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (1858–1930), British writer, physician, creator of Sherlock Holmes

Knowledge is power and enthusiasm pulls the switch.
— Steve Droke

Quality in a product or service is not what the supplier puts in. It is what the customer gets out and is willing to pay for. A product is not quality because it is hard to make and costs a lot of money, as manufacturers typically believe. This is incompetence. Customers pay only for what is of use to them and gives them value. Nothing else constitutes quality.
— Peter F. Drucker

Time is the scarcest resource and unless it is managed nothing else can be managed.
— Peter F. Drucker

He that will not reason is a bigot, He that cannot reason is a fool, He that dares not reason is a slave.
— William Drummond

The cost of liberty is less than the price of repression.
— W.E.B. Dubois

Everything that can be invented has been invented.
— Charles H. Duell, Commissioner, U.S. Office of Patents, 1899.

All generalizations are dangerous, even this one.
— Alexandre Dumas

Civilization is a stream with banks. The stream is sometimes filled with blood from people killing, stealing, shouting, and doing the things historians usually record — while, on the banks, unnoticed, people build homes, make love, raise children, sing songs, write poetry, and even whittle statues. The story of civilization is the story of what happened on the banks.
— Will Durant, historian

Education is a progressive discovery of our own ignorance.
— Will Durant, historian

One of the lessons of history is that nothing is often a good thing to do and always a clever thing to say.
— Will Durant, historian

Infinite patience brings immediate results.
— Wayne Dyer

A man is a success if he gets up in the morning and gets to bed at night, and in between he does what he wants to do.
— Bob Dylan

Charity is suppose to cover up for a multitude of sins.
— Bob Dylan, "Something's Burning Baby"

Gonna change my way of thinking, make my self a different set of rules. Gonna put my good foot forward and stop being influenced by fools.
— Bob Dylan, "Gonna Change My Way Of Thinking"

How many times must a cannon ball fly before they are forever banned?
— Bob Dylan, "Blowin' In The Wind"

How many years can a people exist before they're allowed to be free?
— Bob Dylan, "Blowin' In The Wind"

I ain't looking to compete with you, beat, or cheat, or mistreat you, simplify you, classify you, deny, defy, or crucify you. All I really want to do is, baby, be friends with you.
— Bob Dylan, "All I Really Want To Do"

I make my stand and remain as I am, and bid farewell and not give a damn.
— Bob Dylan, "Restless Farewell"

I think you will find when your death takes it's toll, all the money you made will never buy back your soul.
— Bob Dylan, "Masters Of War"

He not busy being born is busy dying.
— Bob Dylan, "It's Alright Ma (I'm Only Bleeding)," from the album Bringing It All Back Home

Money doesn't talk, it swears.
— Bob Dylan, "It's Alright Ma (I'm Only Bleeding)," from the album Bringing It All Back Home

People don't do what they believe in, they just do what's most convenient, then they repent.
— Bob Dylan, "Brownsville Girl"

Some are masters of illusions, some are ministers of trade, all under the same delusion, all their beds unmade.
— Bob Dylan, "Tangled Up In Blue (Real Live)"

The battle outside ragin' will soon shake your windows and rattle your walls.
— Bob Dylan, "The Times they are a-changin'"

The dirt of gossip blows into my face and the dust rumours cover me. But if the arrow is straight and the point is slick, it can pierce through dust no matter how thick.
— Bob Dylan, "Restless Farewell"

Too much information about nothing.
— Bob Dylan, "Someone's Got A Hold Of My Heart"

Too much of nothing can turn a man into a liar. It can cause one man to sleep on nails and another to eat fire.
— Bob Dylan, "Too Much Of Nothing"

Trying to create a next world war, he found a promoter who nearly fell off the floor, he said I never engaged in this kind of thing before, but yes I think it can be done very easily.
— Bob Dylan, "Highway 61 Revisited"

Well, I try my best to be just like I am, but everybody wants you to be just like them.
— Bob Dylan, "Maggie’s Farm"

When you got nothing, you got nothing to lose.
— Bob Dylan, "Like A Rolling Stone"

You better start swimming or sink like a stone, cause the times they are a-changing.
— Bob Dylan, "The Times They Are A-Changin'"

You don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows.
— Bob Dylan, "Subterranean Homesick Blues"

You five and ten cent women with nothing in your heads, I got a real gal I'm loving and Lord I'll love her 'til I'm dead.
— Bob Dylan, "Bob Dylan, Bob Dylan's Blues"

You never turned around to see the frowns on the jugglers and the clowns when they all came down and did tricks for you.
— Bob Dylan, "Like A Rolling Stone"

You shouldn't let other people get your kicks for you.
— Bob Dylan, "Like A Rolling Stone"

You've got a lot of nerve to call yourself a friend, when I was down you stood there grinning.
— Bob Dylan, "Positively 4th Street"

E <     

History teaches us that men and nations behave wisely once they have exhausted all other alternatives.
—Abba Eban

His ignorance is encyclopedic
— Abba Eban

Results! Why, man, I have gotten a lot of results. I know several thousand things that won't work.
— Thomas A. Edison

Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls, and looks like work.
— Thomas A. Edison

Show me a thoroughly satisfied man, and I will show you a failure.
— Thomas A. Edison

Restlessness and discontent are the first necessities of progress.
— Thomas A. Edison

Everything comes to him who hustles while he waits.
— Thomas A. Edison

If there is a way to do it better, find it.
— Thomas A. Edison

Now I know what a statesman is; he's a dead politician. We need more statesmen.
— Bob Edwards

He that never changes his opinions, never corrects his mistakes, will never be wiser on the morrow than he is today.
— Tryon Edwards

An empty stomach is not a good political adviser.
— Albert Einstein

Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new.
— Albert Einstein

As far as the laws of mathematics refer to reality, they are not certain; and as far as they are certain, they do not refer to reality.
— Albert Einstein

Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen.
— Albert Einstein

Dancers are the athletes of God.
— Albert Einstein

Everything that is really great and inspiring is created by the individual who can labor in freedom.
— Albert Einstein

Gravity cannot be held responsible for people falling in love.
— Albert Einstein

Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds.
— Albert Einstien

I consider it important, indeed urgently necessary, for intellectual workers to get together, both to protect their own economic status and, also generally speaking, to secure their influence in the political field.
— Albert Einstein (commenting on why he joined the American Federation of Teachers, AFL-CIO)

If A equals success, then the formula is A equals X plus Y plus Z. X is work. Y is play. Z is keep your mouth shut.
— Albert Einstein

If I had only known. I would have become a locksmith.
— Albert Einstein

If we knew what we were doing, it wouldn't be called research, would it?
— Albert Einstein

If you are out to describe the truth, leave elegance to the tailor.
— Albert Einstein

Imagination is more important than knowledge, for knowledge is limited while imagination embraces the entire world.
— Albert Einstein

In the middle of difficulity lies opportunity.
— Albert Einstein

Intellectuals solve problems; geniuses prevent them.
— Albert Einstein

Let every man be respected as an individual and no man be idolized.
— Albert Einstein

Not everything that counts can be counted, and not everything that can be counted counts.
— Albert Einstein

Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former.
— Albert Einstein

Put your hand on a hot stove for a minute, and it seems like an hour. Sit with a pretty girl for an hour, and it seems like a minute. That's relativity.
— Albert Einstein

The hardest thing in the world to understand is the income tax.
— Albert Einstein

The important thing is not to stop questioning.
— Albert Einstein

The mere formulation of a problem is far more essential than its solution, which may be merely a matter of mathematical or experimental skills. To raise new questions, new possibilities, to regard old problems from a new angle requires creative imagination and marks real advances in science.
— 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

The search and striving for truth and knowledge is one of the highest of man's qualities.
— Albert Einstein

The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources.
— Albert Einstein

The trite objects of human efforts — possessions, outward successes, luxury — have always seemed to me contemptible.
— Albert Einstein

The world is a dangerous place to live; not because of the people who are evil, but because of the people who don't do anything about it.
— Albert Einstein

Whoever undertakes to set himself up as a judge of truth and knowledge is shipwrecked by the laughter of the Gods.
— Albert Einstein

You cannot simultaneously prevent and prepare for war.
— Albert Einstein

Americans, indeed all freemen, remember that in the final choice, a soldier's pack is not so heavy a burden as a prisoner's chains.
— Dwight D. Eisenhower

You have a row of dominoes set up; you knock over the first one, and what will happen to the last one is that it will go over very quickly.
— Dwight D. Eisenhower, 1954

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

Today in America unions have a secure place in our industrial life. Only a handful of reactionaries harbor the ugly thought of breaking unions and of depriving working men and women of the right to join the union of their choice. I have no use for those — regardless of their political party — who hold some vain and foolish dream of spinning the clock back to days when organized labor was huddled, almost as a helpless mass.
— Dwight D. Eisenhower

Leadership: the art of getting someone else to do something you want done because he wants to do 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

Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its labourers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children.
— Dwight D. Eisenhower, 1953

You do not lead by hitting people over the head — that's assault, not leadership.
— Dwight D. Eisenhower

I can think of nothing more boring for the American people than to have to sit in their living rooms for a whole half hour looking at my face on their television screens.
— Dwight D. Eisenhower

A people that values its privileges above its principles soon loses both.
— Dwight D. Eisenhower

Only those who risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go.
— T.S. Eliot

Some editors are failed writers, but so are most writers.
— T. S. Eliot

Anger makes dull men witty, but it keeps them poor.
— Queen Elizabeth I, in Francis Bacon, Apophthegms, 1625

Perseverance is not a long race; it is many short races one after another.
— Walter Elliott

The two most abundant things in the universe are Hydrogen and stupidity.
— Harlan Ellison

Guard well your spare moments. They are like uncut diamonds. Discard them and their value will never be known. Improve them and they will become the brightest gems in a useful life.
— Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882), American Author and Poet

It is one of the most beautiful compensations of this life that no man can sincerely try to help another without helping himself.
— Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882), American Author and Poet

Vigor is contagious, and whatever makes us either think or feel strongly adds to our power and enlarges our field of action.
— Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882), American Author and Poet

The invariable mark of wisdom is to see the miraculous in the common.
— Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882), American Author and Poet

It is one of the blessings of old friends that you can afford to be stupid with them.
— Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882), American Author and Poet

Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm.
— Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882), American Author and Poet

The reward of a thing well done is to have it done.
— Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882), American Author and Poet

Every man I meet is in some way my superior.
— Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882), American Author and Poet

Patience and fortitude conquer all things.
— Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882), American Author and Poet

A man is known by the books he reads.
— Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882), American Author and Poet

I hate quotations. Tell me what you know.
— Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882), American Author and Poet

Every hero becomes a bore at last.
— Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882), American Author and Poet

Truth is beautiful, without doubt; but so are lies.
— Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882), American Author and Poet

The end of the human race will be that it will eventually die of civilization.
— Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882), American Author and Poet

Children are all foreigners.
— Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882), American Author and Poet

Do not be too timid and squeamish about your actions. All life is an experiment.
— Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882), American Author and Poet

Give all to love; obey thy heart.
— Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882), American Author and Poet

Every sweet has its sour; every evil its good.
— Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882), American Author and Poet

An institution is the lengthened shadow of one man.
— Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882), American Author and Poet

The economic development of our actual society tends more and more to concentrate, to socialize production into immense establishments.
— Frederick Engels

The socialist movement cannot be gagged. On the contrary, the antisocialist law… will complete the revolutionary education of the German workers.
— Frederick Engels

We have two ears and one mouth so that we can listen twice as much as we speak.
— Epictetus

To accuse others for one's misfortunes is a sign of want of education; to accuse oneself shows that one's education has begun; to accuse neither oneself nor others shows that one's education is complete.
— Epictetus: The Encheiridon

Only the educated are free.
— Epictetus

War is delightful to those who have had no experience of it.
— Desiderius Erasmus

The abdomen, the chest, and the brain will forever be shut from the intrusion of the wise and humane surgeon.
— Sir John Eric Ericksen, British surgeon, appointed Surgeon-Extraordinary to Queen Victoria 1873.

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

When spiders unite, they can tie down a lion.
— Ethiopian Proverb

Talk sense to a fool and he calls you foolish.
— Euripides (485 BC–406 BC), Greek playwright

I care for riches, to make gifts
 To friends, or lead a sick man back to health
  With ease and plenty. Else small aid is wealth
   For daily gladness; once a man be done
    With hunger, rich and poor are all as one.
— Euripides (485 BC–406 BC), Greek playwright, Electra, 413 B.C.

This contract is so one-sided that I am astonished to find it written on both sides of the paper.
— Lord Evershed, Naked Promises

Failing doesn't make you a failure. Giving up, accepting your failure, refusing to try again does!
— Richard Exely

F<     

The hardest of all is learning to be a well of affection, and not a fountain, to show them that we love them, not when we feel like it, but when they do.
— Nan Fairbrother

The decline in American pride, patriotism, and piety can be directly attributed to the extensive reading of so-called 'science fiction' by our young people. This poisonous rot about creatures not of God's making, societies of 'aliens' without a good Christian among them, and raw sex between unhuman beings with three heads and God alone knows what sort of reproductive apparatus keeps our young people from realizing the true will of God.
— Jerry Falwell, "Can Our Young People Find God in the Pages of Trashy Magazines? No, Of Course Not!", Reader's Digest, Aug. 1985:142–157

Billy Graham is the chief servant of Satan in America.
— Jerry Falwell

AIDS is the wrath of a just God against homosexuals. To oppose it would be like an Israelite jumping in the Red Sea to save one of Pharoah's chariotters.
— Jerry Falwell

If you're not a born-again Christian, you're a failure as a human being.
— Jerry Falwell

I hope I live to see the day, when, as in the early days of our country, we won't have any public schools. The churches will have taken them over again and Christians will be running them. What a happy day that will be!
— Rev. Jerry Falwell, America Can Be Saved, (1979)

The whole world is in revolt. Soon there will be only five Kings left — the King of England, the King of Spades, the King of Clubs, the King of Hearts, and the King of Diamonds.
— King Farouk of Egypt

Don't bother just to be better than your contemporaries or predecessors. Try to be better than yourself.
— William Faulkner

Some things you must always be unable to bear. Some things you must never stop refusing to bear. Injustice and outrage and dishonor and shame. No matter how young you are or how old you have got. Not for kudos and not for cash, your picture in the paper nor money in the bank, neither. Just refuse to bear them.
— William Faulkner

Conditions are never just right. People who delay action until all factors are favorable do nothing.
— William Feather

Success seems to be largely a matter of hanging on after others have let go.
— William Feather

Christ died for our sins. Dare we make his martyrdom meaningless by not committing them?
— Jules Feiffer

I'm hard-nosed about luck. I think it sucks. Yeah, if you spend seven years looking for a job as a copywriter, and then one day somebody gives you a job, you can say, "Gee, I was lucky I happened to go up there today." But, dammit, I was going to go up there sooner or later in the next seventy years... If you're persistent in trying and doing and working, you almost make your own fortune.
— Jerry Della Femina, advertising agency owner

Selling has to be the most exciting thing you can do with your clothes on.
— John Fenton

The truth always turns out to be simpler than you thought.
— Richard Feynman

What did you ask at school today?
— Richard Fenyman

If someone gives you so-called good advice, do the opposite; you can be sure it will be the right thing nine out of ten times.
— Anselm Feuerbach

Experimental confirmation of a prediction is merely a measurement. An experiment disproving a prediction is a discovery.
— Enrico Fermi

If I could remember the names of all these particles, I’d be a botanist.
— Enrico Fermi

Whatever nature has in store for mankind, unpleasant as it may be, men must accept, for ignorance is never better than knowledge.
— Enrico Fermi

Start every day off with a smile and get it over with.
— W.C. Fields

Horse sense is the thing a horse has which keeps it from betting on people.
— W.C. Fields

Some weasel took the cork out of my lunch.
— W.C. Fields

Last week, I went to Philidelphia, but it was closed.
— W.C. Fields

I always keep a supply of stimulant handy in case I see a snake—which I also keep handy.
— W.C. Fields

Prayers never bring anything... They may bring solace to the sap, the bigot, the ignorant, the aboriginal, and the lazy — but to the enlightened it is the same as asking Santa Claus to bring you something for Xmas
— W. C. Fields

I'm looking for loopholes.
— W.C. Fields, when caught reading the Bible

I like children. Properly cooked.
— W. C. Fields

The strongest bulwark of the capitalistic system is the ignorance of its victims.
— Adolph Fischer (Haymarket martyr)

Half of the modern drugs could well be thrown out of the window, except that the birds might eat them.
— Dr Martin Henry Fischer

Stocks have reached what looks like a permanently high plateau.
—Irving Fisher, Professor of Economics, Yale University, 1929.

The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposing ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function.
— F. Scott Fitzgerald

If you sit down and don't see a fish at the table, the fish is you.
— Ken Flaton

To be stupid, selfish, and have good health are three requirements for happiness, though if stupidity is lacking, all is lost.
— GustaveFlaubert

It is a great thing to write. To be no longer yourself, but to move in an entire universe of your own creation.
— GustaveFlaubert

It's no disgrace to be poor, but it's sure a hell of a bother!
— Pretty Boy Floyd

Fear is an acid which is pumped into one's atmosphere. It causes mental, moral and spiritual asphyxiation, and sometimes death; death to energy and all growth.
— Horace Fletcher

Airplanes are interesting toys but of no military value.
— Marechal Ferdinand Foch, Professor of Strategy, Ecole Superieure de Guerre, later commander of the French Army in World War I.

History has demonstrated that the most notable winners usually encountered heartbreaking obstacles before they triumphed. They finally won because they refused to become discouraged by their defeats. Disappointments acted as a challenge. Don't let difficulties discourage you.
— B. C. Forbes

The human being who lives only for himself finally reaps nothing but unhappiness. Selfishness corrodes. Unselfishness ennobles, satisfies. Don't put off the joy derivable from doing helpful, kindly things for others.
— B.C. Forbes

The man who is intent on making the most of his opportunities is too busy to bother about luck.
— B C Forbes

Keeping score of old scores and scars, getting even and one-upping always make you less than you are.
— Malcolm S. Forbes, publisher, Forbes Magazine

Contrary to the clichι, genuinely nice guys most often finish first or very near it.
— Malcolm S. Forbes, publisher, Forbes Magazine

Education's purpose is to replace an empty mind with an open one.
— Malcolm S. Forbes, publisher, Forbes Magazine

My idea of social change is lots of tens and twenties.
— Malcolm S. Forbes, publisher, Forbes Magazine

There is never enough time, unless you're serving it.
— Malcolm S. Forbes, publisher, Forbes Magazine

There is one rule for industrialists and that is: Make the best quality of goods possible at the lowest cost possible, paying the highest wages possible.
— Henry Ford

It is not the employer who pays the wages. Employers only handle the money. It is the customer who pays the wages.
— Henry Ford

Thinking is the hardest work there is, which is probably the reason so few engage in it.
— Henry Ford

Failure is the opportunity to begin again, more intelligently.
— Henry Ford

Nothing is particularly hard if you divide it into small jobs.
— Henry Ford

You can't build a reputation on what you're going to do.
— Henry Ford

I would rather be a coward than brave because people hurt you when you are brave.
— E M Forster

A person is never happy except at the price of some ignorance.
— Anatole France

An education isn't how much you have committed to memory, or even how much you know. It's being able to differentiate between what you do know and what you don't.
— Anatole France

If fifty million people believe a foolish thing, it is still a foolish thing.
— Anatole France

One of the keys to happiness is a bad memory.
— Anatole France

Religion has done love a great service by making it a sin.
— Anatole France

The absurdity of a religious practice may be clearly demonstrated without lessening the numbers of people who indulge in it.
— Anatole France

The average man, who does not know what to do with his life, wants another one which will last forever.
— Anatole France

The greatest virtue of man is perhaps curiosity.
— Anatole France

The impotence of God is infinite.
— Anatole France

The Law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich, as well as the poor, to sleep under the bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread.
— Anatole France

The whole art of teaching is only the art of awakening the natural curiosity of young minds for the purpose of satisfying it afterwards.
— Anatole France

When a thing has been said and well, have no scruple. Take it and copy it.
— Anatole France

Inspirations never go in for long engagements; they demand immediate marriage to action.
— Brendan Francis

I am responsible only to God and history.
— Francisco Franco

In all fairness to Jerry Falwell, it's probably too sophisticated for him.
— Barney Frank, congressman, defending the Teletubbies

Well done is better than well said.
— Benjamin Franklin

The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.
— Benjamin Franklin

Don't judge a man's wealth — or his piety — by his appearance on Sunday.
— Benjamin Franklin

They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.
— Benjamin Franklin

Experience is a dear teacher, but fools will learn at no other.
— Benjamin Franklin

A man wrapped up in himself makes a very small bundle.
— Benjamin Franklin

In this world, nothing is certain but death and taxes.
— Benjamin Franklin

We must indeed all hang together, or, most assuredly, we shall all hang separately.
— Benjamin Franklin: Remark to John Hancock, at the signing of the Declaration of Independence, July 4, 1776

Be slow in choosing a friend, slower in changing.
— Benjamin Franklin

Fish and visitors stink after three days.
— Benjamin Franklin

Diligence is the mother of good luck.
— Benjamin Franklin

Who is rich? He that is content. Who is that? Nobody.
— Benjamin Franklin

In modern Europe, as in ancient Greece, it would seem that even inanimate objects have sometimes been punished for their misdeeds. After the revocation of the edict of Nantes, in 1685, the Protestant chapel at La Rochelle was condemned to be demolished, but the bell, perhaps out of regard for its value, was spared. However, to expiate the crime of having rung heretics to prayers, it was sentenced to be first whipped, and then buried and disinterred, by way of symbolizing its new birth at passing into Catholic hands. Thereafter it was catechized, and obliged to recant and promise that it would never again relapse into sin. Having made this ample and honourable amends, the bell was reconciled, baptized, and given, or rather sold, to the parish of St. Bartholomew. But when the governor sent in the bill for the bell to the parish authorities, they declined to settle it, alleging that the bell, as a recent convert to Catholicism, desired to take advantage of the law lately passed by the king, which allowed all new converts a delay of three years in paying their debts.
— Sir James G. Frazer, Folklore In The Old Testament

A man who seeks truth and loves it must be reckoned precious to any human society.
— Frederick the Great

Life is half spent before one knows what life is.
— French Proverb

The more the fruits of knowledge become accessible to men, the more widespread is the decline of religious belief.
— Sigmund Freud

When a man has once brought himself to accept uncritically all the absurdities that religious doctrines put before him and even to overlook the contradictions between them, we need not be greatly suprised at the weakness of his intellect.
— Sigmund Freud: The Future of an Illusion

Religion is comparable to a childhood neurosis.
— Sigmund Freud, Future of an Illusion

America is a mistake, a giant mistake.
— Sigmund Freud

The direct use of force is such a poor solution to any problem, it is generally employed only by small children and large nations.
— David Friedman

Modern man thinks he loses something; time; when he does not do things quickly. Yet he does not know what to do with the time he gains; except kill it.
— Erich Fromm

Vote Labor and you build castles in the air. Vote Conservative and you can live in them.
— David Frost, That Was the Year That Was BBC TV, December 31, 1962

Education is the ability to listen to almost anything without losing your temper or your self confidence.
— Robert Frost(1874–1963)

No tears in the writer, no tears in the reader.
— Robert Frost(1874–1963)

I turned to speak to God
About the world's despair;
But to make bad matters worse
I found God wasn't there.
— Robert Frost (1874–1963)

A diplomat is a man who always remembers a woman's birthday but never remembers her age.
— Robert Frost(1874–1963)

The world is full of willing people; some wiling to work, the rest willing to let them.
— Robert Frost(1874–1963)

A jury consists of twelve persons chosen to decide who has the better lawyer.
— Robert Frost(1874–1963)

The brain is a wonderful organ. It starts working the moment you get up in the morning and does not stop until you get into the office.
— Robert Frost(1874–1963)

By and large, I seem to have made more mistakes than any others of whom I know, but have learned thereby to make ever swifter acknowledgment of the errors and thereafter immediately set about to deal more effectively with the truths disclosed by the acknowledgment of erroneous assumptions.
— 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

G<     

Nothing is so admirable in politics as a short memory.
— John Kenneth Galbraith (b. 1908)

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 (b. 1908)

Politics is not the art of the possible. It consists in choosing between the disastrous and the unpalatable.
— John Kenneth Galbraith (b. 1908)

Wealth, in even the most improbable cases, manages to convey the aspect of intelligence.
— John Kenneth Galbraith (b. 1908)

Wealth is not without its advantages, and the case to the contrary, although it has often been made, has never proved widely persuasive.
— John Kenneth Galbraith (b. 1908)

Clearly the most unfortunate people are those who must do the same thing over and over again, every minute, or perhaps twenty to the minute. They deserve the shortest hours and the highest pay.
— John Kenneth Galbraith (b. 1908)

In economics, the majority is always wrong.
— John Kenneth Galbraith (b. 1908)

In any great organization it is far, far safer to be wrong with the majority than to be right alone.
— John Kenneth Galbraith (b. 1908)

An important antidote to American democracy is American gerontocracy. The positions of eminence and authority in Congress are allotted in accordance with length of service, regardless of quality. Superficial observers have long criticized the United States for making a fetish of youth. This is unfair. Uniquely among modern organs of public and private administration, its national legislature rewards senility.
— John Kenneth Galbraith (b. 1908)

There are few ironclad rules of diplomacy but to one there is no exception. When an official reports that talks were useful, it can safely be concluded that nothing was accomplished.
— John Kenneth Galbraith (b. 1908)

There's a certain part of the contented majority who love anybody who is worth a billion dollars.
— John Kenneth Galbraith (b. 1908)

Those who are enslaved to their sects are not merely devoid of all sound knowledge, but they will never even stop to learn.
— Galen

In questions of science, the authority of a thousand is not worth the humble reasoning of a single individual.
— Galileo Galilei

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

It is surely harmful to souls to make it a heresy to believe what is proved.
— Galileo Galilei, The Authority of Scripture in Philosophical Controversies

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

I do not want my house to be walled in on all sides and my windows to be stuffed. I want the cultures of all the lands to be blown about my house as freely as possible. But I refuse to be blown off my feet by any.
— Mohandas K. Gandhi

I think it would be a good idea.
— Mohandas K. Gandhi (when asked what he thought of Western civilization)

Freedom is not worth having if it does not connote freedom to err. It passes my comprehension how human beings, be they ever so experienced and able, can delight in depriving other human beings of that precious right.
— Mohandas K. Gandhi

The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong.
— Mohandas K. Gandhi

I like your Christ, I do not like your christians, your christians are so unlike your Christ.
— Mohandas K. Gandhi

Anger and intolerance are the enemies of correct understanding.
— Mohandas K. Gandhi

Man created God, not God, man
— Guiseppi Garibaldi

The priest is the personification of falsehood.
— Guiseppi Garibaldi

640K ought to be enough for anybody.
— Bill Gates, in 1981.

Art is either plagiarism or revolution.
— Paul Gauguin, French impressionist artist

The most dangerous thing in the world is to try to leap a chasm in two jumps.
— David Lloyd George

The various modes of worship which prevailed in the Roman world were all considered by the people as equally true; by the philosopher as equally false; and by the magistrate as equally useful.
— Edward Gibbons

The secret of success is sincerity. Once you can fake that you've got it made.
— Jean Gieraudoux

Crazy people who are productive are geniuses. Crazy people who are rich are eccentric. Crazy people who are neither productive nor rich are just plain crazy. Geniuses and crazy people are both out in the middle of a deep ocean; geniuses swim, crazy people drown. Most of us are sitting safely on the shore. Take a chance and get your feet wet.
— Michael J. Gelb

Brain researchers estimate that your unconscious data base outweighs the conscious on an order exceeding ten million to one. This data base is the source of your hidden, natural genius. In other words, a part of you is much smarter than you are. The wise people regularly consult that smarter part.
— Michael J. Gelb

Over-seriousness is a warning sign for mediocrity and bureaucratic thinking. People who are seriously committed to mastery and high performance are secure enough to lighten up.
— Michael J. Gelb

Champions know that success is inevitable; that there is no such thing as failure, only feedback. They know that the best way to forecast the future is to create it.
— Michael J. Gelb

Life is a continuous exercise in creative problem solving.
— Michael J. Gelb

Confusion is the welcome mat at the door of creativity.
— Michael J. Gelb

A champion views resistance as a gift of energy.
— Michael J. Gelb

My father was frightened of his father, I was frightened of my father, and I am damned well going to see to it that my children are frightened of me.
— King George V of England

Don't be afraid to take a big step. You can't cross a chasm in two small jumps.
— David Lloyd George

There is a danger in reckless change; but greater danger in blind conservatism.
— Henry George (1839–1897), U.S. economist, Social Problems

Capital is a result of labor, and is used by labor to assist it in further production. Labor is the active and initial force, and labor is therefore the employer of capital.
— Henry George (1839–1897), U.S. economist, Progress and Poverty, bk. 3, ch. 1 (1879

How vainly shall we endeavor to repress crime by our barbarous punishment of the poorer class of criminals so long as children are reared in the brutalizing influences of poverty, so long as the bite of want drives men to crime.
— Henry George (1839–1897), U.S. economist, Social Problems, ch. 9 (1883).

There is only one way to make a great deal of money and that is in a business of your own.
— Jean Paul Getty

My formula for success? Rise early, work late, strike oil.
— Jean Paul Getty

He who does not prefer exile to slavery is not free by any measure of freedom, truth and duty.
— Kahlil Gibran

An eye for an eye — and the whole world would be blind.
— Kahlil Gibran

Sadness is but a wall between two gardens.
— Kahlil Gibran

One does not discover new lands without consenting to lose sight of the shore for a very long time.
— Andrι Gide

Real poverty is less a state of income than a state of mind.
— George Gilder

Equal rights for the sexes will be achieved when mediocre women occupy high positions
— Franηois Giroud

One of the true tests of leadership is the ability to recognize a problem before it becomes an emergency.
—Arnold Glasow

The fewer the facts, the stronger the opinion.
— Arnold H. Glasow

Even if you're on the right track, you'll get run over if you just sit there.
— Arthur Godfrey

Good teaching is one-fourth preparation and three-fourths theater.
— Gail Godwin

Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger.
— Hermann Goering, testimony in the Nuremberg Trials

A life without love, without the presence of the beloved, is nothing but a mere magic-lantern show. We draw out slide after slide, swiftly tiring of each, and pushing it back to make haste for the next.
— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Whatever you do, or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius and power and magic in it.
— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

When ideas fail, words come in very handy.
— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

For just when ideas fail, a word comes in to save the situation.
— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Enjoy what you can, endure what you must.
— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

One ought, everyday, to hear a song, read a fine poem, and, if possible, to speak a few reasonable words.
— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Love, the strongest and deepest element in all life, the harbinger of hope, of joy, of ecstasy; love, the defier of all laws, of all conventions; love, the freest, the most powerful molder of human destiny; how can such an all-compelling force be synonymous with that poor little State- and Church-begotten weed, marriage?
— Emma Goldman

If you see a bandwagon, it's too late.
— Sir James Goldsmith

One man is born with a silver spoon in his mouth, and the other with a wooden ladle.
— Oliver Goldsmith (1728–1774), Anglo-Irish author, poet, playwright. The Citizen of the World, 1762

Laws grind the poor and rich men rule the law.
— Oliver Goldsmith (1728–1774), Anglo-Irish author, poet, playwright. The Traveller, line 386.

Handsome is that handsome does.
— Oliver Goldsmith (1728–1774) Vicar of Wakefield, Chapter i.

Honor sinks where commerce long prevails.
— Oliver Goldsmith (1728–1774), Anglo-Irish author, poet, playwright. The Traveller, line 92 (1764).

If frugality were established in the state, and if our expenses were laid out to meet needs rather than superfluities of life, there might be fewer wants, and even fewer pleasures, but infinitely more happiness.
— Oliver Goldsmith (1728–1774), Anglo-Irish author, poet, playwright.

A traveler of taste will notice that the wise are polite all over the world, but the fool only at home.
— Oliver Goldsmith (1728–1774), Anglo-Irish author, poet, playwright.

Ill fares the land, to hastening ills a prey, where wealth accumulates, and men decay.
— Oliver Goldsmith (1728–1774), Anglo-Irish author, poet, playwright.

However, on religious issures there can be little or no compromise. There is no position on which people are so immovable as their religious beliefs. There is no more powerful ally one can claim in a debate than Jesus Christ, or God, or Allah, or whatever one calls this supreme being. But like any powerful weapon, the use of God's name on one's behalf should be used sparingly. The religious factions that are growing throughout our land are not using their religious clout with wisdom. They are trying to force government leaders into following their position 100 percent. If you disagree with these religious groups on a particular moral issue, they complain, they threaten you with a loss of money or votes or both. I'm frankly sick and tired of the political preachers across this country telling me as a citizen that if I want to be a moral person, I must believe in A, B, C, and D. Just who do they think they are? And from where do they presume to claim the right to dictate their moral beliefs to me? And I am even more angry as a legislator who must endure the threats of every religious group who thinks it has some God-granted right to control my vote on every roll call in the Senate. I am warning them today: I will fight them every step of the way if they try to dictate their moral convictions to all Americans in the name of conservatism.
— Senator Barry Goldwater (1909–1998 )

I think every good Christian ought to kick [Jerry] Falwell's ass.
— Senator Barry Goldwater (1909–1998 )

Sex and politics are a lot alike. You don't have to be good at them to enjoy them.
— Senator Barry Goldwater (1909–1998 )

A verbal contract isn't worth the paper it's written on.
— Samuel Goldwyn

Spare no expense to make everything as economical as possible.
— Samuel Goldwyn

Corruption is no stranger to Washington; it is a famous resident.
— Walter Goodman: All Honorable Men, 1963

Never contend with a man who has nothing to lose.
— Baltasar Gracian

I know no method to secure the repeal of bad or obnoxious laws so effective as their stringent execution.
— Ulysses S. Grant (1822–1885), Inaugural Address

I would suggest the taxation of all property equally whether church or corporation.
— Ulysses S. Grant (1822–1885)

Leave the matter of religion to the family altar, the church and the private schools, supported entirely by private contributions. Keep the church and state forever separated.
— Ulysses S. Grant, speech to the Army of the Tennessee, Des Moines,Iowa, 1875

Let no guilty man escape, if it can be avoided. No personal consideration should stand in the way of performing a public duty.
— Ulysses S. Grant (1822–1885), indorsement of a letter relating to the Whiskey Ring

No one ever achieved greatness by playing it safe.
— Harry Gray

 

More on    Thomas Gray (1716 - 1771), English poet, prose writer and scholar

   And moody madness laughing wild
Amid severest woe.
— Thomas Gray (1716 - 1771), English poet, prose writer and scholar, On a Distant Prospect of Eton College

Alas! regardless of their doom,
 The little victims play;
  No sense have they of ills to come,
   Nor care beyond to-day.
— Thomas Gray (1716 - 1771), English poet, prose writer and scholar, On a Distant Prospect of Eton College

But Knowledge to their eyes her ample page,
 Rich with the spoils of time, did ne’er unroll;
  Chill penury repress’d their noble rage,
   And froze the genial current of the soul.
— Thomas Gray (1716 - 1771), English poet, prose writer and scholar, Elegy in a Country Churchyard

He pass’d the flaming bounds of place and time:
 The living throne, the sapphire blaze,
  Where angels tremble while they gaze,
   He saw; but blasted with excess of light,
     Closed his eyes in endless night.
— Thomas Gray (1716 - 1771), English poet, prose writer and scholar, The Progress of Poesy

Rich windows that exclude the light,
 And passages that lead to nothing.
— Thomas Gray (1716 - 1771), English poet, prose writer and scholar, A Long Story

Some village Hampden, that, with dauntless breast,
 The little tyrant of his fields withstood,
  Some mute inglorious Milton here may rest,
   Some Cromwell guiltless of his country's blood.
— Thomas Gray (1716 - 1771), English poet, prose writer and scholar, Elegy in a Country Churchyard

The boast of heraldry, the pomp of power,
 And all that beauty, all that wealth e'er gave,
  Await alike th' inevitable hour,
   The paths of glory lead but to the grave.
— Thomas Gray (1716 - 1771), English poet, prose writer and scholar, Elegy in a Country Churchyard

The curfew tolls the knell of parting day,
 The lowing herd winds slowly o'er the lea,
  The ploughman homeward plods his weary way,
   And leaves the world to darkness and to me.
— Thomas Gray (1716 - 1771), English poet, prose writer and scholar, Elegy in a Country Churchyard

There scatter'd oft the earliest of ye Year
 By Hands unseen are showers of Vi'lets found;
  The Redbreast loves to build and warble there,
   And little Footsteps lightly print the ground.
— Thomas Gray (1716 - 1771), English poet, prose writer and scholar, Elegy in a Country Churchyard, his manuscript

  To each his suff’rings; all are men,
 Condemn’d alike to groan,—
The tender for another’s pain,
 Th’ unfeeling for his own.
Yet ah! why should they know their fate,
Since sorrow never comes too late,
 And happiness too swiftly flies?
 Thought would destroy their paradise.
No more; where ignorance is bliss,
 'T is folly to be wise.
— Thomas Gray (1716 - 1771), English poet, prose writer and scholar, On a Distant Prospect of Eton College

Too poor for a bribe, and too proud to importune,
 He had not the method of making a fortune.
— Thomas Gray (1716 - 1771), English poet, prose writer and scholar, On His Own Character

We frolic while 'tis May.
— Thomas Gray (1716 - 1771), English poet, prose writer and scholar

  What female heart can gold despise?
What cat ’s averse to fish?
— Thomas Gray (1716 - 1771), English poet, prose writer and scholar, On the death of a Favourite Cat

Fame is vapor, popularity an accident, riches take wings. Only one thing endures and that is character.
— Horace Greely

A successful man is one who can lay a firm foundation with the bricks that others throw at him.
— Sidney Greenberg

Unfortunately, regret is a part of human existance. To defeat it, you must confront your fears before the opportunity is lost. If you wait, the regret will eat away at you for the rest of your life.
— Clint Greenleaf

Class is how you treat people who can do nothing for you.
— Geof Greenleaf

A man is measured by the size of things that anger him.
— Geof Greenleaf

Good leaders must first become good servants.
— Robert Greenleaf

A society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade they know they shall never sit in.
— Greek Proverb

You miss 100 percent of the shots you never take.
— Wayne Gretzky

If it weren't for lawyers, we wouldn't need them.
— A. K. Griffin

Quality is remembered long after the price is forgotten.
— Gucci

In fact, if Christ himself stood in my way, I, like Nietzsche, would not hesitate to squish him like a worm.
— Ernesto "Che" Guevara (1928–67), Argentinian-born revolutionary leader.

We must bear in mind that imperialism is a world system, the last stage of capitalism-and it must be defeated in a world confrontation. The strategic end of this struggle should be the destruction of imperialism. Our share, the responsibility of the exploited and underdeveloped of the world, is to eliminate the foundations of imperialism: our oppressed nations, from where they extract capital, raw materials, technicians, and cheap labor, and to which they export new capital — instruments of domination — arms and all kinds of articles, thus submerging us in an absolute dependence.
— Ernesto "Che" Guevara (1928–67), Argentinian-born revolutionary leader.

When asked whether or not we are Marxists, our position is the same as that of a physicist or a biologist who is asked if he is a "Newtonian" or if he is a "Pasteurian."
— Ernesto "Che" Guevara (1928–67), Argentinian-born revolutionary leader. Quoted in Radical Currents in Contemporary Philosophy, ed. David DeGrood (1971).

You can pretend to be serious; you can't pretend to be witty.
— Sacha Guitry

The little I know, I owe to my ignorance.
— Sacha Guitry

Creation of wealth is almost a duty because of the widespread benefits that flow from it.
— John Gunn

Nobody living can ever stop me. As I go walking my freedom highway. Nobody living can make me turn back. This land was made for you and me.
— Woody Guthrie, folksinger, "This Land Was Made For You and Me", 1940

Some will rob you with a gun, and some with a fountain pen.
— Woody Guthrie, folksinger, "Pretty Boy Floyd"

H<     

It's not a lie. It's a terminological inexactitude.
— General Alexander Haig, Nixon Chief of Staff

The warning message we sent the Russians was a calculated ambiguity that would be clearly understood.
— General Alexander Haig, Nixon Chief of Staff

You can't put the toothpaste back in the tube.
— H.R. Haldeman

Education would be much more effective if its purpose was to ensure that by the time they leave school every boy and girl should know how much they do not know, and be imbued with a lifelong desire to know it.
—Sir William Haley

There is something that is much more scarce, something rarer than ability. It is the ability to recognizeability.
— Robert Half

Men give me credit for some genius. All the genius I have lies in this; when I have a subject in hand, I study it profoundly. Day and night it is before me. My mind becomes pervaded with it. Then the effort that I have made is what people are pleased to call the fruit of genius. It is the fruit of labor and thought.
— Alexander Hamilton

Life in Lubbock, Texas, taught me two things: One is that God loves you and you're going to burn in hell. The other is that sex is the most awful, filthy thing on earth and you should save it for someone you love.
— Butch Hancock

War will cease when men refuse to fight.
— Fridtjof Hansen

I have no trouble with my enemies. I can take care of my enemies in a fight. But my friends, my goddamned friends, they're the ones who keep me walking the floor at nights!
— Warren G. Harding

Argument is powerless against bias or prejudice.
— Thomas Hardy

The nice thing about egotists is that they don't talk about other people.
— Lucille S. Harper

It's suprising how many persons go through life without even recognizing that their feelings toward other people are largely determined by their feelings toward themselves. If your're not comfortable within yourself, you can't be comfortable with others.
— Sydney J. Harris

We have not passed that subtle line between childhood and adulthood until we move from the passive voice to the active voice — that is, until we have stopped saying "It got lost," and say, "I lost it."
— Sydney J. Harris

Nobody can be so amusingly arrogant as a young man who has just discovered an old idea and thinks it is his own.
— Sydney J. Harris

When I hear somebody sigh, "Life is hard," I am always tempted to ask, "Compared to what?"
— Sydney J. Harris

The attractive lady whom I had only recently been introduced to dropped into my lap....I chose not to dump her off.
—Former Senator and presidential candidate Gary Hart, on his encounter with Donna Rice

In times like these, it is helpful to remember that there have always been times like these.
— Paul Harvey

Capital punishment is our society's recognition of the sanctity of human life.
— Sen. Orrin Hatch

If you don't make mistakes, you aren't really trying.
— Coleman Hawking

What I have done is to show that it is possible for the way the universe began to be determined by the laws of science. In that case, it would not be necessary to appeal to God to decide how the universe began. This doesn't prove that there is no God, only that God is not necessary.
— Stephen W. Hawking, Der Spiegel, 1989

My body may be stuck in this chair, but with the internet my mind can go to the ends of the universe.
— Stephen W. Hawking

God not only plays dice. He sometimes throws the dice where they cannot be seen.
— Stephen W. Hawking

What I have done is to show that it is possible for the way the universe began to be determined by the laws of science. In that case, it would not be necessary to appeal to God to decide how the universe began. This doesn’t prove that there is no God, only that God is not necessary.
— Stephen W. Hawking

…both time and space are finite in extent, but they don’t have my boundary or edge… there would be no singularities, and the laws of science would hold everywhere, including at the beginning of the universe.
— Stephen W. Hawking

I think that science itself is morally neutral. But scientists themselves need not be morally neutral…. They have moral responsibilities.
— Stephen W. Hawking

Integrity is when what you say, what you do, what you think, and who you ARE all come from the same place.
— Madelyn Griffith-Haynie

The barbarous gold barons—they did not find the gold, they did not mine the gold, they did not mill the gold, but by some weird alchemy all the gold belonged to them!
— Big Bill Haywood, IWW union leader, 1901

Those people who are uncomfortable in themselves are disagreeable to others.
— William Hazlitt (1778–1830), English humanistic writer

The surest hindrance of success is to have too high a standard of refinement in our own minds, or too high an opinion of the judgment of the public. He who is determined not to be satisfied with anything short of perfection will never do anything to please himself or others.
— William Hazlitt (1778–1830), English humanistic writer

Prosperity is a great teacher; adversity a greater.
— William Hazlitt (1778–1830), English humanistic writer

If you do anything just for the money, you don't succeed.
— Barry Hearn

A politician will do anything to keep his job — even become a patriot.
— William Randolph Hearst, American newspaper publisher

One should forgive one's enemies, but not before they are hanged
— Heinrich Heine (1797–1856), German poet

Mine is a most peaceable disposition. My wishes are: a humble cottage with a thatched roof, but a good bed, good food, the freshest milk and butter, flowers before my window and a few fine trees before my door. And if God wants to make my happiness complete, he will grant me the joy of seeing some six or seven of my enemies hanging from those trees.
— Heinrich Heine (1797–1856), German poet

Christ rode on an ass, but now asses ride on Christ.
— Heinrich Heine (1797–1856), German poet

Anyone who can worship a trinity and insist that his religion is a monotheism can believe anything... just give him time to rationalize it.
— Robert Heinlein (1907–1988 ), science fiction writer, JOB: A Comedy of Justice

Be wary of strong drink. It can make you shoot at tax collectors... and miss.
— Robert Heinlein (1907–1988 ), science fiction writer

Being intelligent is not a felony. But most societies evaluate it as being at least a misdemeanor.
— Robert Heinlein (1907–1988 ), science fiction writer

Faith strikes me as intellectual laziness.
— Robert Heinlein (1907–1988 ), science fiction writer

Love your country, but never trust its government.
— Robert Heinlein (1907–1988 ), science fiction writer

Money is a powerful aphrodisiac. But flowers work almost as well.
— Robert Heinlein (1907–1988 ), science fiction writer

Nothing gives you more zest than running for your life.
— Robert Heinlein

One man's theology is another man's belly laugh.
— Robert Heinlein (1907–1988 ), science fiction writer, Notebooks of Lazarus Long

Yield to temptation; it may not pass your way again.
— Robert Heinlein (1907–1988 ), science fiction writer

A man who believes that he eats his God we do not call mad; yet, a man who says he is Jesus Christ, we call mad.
— Claude Adrien Helvetius (1715–1771), French philosopher

But man is not made for defeat. A man can be destroyed but not defeated.
— Ernest Hemingway (1889–1961) US journalist, novelist, short-story writer

Cowardice ... is almost always simply a lack of ability to suspend the functioning of the imagination.
— Ernest Hemingway (1889–1961) US journalist, novelist, short-story writer

I like to listen. I have learned a great deal from listening carefully. Most people never listen.
— Ernest Hemingway (1889–1961) US journalist, novelist, short-story writer

Never mistake motion for action.
— Ernest Hemingway (1889–1961) US journalist, novelist, short-story writer

The first draft of anything is shit.
— Ernest Hemingway (1889–1961) US journalist, novelist, short-story writer

The man who has begun to live more seriously within begins to live more simply without.
— Ernest Hemingway (1889–1961) US journalist, novelist, short-story writer

The problem is, of course, that not only is economics bankrupt but it has always been nothing more than politics in disguise ... economics is a form of brain damage.
— Hazel Henderson

When the power of love overcomes the love of power the world will know peace.
— Jimi Hendrix (1942–1970) American musician, guitarist, singer, songwriter

When politics and religion are intermingled, a people is suffused with a sense of invulnerability, and gathering speed in their forward charge, they fail to see the cliff ahead of them.
— Frank Herbert, Dune

The love of money and the love of learning rarely meet.
— George Herbert (1593 - 1633), Welsh poet, Jacula Prudentum

Gayly we glide in the gaze of the world
 With streamers afloat and with canvas unfurled,
  All gladness and glory to wandering eyes,
   Yet chartered by sorrow and freighted with sighs.
— Thomas Kibble Hervey (1804–1859), The Convict Ship

  The tomb of him who would have made
 The world too glad and free.
— Thomas Kibble Hervey (1804–1859), The Devil’s Progress

  He stood beside a cottage lone
 And listened to a lute,
One summer’s eve, when the breeze was gone,
 And the nightingale was mute.
— Thomas Kibble Hervey (1804–1859), The Devil’s Progress

  A love that took an early root,
 And had an early doom.
— Thomas Kibble Hervey (1804–1859), The Devil’s Progress

  Like ships, that sailed for sunny isles,
 But never came to shore.
— Thomas Kibble Hervey (1804–1859), The Devil’s Progress

  Wake, soldier, wake, thy war-horse waits
 To bear thee to the battle back;
Thou slumberest at a foeman’s gates,—
 Thy dog would break thy bivouac;
Thy plume is trailing in the dust
And thy red falchion gathering rust.
— Thomas Kibble Hervey (1804–1859), The Dead Trumpeter

The degree to which one is sensitive to other people's suffering, to another's humanity, is the index of one's own humanity.
— Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel

Wonder rather than doubt is the root of all knowledge.
— Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel

We should do unto others as we would want them to do unto us. If I were an unborn fetus I would want others to use force to protect me, therefore using force against abortionists is justifiable homocide.
— Rev. Paul J. Hill, abortion doctor murderer

Nothing is more common than unfulfilled potential
— Howard Hendricks

Nothing endures but change.
— Heraclitus (540?–475? BC), Greek philosopher

We are most nearly ourselves when we achieve the seriousness of the child at play.
— Heraclitus (540?–475? BC), Greek philosopher

The people must fight for their laws as for their walls.
— Heraclitus (540?–475? BC), Greek philosopher

What do you despise? By this are you truly known.
—Frank Herbert: Dune

The brighter you are, the more you have to learn.
— Don Herold

A pamphlet, no matter how good, is never read more than once, but a song is learned by heart and repeated over and over.
— Joe Hill, songwriter and labor activist

Success seems to be connected to action. Successful people keep moving. They make mistakes, but they don't quit.
— Conrad Hilton

If you don't ask "why this?" often enough, somebody will ask "why you?"
— Tom Hirshfield

Always before God and the world, the stronger has the right to carry through what he wills.
— Adolf Hitler

Force was more than the decisive factor in any situation. It was force, which alone created right.
— Adolf Hitler

Great liars are also great magicians.
— Adolf Hitler

I am convinced that men who are created by God should live in accordance with the will of the Almighty. If providence had not guided us, I could often never have found these dizzy paths.
— Adolf Hitler

If the Churches were to declare themselves ready to take over the treatment and care of those suffering from hereditary diseases, we should be quite ready to refrain from sterilizing them.
— Adolf Hitler

It is therefore, to put it mildly, effrontery when especially foreign politicians make bold to speak of hostility to religion in the third Reich.
— Adolf Hitler

It may be that, today gold has become the exclusive ruler of life, but the time will come when man will again bow down before a higher God.
— Adolf Hitler

Never qualify what you say, never concede an inch to the other side, paint all your contrasts in black and white. This is the very first condition, which has to be fulfilled in every kind of propaganda.
— Adolf Hitler

No one in Germany has in the past been persecuted because of his religious views (Einstellung), nor will anyone in the future be so persecuted.
— Adolf Hitler

Only constant repetition will finally succeed in imprinting an idea on the memory of a crowd.
— Adolf Hitler

Only force rules. Force is the first law.
— Adolf Hitler

Providence has caused me to be Catholic, and I know therefore how to handle this Church. I believe in Providence and I believe Providence to be just. Therefore, I believe that Providence always rewards the strong, the industrious, and the upright.
— Adolf Hitler

Secular schools can never be tolerated because such schools have no religious instruction, and a general moral instruction without a religious foundation is built on air; consequently, all character training and religion must be derived from faith . . . we need believing people.
— Adolf Hitler, April 26, 1933, from a speech made during negotiations leading to the Nazi-Vatican Concordant of 1933

So long a nation does not do so away with the assassins within its borders, no external successes can be possible.
— 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 art of leadership consists of consolidating the attention of the people against a single adversary and taking care that nothing will split up this attention.
— Adolf Hitler

The Churches are the greatest landed proprietors after the State.Further, the Church in the National Socialist State is in many ways favoured in regard to taxation, and for gifts, legacies, etc., it enjoys immunity from taxation.
— Adolf Hitler

The force which ever set in motion, the great historic avalanches of religious and political movements, is the magical power of the spoken word.
— Adolf Hitler

The great masses of the people... will more easily fall victims to a big lie than to a small one.
— Adolf Hitler

The greatness of Christianity did not lie in attempted negotiations for compromise with any similar philosophical opinions in the ancient world, but in its inexorable fanaticism in preaching and fighting for its own doctrine.
— Adolf Hitler

The leader of genius must have the ability to make different opponents appear as if they belonged to one category.
— Adolf Hitler

The man who has no sense of history, is like a man who has no ears or eyes.
— Adolf Hitler

The National Socialist State has not closed a Church, nor has it prevented the holding of a religious service, nor has it ever exercised any influence upon the form of a religious service. It has not exercised any pressure upon the doctrine nor on the profession of faith of any of the Confessions. In the national Socialist State, anyone is free to seek his blessedness after his own fashion.
— Adolf Hitler

The people need and require faith.We have therefore undertaken the fight against the atheistic movement, and that not merely with a few theoretical declarations: we have stamped it out .
— Adolf Hitler

The personification of the devil as the symbol of all evil assumes the living shape of the Jew.
— Adolf Hitler

The victor will never be asked if he told the truth.
— Adolf Hitler

The whole work of nature is a mighty struggle between strength and weakness-an eternal victory of the strong over the weak.
— Adolf Hitler

The world will not help, the people must help themselves. Its own strength is the source of life. That strength the Almighty has given us to use; that in it and through it, we may wage the battle of our life The others in the past years have not had the blessing of the Almighty - of Him who in the last resort, whatever man may do, holds in His hands the final decision. Lord God, let us never hesitate or play the coward.
— Adolf Hitler

There could be no issue between the Church and the State. The Church, as such, has nothing to do with political affairs. On the other hand, the State has nothing to do with the faith or inner organization of the Church.
— Adolf Hitler

This human world of ours would be inconceivable without the practical existence of a religious belief.
— Adolf Hitler

Thus inwardly armed with confidence in God and the unshakable stupidity of the voting citizenship, the politician can begin the fight for the `remaking' of the Reich as they call it.
— Adolf Hitler

We are all proud that through God's powerful aid, we have become once more true Germans.
— Adolf Hitler

We have not only brought thousands of priests back into the Church, but to millions of respectable people, we have restored their faith in their religion and in their priests. The union of the Evangelical Church in a single Church for the whole Reich, the Concordant with the Catholic Church, these are but milestones on the road which leads to the establishment of a useful relation and a useful co-operation between the Reich and the two Confessions.
— Adolf Hitler

What luck for the rulers that men do not think.
— Adolf Hitler

Whatever goal, man has reached is due to his originality plus his brutality.
— Adolf Hitler

You can kill ten of my men for every one I kill of yours, but even at those odds, you will lose and I will win.
— Ho Chi Minh to the French, late 1940s

We are told that talent creates its own opportunities. But it sometimes seems that intense desire creates not only its own opportunities, but its own talents.
— Eric Hoffer, American longshoreman and philosopher

You can discover what your enemy fears most by observing the means he uses to frighten you.
— Eric Hoffer, American longshoreman and philosopher

Passionate hatred can give meaning and purpose to an empty life.
— Eric Hoffer, American longshoreman and philosopher

Become an internationalist and learn to respect all life. Make war on machines, and in particular the sterile machines of corporate death and the robots that guard them.
— Abbie Hoffman, Steal This Book

Smoking dope and hanging up Che's picture is no more a commitment than drinking milk and collecting postage stamps. A revolution in consciousness is an empty high without a revolution in the distribution of power.
— Abbie Hoffman, Steal This Book

The first duty of a revolutionary is to get away with it.
— Abbie Hoffman

We are here to make a better world. No amount of rationalization or blaming can preempt the moment of choice each of us brings to our situation here on this planet. The lesson of the '60s is that people who cared enough to do right could change history. We didn't end racism but we ended legal segregation. We ended the idea that you could send half-a-million soldiers around the world to fight a war that people do not support. We ended the idea that women are second-class citizens. We made the environment an issue that couldn't be avoided. The big battles that we won cannot be reversed. We were young, self-righteous, reckless, hypocritical, brave, silly, headstrong and scared half to death.
And we were right.
— Abbie Hoffman

I did not have political relations with that man, Ken Lay.
—Sen. Fritz Hollings (D–S.C.), poking fun at Bush for distancing himself from Enron

There is no exercise better for the heart than reaching down and lifting people up.
— John Andrew Holmes

The right to swing my fist ends where the other man's nose begins.
— Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. (1841–1935), American jurist, associate justice of the Supreme Court

Man's mind, once stretched by a new idea, never regains its original dimension.
— Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. (1841–1935), American jurist, associate justice of the Supreme Court

Ability is what you're capable of doing. Motivation determines what you do. Attitude determines how well you do it.
— Lou Holtz

For Fate has wove the thread of life with pain
And twins ev'n from the birth are Misery and Man!
— Homer (c. B.C. 700)

As leaves on the trees, such is the life of man.
— Homer (c. B.C. 700)

O friends, be men; so act that none may feel ashamed to meet the eyes of other men. Think each one of his children and his wife, his home, his parents, living yet or dead. For them, the absent ones, I supplicate, and bid you rally here, and scorn to fly.
— Homer (c. B.C. 700)

Many people dream of success. To me success can only be achieved through repeated faliure and introspection. In fact, success represents one percent of your work which results from the 99 percent that is called failure.
— Soichiro Honda

Justice is incidental to law and order.
— J. Edgar Hoover

You manage things; you lead people.
— Admiral Grace Murray Hopper, USN

A leech that will not quit the skin until sated with blood.
— Horace (65 BC–8 BC) [Quintus Horatius Flaccus], Roman lyric poet and satirist

An envious man grows lean at another's fatness.
— Horace (65 BC–8 BC) [Quintus Horatius Flaccus], Roman lyric poet and satirist

Be not ashamed to have had wild days, but not to have sown your wild oats.
— Horace (65 BC–8 BC) [Quintus Horatius Flaccus], Roman lyric poet and satirist

Be not caught by the cunning of those who appear in a disguise.
— Horace (65 BC–8 BC) [Quintus Horatius Flaccus], Roman lyric poet and satirist

Betray not a secret even though racked by wine or wrath.
— Horace (65 BC–8 BC) [Quintus Horatius Flaccus], Roman lyric poet and satirist

Catch the opportunity while it lasts, and rely not on what the morrow may bring.
— Horace (65 BC–8 BC) [Quintus Horatius Flaccus], Roman lyric poet and satirist

Consider well what your shoulders are able to bear.
— Horace (65 BC–8 BC) [Quintus Horatius Flaccus], Roman lyric poet and satirist

Get money; by just means, if you can; if not, still get money.
— Horace (65 BC–8 BC) [Quintus Horatius Flaccus], Roman lyric poet and satirist

In peace, as a wise man, he should make suitable preparation for war.
— Horace (65 BC–8 BC) [Quintus Horatius Flaccus], Roman lyric poet and satirist, Satires

Money, as it increases, becomes either the master or the slave of its owner.
— Horace (65 BC–8 BC) [Quintus Horatius Flaccus], Roman lyric poet and satirist

Pale Death with impartial tread beats at the poor man's cottage door and at the palaces of kings.
— Horace (65 BC–8 BC) [Quintus Horatius Flaccus], Roman lyric poet and satirist, Odes

Those who say nothing about their poverty will obtain more than those who turn beggars.
— Horace (65 BC–8 BC) [Quintus Horatius Flaccus], Roman lyric poet and satirist

You traverse the world in search of happiness, which is within the reach of every man. A contented mind confers it on all.
— Horace (65 BC–8 BC) [Quintus Horatius Flaccus], Roman lyric poet and satirist

Say, for what were hop-yards meant,
Or why was Burton built on Trent?
Oh many a peer of England brews
Livelier liquor than the Muse,
And malt does more than Milton can
To justify God's ways to man.
Ale, man, ale's the stuff to drink
For fellows whom it hurts to think.
— A.E. Housman, A Shropshire Lad (1896) no.62

One machine can do the work of fifty ordinary men. No machine can do the work of one extraordinary man.
— Elbert Green Hubbard (1859–1915), American editor, publisher, and author

Success — To rise from the illusion of pursuit to the disillusion of possession.
— Elbert Green Hubbard (1859–1915), American editor, publisher, and author

The greatest mistake you can make is to be continually fearing you will make one.
— Elbert Green Hubbard (1859–1915), American editor, publisher, and author

He has achieved success who has worked well, laughed often, and loved much.
— Elbert Green Hubbard (1859–1915), American editor, publisher, and author

Genius may have its limitations, but stupidity is not thus handicapped.
— Elbert Green Hubbard (1859–1915), American editor, publisher, and author

To avoid criticism, do nothing, say nothing, be nothing.
— Elbert Green Hubbard (1859–1915), American editor, publisher, and author

Honesty pays, but it doesn't seem to pay enough to suit some people.
— F. M. Hubbard

The world gets better every day, then worse again in the evening.
— Kin Hubbard (1868–1930), US journalist and humourist

Writing for a penny a word is ridiculous. If a man really wants to make a million dolars, the best way would be to start his own religion.
— Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard, 1949, then just a writer

A man has to live with himself, and he should see to it that he always has good company.
— Charles Evans Hughes

Hold fast to dreams, for if dreams die, a life is a broken-winged bird that cannot fly. Hold fast to dreams, for when dreams go, life is a berry field frozen with snow.
— Langston Hughes (1902–1967), African–American writer

Common sense is in spite of, not the result of, education.
— Victor Hugo (1802–1885), French poet, novelist, and playwright

Forty is the old age of youth; fifty, the youth of old age.
— Victor Hugo (1802–1885), French poet, novelist, and playwright

Genius is a promontory jutting out of the infinite.
— Victor Hugo (1802–1885), French poet, novelist, and playwright

He who opens a school door, closes a prison.
— Victor Hugo (1802–1885), French poet, novelist, and playwright

People do not lack strength; they lack will.
— Victor Hugo (1802–1885), French poet, novelist, and playwright

There is one thing stronger than all the armies in the world, and that is an idea whose time has come.
— Victor Hugo (1802–1885), French poet, novelist, and playwright

It is seldom that liberty of any kind is lost all at once.
— David Hume

The right to be heard does not automatically include the right to be taken seriously.
— Hubert H. Humphrey

The believer is happy; the doubter is wise.
— Hungarian proverb

Words are very powerful, they can get things done for us, but then a word and a gun makes it much easier.
— Saddam Hussein

A belief in hell and the knowledge that every ambition is doomed to frustration at the hands of a skeleton have never prevented the majority of human beings from behaving as though death were no more than an unfounded rumour.
— Aldous Leonard Huxley (1894–1963), English novelist, essayist, critic, and poet

Experience is not what happens to you. It is what you do with what happens to you.
— Aldous Leonard Huxley (1894–1963), English novelist, essayist, critic, and poet

Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored.
— Aldous Leonard Huxley (1894–1963), English novelist, essayist, critic, and poet

Most human beings have an almost infinite capacity for taking things for granted.
— Aldous Leonard Huxley (1894–1963), English novelist, essayist, critic, and poet

The great end of life is not knowledge but action.
— Aldous Leonard Huxley (1894–1963), English novelist, essayist, critic, and poet

The great tragedy of science — the slaying of a beautiful hypothesis by an ugly fact.
— Aldous Leonard Huxley (1894–1963), English novelist, essayist, critic, and poet

The rung of a ladder was never meant to rest upon, but only to hold a man's foot long enough to enable him to put the other somewhat higher.
— Aldous Leonard Huxley (1894–1963), English novelist, essayist, critic, and poet

The secret of genius is to carry the spirit of childhood into maturity.
— Aldous Leonard Huxley (1894–1963), English novelist, essayist, critic, and poet

There is only one corner of the universe you can be certain of improving, and that's your own self.
— Aldous Leonard Huxley (1894–1963), English novelist, essayist, critic, and poet

To his dog, every man is Napoleon; hence the constant popularity of dogs.
— Aldous Leonard Huxley (1894–1963), English novelist, essayist, critic, and poet

You shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you mad.
— Aldous Leonard Huxley (1894–1963), English novelist, essayist, critic, and poet

I<     

You can have brilliant ideas, but if you can't get them across, your ideas won't get you anywhere.
— Lee Iacocca

Call on God, but row away from the rocks.
— Indian proverb

It is contended by many that ours is a Christian government, founded upon the Bible, and that all who look upon that book as false or foolish are destroying the foundation of our country. The truth is, our government is not founded upon the rights of gods, but upon the rights of men. Our Constitution was framed, not to declare and uphold the deity of Christ, but the sacredness of humanity. Ours is the first government made by the people for the people. It is the only nation with which the gods have nothing to do. And yet there are some judges dishonest and cowardly enough to solemly decide that this is a Christian country, and that our free institutions are based upon the infamous laws of Jehovah.
— Robert Green Ingersoll (Civil War Union general)

Religion supports nobody. It has to be supported. It produces no wheat, no corn; it ploughs no land; it fells no forests. It is a perpetual mendicant. It lives on the labors of others, and then has the arrogance to pretend that it supports the giver.
— Robert Green Ingersoll (Civil War Union general)

Ministers say that they teach charity. That is natural. They live on hand-outs. All beggars teach that others should give.
— Robert Green Ingersoll (Civil War Union general)

This crime called blasphemy was invented by priests for the purpose of defending doctrines not able to take care of themselves.
— Robert Green Ingersoll (Civil War Union general)

Heresy is a cradle; orthodoxy a coffin.
— Robert Green Ingersoll (Civil War Union general)

You've got to do your own growing, no matter how tall your grandfather was.
— Irish Proverb

A mother is the truest friend we have, when trials, heavy and sudden, fall upon us; when adversity takes the place of prosperity; when friends who rejoice with us in our sunshine, desert us when troubles thicken around us, still will she cling to us, and endeavor by her kind precepts and counsels to dissipate the clouds of darkness, and cause peace to return to our hearts.
— Washington Irving (1783–1859)

If you truly wished to find out what is best for the country you would listen more to those who oppose you than to those who try to please you.
— Isocrates

Don't tell me why you can't, tell me how you can.
— Robert G. Ivanco

\

The working class and the employing class have nothing in common. There can be no peace so long as hunger and want are found among millions of working people and the few, who make up the employing class, have all the good things of life. Between these two classes a struggle must go on until the workers of the world organize as a class, take possession of the Earth and the machinery of production, and abolish the wage system.
— Preamble to the IWW Constitution

J<     

Take time to deliberate; but when the time for action arrives, stop thinking and go in.
— Andrew Jackson, U.S. president

One man with courage makes a majority.
— Andrew Jackson

Acceptance of what has happened is the first step to overcoming the consequences of any misfortune.
— William James (1842–1910), American philosopher and psychologist

Be not afraid of life. Believe that life is worth living, and your belief will help create the fact.
— William James (1842–1910), American philosopher and psychologist

The art of becoming wise is the art of knowing what to overlook.
— William James (1842–1910), American philosopher and psychologist

When you have completed 95% of your journey you are halfway there.
— Japanese Proverb

Above all things I hope the education of the common people will be attended to, convinced that on their good sense we may rely with the most security for the preservation of a due degree of liberty.
—Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826)

A little rebellion now and then is a good thing, and as necessary in the political world as storms in the physical.
— Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826)

A wise and frugal government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, which shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. This is the sum of good government, and this is necessary to close the circle of our felicity.
—Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826)

All the eyes are opened or are opening to the rights of man. The general spread of the light of science has already laid open to every view the palpable truth that 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 (1743–1826)

Be polite to all, but intimate with few.
—Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826)

Honesty is the first chapter of the book of wisdom.
— Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826)

I am a great believer in luck, and I find that the harder I work, the more I have of it.
—Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826)

I cannot live without books.
—Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826)

I have recently been examining all the known superstitions of the world, and do not find in our particular superstition (Christianity) one redeeming feature. They are all alike founded on fables and mythology.
—Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826)

I hope we shall take warning from the example of England and crush in its birth the aristocracy of our moneyed corporations which dare already to challenge our Government to trial, and bid defiance to the laws of our country
— Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826)

I never submitted the whole system of my opinions to the creed of any party of men whatever, in religion, in philosophy, in politics or in anything else, where I was capable of thinking for myself. Such an addiction is the last degradation of a free and moral agent. If I could not go to Heaven but with a party, I would not go there at all.
—Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826)

I place economy among the first and important virtues, and public debt as the greatest of dangers. To preserve our independence, we must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt. We must make our choice between economy and liberty, or profusion and servitude. If we can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of caring for them, they will be happy.
—Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826)

I sincerely believe... that the principle of spending money to be paid by posterity under the name of funding is but swindling futurity on a large scale.
—Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826)

I wish it were possible to obtain a single amendment to our Constitution. I would be willing to depend on that alone for the reduction of the administration of our government; I mean an additional article taking from the Federal Government the power of borrowing. I now deny their power of making paper money or anything else a legal tender. I know that to pay all proper expenses within the year would, in case of war, be hard on us. But not so hard as ten wars instead of one. For wars could be reduced in that proportion; besides that the State governments would be free to lend their credit in borrowing quotas.
—Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826)

If the children are untaught, their ignorance and vices will in future life cost us much dearer in their consequences than it would have done in their correction by a good education.
—Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826)

It is incumbent on every generation to pay its own debts as it goes. A principle which if acted on would save one-half the wars of the world.
—Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826)

I think we have more machinery of government than is necessary, too many parasites living on the labor of the industrious.
— Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826)

Nothing gives one person so much advantage over another as to remain always cool and unruffled under all circumstances.
— Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826)

Only aim to do your duty, and mankind will give you credit where you fail.
—Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826)

Shake off all the fears of servile prejudices, under which weak minds are servility crouched. Fix reason firmly in her seat, and call on her tribunal for every fact, every opinion. Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason than that of blindfolded fear.
—Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826)

Take not from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned.
— Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826): Inaugural Address, March 4, 1801

That government is best which governs the least, because its people discipline themselves.
—Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826)

The earth is given a common stock for man to labor and live on. If for the encouragement of industry we allow it to be appropriated, we must take care that other employment be provided to those excluded from the appropriation. If we do not, the fundamental right to labor the earth returns to the unemployed.
— Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826)

The man who reads nothing at all is better educated than the man who reads nothing but newspapers.
—Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826)

The merchant has no country.
— Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826)

The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions that I wish it to be always kept alive.
—Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826)

We hold these truths to be sacred and undeniable; that all men are created equal and independent, that from that equal creation they derive rights inherent and inalienable, among which are the preservation of life, and liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
— Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826)

When angry, count to ten before you speak. If very angry, a hundred.
—Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826)

It is always the best policy to tell the truth, unless, of course, you are an exceptionally good liar.
— Jerome K. Jerome

This is not a jungle war, but a struggle for freedom on every front of human activity.
— Lyndon Johnson, 1964

We are not about to send American boys nine or ten thousand miles away from home to do what Asian boys ought to be doing for themselves.
— Lyndon Johnson, October 1964

 

More on    Dr. Samuel Johnson (1709–1784), English writer and lexicographer

Nothing will ever be attempted if all possible objections must first be overcome.
— Dr. Samuel Johnson

The superiority of some men is merely local. They are great because their associates are little
— Dr. Samuel Johnson

Trade’s proud empire hastes to swift decay.
— Dr. Samuel Johnson, Line added to Goldsmith’s Deserted Village

Hell is paved with good intentions.
— Dr. Samuel Johnson, (Boswell’s Life of Johnson, 1775).

Of all the griefs that harass the distrest,
Sure the most bitter is a scornful jest.
— Dr. Samuel Johnson, London. Line 166.

The quickest and shortest way to crush whatever laurels you have won is for you to rest on them.
— Donald P. Jones

Friends may come and go, but enemies accumulate.
— Thomas Jones

The man who gets the most satisfactory results is not always the man with the most brilliant single mind, but rather the man who can best coordinate the brains and talents of his associates.
— W. Alton Jones

Count it death to falter, not to die!
— Mary Harris "Mother" Jones, union activist

I am not afraid of the pen, the sword or the scaffold, I will tell the truth wherever I please.
— Mary Harris "Mother" Jones, union activist

I am not blind to the shortcomings of our own people. I am not unaware that leaders betray, and sell out, and play false. But this knowledge does not outweigh the fact that my class, the working class, is exploited, driven, fought back with the weapon of starvation, with guns and with venal courts whenever they strike for conditions more human, more civilized for their children, and for their children's children.
— Mary Harris "Mother" Jones, union activist

I am not speaking from what I read in books. I was there. I took their bleeding heads in my lap and I kissed their dead lips. They are my brothers and sisters. They were murdered for human greed and that is all.
— Mary Harris "Mother" Jones, union activist

I want you to pledge to yourselves in this convention to stand as one solid army against the foes of human labor. Think of the thousands who are killed every year and there is no redress for it. We will fight until the mines are made secure and human life valued more than props. Look things in the face. Don't fear a governor; don't fear anybody. You pay the governor; he has the right to protect you. You are the biggest part of the population in the state. You create its wealth, so I say, let the fight go on; if nobody else will keep on, I will.
— Mary Harris "Mother" Jones, union activist, 1913, Speaking to the convention of District 15, UMWA, Trinidad Colorado

I'm not a humanitarian, I'm a hell-raiser.
— Mary Harris "Mother" Jones, union activist

In spite of oppressors, in spite of false leaders, in spite of labor's own lack of understanding of its needs, the cause of the worker continues onward. Slowly his hours are shortened, giving him leisure to read and to think. Slowly his standard of living rises to include some of the good and beautiful things of the world. Slowly the cause of his children becomes the cause of all. His boy is taken from the breaker, his girl from the mill. slowly those who create the wealth of the world are permitted to share it. The future is in labor's strong, rough hands.
— Mary Harris "Mother" Jones, union activist

My friends, it is solidarity of labor we want. We do not want to find fault with each other, but to solidify our forces and say to each other, "We must be together; our masters are joined together and we must do the same thing."
— Mary Harris "Mother" Jones, union activist, 1902, Speaking before the convention of the UMWA, Indianapolis, Ind.

There is never peace in West Virginia because there is never justice... when I get to the other side, I will tell God Almighty about West Virginia.
— Mary Harris "Mother" Jones, union activist

When we come to consider that the American capitalists are investing in China with the idea of crushing out the unions of America it is time for use to wake from our slumbers. it is not alone in China they are doing this, but across our borders in Mexico you will find a $50,000,000 steel plant and a million dollar smelter. All along the line they are making moves. They do not go there to establish schools to make good mechanics. Modern ingenuity has made it possible for a child to run some of the machines and the child will get the job while the men must tramp.
— Mary Harris "Mother" Jones, union activist, Speech to the UMWA, 1910

Work, work, work is preached from the pulpit, the newspapers and magazines: the laboring people are anxious to divide the honor, but they won't. You never hear from the pulpit, the magazine or the newspaper headline rest, rest, rest.
— Mary Harris "Mother" Jones, union activist

Cynicism is the height of cowardice. It is innocence and open-heartedness that requires the true courage-however often we are hurt as a result of it.
— Erica Jong

Live or die, but for God's sake don't poison yourself with indecision.
— Erica Jong

Take your life in your own hands and what happens? A terrible thing: no one to blame.
— Erica Jong

Advice is what we ask for when we already know the answer but wish we didn't.
— Erica Jong

Acorns were good till bread was found.
— Juvenal, "Satires" (XIV, 181)

Money lost is bewailed with unfeigned tears.
— Juvenal (40–125 A.D.)

K<     

You can be an ordinary athlete by getting away with less than your best. But if you want to be a great, you have to give it all you've got— your everything.
— Duke P. Kahanamoku

I have been a member of my profession for 25 years, without obtaining any particular prominence. Then, suddenly, overnight, I was known because I was identified with Frankenstein's monster. I'll always be grateful to the poor old monster.
— Boris Karloff

The best way to predict the future is to invent it.
— Alan Kay

Yesterday's the past, tomorrow's the future, but today is a gift. That's why it's called the present.
— Bil Keane

I would sooner fail than not be among the greatest.
— John Keats

Cats are intended to teach us that not everything in nature has a purpose.
—Garrison Keillor

I am only one; but still I am one. I cannot do everything, but still I can do something; I will not refuse to do the something I can do.
— Helen Keller

The country is governed for the richest, for the corporations, the bankers, the land speculators, and for the exploiters of labor.
— Helen Keller, 1911

Life is either a daring adventure or nothing. Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in nature.
—Helen Keller

Natives who beat drums to drive off evil spirits are objects of scorn to smart Americans who blow horns to break up traffic jams.
— Mary Ellen Kelly

Heavier-than-air flying machines are impossible.
— Lord Kelvin, president, Royal Society, 1895.

The only place success comes before work is in the dictionary.
— Donald Kendall

Forgive your enemies, but never forget their names.
— 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

Now we have a problem in making our power credible, and Vietnam is the place.
— John F. Kennedy, 1961

Our progress as a nation can be no swifter than our progress in education.
— John F. Kennedy

Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.
— John F. Kennedy

Washington [D.C.] is a city of Southern efficiency and Northern charm.
— John F. Kennedy

When written in Chinese, the word "crisis" is composed of two characters. One represents danger, and the other represents opportunity.
— John F. Kennedy

It's better to be boldly decisive and risk being wrong than to agonize at length and be right too late.
— Marilyn Moats Kennedy

Each time a person stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring, these ripples build a current that can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance.
— Robert F. Kennedy

Only those who dare to fail greatly can ever achieve greatly.
— Robert F. Kennedy

Keep on going, and the chances are that you will stumble on something, perhaps when you are least expecting it. I never heard of anyone ever stumbling on something sitting down.
— Charles F. Kettering

You will never stub your toe standing still. The faster you go, the more chance there is of stubbing your toe, but the more chance you have of getting somewhere.
— Charles Kettering

An inventor fails 999 times, and if he succeeds once, he's in. He treats his failures simply as practice shots.
— Charles Kettering

The only difference between a problem and a solution is that people understand the solution.
— Charles Kettering

People are very open-minded about new things
—as long as they're exactly like the old ones.
— Charles Kettering

It's amazing what ordinary people can do if they set out without preconceived notions.
— Charles Kettering

Capitalism is the astounding belief that the most wickedest of men will do the most wickedest of things for the greatest good of everyone.
— John Maynard Keynes (1883–1946), British economist

Capitalism is the extraordinary belief that the nastiest of men, for the nastiest of reasons, will somehow work for the benefit of us all.
— John Maynard Keynes (1883–1946), British economist

I do not know which makes a man more conservative—to know nothing but the present, or nothing but the past.
— John Maynard Keynes (1883–1946), British economist

I do not understand how universal bankruptcy can do any good or bring us nearer to prosperity.
— John Maynard Keynes (1883–1946), British economist

I evidently knew more about Economics than my examiners.
— John Maynard Keynes (1883–1946), British economist, explaining his low score in Economics on a Civil Service exam.

I would rather be vaguely right, than precisely wrong.
— John Maynard Keynes (1883–1946), British economist

The Individualistic Capitalism of today, precisely because it entrusts saving to the individual investor and production to the individual employer, presumes a stable measuring-rod of value, and cannot be efficient — perhaps cannot survive — without one.
— John Maynard Keynes (1883–1946), British economist

The long run is a misleading guide to current affairs. In the long run we are all dead.
— John Maynard Keynes (1883–1946), British economist

The avoidance of taxes is the only intellectual pursuit that carries any reward.
— John Maynard Keynes (1883–1946), British economist

The difficulty lies not so much in developing new ideas as in escaping from old ones.
— John Maynard Keynes (1883–1946), British economist

The ideas of economists and political philosophers, both when they are right and when they are wrong, are more powerful than is commonly understood. Indeed, the world is ruled by little else. Practical men, who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influences, are usually the slaves of some defunct economist. Madmen in authority, who hear voices in the air, are distilling their frenzy from some academic scribbler of a few years back... Sooner or later, it is ideas, not vested interests, which are dangerous for good or evil.
— John Maynard Keynes (1883–1946), British economist, 1935

To the economists — who are the trustees, not of civilisation, but of the possibility of civilisation.
— John Maynard Keynes (1883–1946), British economist, as his toast for his Farewell to Treasury

Words ought to be a little wild for they are the assaults of thought on the unthinking.
— John Maynard Keynes (1883–1946), British economist

 

More on    Omar Khayyam (1048–1123), Persian poet, mathematician, scientist, astronomer and philosopher, and his Rubiyat

Come, fill the Cup, and in the Fire of Spring
The Winter Garment of Repentance fling:
The Bird of Time has but a little way
To fly — and Lo! the Bird is on the Wing.
— Omar Khayyam (1048–1123), Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam as translated by Edward J. Fitzgerald (1859)

Myself when young did eagerly frequent
Doctor and Saint, and heard great Argument
About it and about: but evermore
Came out by the same Door as in I went.
— Omar Khayyam (1048–1123), Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam as translated by Edward J. Fitzgerald (1859)

Indeed, the idols I have loved so long
Have done my Credit in Men's Eye much Wrong:
Have drown'd my Honour in a shallow Cup,
And sold my Reputation for a Song.
— Omar Khayyam (1048–1123), Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam as translated by Edward J. Fitzgerald (1859)

How sweet is mortal Sovranty!" — think some:
Others — "How blest the Paradise to come!"
Ah, take the Cash in hand and waive the Rest;
Oh, the brave Music of a distant Drum!
— Omar Khayyam (1048–1123), Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam as translated by Edward J. Fitzgerald (1859)

Think, in this batter'd Caravanserai
Whose Doorways are alternate Night and Day,
How Sultan after Sultan with his Pomp
Abode his Hour or two, and went his way.
— Omar Khayyam (1048–1123), Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam as translated by Edward J. Fitzgerald (1859)

There was a Door to which I found no Key:
There was a Veil past which I could not see:
Some little Talk awhile of ME and THEE
There seemed — and then no more of THEE and ME.
— Omar Khayyam (1048–1123), Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam as translated by Edward J. Fitzgerald (1859)

Then to this earthen Bowl did I adjourn
My Lip the secret Well of Life to learn:
And Lip to Lip it murmur'd — "While you live,
Drink! — for once dead you never shall return.
— Omar Khayyam (1048–1123), Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam as translated by Edward J. Fitzgerald (1859)

Here with a Loaf of Bread beneath the Bough,
A Flask of Wine, a Book of Verse — and Thou
Beside me singing in the Wilderness —
And Wilderness is Paradise enow.
— Omar Khayyam (1048–1123), Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam as translated by Edward J. Fitzgerald (1859)

And much as Wine has play'd the Infidel,
And robb'd me of my Robe of Honour — well,
I often wonder what the Vintners buy
One half so precious as the Goods they sell.
— Omar Khayyam (1048–1123), Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam as translated by Edward J. Fitzgerald (1859)

Ah, make the most of what we yet may spend,
Before we too into the Dust Descend;
Dust into Dust, and under Dust, to lie,
Sans Wine, sans Song, sans Singer and — sans End!
— Omar Khayyam (1048–1123), Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam as translated by Edward J. Fitzgerald (1859)

Alike for those who for TO-DAY prepare,
And those that after a TO-MORROW stare,
A Muezzin from the Tower of Darkness cries
"Fools! your Reward is neither Here nor There."
— Omar Khayyam (1048–1123), Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam as translated by Edward J. Fitzgerald (1859)

The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ,
Moves on: nor all your Piety nor Wit
Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line,
Nor all your Tears wash out a Word of it.
— Omar Khayyam (1048–1123), Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam as translated by Edward J. Fitzgerald (1859)

And that inverted Bowl we call The Sky,
Whereunder crawling coop't we live and die,
Lift not thy hands to IT for help — for It
Rolls impotently on as Thou or I.
— Omar Khayyam (1048–1123), Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam as translated by Edward J. Fitzgerald (1859)

For in and out, above, about, below,
'Tis nothing but a Magic Shadow-show,
Play'd in a Box whose Candle is the Sun,
Round which we Phantom Figures come and go.
— Omar Khayyam (1048–1123), Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam as translated by Edward J. Fitzgerald (1859)

Into this Universe, and Why not knowing
Nor Whence, like Water willy-nilly flowing;
And out of it, as Wind along the Waste,
I know not Whither, willy-nilly blowing.
— Omar Khayyam (1048–1123), Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam as translated by Edward J. Fitzgerald (1859)

While the Rose blows along the River Brink,
With old Khayyam the Ruby Vintage drink:
And when the Angel with his darker Draught
Draws up to thee — take that, and do not shrink.
— Omar Khayyam (1048–1123), Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam as translated by Edward J. Fitzgerald (1859)

Oh Thou, who Man of baser Earth didst make,
And who with Eden didst devise the Snake;
For all the Sin wherewith the Face of Man
Is blacken'd, Man's Forgiveness give — and take!
— Omar Khayyam (1048–1123), Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam as translated by Edward J. Fitzgerald (1859)

The Worldly Hope men set their Hearts upon
Turns Ashes — or it prospers; and anon,
Like Snow upon the Desert's dusty Face,
Lighting a little hour or two — is gone.
— Omar Khayyam (1048–1123), Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam as translated by Edward J. Fitzgerald (1859)

The Grape that can with Logic absolute
The Two-and-Seventy jarring Sects confute:
The sovereign Alchemist that in a trice
Life's leaden metal into Gold transmute;
— Omar Khayyam (1048–1123), Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam as translated by Edward J. Fitzgerald (1859)

Procrastination is opportunity's natural assassin.
— Victor Kiam

People demand freedom of speech to make up for the freedom of thought which they avoid.
— Soren Aabye Kierkegaard

In our glorious fight for civil rights, we must guard against being fooled by false slogans, as 'right-to-work.' It provides no 'rights' and no 'works.' Its purpose is to destroy labor unions and the freedom of collective bargaining... We demand this fraud be stopped.
— Martin Luther King, Jr. (from booklet The big Lie and the truth about right-to-work, AFL-CIO.)

Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.
— Martin Luther King, Jr.

The riot is at bottom the language of the unheard.
— Martin Luther King, Jr.: Where Do We Go from Here? 1967

We must learn to live together as brothers or we are going to perish together as fools.
— Martin Luther King, Jr.

Rarely do we find men who willingly to engage in hard, solid thinking. There is an almost universal quest for easy answers and half-baked solutions. Nothing pains some people more than having to think.
— Martin Luther King, Jr.

Of all the forms of inequality, injustice in health care is the most shocking and inhumane.
— Martin Luther King Jr.

To dislocate the functioning of a city without destroying it can be more effective than a riot because it can be longer-lasting, costly to the society but not wantonly destructive, moreover, it is more difficult for Government to quell it by superior force.
— Martin Luther King Jr., Atlanta speech, August 15, 1967

We have to repent in this generation not merely for the hateful words and actions of the bad people, but for the appalling silence of the good people.
— Martin Luther King Jr.

What good does it do to sit at the counter when you cannot afford a hamburger?
— Martin Luther King, Jr.

When you are right you cannot be too radical; when you are wrong, you cannot be too conservative.
— Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

If a man hasn't discovered something he will die for, he isn't fit to live.
— Martin Luther King Jr.

You know, right before he was killed he came down to Selma and said some pretty passionate things against me, and that surprised me because after all it was my territory there. But afterwards he took my wife aside, and said he thought he could help me more by attacking me than praising me. He thought it would make it easier for me in the long run.
— Martin Luther King Jr., about Malcom X, in Halberstam, Second coming of MLK, page 51

Words are, of course, the most powerful drug used by mankind.
— Rudyard Kipling

Vietnam presumably taught us that the United States could not serve as the world's policeman; it should also have taught us the dangers of trying to be the world's midwife to democracy when the birth is scheduled to take place under conditions of guerrilla war.
— Jeane Kirkpatrick, 1979

Next week there can't be any crisis. My schedule is already full.
— Henry Kissinger

Ninety percent of the politicians give the other ten percent a bad reputation.
— Henry Kissinger

Some of the critics viewed Vietnam as a morality play in which the wicked must be punished before the final curtain and where any attempt to salvage self-respect from the outcome compounded the wrong. I viewed it as a genuine tragedy. No one had a monopoly on anguish.
— Henry Kissinger, 1979

The illegal we do immediately. The unconstitutional takes a bit longer.
— Henry Kissinger

The longer I am out of office, the more infallible I appear to myself.
— Henry Kissinger

The nice thing about being a celebrity is that when you bore people, they think it's their fault.
— Henry Kissinger

University politics are vicious precisely because the stakes are so small.
— Henry Kissinger

An economist is a man who states the obvious in terms of the incomprehensible.
— Alfred A Knopf

Politics is the means by which the will of the few becomes the will of the many.
— Howard Koch (from Politicians and Other Scoundrels by Ferdinand Lundberg)

For all the gold and silver stolen and shipped to Spain did not make the Spanish people richer. It gave their kings an edge in the balance of power for a time, a chance to hire more mercenary soldiers for their wars. They ended up losing those wars anyway, and all that was left was a deadly inflation, a starving population, the rich richer, the poor poorer, and a ruined peasant class.
— Hans Konig

If you disclose your alms, even then it is well done, but if you keep them secret, and give them to the poor, then that is better still for you; and this wipes off from you some of your evil deeds.
— Koran, (c. 651 AD)

The freedom to fail is vital if you're going to succeed. Most successful people fail time and time again, and it is a measure of their strength that failure merely propels them into some new attempt at success.
— Michael Korda

One sign of maturity is the ability to be comfortable with people who are not like us.
— Virgil A. Kraft

Freedom from the desire for an answer is essential to the understanding of a problem.
— J. Krishnamurti

Freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose.
— Kris Kristofferson, songwriter and singer, from song "Me and Bobby McGhee"

You're only as good as the people you hire.
— Ray Kroc, founder/owner, McDonald's restaurant chain

Getting ideas is like shaving: if you don't do it every day, you're a bum.
— Alex Kroll

Mutual aid is as much a law of animal life as mutual struggle.
— Prince Pyotr Kropotkin, anarchist

Call it what you will, incentives are what get people to work harder.
— Nikita Krushchev, premier of the Soviet Union 1958–1964

Thanks to the interstate highway system, it is now possible to travel across the country from coast to coast without seeing anything.
— Charles Kuralt

Market values, ripped out of a broader context of socially shared norms, declare that opportunism, cutting corners, taking advantage are not only legitimate but virtuous, since squeezing out the maximum possible price that the market will bear maximizes efficiency.
—Robert Kuttner, author of the book Everything for Sale.

L<     

Neither genius, fame, nor love show the greatness of the soul. Only kindness can do that.
—Jean Baptiste Henri Lacordaire

Superior leaders get things done with very little motion. They impart instruction not through many words, but through a few deeds. They keep informed about everything but interfere hardly at all. They are catalysts, and though things would never get done as well if they weren't there, when they succeed they take no credit. And because they take no credit, credit never leaves them.
— Lao Tzu ( c. 550BC–?)

The more laws and order are made prominent, the more thieves and robbers there will be.
— Lao Tzu ( c. 550BC–?)

Those who know do not talk. Those who talk do not know.
— Lao Tzu ( c. 550BC–?)

We promise according to our hopes, and perform according to our fears.
— Francois de La Rochefoucauld (1613–1680)

Gratitude is merely the secret hope of further favors.
— Francois de La Rochefoucauld (1613–1680)

Preserving health by too severe a rule is a worrisome malady.
— Francois de La Rochefoucauld (1613–1680)

Why is it that our memory is good enough to retain the least triviality that happens to us, and yet not good enough to recollect how often we have told it to the same person?
— Francois de La Rochefoucauld (1613–1680)

Some of the world's greatest feats were accomplished by people not smart enought to know they were impossible.
— Doug Larson

Wisdom is what you get for a lifetime of listening when you'd have preferred to talk.
— Doug Larson

When a person with experience meets a person with money, the person with experience will get the money. And the person with money will get some experience.
— Leonard Lauder

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

Tell the Vietnamese they've got to draw in their horns or we're going to bomb them back into the Stone Age.
— Gen. Curtis LeMay, May 1964

Authority poisons everybody, who takes authority on himself.
— V.I. Lenin

When one makes a Revolution, one cannot mark time, one must always go forward – or go back. He who now talks about the “ freedom of the press” goes backward, and halts our headlong course towards socialism.
— V.I. Lenin

The war is relentless; it puts the alternative in a ruthless relief, either to perish, or to catch up with the advanced countries and outdistance them, too, in economic matters.
— V.I. Lenin

One thing I can tell you is you've got to be free!
— John Lennon, "Come Together"

President Bush announced today he'll approve the sale of four destroyers to Taiwan. Bush is trying to walk a fine line between helping Taiwan and not angering China. Bush admitted today he is not used to dealing with two different Chinas. In fact, Bush's staff admitted today that he still doesn't get the Dakotas thing.
— Jay Leno

George W. Bush's other controversial appointment is Senator John Ashcroft. No one expects Ashcroft to have any personal indiscretions. He's a fundamentalist, doesn't believe in drinking, doesn't believe in smoking, doesn't believe in partying. The question is, how the hell did he meet George Bush.
— Jay Leno

Both President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney released their income tax figures for last year. President Bush made $894,000. Dick Cheney made $36 million. The vice president made 40 times more than the president. That doesn't seem right. It's not like Dick Cheney is 40 times smarter than — ooohhh.
— Jay Leno

Earlier this afternoon, George W. Bush resigned as the governor of Texas. This is historic. It's the first job he's left without going bankrupt. It was a nice ceremony. The state of Texas said while he's president, they'll let him stop by every once in a while and execute someone.
— Jay Leno

New Jersey Governor Christie Todd Whitman will be the head of the Environmental Protection Agency, which means that one day the entire country will be as clean as New Jersey.
— Jay Leno

The good news is the White House is now giving George W. Bush intelligence briefings... Some of these jokes actually write themselves.
— David Letterman

You can be vice president in the most prosperous time in America, run against a dumb guy, get more votes and still lose.
— David Letterman's #2 item on list of the Top Ten Things We've Learned From The Clinton Years

Lead us not into temptation. Just tell us where it is; we'll find it.
— Sam Levenson

If you were going to die soon and had only one phone call you could make, who would you call and what would you say? And why are you waiting?
— Stephen Levine

If you want truly to understand something, try to change it.
— Kurt Lewin

Now the peak of summer's past, the sky is overcast
 And the love we swore would last for an age seems deceit.
— Cecil Day Lewis, "Hornpipe"

The labor movement is organized upon a principle that the strong shall help the weak. The strength of a strong man is a prideful thing, but the unfortunate thing in life is that strong men do not remain strong. And it is just as true of unions and labor organizations as is true of men and individuals. And whereas today the craft unions of this country may be able to stand upon their own feet and like mighty oaks stand before the gale, defy the lightning, yet the day may come when those organizations will not be able to withstand the lightning and the gale. Now, prepare yourselves by making a contribution to your less fortunate brethren, heed the cry from Macedonia that comes from the hearts of men. Organize the unorganized!
— John L. Lewis (1880–1969), American labor leader

The basic law of capitalism is you or I, not both you and I.
— Karl Liebknecht, from a speech delivered in 1907

All that serves labor serves the nation. All that harms is treason...If a man tells you he loves America, yet hates labor, he is a liar!There is no America without labor, and to fleece one is to rob the other.
— Abraham Lincoln

Always bear in mind that your own resolution to succeed is more important than any other one thing.
— Abraham Lincoln

As I would not be a slave, so I would not be a master. This expresses my idea of democracy.
— Abraham Lincoln

As labor is the common burden of our race so the effort of some to shift their share of the burden on to the shoulders of others is the great durable curse of the race.
— Abraham Lincoln: Fragment written about July 1, 1854

Better to remain silent and be thought a fool then to speak out and remove all doubt.
— Abraham Lincoln

He has the right to criticize who has the heart to help.
— Abraham Lincoln

I destroy my enemy when I make him my friend.
— Abraham Lincoln

I see in the near future a crisis approaching that unnerves me and causes me to tremble for the safety of my country. ... corporations have been enthroned and an era of corruption in high places will follow, and the money power of the country will endeavor to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until all wealth is aggregated in a few hands and the Republic is destroyed.
— Abraham Lincoln, Nov. 21, 1864 (Letter to Col. William F. Elkins)

If I were two-faced, would I be wearing this one?
— Abraham Lincoln

If the end brings me out all right, what is said against me won't amount to anything. If the end brings me out wrong, ten angels swearing I was right would make no difference.
— Abraham Lincoln

If there is anything that a man can do well, I say let him do it. Give him a chance.
— Abraham Lincoln

It is not best to swap horses while crossing the river.
— Abraham Lincoln

Moral principle is a looser bond than pecuniary interest.
— Abraham Lincoln, speech, October, 1856.

Most people are about as happy as they make up their minds to be.
— Abraham Lincoln

My great concern is not whether you have failed, but whether you are content with your failure.
— Abraham Lincoln

Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, give him power.
— Abraham Lincoln

Tact is the ability to describe others as they see themselves.
— Abraham Lincoln

The Bible is not my book, and Christianity is not my religion. I could never give assent to the long, complicated statements of Christian dogma.
— Abraham Lincoln

The shepherd drives the wolf from the sheep's throat, for which the sheep thanks the shepherd as his liberator, while the wolf denounces him for the same act as the destroyer of liberty.
— Abraham Lincoln

There has never been but one question in all civilization how to keep a few men from saying to many men: You work and earn bread and we will eat it.
— Abraham Lincoln

These capitalists generally act harmoniously, and in concert, to fleece the people.
— Abraham Lincoln, 1837

Things may come to those who wait, but only the things left by those who hustle.
— Abraham Lincoln

This country, with its institutions, belongs to the people who inhabit it. Whenever they shall grow weary of the existing government, they can exercise their constitutional right of amending it, or their revolutionary right to dismember or overthrow it.
— Abraham Lincoln, First Inaugural Address

Those who deny freedom to others deserve it not for themselves.
— Abraham Lincoln

When I'm ready to reason with a man, I spend one-third of my time thinking about myself and what I am going to say, and two thirds of my time thinking about him and what he is going to say.
— 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

You cannot escape the responsibility tommorow by evading it today.
— Abraham Lincoln

You cannot keep out of trouble by spending more than you earn.
— Abraham Lincoln

While one person hesitates because he feels inferior, the other is busy making mistakes and becoming superior.
— Henry C. Link

New opinions are always suspected, and usually opposed, without any other reason but because they are not already common.
— John Locke

The difference between a successful person and others is not a lack of strength , not a lack of knowledge, but rather a lack of will.
— Vince Lombardi

The quality of a person's life is in direct proportion to their commitment to excellence, regardless of their chosen field of endeavor.
— Vince Lombardi

Confidence is contagious. So is lack of confidence.
— Vince Lombardi

Winning is a habit. Unfortuantely, so is losing.
— Vince Lombardi

You can't wait for inspiration. You have to go after it with a club.
— Jack London

I would rather be ashes than dust! I would rather that my spark should burn out in a brilliant blaze than it should be stifled by dry rot. I would rather be a superb meteor, every atom of me in magnificent glow, than a sleepy and permanent plant. The proper function of man is to live, not to exist. I shall not waste my days in trying to prolong them. I shall use my time.
— Jack London (1876–1916), American writer

Tax reform means "Don't tax you, don't tax me, tax that fellow behind the tree."
— Russell Long

Great is the art of beginning, but greater is the art of ending.
— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1819–1892)

Lives of great men all remind us
We can make our lives sublime,
And, departing, leave behind us
Footprints on the sands of time.
— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1819–1892)

If you haven't got anything nice to say about anybody, come sit next to me.
— Alice Roosevelt Longworth

Every time I bestow a vacant office I make a hundred discontented persons and one ingrate.
— Louis XIV (1638–1715) French ruler, Remark made following the disgrace of the Duke of Lauzun, c. 1669; in "Le Sicle de Louis XIV," by Voltaire ch. 26, 1751.

Business more than any other occupation is a continual dealing with the future; it is a continual calculation, an instinctive exercise in foresight.
— Henry R. Luce

The drops of rain make a hole in the stone not be violence but by oft falling.
— Lucretius

There are four things that hold back human progress. Ignorance, stupidity, committees and accountants.
— Charles J.C. Lyall

M<     

There is no security on this earth. Only opportunity.
— General Douglas MacArthur

In war there is no substitute for victory.
— General Douglas MacArthur

Many politicians lay it down as a self-evident proposition, that no people ought to be free till they are fit to use their freedom. The maxim is worthy of the fool in the old story, who resolved not to go into the water till he had learned to swim.
— Lord Macaulay

Nothing is wrong with California that a rise in the ocean level wouldn't cure.
— Ross MacDonald

Happiness is not so much in having as sharing. We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give.
— Norman MacEwan

Among other evils which being unarmed brings you, It causes you to be despised.
— Niccolς Machiavelli, The Prince, 1514.

A prince never lacks legitimate reasons to break his promise.
— Niccolς Machiavelli, The Prince, 1514.

Before all else, be armed.
— Niccolς Machiavelli, The Prince, 1514.

It is better to be feared than loved, if you cannot be both.
— Niccolς Machiavelli, The Prince, 1514.

It is much more secure to be feared than to be loved.
— Niccolς Machiavelli, The Prince, 1514.

Men are so simple and yield so readily to the desires of the moment that he who will trick will always find another who will suffer to be tricked.
— Niccolς Machiavelli, The Prince, 1514.

There is nothing more difficult to take in hand, more perilous to conduct, or more uncertain in its success, than to take the lead in the introduction of a new order to things.
— Niccolς Machiavelli, The Prince, 1514.

It isn't the people you fire who make your life miserable, it's the people you don't.
— Harvey Mackay

Many a man's tounge broke his nose.
— Seamus MacManus

The Anglo-Saxon conscience doesn't keep you from doing anything. It just keeps you from enjoying it.
— Salvador de Madaringa

A popular government without popular information or the means of acquiring it, is but a Prologue to Farce, or a Tragedy, or perhaps both. Knowledge will forever govern ignorance. and a people who mean to be their own Governors, must arm themselves with the power which knowledge gives.
— James Madison

Of all enemies to public liberty, war is, perhaps, the most to be dreaded, because it comprises and develops the germ of every other. War is the parent of armies; from these proceed debts and taxes; and armies, and debts, and taxes are the known instruments for bringing the many under the domination of the few.
— James Madison

The church says the earth is flat. But I know it's round for I have seen its shadow on the moon and I have more faith in a shadow than the church
— Ferdinand Magellan, Portuguese navigator

You can tell whether a man is clever by his answers. You can tell whether a man is wise by his questions.
— Naguib Mahfouz

I am not a racist. I am against every form of racism and segregation, every form of discrimination. I believe in human beings, and that all human beings should be respected as such, regardless of their color.
— Malcolm X (1925–1965), perhaps in an interview January 18, 1965, in By Any Means, page 158

I believe in the brotherhood of man, all men, but I don't believe in brotherhood with anybody who doesn't want brotherhood with me. I believe in treating people right, but I'm not going to waste my time trying to treat somebody right who doesn't know how to return the treatment.
— Malcolm X (1925–65), Speech, 12 Dec. 1964, New York City.

I for one believe that if you give people a thorough understanding of what confronts them and the basic causes that produce it, they'll create their own program, and when the people create a program, you get action.
— Malcolm X (1925–65), (taken from the essay "Malcolm X, our revolutionary son & brother." by Patricia Robinson)

I might point out here that colonialism or imperialism, as the slave system of the West is called, is not something that is just confined to England or France or the United States. The interests in this country are in cahoots with the interests in France and the in terests in Britain. It's one huge complex or combine, and it creates what's known not as the American power structure or the French power structure, but an international power structure. This international power structure is used to suppress the masses of dark–skinned people all over the world and exploit them of their natural resources.
— Malcolm X (1925–65), February 14, 1965 (taken from the essay "Malcolm X, our revolutionary son & brother." by Patricia Robinson)

I think that an objective analysis of events that are taking place on this earth today points towards some type of ultimate showdown. You can call it political showdown, or even a showdown between the economic systems that exist on this earth which almost boil down along racial lines. I do believe that there will be a clash between East and West. I believe that there will ultimately be a clash between the oppressed and those that do the oppressing. I believe that there will be a clash between those who want freedom, justice and equality for everyone and those who want to continue the systems of exploitation.
— Malcolm X (1925–65), January 19, 1965 (taken from the essay "Malcolm X, our revolutionary son & brother." by Patricia Robinson)

I want Dr. King to know that I didn't come to Selma to make his job difficult. I really did come thinking I could make it easier. If the white people realize what the alternative is, perhaps they will be more willing to hear Dr. King.
— Malcolm X (1925–65), in Coretta Scott King, My life with MLK, Jr., page 256

If violence is wrong in America, violence is wrong abroad. If it is wrong to be violent defending black women and black children and black babies and black men, then it is wrong for America to draft us, and make us violent abroad in defense of her. And if it is right for America to draft us, and teach us how to be violent in defense of her, then it is right for you and me to do whatever is necessary to defend our own people right here in this country.
— Malcolm X (1925–65), speech, NYC, November 1963

If you're not ready to die for it, put the word "freedom" out of your vocabulary.
— Malcolm X (1925–65), Chicago Defender, November 28, 1962.

I'll say nothing against him. At one time the whites in the United States called him a racialist, and extremist, and a Communist. Then the Black Muslims came along and the whites thanked the Lord for Martin Luther King.
— Malcolm X (1925–65), speech to 300 Islamic students, from Manchester Guardian Weekly, December 10, 1964, page 6

It is a time for martyrs now, and if I am to be one, it will be for the cause of brotherhood. That's the only thing that can save this country.
— Malcolm X (1925–65), NYC, 19 February 1965

It is incorrect to classify the revolt of the Negro as simply a radical conflict of black against white or as a purely American problem. Rather, we are today seeing a global rebellion of the oppressed against the oppressor, the exploited against the exploiter.
— Malcolm X (1925–65), Columbia University, Columbia Daily Spectator, February 19, 1965, page 3

Asked by an British reporter wether he would accept communist support;
MALCOM X: Let me tell you a little story. It's like being in a wolf's den. The wolf sees someone on the outside who is interested in freeing me from the den. The wolf doesn't like that person on the outside. But I don't care who opens the door and lets me out.
REPORTER: Then your answer is yes?
MALCOM X (grinning): No, I'm talking about a wolf.
— Malcolm X (1925–65), National Guardian, March 21, 1964, page 4

Look at yourselves. Some of you teenagers, students. How do you think I feel and I belong to a generation ahead of you — how do you think I feel to have to tell you, "We, my generation, sat around like a knot on a wall while the whole world was fighting for its hum an rights — and you've got to be born into a society where you still have that same fight ." What did we do, who preceded you ? I'll tell you what we did. Nothing. And don't you make the same mistake we made...
— Malcolm X (1925–65), December 31, 1964 (taken from the essay "Malcolm X, our revolutionary son & brother." by Patricia Robinson)

Respect me, or put me to death.
— Malcolm X (1925–65), NYC, 5 July 1964

The common goal of 22 million Afro-Americans is respect as human beings, the God-given right to be a human being. Our common goal is to obtain the human rights that America has been denying us. We can never get civil rights in America until our human rights are first restored. We will never be recognized as citizens there until we are first recognized as humans.
— Malcolm X (1925–65), "Racism: the Cancer that is Destroying America," in Egyptian Gazette, August 25, 1964

The hospital strikers have demonstrated that you don't get a job done unless you show the Man you're not afraid...If you're not willing to pay that price, then you don't deserve the rewards or benefits that go along with it.
— Malcolm X (1925–65), speaking at a rally in support of striking 1199 hospital workers, New York, July 22, 1962

The price of freedom is death.
— Malcolm X (1925–65), NYC, June 1964

The same rebellion, the same impatience, the same anger that exists in the hearts of the dark people in Africa and Asia is existing in the hearts and minds of 20 million black people in this country who have been just as thoroughly colonized as the people in Af rica and Asia.
— Malcolm X (1925–65), "Separation or Integration," March 7, 1962

The white man knows what a revolution is. He knows that the Black Revolution is worldwide in scope and in nature. The Black Revolution is sweeping Asia, is sweeping Africa, is rearing its head in Latin America. The Cuban Revolution — that's a revolution. They overturned the system. Revolution is in Asia, revolution is in Africa, and the white man is screaming because he sees revolution in Latin America. How do you think he'll react to you when you learn what a real revolution is ?
— Malcolm X (1925–65), November 9, 1963 (taken from the essay "Malcolm X, our revolutionary son & brother." by Patricia Robinson)

We declare our right on this earth ... to be a human being, to be respected as a human being, to be given the rights of a human being in this society, on this earth, in this day, which we intend to bring into existence by any means necessary.
— Malcolm X (1925–65), June 28,1964, at the OAAU Founding Rally

We're not Americans, we're Africans who happen to be in America. We were kidnapped and brought here against our will from Africa. We didn't land on Plymouth Rock — that rock landed on us.
— Malcolm X (1925–65), Harlem, cited in Goldman, The Death and Life of Malcolm X, page 157

When a person places the proper value on freedom, there is nothing under the sun that he will not do to acquire that freedom. Whenever you hear a man saying he wants freedom, but in the next breath he is going to tell you what he won't do to get it, or what he doesn't believe in doing in order to get it, he doesn't believe in freedom. A man who believes in freedom will do anything under the sun to acquire ... or preserve his freedom.
— Malcolm X (1925–65), OAAU, "Homecoming" speech, November 29, 1964, in By Any Means, page 141

When you go to a chruch and you see the pastor of that church with a philosophy and a program that's designed to bring black people together and elevate black people, join that church! If you see where the NAACP is preaching and practising that which is designed to make black nationalism materialize, join the NAACP. Join any kind of organization — civic, religious, fraternal, political or otherwise — that's based on lifting ... the black man up and making him master of his own community.
— Malcolm X (1925–65), "The Ballot or the Bullet," Detroit

You don't have to be a man to fight for freedom. All you have to do is to be an intelligent human being.
— Malcolm X (1925–65), NYC, December 20, 1964

You show me a capitalist and I'll show you a bloodsucker.
— Malcolm X (1925–65), NYC, December 20, 1964

You're not supposed to be so blind with patriotism that you can't face reality. Wrong is wrong, no matter who does it or who says it.
— Malcolm X (1925–65), Malcolm X Speaks, 1765

Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.
— Nelson Mandela (1918–), South African activist, first Black president

Let freedom reign. The sun never set on such a glorious achievement.
— Nelson Mandela (1918–), South African activist, first Black president

When the water starts boiling it is foolish to turn off the heat.
— Nelson Mandela (1918–), South African activist, first Black president

Never hide behind busy work. It takes just as much energy to fail as it does to succeed. You must constantly guard against the trap of falling into a routine of remaining busy with unimportant chores that will provide you with an excuse to avoid meaningful challenges or opportunities that could change your life for the better. Your hours are your most precious possession. This day is all you have. Waste not a minute.
— Og Mandino

Beginning today, treat everyone you meet as if they were going to be dead by midnight. Extend to them all the care, kindness, and understanding you can muster, and do it with no thought of any reward. Your life will never be the same again.
— Og Mandino

A man's dying is more the survivors' affair than his own.
— Thomas Mann

A teacher who is attempting to teach without inspiring the pupil with a desire to learn is hammering on a cold iron.
— Horace Mann, educator

It is more difficult, and it calls for higher energies of soul, to live a martyr than to die one.
— Horace Mann, educator

The ultimate leader is one who is willing to develop people to the point that they surpass him or her in knowledge and ability.
— Fred A. Manske, Jr.

Years ago it meant something to be crazy, now everybody's crazy.
— Charles Manson

It's beyond fascism and it's beyond racism and sexism. If you were to say "I like only white people," there's a bunch of white people that suck and make it under the fence and they get a free ride. So I couldn't possibly like only white people. I judge people on their intelligence and on their personality. I think the only thing that counts in the world is what you can contribute to society. That's why in a perfect world, America would be run by artists, musicians, writers, and people of that nature because these are the people that make the world worth living.
— Marilyn Manson

A revolution is not a dinner party, or writing an essay, or painting a picture, or doing embroidery; it cannot be so refined, so leisurely and gentle, so temperate, kind, courteous, restrained and magnanimous. A revolution is an insurrection, an act of violence by which one class overthrows another.
— Mao Zedong

I have witnessed the tremendous energy of the masses. On this foundation it is possible to accomplish any task whatsoever.
— Mao Zedong

In waking a tiger, use a long stick.
— Mao Zedong

Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun.
— Mao Zedong

Politics is war without bloodshed while war is politics with bloodshed.
— Mao Zedong

So long as a person who has made mistakes... honestly and sincerely wishes to be cured and to mend his ways, we should welcome him and cure his sickness so that he can become a good comrade. We can never succeed if we just let ourselves go and lash at him.
— Mao Zedong

The people, and the people alone, are the motive force in the making of world history.
— Mao Zedong

War can only be abolished through war, and in order to get rid of the gun it is necessary to take up the gun.
— Mao Zedong

Weapons are an important factor in war, but not the decisive factor; it is people, not things, that are decisive. The contest of strength is not only a contest of military and economic power, but also a contest of human power and morale. Military and economic power is necessarily wielded by people.
— Mao Zedong

I did not have three thousand pairs of shoes, I had one thousand and sixty.
— Imelda Marcos, 1987

We win half the battle when we make up our minds to take the world as we find it, including the thorns.
— Orison Sweet Marden

Talk happiness. The world is sad enough without your woe.
— Orison Sweet Marden

Get up, stand up! Stand up for your right! Don't give up the fight!
— Bob Marley, "Get Up, Stand Up!"

When a man tells you that he got rich through hard work, ask him whose.
— Don Marquis, Journalist

If you are poor today, you will always be poor. Only the rich now acquired riches.
— Roman Emperor Martial: Epigrams

He may look like an idiot and talk like an idiot but don't let that fool you. He really is an idiot.
— Julius Henry (Groucho) Marx

I remember the first time I had sex — I kept the receipt.
— Julius Henry (Groucho) Marx

I've had a perfectly wonderful evening. But this wasn't it.
— Julius Henry (Groucho) Marx

Military intelligence is a contradiction in terms.
— Julius Henry (Groucho) Marx

Military justice is to justice what military music is to music.
— Julius Henry (Groucho) Marx

Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend. Inside of a dog it's too dark to read.
— Julius Henry (Groucho) Marx

Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly, and applying the wrong remedies.
— Julius Henry (Groucho) Marx

She got her good looks from her father. He's a plastic surgeon.
— Julius Henry (Groucho) Marx

Some people claim that marriage interferes with romance. There's no doubt about it. Anytime you have a romance, your wife is bound to interfere.
— Julius Henry (Groucho) Marx

Workers of the World Unite! You have nothing to lose but your chains.
— Karl Marx

A specter is haunting Europe — the specter of Communism.
— Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, The Communist Manifesto

Philosophers have merely interpreted the world. The point is to change it.
— Karl Marx

The capitalist system carries within itself the seeds of its own destruction.
— Karl Marx

From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs.
— Karl Marx

Capital is money, capital is commodities. By virtue of it being value, it has acquired the occult ability to add value to itself. It brings forth living offspring, or at the least, lays golden eggs.
— Karl Marx

The writer must earn money in order to be able to live and to write, but he must by no means live and write for the purpose of making money.
— Karl Marx

On a level plain, simple mounds look like hills; and the insipid flatness of our present bourgeoisie is to be measured by the altitude of its "great intellects."
— Karl Marx

Mankind always sets itself only such tasks as it can solve; since, looking at the matter more closely, we will always find that the task itself arises only when the material conditions necessary for its solution already exist or at least are in the process of formation.
— Karl Marx

The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles.
— Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels

Capital is dead labor that, vampire-like, lives only by sucking living labor, and lives the more, the more labor it sucks.
— Karl Marx: Capital, 1867

Constant labor of one uniform kind destroys the intensity and flow of a man's animal spirits, which find recreation and delight in mere change of activity.
— Karl Marx: Capital, 1867

There are three rules to writing fiction. Unfortunately, no one knows what they are.
— W. Somerset Maugham (1874–1965)

If a nation values anything more than freedom, it will lose its freedom, and the irony of it is that if it is comfort or money that it values more, it will lose that too.
— W. Somerset Maugham (1874–1965)

D'you call life a bad job? Never! We've had our ups and downs, we've had our struggles, we've always been poor, but it's been worth it, ay, worth it a hundred times I say when I look round at my children.
— W. Somerset Maugham (1874–1965), Of Human Bondage, 1915.

A man must be big enough to admit his mistakes, smart enough to profit from them, and strong enough to correct them.
— John C. Maxwell

A good leader is a person who takes a little more than his share of the blame and a little less than his share of the credit.
— John C. Maxwell

Good executives never put off until tomorrow what they can get someone else to do today.
— John C. Maxwell

A big man is one who makes us feel bigger when we are with him.
— John C. Maxwell

People buy into the leader before they buy into the vision.
— John C. Maxwell

Learn to say "no" to the good so you can say "yes" to the best.
— John C. Maxwell

Leadership is influence.
— John C. Maxwell

The relationship between commitment and doubt is by no means an antagonistic one. Commitment is healthiest when it not without doubt but in spite of doubt.
— Rollo May

The only thing that saves us from the bureaucracy is its inefficiency.
— Eugene McCarthy, U.S. senator and presidential candidate

Always question. Always analyze. But in the end, suspend judgment until you've been there. Live it to learn it.
— Mark McClinchie

If the button is pushed, there's no running away. There'll be no one to save with the world in a grave.
— P.F. Sloan/Barry McGuire, "The Eve of Destruction"

You’re old enough to kill, but not for votin’. You don’t believe in war, but what's that gun you’re totin’?
— P.F. Sloan/Barry McGuire, "The Eve of Destruction"

Yes, risk-taking is inherently failure-prone. Otherwise, it would be called sure-thing taking.
— Tim McMahon

Every society honors its live conformists and its dead troublemakers.
— Mignon McLaughlin

I'm a lean dog, a keen dog, a wild dog, and lone;
I'm a rough dog, a tough dog, hunting on my own;
I'm a bad dog, a mad dog, teasing silly sheep;
I love to sit and bay the moon, to keep fat souls from sleep.
 
I'll never be a lap dog, licking dirty feet,
A sleek dog, a meek dog, cringing for my meat,
Not for me the fireside, the well-filled plate,
But shut door, and sharp stone, and cuff and kick, and hate.
 
Not for me the other dogs, running by my side,
Some have run a short while, but none of them would bide.
O mine is still the lone trail, the hard trail, the best,
Wide wind, and wild stars, and hunger of the quest!
— Irene Rutherford Mcleod (1891–1953) "Lone Dog"

The only thing I'd rather own than Windows is English. Then I'd be able to charge you an upgrade fee every time I add new letters like N and T.
— Scott McNealy, chairman of Sun Microsystems, Inc.

Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it's the only thing that ever has.
— Margaret Mead, anthropologist

We won't have a society if we destroy the environment.
— Margaret Mead, anthropologist

[F]riends praise your abilities to the skies, submit to you in argument, and seem to have the greatest deference for you; but, though they may ask it, you never find them following your advice upon their own affairs; nor allowing you to manage your own.
— William Lamb Melbourne (1779–1848) English prime minister, quoted in The Young Melbourne, chapter 9, by David Cecil, 1939

[I]t is safest to take the unpopular side in the first instance. Transit from the unpopular, is easy. . . but from the popular to the unpopular is so steep and rugged that it is impossible to maintain it.
— William Lamb Melbourne (1779–1848) English prime minister, quoted in Lord M, chapter 4, by David Cecil, 1954.

It wounds a man less to confess that he has failed in any pursuit through idleness, neglect, the love of pleasure, etc., etc., which are his own faults, than through incapacity and unfitness, which are the faults of his nature.
— William Lamb Melbourne (1779–1848) English prime minister, quoted in The Young Melbourne, chapter 9, by David Cecil, 1939

Neither man nor woman can be worth anything until they have discovered that they are fools. The sooner the discovery is made the better, as there is more time and power for taking advantage of it.
— William Lamb Melbourne (1779–1848) English prime minister, quoted in The Young Melbourne, chapter 9, by David Cecil, 1939

Nobody ever did anything very foolish except from some strong principle.
— William Lamb Melbourne (1779–1848) English prime minister, quoted in The Young Melbourne, chapter 9, by David Cecil, 1939

The school of hard knocks is an accelerated curriculum.
— Menander

 

More on    Henry Louis Mencken (1880–1956)

Conscience is the inner voice that warns us somebody is looking.
— H. L. Mencken

Criticism is prejudice made plausible.
— H. L. Mencken

If, after I depart this vale, you ever remember me and have thought to please my ghost, forgive some sinner and wink your eye at some homely girl.
— H.L. Mencken

If George Washington were alive today, what a shining mark he would be for the whole camorra of uplifters, forward-lookers and professional patriots! He was the Rockefeller of his time, a promoter of stock companies, a land-grabber, an exploiter of mines and timber.... He was not pious. He drank whiskey whenever he felt chilly, and kept a jug of it handy. He knew far more profanity than Scripture, and used and enjoyed it more. He had no belief in the infallible wisdom of the common people, but regarded them as inflammatory dolts and tried to save the Republic from them.... He took no interest in the private morals of his neighbors.
Inhabiting these States today, George would be ineligible for any office of honor or profit.
— 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

Puritanism is the haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy.
— H. L. Mencken

The older I grow the more I distrust the familiar doctrine that age brings wisdom.
— H. L. Mencken

The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.
— H. L. Mencken

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

It is certainly sordid to do the wrong thing, and anyone can do the right thing when there is no danger attached; what distinguishes the good man from others is that when danger is involved he still does right.
— Quintus Caecilius Metellus Numidicus, (died about 91 BC), Roman soldier and statesman, consul in 109 BC

Lord, grant that I may always desire more than I can accomplish.
— Michelangelo (1475–1564), Italian artist

Character consists of what you do on the third and fourth tries.
— James A. Michener

The disappearance of a sense of responsibility is the most far-reaching consequence of submission to authority.
— Stanley Milgram

All good things which exist are the fruits of originality.
— John Stuart Mill (1806–1873), British philosopher-economist, Principles of Political Economy

Ask yourself whether you are happy and you cease to be so.
— John Stuart Mill (1806–1873), British philosopher-economist, Principles of Political Economy

Conservatives are not necessarily stupid, but most stupid people are conservatives.
— John Stuart Mill (1806–1873), British philosopher-economist, Principles of Political Economy

Men do not desire to be rich, but to be richer than other men.
— John Stuart Mill (1806–1873), British philosopher-economist

Marriage is the only actual bondage known to our law. There remain no legal slaves, except the mistress of every house.
— John Stuart Mill (1806–1873), British philosopher-economist, The Subjection of Women, Chapter 4 (1869)

No one can be a great thinker who does not recognize that as a thinker it is his first duty to follow his intellect to whatever conclusions it may lead.
— John Stuart Mill (1806–1873), British philosopher-economist

Popular opinions, on subjects not palpable to sense, are often true, but seldom or never the whole truth.
— John Stuart Mill (1806–1873), British philosopher-economist, Principles of Political Economy

Solitude, in the sense of being often alone, is essential to any depth of meditation or of character; and solitude in the presence of natural beauty and grandeur, is the cradle of thought and aspirations which are not only good for the individual, but which society could ill do without.
— John Stuart Mill (1806–1873), British philosopher-economist, Principles of Political Economy

That so few now dare to be eccentric, marks the chief danger of our time.
— John Stuart Mill (1806–1873), British philosopher-economist, Principles of Political Economy

That which seems the height of absurdity in one generation often becomes the height of wisdom in the next.
— John Stuart Mill (1806–1873), British philosopher-economist, Principles of Political Economy

The pupil who is never required to do what he cannot do, never does what he can do.
— John Stuart Mill (1806–1873), British philosopher-economist, Principles of Political Economy

They who know how to employ opportunities will often find that they can create them; and what we can achieve depends less on the amount of time we possess than on the use we make of our time.
— John Stuart Mill (1806–1873), British philosopher-economist

I will be the gladdest thing
Under the sun!
I will touch a hundred flowers
And not pick one.
— Edna St. Vincent Millay (1892–1950), U.S. poet and author, "Afternoon on a Hill" (lines 1–4)

My candle burns at both ends; It will not last the night; But ah, my foes, and oh, my friends— It gives a lovely light.
— Edna St. Vincent Millay (1892–1950), U.S. poet and author, "First Fig," A Few Figs From Thistles (1920)

Childhood is not from birth to a certain age and at a certain age.
The child is grown, and puts away childish things.
Childhood is the kingdom where nobody dies.
Nobody that matters, that is.
— Edna St. Vincent Millay (1892–1950), U.S. poet and author, "Childhood Is the Kingdom Where Nobody Dies," Wine From the Grapes (1934).

Down, down, down into the darkness of the grave
Gently they go, the beautiful, the tender, the kind;
Quietly they go, the intelligent, the witty, the brave.
I know. But I do not approve. And I am not resigned.
— Edna St. Vincent Millay (1892–1950), U.S. poet and author, "Dirge without Music" (lines 13–16).

The road to success is always under construction.
— Jim Miller

You probably wouldn't worry about what people think of you if you could know how seldom they do.
— Olin Miller

 

More on    John Milton (1608–1674), English poet

... What in me is dark
Illumine, what is low raise and support,
That to the height of this great argument
I may assert eternal Providence,
And justify the ways of God to men.
— John Milton (1608–1674), English poet, Paradise Lost, Book I, Lines 22–26

Seest thou yon dreary plain, forlorn and wild,
The seat of desolation, void of light,
Save what the glimmering of these livid flames
Casts pale and dreadful? Thither let us tend
From off the tossing of these fiery waves;
There rest, if any rest can harbour there;
And, re–assembling our afflicted powers,
Consult how we may henceforth most offend
Our Enemy, our own loss how repair,
How overcome this dire calamity,
What reinforcement we may gain from hope,
If not what resolution from despair
— John Milton (1608–1674), English poet, Paradise Lost, Book I, Lines 180–191

"Is this the region, this the soil, the clime,"
Said then the lost Archangel, "this the seat
That we must change for Heaven?—this mournful gloom
For that celestial light? Be it so, since He
Who now is sovran can dispose and bid
What shall be right: fardest from Him is best,
Whom reason hath equalled, force hath made supreme
Above his equals. Farewell, happy fields,
Where joy forever dwells! Hail, horrors! hail,
Infernal World! and thou, profoundest Hell,
Receive thy new possessor — one who brings
A mind not to be changed by place or time.
The mind is its own place, and in itself
Can make a Heaven of Hell, a Hell of Heaven.
What matter where, if I be still the same,
And what I should be, all but less than he
Whom thunder hath made greater? Here at least
We shall be free; the Almighty hath not built
Here for his envy, will not drive us hence:
Here we may reign secure; and, in my choice,
To reign is worth ambition, though in Hell:
Better to reign in Hell than serve in Heaven."
— John Milton (1608–1674), English poet, Paradise Lost, Book I, Lines 242–263

What may this mean? Language of Man pronounced
By tongue of brute, and human sense expressed!
The first at least of these I thought denied
To beasts, whom God on their creation-day
Created mute to all articulate sound;
The latter I demur, for in their looks
Much reason, and in their actions, oft appears.
— John Milton (1608–1674), English poet, Paradise Lost, Book IX, Lines 553–559

Copy from one, it's plagiarism; copy from two, it's research.
— Wilson Mizner

A man's treatment of money is the most decisive test of his character... how he makes it and how he spends it.
— James Moffatt

I live on good soup, not on fine words.
— Jean Baptiste Poquelin Moliere(1622–1673), French comic playwright, Chrysale, in The Learned Ladies (Les Femmes Savantes), act 2, scene 7 (1672).

A learned fool is more a fool than an ignorant fool.
— Jean Baptiste Poquelin Moliere(1622–1673), French comic playwright, Clitandre, in The Learned Ladies (Les Femmes Savantes), act 4, scene 3 (1672).

They [zealots] would have everybody be as blind as themselves: to them, to be clear-sighted is libertinism.
— Jean Baptiste Poquelin Moliere(1622–1673), French comic playwright, Clιante, in Tartuffe, act 1, scene 5 (1664).

Hell hath no fury like a crooked politician denied his cut.
— Benjamin J. Montalbano

The greatest motivational act one person can do for another is to listen.
— Roy E. Moody

To know one thing, you must know the opposite.
— Henry Moore

Evil will always triumph, because good is dumb.
— Rick Moranis

An enterprise culture is one in which every individual understands that the world does not owe him or her a living.
— Peter Morgan

You have not converted a man because you have silenced him.
— John Morley

He who has nothing to die for has nothing to live for.
— Moroccan Proverb

Freedom is being able to live with the consequences of your decisions.
— James X. Mullen

A little inaccuracy sometimes saves a ton of explanation.
— H. H. Munro (Saki)(1870–1916), British short story writer

We cannot defend freedom abroad by deserting it at home.
— Edward R. Murrow

The masses have little time to think. And how incredible is the willingness of modern man to believe.
— Benito Mussolini (1883–1945), fascist premier-dictator of Italy 1922–1943)

N <     

I start with the premise that the function of leadership is to produce more leaders, not more followers.
— Ralph Nader

The genius of you Americans is that you never make clear-cut stupid moves, only complicated stupid moves which make us wonder at the possibility that there may be something to them which we are missing.
— Abdel Gamel Nasser

Of those who say nothing, few are silent.
— Thomas Neill

I could not tread these perilous paths in safety, if I did not keep a saving sense of humor.
— Lord Nelson

Par is whatever I say it is. I've got one hole that's a par 23 and yesterday I damn near birdied the sucker.
— Willie Nelson

Professor Goddard does not know the relation between action and reaction and the need to have something better than a vacuum against which to react. He seems to lack the basic knowledge ladled out daily in high schools.
— 1921 New York Times editorial about Robert Goddard's revolutionary rocket work.

Crime does not pay... as well as politics.
— A. E. Newman

People forget how fast you did a job, but they remember how well you did it.
— Howard W. Newton

We have two evils to fight, capitalism and racism. We must destroy both racism and capitalism.
— Huey P. Newton, Interview, 1968

If I have seen further [than certain other men] it is by standing upon the shoulders of giants.
— Isaac Newton (1642–1727), British physicist, mathematician, universal genius. Letter to Robert Hooke, February 5, 1675.

I do not know what I may appear to the world; but to myself I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the seashore, and diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me.
— Isaac Newton (1642–1727), British physicist, mathematician, universal genius. Memoirs of Newton, v. II, ch. 27, ed. Brewster (1855).

God, give us grace to accept with serenity the things that cannot be changed, courage to change the things which should be changed, and the wisdom to distinguish the one from the other.
— Reinhold Niebuhr

In Germany, they first came for the communists, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a communist. Then they came for the Jews, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist. Then they came for the Catholics and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Catholic. Then they came for me — and by that time there was nobody left to speak up.
— Pastor Martin Niemoller, 1945

On the mountains of truth you can never climb in vain: either you will reach a point higher up today, or you will be training your powers so that you will be able to climb higher tomorrow.
—Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (1844–1900), German philosopher, poet, and classical philologist

The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher esteem those who think alike than those who think differently.
—Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche

The doer alone learneth.
— Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (1844–1900), German philosopher, poet, and classical philologist

In individuals, insanity is rare; but in groups, parties, nations, and epochs it is the rule.
— Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (1844–1900), German philosopher, poet, and classical philologist: Beyond Good and Evil

Plato was a bore.
— Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (1844–1900), German philosopher, poet, and classical philologist

We become what we think about.
— Earl Nightingale

A ship is always referred to as "she" because it costs so much to keep one in paint and powder.
— Admiral Chester Nimitz

Greetings, I am pleased to see that we are different. May we together become greater than the sum of both of us.
— Leonard Nimoy

And all the decisions I have made in my public life I have always tried to do what was best for the nation.... In the past few days, however, it has become evident to me that I no longer have a strong enough political base in Congress to justify continuing that effort.... I would have preferred to carry through to the finish whatever the personal agony it would have involved, and my family unanimously urged me to do so.... I have never been a quitter.... To leave office before my term is completed is opposed to every instinct in my body.
— Richard M. Nixon (Resignation speech, August 8, 1974)

I condemn any attempts to cover up in this case, no matter who is involved.
— Richard M. Nixon

I was under medication when I made the decision not to burn the tapes.
— Richard M. Nixon

I don’t give a shit what happens. I want you all to stonewall it, let them plead the Fifth Amendment, cover up or anything else, if it’ll save it — save this plan. That’s the whole point. We’re going to protect our people if we can.
— Richard M. Nixon

I want a break-in ... I want the Brookings safe cleaned out. And have it cleaned out in a way that makes somebody else look bad.
— Richard M. Nixon

I would have made a good pope.
— Richard M. Nixon

Let us understand: North Vietnam cannot defeat or humiliate the United States. Only Americans can do that.
— Richard M. Nixon, 1969

Once a man has been in politics, once that’s been in his life, he will always return if the people want him.
— Richard M. Nixon

Once you’re in the stream of history you can’t get out.
— Richard M. Nixon

Please get me the names of the Jews. You know, the big Jewish contributors of the Democrats? Could we please investigate some of those cocksuckers?
— Richard M. Nixon

Politics would be a helluva good business if it weren't for the goddamned people.
—Richard M. Nixon

Voters quickly forget what a man says.
— Richard M. Nixon

When the president does it, that means that it is not illegal.
— Richard M. Nixon

You won’t have Nixon to kick around any more, because gentlemen, this is my last press conference.
— Richard M. Nixon

If I have a thousand ideas and only one turns out to be good, I am satisfied.
— Alfred Nobel

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More on   Phil Ochs, (1941-1976) U.S. folksinger

A protest song is a song that's so specific that you cannot mistake it for bullshit.
— Phil Ochs, from the liner notes of The Broadside Tapes

And I won't be laughing at the lies when I'm gone
And I can't question how or when or why when I'm gone
Can't live proud enough to die when I'm gone
So I guess I'll have to do it while I'm here
— Phil Ochs, from When I'm Gone

And if there's any hope for America, it lies in a revolution, and if there's any hope for a revolution in America, it lies in getting Elvis Presley to become Che Guevara.
— Phil Ochs, from the liner notes of &The Broadside Tapes

Before the days of television and mass media, the folksinger was often a traveling newspaper spreading tales through music. There is an urgent need for Americans to look deeply into themselves and their actions, and musical poetry is perhaps the most effective mirror available. Every newspaper headline is a potential song.
— Phil Ochs, from his intro to "The Marines Have Landed on the Shores of Santo Domingo" on Phil Ochs in Concert and There But For Fortune

I can spare a dime, brother, but in these morally inflationary times, a dime goes a lot farther if it's demanding work rather than adding to the indignity of relief.
— Phil Ochs, from the liner notes of I Ain't Marching Anymore

I was over there, entertaining the troops. I won't say which troops.
— Phil Ochs, intro to "The World Began In Eden And Ended in Los Angeles" on There and Now — Live in Vancouver 1968

In the heat of the summer
 When the pavements were burning
  The soul of a city was ravaged in the night
   After the city sun was sinkin'
Now no one knows how it started
 why the windows were shattered
  But deep in the dark, someone set the spark
   And then it no longer mattered.
— Phil Ochs, from "In The Heat Of The Summer"

In the tube where I was killed
I was fulfilled
The lies of light would bend
I'd stare until the end
And then again
Faded and the fad
I gave all the mind I had
And whenever I was sad
I had my friends
And now it can be told
I'm a quarter of a century old
But I'm half a century high
— Phil Ochs, from "Half A Century High" on Tape From California

It is wrong to expect a reward for your struggles. The reward is the act of struggle itself, not what you win. Even though you can't expect to defeat the absurdity of the world, you must make that attempt. That's morality, that's religion. That's art. That's life.
— Phil Ochs, from An American Ordeal: The Antiwar Movement of the Vietnam Period by Charles DeBenedetti (Syracuse Univ. Press, 1990).

Leave the old and dying America and use your creative energies to help form a new America, which would be de-militarized, more humanistic, where the police are less hostile and closer to the community, where the wealthy are not given unleashed power for the exploitation of the people. "And, mostly because it's now a matter of life and death, reassert an ecological balance with the environment, which means the people in the oil companies and the car companies and the space industry and all the other industries will have to be brought into account, so that there will be a new definition of government which has to be closer to the people and less close to special interests which are far more harmful than any revolutionaries.
— Phil Ochs, from the liner notes of &The Broadside Tapes

Leaving America is like losing twenty pounds and finding a new girlfriend.
— Phil Ochs, from the liner notes of The Broadside Tapes

[The demonstrations were] merely an attack of mental disobedience on an obediently insane society...and if you feel you have been living in an unreal world for the last couple of years, it is particularly because this power structure has refused to listen to reason...Step outside the guidelines of the official umpires and make your own rules and your own reality.
— Phil Ochs

Up and down and all around we took our restless ride,
 And the rocks they were staring cold and jagged.
  Where explosions of the powder had torn away the side,
   Where we drove through the hills of West Virginia.
And the orange sun was falling on the southern border line,
 As the shadows of the night were now returning.
  And we knew the mountains followed us and watched us from behind,
   When we drove from the hills of West Virginia.
— Phil Ochs, from "The Hills of West Virginia"

When they show the destruction of society on color TV, I want to be able to look out over Los Angeles and make sure they get it right.
— Phil Ochs, from the liner notes of The Broadside Tapes

Read your morning papers, read every single line
And tell me if you can believe that simple world you find
Read every slanted word till your eyes are getting sore,
I know you're set for fighting, but what are you fighting for?
— Phil Ochs, from "What Are You Fighting For"

Remember the two benefits of failure. First, if you do fail, you learn what doesn't work; and second, the failure gives you the opportunity to try a new approach.
— Roger von Oech

First, make yourself a reputation for being a creative genius. Second, surround youself with partners who are better than you are. Third, leave them go get on with it.
— David Ogilvy

Make sure you have a Vice President in charge of Revolution, to engender ferment among your more conventional colleagues.
— David Ogilvy

Nothing in poverty so ill is borne
As its exposing men to grinning scorn.
— John Oldham (1653–1683), English poet Third Satire of Juvenal

There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home.
— Ken Olson, president, chairman and founder of Digital Equipment Corp., 1977.

To be successful, keep looking tanned, live in an elegant building (even if you're in the cellar), be seen in smart restaurants (even if you nurse one drink) and if you borrow, borrow big.
— Aristotle Onassis, Greek shipping magnate

If women didn't exist, all the money in the world would have no meaning.
— Aristotle Onassis, Greek shipping magnate

The secret of success is to know something nobody else knows.
— Aristotle Onassis, Greek shipping magnate

Every day I get up and look through the Forbes list of the richest people in America. If I'm not there, I go to work.
— Robert Orben

I take my children everywhere, but they always find their way back home.
— Robert Orben

Illegal aliens have always been a problem in the United States. Ask any Indian.
— Robert Orben

Most people would like to be delivered from temptation but would like it to keep in touch.
— Robert Orben

Never raise your hand to your children; it leaves your midsection unprotected.
— Robert Orben

Quit worrying about your health. It'll go away.
— Robert Orben

There's so much pollution in the air now that if it weren't for our lungs there'd be no place to put it all.
— Robert Orben

To err is human--and to blame it on a computer is even more so.
— Robert Orben

Always read stuff that will make you look good if you die in the middle of it.
— P. J. O'Rourke

Making fun of born-again Christians is like hunting dairy cows with a high-powered rifle and scope.
— P.J. O'Rourke

 

More on    George Orwell [Eric Arthur Blair] (1903-1950) British writer

Creeds like pacifism or anarchism, which seem on the surface to imply a complete renunciation of power, rather encourage this habit of mind. For if you have embraced a creed which appears to be free from the ordinary dirtiness of politics ... the more you are in the right (and) everybody else should be bullied into thinking otherwise.
— George Orwell, The Road To Wigan Pier

Doublethink means the power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one's mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them.
— George Orwell, Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949)

For a creative writer possession of the truth is less important than emotional sincerity.
— George Orwell

He was an embittered atheist the sort of atheist who does not so much disbelieve in God as personally dislike Him.
— George Orwell, Down and Out in Paris and London (1933)

If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.
— George Orwell, Animal Farm (1945)

No doubt alcohol, tobacco, and so forth, are things that a saint must avoid, but sainthood is also a thing that human beings must avoid... Many people genuinely do not wish to be saints, and it is probable that some who achieve or aspire to sainthood have never felt much temptation to be human beings.
— George Orwell, Reflections on Gandhi (1949)

One defeats a fanatic precisely by not being a fanatic oneself, but on the contrary by using one’s intelligence.
— George Orwell, (1949), quoted from Laird Wilcox, editor, "The Degeneration of Belief"

One must choose between God and Man, and all "radicals" and "progressives", from the mildest liberal to the most extreme anarchist, have in effect chosen Man.
— George Orwell, Orwell Reader

Saints should always be judged guilty until they are proved innocent.
— George Orwell, Reflections on Gandhi (1949)

The great enemy of clear language is insincerity.
— George Orwell

To see what is in front of one's nose requires a constant struggle.
— George Orwell

What can you do against the lunatic who is more intelligent than yourself, who gives your arguments a fair hearing and then simply persists in his lunacy?
— George Orwell: Winston Smith, in Nineteen Eighty-Four, (1949), speaking of O'Brien

Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past.
— George Orwell

Watch your thoughts; they become words. Watch your words; they become actions. Watch your actions; they become habits. Watch your habits; they become character. Watch your character; it becomes your destiny.
—Frank Outlaw

When we walk to the edge of all the light we have and take the step into the darkness of the unknown, we must believe that one of two things will happen. There will be something solid for us to stand on or we will be taught to fly.
—Patrick Overton

P<     

Louis Pasteur's theory of germs is ridiculous fiction.
— Pierre Pachet, Professor of Physiology at Toulouse, 1872.

A number of things that I put in [the diary] were inaccurate, and some of them simply weren't true....On occasion, I discovered I would recount conversations that simply didn't happen.
— Sen. Bob Packwood, referring to his infamous diaries in which he boasted of his sexual dalliances with staff members

Character is much easier kept than recovered.
— Thomas Paine

He who would make his own liberty secure must guard even his enemy from oppression; for if he violates this duty he establishes a precedent that will reach to himself.
— Thomas Paine

Work expands so as to fill the time avaliable for its completion.
— C. Northcote Parkinson

The cure for boredom is curiosity. There is no cure for curiosity.
— Ellen Parr

It is the fight alone that pleases us, not the victory.
— Blaise Pascal

Let me tell you the secret that has led me to my goal: my strength lies solely in my tenacity.
— Louis Pasteur

The secret of discipline is motivation. When a man is sufficiently motivated, discipline will take care of itself.
— Sir Alexander Paterson

Never tell people how to do things. Tell them what to do and they will surprise you with their ingenuity.
— General George S. Patton

I don't measure a man's success by how high he climbs but how high he bounces when he hits bottom.
— General George S. Patton

The object of war is not to die for your country but to make the other bastard die for his.
— General George S. Patton

Watch what people are cynical about, and one can often discover what they lack.
— General George S. Patton

Do your damnedest in an ostentatious manner all the time.
— General George S. Patton

Lead me, follow me, or get out of my way.
— General George S. Patton

Courage is fear holding on a minute longer.
— General George S. Patton

If a man does his best, what else is there?
— General George S. Patton

A pint of sweat, saves a gallon of blood.
— General George S. Patton

The best way to have a good idea is to have lots of ideas.
— Linus Pauling

Respectable means rich, and decent means poor. I should die if I heard my family called decent.
— Thomas Love Peacock (1785–1866), English author. Lady Clarinda, in Crotchet Castle, 1831

Luck is when preparation meets opportunity.
— Neil Peart

One of the secrets of life is to make stepping stones out of stumbling blocks.
— Jack Penn

Once we recognize the fact that every individual is a treasury of hidden and unsuspected qualities, our lives become righer, our judgement better, and our world is more right. It is not love that is blind, it is only the unnoticing eye that cannot see the real qualites of people.
— Charles H. Percy

It's no use to blame the looking glass if your face is awry.
— S.J. Perelman

After you've done a thing the same way for two years, look it over carefully. After five years, look at it with suspicion. And after ten years, throw it away and start all over.
— Alfred Edward Perlman

If you don't know where you are going, you will probably end up somewhere else.
— Dr. Laurence J. Peter

Life is pretty simple: You do some stuff. Most fails. Some works. You do more of what works. If it works big, others quickly copy it. Then you do something else. The trick is the doing something else.
— Thomas Peters

The simple act of paying positive attention to people has a great deal to do with productivity.
— Thomas Peters

[The Reagan] administration’s foreign policy has been to kiss the Russian bear’s bottom, and he keeps turning the other cheek.
— Howard Phillips, Chairman, Conservative Caucus, on swap of journalist Nicholas Daniloff for accused Soviet agent Gennadi Zakharov, Time 13 Oct 86

When you are young and without success, you have only a few friends. Then, later on, when you are rich and famous, you still have a few... if you are lucky.
— Pablo Picasso

I am always doing that which I can not do, in order that I may learn how to do it.
— Pablo Picasso

Necessity is the mother of invention.
— Plato

Any city, however small, is in fact divided into two, one the city of the poor, the other of the rich; these are at war with one another.
— Plato The Republic, 370 BC

Life must be lived as play.
— Plato

Fools speak because they have to say something.Geniuses speak because they have something to say.
— Plato

The harder you work, the luckier you get.
— Gary Player

The mind is not a vessel to be filled but a fire to be kindled.
— Plutarch (?–120 BC)

All we see is but a dream within a dream.
— Edgar Allan Poe

Those who dream by day are cognizant of many things which escape those who dream only by night.
— Edgar Allan Poe

To err is human, to forgive divine.
— Alexander Pope

When rumors increase, and when there is an abundance of noise and clamor, believe the second report.
— Alexander Pope

Hope springs eternal in the human breast;
Man never is, but always to be, blest.
— Alexander Pope

The public is a fool.
— Alexander Pope

A little learning is a dangerous thing;
Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring.
— Alexander Pope

Fools rush in where angels fear to tread
— Alexander Pope

Computers in the future may weigh no more than 1.5 tons.
— Popular Mechanics, forecasting the relentless march of science, 1949

There are no secrets to success. It is the result of preparation, hard work, and learning from failure.
— Colin Powell

They talk most who have the least to say.
— Mathew Prior

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More on    Dan Quayle, U.S. politician

A low voter turnout is an indication of fewer people going to the polls.
— Dan Quayle, 1988

Bank failures are caused by depositors who don't deposit enough money to cover losses due to mismanagement.
— Dan Quayle, 1988

Hawaii has always been a very pivotal role in the Pacific. It is in the Pacific. It is a part of the United States that is an island that is right here.
— Dan Quayle, Hawaii, September 1989.

I believe we are on an irreversible trend toward more freedom and democracy — but that could change.
— Dan Quayle

I love California, I practically grew up in Phoenix.
— Dan Quayle

I stand by all the misstatements that I've made.
— Dan Quayle to Sam Donaldson, 8/17/89

I support efforts to limit the terms of members of Congress, especially members of the House and members of the Senate.
— Dan Quayle

If we do not succeed, then we run the risk of failure.
— Dan Quayle, to the Phoenix Republican Forum, March 1990.

It isn't pollution that's harming the environment. It's the impurities in our air and water that are doing it.
— Dan Quayle, 1988

[It's] time for the human race to enter the solar system.
— Dan Quayle

Mars is essentially in the same orbit... somewhat the same distance from the Sun, which is very important. We have seen pictures where there are canals, we believe, and water. If there is water, that means there is oxygen. If oxygen, that means we can breathe.
— Dan Quayle

One word sums up probably the responsibility of any vice president, and that one word is 'to be prepared'.
— Dan Quayle

Our party has been accused of fooling the public by calling tax increases 'revenue enhancement.' Not so. No one was fooled.
— Dan Quayle, 1988

People that are really very weird can get into sensitive positions and have a tremendous impact on history.
— Dan Quayle

Public speaking is very easy.
— Dan Quayle to reporters 10/88.

Quite frankly, teachers are the only profession that teach our children.
— Dan Quayle, 9/18/90

Republicans have been accused of abandoning the poor. It's the other way around. They never vote for us.
— Dan Quayle, 1988

The first year [1977] I spent getting my family moved to Washington. The second year I ran for re-election. Then as soon as I was elected, I started running for the Senate.
— Dan Quayle, describing his career in the House of Representatives.

[The U.S. victory in Gulf war was a] stirring victory for the forces of aggression.
— Dan Quayle

There are lots more people in the House. I don't know exactly — I've never counted, but at least a couple hundred.
—Dan Quayle, on the difference between the House and Senate

We expect them [Salvadoran officials] to work toward the elimination of human rights.
— Dan Quayle

We have a firm commitment to NATO, we are a part of NATO. We have a firm commitment to Europe. We are a part of Europe.
— Dan Quayle

Welcome to President Bush, Mrs. Bush, and my fellow astronauts.
— Dan Quayle

We're all capable of mistakes, but I do not care to enlighten you on the mistakes we may or may not have made.
— Dan Quayle

We're going to have the best-educated American people in the world.
— Dan Quayle, 9/21/88

What a terrible thing to have lost one's mind. Or not to have a mind at all. How true that is.
— Dan Quayle speaking to a United Negro College Fund conference.

R<     

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

Whoever commands the trade of the world commands the riches of the world and hence the world itself.
— Sir Walter Raleigh

 

More on    A. Philip Randolph, U.S. labor leader

Salvation for a race, nation or class must come from within. Freedom is never granted; it is won. Justice is never given; it is exacted.
— A. Philip Randolph

An intellectual snob is someone who can listen to the William Tell Overture and not think of The Lone Ranger.
— Dan Rather

Americans will put up with anything provided it doesn't block traffic.
— Dan Rather

The whole point of getting things done is knowing what to leave undone.
— Lady Reading

Facts are stupid things.
— Ronald Reagan

I am not worried about the deficit. It is big enough to take care of itself.
— Ronald Reagan

I have left orders to be awakened at any time in case of national emergency, even if I'm in a cabinet meeting.
— Ronald Reagan

I would have voted against the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
—Ronald Reagan

If it takes a bloodbath, let's get it over with!
— Gov. Ronald Reagan's response to student unrest. (1970)

If you’ve seen one redwood, you’ve seen them all.
— Ronald Reagan

It's true, hard work never killed anybody, but I figure, why take the chance?
— Ronald Reagan

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

Politics is supposed to be the second oldest profession. I have come to realize that it bears a very close resemblance to the first.
— Ronald Reagan

Regimes planted by bayonets do not take root.
— Ronald Reagan

This administration is committed to a balanced budget, and we will fight to the last blow to achieve it by 1984.
— Ronald Reagan, 9/15/81

In the first place, I said that [a balanced budget] was our goal, not a promise.
— Ronald Reagan, 12/17/81

We are at war with the most dangerous enemy that has ever faced mankind in his long climb from the swamp to the stars, and it has been said if we lose that war [Vietnam], and in so doing lose this way of freedom of ours, history will record with the greatest astonishment that those who had the most to lose did the least to prevent its happening.
—Ronald Reagan, 1964

We should declare war on North Vietnam. . . .We could pave the whole country and put parking strips on it, and still be home by Christmas.
—Ronald Reagan, 1965

You can tell a lot about a fellow's character by the way he eats jelly beans.
— Ronald Reagan

People who cannot recognize a palpable absurdity are very much in the way of civilization.
— Agnes Repplier

How can I possibly dislike a sex to which Your Majesty belongs?
— Cecil Rhodes (1853–1902) English statesman, financier, replying to Queen Victoria's suggestion that he disliked women.

I have found out one thing and that is, if you have an idea, and it is a good idea, if you only stick to it you will come out all right.
— Cecil Rhodes (1853–1902) English statesman, financier

Remember that you are an Englishman, and have consequently won first prize in the lottery of life.
— Cecil Rhodes (1853–1902) English statesman, financier, quoted in Dear Me, Peter Ustinov, Chapter 4

So little done, so much to do.
— Cecil Rhodes (1853–1902) English statesman, financier, dying words, 1902

The real fact is that I could no longer stand their eternal cold mutton.
— Cecil Rhodes (1853–1902) English statesman, financier, explaining why he had left his friends in England and come to South Africa, Cecil Rhodes, G. le Sueur

There is no way of keeping profits up but by keeping wages down.
— David Ricardo: On Protection in Agriculture, 1820

He can't help it. He was born with a silver foot in his mouth.
— Former Texas Gov. Ann Richards on misstatements made by George Bush, Sr.

When it comes to the future, there are three kinds of people: those who let it happen, those who make it happen, and those who wonder what happened.
— John M. Richardson, Jr.

Sleep, riches and health; to be truly enjoyed, must be interrupted.
— Jean Paul Richter

Luck is the residue of design.
— Branch Rickey

Good ideas are not adopted automatically. They must be driven into practice with courageous patience.
— Admiral Hyman Rickover

Live the questions.
— Rainer Maria Rilke (1875–1926), German poet

If your daily life seems poor, do not blame it; blame yourself, tell yourself that you are not poet enough to call forth its riches.
— Rainer Maria Rilke (1875–1926), German poet

The streets are safe in Philadelphia. It's only the people who make them unsafe.
— Frank Rizzo, ex-police chief and mayor of Philadelphia

Character is the ability to carry out a good resolution long after the excitement of the moment has passed.
— Cavett Robert

Where there is no law, but every man does what is right in his own eyes, there is the least of real liberty.
— Henry M. Robert

Anyone who doesn't make mistakes isn't trying hard enough.
— Wess Roberts

 

More on    Paul Robeson, (1898–1976) Afro-American actor, singer, political activist

Whether I am or am not a Communist is irrelevant. The question is whether American citizens, regardless of their political beliefs or sympathies may enjoy their constitutional rights.
— Paul Robeson (1898–1976)

Like every true artist I have longed to see my talent contributing in an unmistakably clear manner to the cause of humanity.
— Paul Robeson (1898–1976)

Pity is treason.
— Maximilien Robespierre (1758–1794), French revolutionary leader. Speech, February 26, 1794, to the National Convention, Paris.

Diamonds are a girl’s best friend.
— Leo Robin (b. 1900), U.S. songwriter. "Diamonds Are a Girl’s Best Friend" (song), Gentleman Prefer Blondes (stage show 1949; film 1953).

Nothing is as difficult as to achieve results in this world if one is filled full of great tolerance and the milk of human kindness. The person who achieves must generally be a one-ideaed individual, concentrated entirely on that one idea, and ruthless in his aspect toward other men and other ideas.
— Corinne Roosevelt Robinson (1861–1933), U.S. poet, in My Brother Theodore Roosevelt, chapter 1 (1921).

Your Dollar is your only Word,
The wrath of it your only fear.
 
You build it altars tall enough
To make you see, but your are blind;
You cannot leave it long enough
To look before you or behind.
— Edwin Arlington Robinson (1869–1935), U.S. poet, "Cassandra" (lines 3–8)

Because a few complacent years Have made your peril of your pride, Think you that you are to go on Forever pampered and untired?
— Edwin Arlington Robinson (1869–1935), U.S. poet, "Cassandra" (lines 17–20)

I cannot find my way: there is no star
In all the shrouded heavens anywhere;
— Edwin Arlington Robinson (1869–1935), U.S. poet, "Credo" (lines 1–2)

He never told us what he was,
Or what mischance, or other cause,
Had banished him from better days
To play the Prince of Castaways.
— Edwin Arlington Robinson (1869–1935), U.S. poet, "Flammonde" (lines 17–20)

It is the business of economists, not to tell us what to do, but show why what we are doing anyway is in accord with proper principles.
— Joan Robinson, economics professor at the London School of Economics.

If it takes a lot of words to say what you have in mind, give it more thought.
— Dennis Roch

If you want to succeed you should strike out on new paths rather than travel the worn paths of accepted success.
— John D. Rockefeller, Jr.

Good management consists in showing average people how to do the work of superior people.
— John D. Rockefeller, Jr.

The road to happiness lies in two simple principles: find what it is that interests you and that you can do well, and when you find it, put your whole soul into it; every bit of energy and ambition and natural ability you have.
— John D. Rockefeller III

I want to work for a company that contributes to and is part of the community. I want something not just to invest in. I want something to believe in.
— Anita Roddick

If you do things well, do them better. Be daring, be first, be different, be just.
— Anita Roddick

When you are in a state of nonacceptance, it's difficult to learn. A clenched fist cannot receive a gift, and a clenched psyche grasped tightly against the reality of what must not be accepted cannot easily receive a lesson.
— John Roger

 

More on    Will Rogers (1879–1935) Oklahoma Cherokee cowboy, actor, and humorist

A diplomat tells you what he don't believe himself, and the man he's tellin' it to don't believe him, so it balances. Diplomats meet and eat, then rush out and wire their Government they've completely fooled the other fella.
— Will Rogers

An economist's guess is liable to be as good as anybody else's.
— Will Rogers

An ignorant person is one who doesn't know what you have just found out.
— Will Rogers

Ancient Rome declined because it had a Senate; now what's going to happen to us with both a Senate and a House?
— Will Rogers

Diplomacy is the art of saying "nice doggy" until you can find a rock.
— Will Rogers

Even if you're on the right track, you'll get run over if you just sit there.
— Will Rogers

Everybody is ignorant, only on different subjects.
— Will Rogers

Everything is funny as long as it is happening to somebody else.
— Will Rogers

Everything is changing. People are taking their comedians seriously and the politicians as a joke.
— Will Rogers

Half our life is spent trying to find something to do with the time we have rushed through life trying to save.
— Will Rogers

I don't care how little your country is, you got a right to run it like you want to. When the big nations quit meddling, then the world will have peace.
— Will Rogers

I don't make jokes
— I just watch the government and report the facts.
— Will Rogers

If Stupidity got us into this mess, then why can't it get us out?
— Will Rogers

I'm not a real movie star. I've still got the same wife I started out with twenty-eight years ago.
— Will Rogers

Lead your life so you wouldn't be ashamed to sell the family parrot to the town gossip.
— Will Rogers

My ancestors didn't come over on the Mayflower, but they met 'em at the boat.
— Will Rogers

Never blame a legislative body for not doing something. When they do nothing, that don't hurt anybody. When they do something is when they become dangerous.
— Will Rogers

Never let yesterday use up too much of today.
— Will Rogers

Nobody wants to be called common people, especially common people.
— Will Rogers

Nothing you can't spell will ever work.
— Will Rogers

Now if there is one thing that we do worse than any other nation, it is try and manage somebody else's affairs.
— Will Rogers

On account of being a democracy and run by the people, we are the only nation in the world that has to keep a government four years, no matter what it does.
— Will Rogers

Our constitution protects aliens, drunks and U.S. Senators.
— Will Rogers

Politics is applesauce.
— Will Rogers

The income tax has made liars out of more Americans than golf.
— Will Rogers

The more you read and observe about this Politics thing, you got to admit that each party is worse than the other. The one that's out always looks the best.
— Will Rogers

The movies are the only business where you can go out front and applaud yourself.
— Will Rogers

There's no trick to being a humorist when you have the whole government working for you.
— Will Rogers

This country has come to feel the same when Congress is in session as when the baby gets hold of a hammer.
— Will Rogers

We can't all be heroes because somebody has to sit on the curb and clap as they go by.
— Will Rogers

You can't say that civilization don't advance, however, for in every war they kill you in a new way.
— Will Rogers

In order simply to survive in life, let alone be a leader, you must learn to take responsibility for the way things affect you. At the same time, you must learn to bend with the wind of forces too great for your control.
— Jim Rohn

For every disciplined effort there is a multiple reward.
— Jim Rohn

O liberty! how many crimes are committed in thy name!
[French, O liberte! que de crimes on commet dans ton nom!] Madame Manon Jeanne (Philipon) de la Platiere Roland (1754 - 1793), French revolutionary

No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.
— Eleanor Roosevelt

A society in which everyone works is not necessarily a free society and may indeed be a slave society; on the other hand, a society in which there is widespread economic insecurity can turn freedom into a barren and vapid right for millions of people.
— Eleanor Roosevelt

A conservative is a man with two perfectly good legs who has never learned to walk.
— Franklin D. Roosevelt

Put two or three men in positions of conflicting authority. This will force them to work at loggerheads, allowing you to be the ultimate arbiter.
— Franklin D. Roosevelt

A man who has never gone to school may steal from a freight car, but if he has a university education he may steal the whole railroad.
— Franklin D. Roosevelt

Take a method and try it. If it fails, admit it frankly, and try another. But by all means, try something.
— Franklin D. Roosevelt

It is not the critic who counts, nor the person who points out how the strong person stumbled or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the person who is actually in the arena; whose face is actually marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes short again and again, who knows great enthusiasm and great devotions, whose life is spent in a worthy cause; who, at best, knows in the end the triumph of high achievement and at worst, if failure wins out, it at least wins with greatness, so that this person's place shall never be with those timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.
— Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919)

If I were an employee, a working man ... or a wage-earner of any sort, I undoubtedly would join a union of my trade... I believe in the union and I believe that all men are morally bound to help to the extent of their powers in the common interests advanced by the union.
— Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919)

The best executive is the one who has sense enough to pick good men to do what he wants done, and self-restraint enough to keep from meddling with them while they do it.
— Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919)

The most important single ingredient in the formula of success is knowing how to get along with people.
— Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919)

When they call the roll in the Senate, the Senators do not know whether to answer "Present" or "Not guilty."
— Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919)

The only man who never makes a mistake is the man who never does anything.
— Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919)

To educate a man in mind and not in morals is to educate a menace to society.
— Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919)

Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs even though checkered by failure, than to rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy nor suffer much because they live in the gray twilight that knows neither victory nor defeat.
— Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919)

Think? Why think! We have computers to do that for us.
— Jean Rostand

Conservative: One who admires radicals centuries after they're dead.
— Leo C. Rosten

I see light at the end of the tunnel.
— Walt W. Rostow, National Security Adviser, December 1967

Man is born free and everywhere he is in chains.
— Jean-Jacques Rousseau: The Social Contract, 1762

Slaves lose everything in their chains, even the desire of escaping from them.
— Jean-Jacques Rousseau: The Social Contract, 1762

Frequent punishments are always a sign of weakness or laziness on the part of a government.
— Jean Jacques Rousseau

People who know little are usually great talkers, while men who know much say little.
— Jean Jacques Rousseau

You will find it a very good practice always to verify your references, sir.
— Martin Routh

Acceptance of dissent is the fundamental requirement of a free society.
— Richard Royster

I see light at the end of the tunnel.
— Walt W. Rostow, National Security Adviser, Dec. 1967, speaking of the Vietnam War.

Before I met my husband, I'd never fallen in love, though I'd stepped in it a few times.
— Rita Rudner

My mother buried three husbands, and two of them were just napping.
— Rita Rudner

I was a vegetarian until I started leaning toward the sunlight.
— Rita Rudner

I was going to have cosmetic surgery until I noticed that the doctor's office was full of portraits by Picasso.
— 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

In Hollywood a marriage is a success if it outlasts milk.
— 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

It may be that the race isnot always to the swift, not the battle to the strong—but that is the way to bet.
— Damon Runyon

The great cry that rises from all our manufacturing cities; louder than the furnace blast — that we manufacture everything there except men; we blanch cotton, and strengthen steel, and refine sugar and shape pottery; but to brighten , to strengthen, to refine or to reform a single living spirit, never enters into our estimate of advantages.
— John Ruskin: Stones of Venice

The distinguishing sign of slavery is to have a price, and to be bought for it.
— John Ruskin

Difficulty is a measure of effort, not of impossibility.
— Alistair Russell

 

More on    Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) British mathematician, philosopher, and anti-war activist

In 1918, Russell was imprisoned for anti-war writings. When he entered the prison, he was interviewed by the warden.
WARDEN: Religion?
RUSSELL: Agnostic.
WARDEN: How do you spell that?
RUSSELL: A-G-N-O-S-T-I-C.
WARDEN: Well, there are many religions, but I suppose they all worship the same God.
— Bertrand Russell wrote later he was sustained for his entire stay in prison by this exchange.

All movements go too far.
— Bertrand Russell

Aristotle maintained that women have fewer teeth than men; although he was twice married, it never occured to him to verify this statement by examining his wives' mouths.
— Bertrand Russell

Have no respect for the authority of others, for there are always contrary authorities to be found.
— Bertrand Russell: "The Ten Commandments", The Independent, 1965

I found one day in school a boy of medium size ill-treating a smaller boy. I expostulated, but he replied: 'The bigs hit me, so I hit the babies; that's fair.' In these words he epitomized the history of the human race.
— Bertrand Russell, from Education and the Social Order

I wish to propose for the reader's favourable consideration a doctrine which may, I fear, appear wildly paradoxical and subversive. The doctrine in question is this: that it is undesirable to believe a proposition when there is no ground whatever for supposing it true.
— Bertrand Russell, from "Introduction: On the Value of Scepticism", Sceptical Essays

I would never die for my beliefs because I might be wrong.
— Bertrand Russell

It has been said that man is a rational animal. All my life I have been searching for evidence which could support this.
— Bertrand Russell

It is a waste of energy to be angry with a man who behaves badly, just as it is to be angry with a car that won't go.
— Bertrand Russell, from Alan Wood, Bertrand Russell, the Passionate Sceptic

It is preoccupation with possessions, more than anything else, that prevents us from living freely and nobly.
— Bertrand Russell

Mathematics may be defined as the subject where we never know what we are talking about, nor whether what we are saying is true.
— Bertrand Russell, from "Recent Work on the Principles of Mathematics", a.k.a. "Mathematics and the Metaphysicians"

Men fear thought as they fear nothing else on earth. Thought is subversive and revolutionary, destructive and terrible, Thought is merciless to privilege, established institutions, and comfortable habit. Thought is great and swift and free.
— Bertrand Russell

Most people would sooner die than think; in fact, they do so.
— Bertrand Russell

Motivation is what gets you started. Habit is what keeps you going.
— Jim Ryuh

One of the symptoms of an approaching nervous breakdown is the belief that one's work is terribly important.
— Bertrand Russell

Patriotism is the willingness to kill and be killed for trivial reasons.
— Bertrand Russell

... since one never knows what will be the line of advance, it is always most rash to condemn what is not quite in the fashion of the moment.
— Bertrand Russell, from Review of MacColl's "Symbolic Logic and Its Applications", "Mind", 15 [1906]: 260

Supposing you got a crate of oranges that you opened, and you found all the top layer of oranges bad, you would not argue, `The underneath ones must be good, so as to redress the balance.' You would say, `Probably the whole lot is a bad consignment'; and that is really what a scientific person would say about the universe.
— Bertrand Russell, from Why I Am Not a Christian

The Christian view that all intercourse outside marriage is immoral was, as we see in the above passages from St. Paul, based upon the view that all sexual intercourse, even within marriage, is regrettable. A view of this sort, which goes against biological facts, can only be regarded by sane people as a morbid aberration. The fact that it is embedded in Christian ethics has made Christianity throughout its whole history a force tending towards mental disorders and unwholesome views of life.
— Bertrand Russell

The governors of the world believe, and have always believed, that virtue can only be taught by teaching falsehood, and that any man who knew the truth would be wicked. I disbelieve this, absolutely and entirely. I believe that love of truth is the basis of all real virtue, and that virtues based upon lies can only do harm.
— Bertrand Russell, from The Prospects of Industrial Civilization, p. 252; written in collaboration with Dora Russell

The place of the father in the modern suburban family is a very small one, particularly if he plays golf.
— Bertrand Russell

The point of philosophy is to start with something so simple as not to seem worth stating, and to end with something so paradoxical that no one will believe it.
— Bertrand Russell

The secret of happiness is to face the fact that the world is horrible, horrible, horrible ...
— Bertrand Russell, from Alan Wood, Bertrand Russell, the Passionate Sceptic

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 Russell

To be without some of the things you want is an indispensable part of happiness.
— Bertrand Russell

To conquer fear is the beginning of wisdom.
— Bertrand Russell

Truth is a shining goddess, always veiled, always distant, never wholly approachable, but worthy of all the devotion of which the human spirit is capable.
— Bertrand Russell, from "University Education", Fact and Fiction

When too stupid for math, I switched to philosophy, and when too stupid for philosophy, to politics.
— Bertrand Russell

Work is of two kinds: first, altering the position of matter at or near the earth's surface relatively to other matter; second, telling other people to do so. The first kind is unpleasant and ill-paid; the second is pleasant and highly paid.
— Bertrand Russell

The hardest thing in life to learn is which bridge to cross and which to burn.
— David Russell

Pray to God but continue to row to shore.
—Russian Proverb

S<     

We've arranged a civilization in which most crucial elements profoundly depend on science and technology. We have also arranged things so that almost no one understands science and technology. This is a prescription for disaster. We might get away with it for a while, but sooner or later this combustible mixture of ignorance and power is going to blow up in our faces.
— Carl Sagan, American astronomer and science writer (1934–1996)

If you want to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first create the universe.
— Carl Sagan, American astronomer and science writer (1934–1996)

When you make the finding yourself — even if you're the last person on Earth to see the light — you'll never forget it.
— Carl Sagan, American astronomer and science writer (1934–1996)

I know but one freedom and that is the freedom of the mind.
—Antoine de Saint-Exupery, French novelist and aviator (1900–1944)

A designer knows he has achieved perfection not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.
— Antoine de Saint-Exupery, French novelist and aviator (1900–1944)

First we kill all the subversives; then, their collaborators; later, those who sympathize with them; afterward, those who remain indifferent; and finally, the undecided.
— General Iberico Saint Jean , Argentinian soldier, politician. Quoted in: Boletin de las Madres de Plaza de Mayo, vol. 1, no. 6 (May 1985). General Iberico Saint Jean was governor of the province of Buenos Aires during the military rule in Argentina.

The fog comes
on little cat feet.
It sits looking
over harbor and city
on silent haunches
and then, moves on.
— Carl Sandburg, "Fog"

To be interested in the changing seasons is a happier state of mind than to be hopelessly in love with spring.
— George Santayana

The wireless music box has no imaginable commercial value. Who would pay for a message sent to nobody in particular?
— David Sarnoff's associates in response to his urgings for investment in the radio in the 1920s.

When the rich make war it's the poor that die.
— Jean-Paul Sartre

Being defeated is often a temporary condition. Giving up is what makes it permanent.
— Marilyn vos Savant

I love mankind; it's people I can't stand.
— Charles Schultz, creator of "Peanuts"

Ideals are like stars: you will not succeed in touching them with your hands, but like the seafaring man on the desert of waters, you choose them as your guides, and following them you reach your destiny.
— Carl Schurz

I don't know what your destiny will be, but one thing I do know: the only ones among you who will be really happy are those who have sought and found how to serve.
—Albert Schweitzer

Example is not the main thing in influencing others; it's the only thing.
—Albert Schweitzer

Oh the tangled webs we weave when we practice to deceive.
— Sir Walter Scott

Fools look to tomorrow. Wise men use tonight.
— Scottish Proverb

I believe that crisis really tends to help develop the character of an organization.
— John Sculley

The breakfast of champions is not cereal, it's the opposition.
— Nick Seitz

You can't hit a home run unless you step up to the plate. You can't catch fish unless you put your line in the water. You can't reach your goals if you don't try.
— Kathy Seligman

 

More on    Lucius Annaeus Seneca, the Younger (4 BC–65 AD) Roman philosopher, statesman, orator, and tragedian

A great fortune is a great slavery.
— Seneca, the Younger

A happy life is one which is in accordance with its own nature.
— Seneca, the Younger

Authority founded on injustice is never of long duration.
— Seneca, the Younger

Constant exposure to dangers will breed contempt for them.
— Seneca, the Younger

Difficulties strengthen the mind, as labor does the body.
— Seneca, the Younger

Even if it is to be, what end do you serve by running to distress?
— Seneca, the Younger

Fate leads the willing, and drags along the reluctant.
— Seneca, the Younger

Fire is the test of gold; adversity, of strong men.
— Seneca, the Younger

Friendship always benefits; love sometimes injures.
— Seneca, the Younger

Happy the man who can endure the highest and the lowest fortune. He, who has endured such vicissitudes with equanimity, has deprived misfortune of its power.
— Seneca, the Younger

If a man knows not what harbor he seeks, any wind is the right wind.
— Seneca, the Younger

If you would judge, understand.
— Seneca, the Younger

It is another's fault if he be ungrateful, but it is mine if I do not give. To find one thankful man, I will oblige a great many that are not so.
— Seneca, the Younger

It is not because things are difficult that we do not dare; it is because we do not dare that they are difficult.
— Seneca, the Younger

It is the sign of a great mind to dislike greatness, and prefer things in measure to things in excess.
— Seneca, the Younger

Life is warfare.
— Seneca, the Younger

No action will be considered blameless, unless the will was so, for by the will the act was dictated.
— Seneca, the Younger

No one can be despised by another until he has learned to despise himself.
— Seneca, the Younger

Nothing becomes so offensive so quickly as grief. When fresh it finds someone to console it, but when it becomes chronic, it is ridiculed, and rightly.
— Seneca, the Younger

Our plans miscarry because they have no aim. When a man does not know what harbor he is making for, no wind is the right wind.
— Seneca, the Younger

Remove severe restraint and what will become of virtue?
— Seneca, the Younger

Shame may restrain what law does not prohibit.
— Seneca, the Younger

That is never too often repeated, which is never sufficiently learned.
— Seneca, the Younger

That which is given with pride and ostentation is rather an ambition than a bounty.
— Seneca, the Younger

The greatest remedy for anger is delay.
— Seneca, the Younger

The bravest sight in the world is to see a great man struggling against adversity.
— Seneca, the Younger

The pressure of adversity does not affect the mind of the brave man. It is more powerful than external circumstances.
— Seneca, the Younger

There are no greater wretches in the world than many of those whom people in general take to be happy.
— Seneca, the Younger

There is a noble manner of being poor, and who does not know it will never be rich.
— Seneca, the Younger

There is no delight in owning anything unshared.
— Seneca, the Younger

We never reflect how pleasant it is to ask for nothing.
— Seneca, the Younger

What was hard to suffer is sweet to remember.
— Seneca, the Younger

What were once vices are the fashion of the day.
— Seneca, the Younger

Where the fear is, happiness is not.
— Seneca, the Younger

I've done their desire for a daily hire,
and I die like a dog in a ditch.
— Robert Service, The Spell of the Yukon, The Song of the Wage-Slave

Ah! the clock is always slow; It is later than you think. — Robert Service, Ballads of a Bohemian, Spring, ii

The American people must be content to recommend the cause of human progress by the wisdom with which they should exercise the powers of self-government, forbearing at all times, and in every way, from foreign alliances, intervention, and interference.
— William Seward (Secretary of State), 1863

 

More on    William Shakespeare (1564–1616), British dramatist, poet.

Love all, trust a few,
Do wrong to none: be able for thine enemy
Rather in power than use, and keep thy friend
Under thy own life’s key: be check’d for silence,
But never tax’d for speech. What heaven more will
That thee may furnish, and my prayers pluck down,
Fall on thy head!
— William Shakespeare, All’s Well that Ends Well, Act 1, Scene 1

Well said: that was laid on with a trowel.
— William Shakespeare, All’s Well that Ends Well, Act 1, Scene 2

My pride fell with my fortunes.
— William Shakespeare, All’s Well that Ends Well, Act 1, Scene 2

O, how full of briers is this working-day world!
— William Shakespeare, All’s Well that Ends Well, Act 1, Scene 3

Beauty provoketh thieves sooner than gold.
— William Shakespeare, All’s Well that Ends Well, Act 1, Scene 3

When I was at home I was in a better place; but travellers must be content.
— William Shakespeare, All’s Well that Ends Well, Act 2, Scene 4

I met a fool i’ the forest,
A motley fool.
— William Shakespeare, All’s Well that Ends Well, Act 2, Scene 7

And so from hour to hour we ripe and ripe,
And then from hour to hour we rot and rot;
And thereby hangs a tale.
— William Shakespeare, All’s Well that Ends Well, Act 2, Scene 7

True is it that we have seen better days.
— William Shakespeare, All’s Well that Ends Well, Act 2, Scene 7

All the world’s a stage,
And all the men and women merely players.
They have their exits and their entrances;
And one man in his time plays many parts,
— William Shakespeare, All’s Well that Ends Well, Act 2, Scene 7

With bag and baggage.
— William Shakespeare, All’s Well that Ends Well, Act 3, Scene 2

Neither rhyme nor reason.
— William Shakespeare, All’s Well that Ends Well, Act 3, Scene 2

No legacy is so rich as honesty.
— William Shakespeare, All’s Well that Ends Well, Act 3, Scene 5

Can one desire too much of a good thing?
— William Shakespeare, As You Like It, Act 4, Scene 1
see Cervantes

For ever and a day.
— William Shakespeare, As You Like It, Act 4, Scene 1

The fool doth think he is wise, but the wise man knows himself to be a fool.
— William Shakespeare, As You Like It, Act 5, Scene 1

He must have a long spoon that must eat with the devil.
— William Shakespeare, Comedy of Errors, Act 4 Scene 3.

Neither a borrower nor a lender be;
For loan oft loses both itself and friend,
And borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry.
This above all: to thine ownself be true,
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man.
— William Shakespeare, The Tragedy of Hamlet Prince of Denmark, Act 1, Scene 3

Pol. This business is well ended.
My liege, and madam, to expostulate
What majesty should be, what duty is,
Why day is day, night night, and time is time,
Were nothing but to waste night, day, and time;
Therefore, since brevity is the soul of wit
And tediousness the limbs and outward flourishes,
I will be brief. Your noble son is mad.
Mad call I it; for, to define true madness,
What is ’t but to be nothing else but mad?
But let that go.
Queen. More matter, with less art.
— William Shakespeare, The Tragedy of Hamlet Prince of Denmark, Act 2, Scene 2

Ham. Denmark’s a prison.
Ros. Then is the world one.
Ham. A goodly one, in which there are many confines, wards, and dungeons, Denmark being one o’ the worst.
Ros. We think not so, my lord.
Ham. Why, then ’tis none to you; for there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so. To me it is a prison.
Ros. Why, then your ambition makes it one. ’Tis too narrow for your mind.
— William Shakespeare, The Tragedy of Hamlet Prince of Denmark, Act 2, Scene 2

I have heard
That guilty creatures sitting at a play
Have by the very cunning of the scene
Been struck so to the soul that presently
They have proclaim’d their malefactions;
Murder, though it have no tongue, will speak
With most miraculous organ.
— William Shakespeare, The Tragedy of Hamlet Prince of Denmark., Act 2, Scene 2

To be, or not to be: that is the question.
Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them. To die; to sleep;
No more; and by a sleep to say we end
The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to. ’Tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish’d. To die; to sleep;—
To sleep? Perchance to dream! Ay, there ’s the rub;
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come,
When we have shuffl’d off this mortal coil
— William Shakespeare, The Tragedy of Hamlet Prince of Denmark., Act 3, Scene 1

Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more,
Or close the wall up with our English dead!
In peace there ’s nothing so becomes a man
As modest stillness and humility;
But when the blast of war blows in our ears,
Then imitate the action of the tiger:
Stiffen the sinews, summon up the blood.
— William Shakespeare, Henry V, Act 3, Scene 1

We few, we happy few, we band of brothers.
— William Shakespeare, Henry V, Act 4, Scene 3

The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers.
— William Shakespeare, Henry VI, Part 2,Act 4, Scene 2

Cζs. Let me have men about me that are fat;
Sleek-headed men and such as sleep o’ nights.
Yond Cassius has a lean and hungry look;
He thinks too much: such men are dangerous
— William Shakespeare, Julius Cζsar , Act 1, Scene 2

Bru. Be patient till the last.
Romans, countrymen, and lovers! hear me for my cause; and be silent, that you may hear:
believe me for mine honour, and have respect to mine honour, that you may believe:
censure me in your wisdom, and awake your senses, that you may the better judge.
If there be any in this assembly, any dear friend of Cζsar’s, to him I say,
that Brutus’ love to Cζsar was no less than his.
If then that friend demand why Brutus rose against Cζsar, this is my answer:
Not that I loved Cζsar less, but that I loved Rome more.
Had you rather Cζsar were living, and die all slaves,
than that Cζsar were dead, to live all free men?
As Cζsar loved me, I weep for him; as he was fortunate, I rejoice at it;
as he was valiant, I honour him; but, as he was ambitious, I slew him.
There is tears for his love; joy for his fortune;
honour for his valour; and death for his ambition.
Who is here so base that would be a bondman?
If any, speak; for him have I offended.
Who is here so rude that would not be a Roman?
If any, speak; for him have I offended.
Who is here so vile that will not love his country?
If any, speak; for him have I offended.
— William Shakespeare, Julius Cζsar , Act 3, Scene 2

Ant. Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears;
I come to bury Cζsar, not to praise him.
The evil that men do lives after them,
The good is oft interred with their bones;
So let it be with Cζsar. The noble Brutus
Hath told you Cζsar was ambitious;
If it were so, it was a grievous fault,
And grievously hath Cζsar answer’d it.
Here, under leave of Brutus and the rest,—
For Brutus is an honourable man;
So are they all, all honourable men,—
Come I to speak in Cζsar’s funeral.
He was my friend, faithful and just to me:
But Brutus says he was ambitious;
And Brutus is an honourable man.
He hath brought many captives home to Rome,
Whose ransoms did the general coffers fill:
Did this in Cζsar seem ambitious?
When that the poor have cried, Cζsar hath wept;
Ambition should be made of sterner stuff:
Yet Brutus says he was ambitious;
And Brutus is an honourable man.
You all did see that on the Lupercal
I thrice presented him a kingly crown,
Which he did thrice refuse: was this ambition?
Yet Brutus says he was ambitious;
And, sure, he is an honourable man.
I speak not to disprove what Brutus spoke,
But here I am to speak what I do know.
You all did love him once, not without cause:
What cause withholds you then to mourn for him?
O judgment! thou art fled to brutish beasts,
And men have lost their reason. Bear with me;
My heart is in the coffin there with Cζsar,
And I must pause till it come back to me.
— William Shakespeare, Julius Cζsar , Act 3, Scene 2

Things without all remedy
Should be without regard; what’s done is done.
— William Shakespeare, Macbeth, Act 3, Scene 2

Out, damned spot! out, I say!
— William Shakespeare, Macbeth, Act 5, Scene 1

To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day
To the last syllable of recorded time,
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more: it is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.
— William Shakespeare, Macbeth, Act 5, Scene 1

O, it is excellent
To have a giant’s strength; but it is tyrannous
To use it like a giant.
— William Shakespeare, Measure for Measure, Act 2, Scene 2

The devil can cite Scripture for his purpose.
An evil soul, producing holy witness,
Is like a villain with a smiling cheek,
A goodly apple rotten at the heart.
O, what a goodly outside falsehood hath!
— William Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice, (1596–1598) Act 1, Scene 3

Men were deceivers ever,
One foot in sea and one on shore,
To one thing constant never.
— William Shakespeare, Much Ado About Nothing, Act 2,Scene 2, 63

I will wear my heart upon my sleeve
For daws to peck at.
— William Shakespeare, Othello, Act 1, Scene 1

The robb’d that smiles, steals something from the thief.
— William Shakespeare, Othello, Act 1, Scene 3

Reputation, reputation, reputation! Oh, I have lost my reputation! I have lost the immortal part of myself, and what remains is bestial.
— William Shakespeare, Othello, Act 2, Scene 3

O thou invisible spirit of wine, if thou hast no name to be known by, let us call thee devil!
— William Shakespeare, Othello, Act 2, Scene 3

Good name in man and woman, dear my lord,
Is the immediate jewel of their souls:
Who steals my purse steals trash; 'tis something, nothing;
'Twas mine, 'tis his, and has been slave to thousands;
But he that filches from me my good name
Robs me of that which not enriches him
And makes me poor indeed.
— William Shakespeare, Othello, Act 3, Scene 3

They laugh that win.
— William Shakespeare, Othello, Act 4, Scene 1

’T is neither here nor there.
— William Shakespeare, Othello, Act 4, Scene 3

Dost thou love me? I know thou wilt say 'Ay,'
And I will take thy word: yet if thou swear'st,
Thou mayst prove false; at lovers' perjuries
They say, Jove laughs.
— William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet, Act 2, Scene 2

What's in a name? That which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet.
— William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet, Act 2, scene 2

Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day
To the last syllable of recorded time,
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more: it is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.
— William Shakespeare, spoken by Macbeth, Macbeth, Act 5, Scene 5

Now would I give a thousand furlongs of sea for an acre of barren ground.
— William Shakespeare, The Tempest, Act 1, Scene 1

Ah! when the means are gone that buy this praise,
The breath is gone whereof this praise is made:
— William Shakespeare, Timon of Athens , Act 2, Scene 2

He lives in fame that died in virtue’s cause.
— William Shakespeare, Titus Andronicus, Act I. Scene 2. (Lutius.)

Words, words, mere words, no matter from the heart.
— William Shakespeare, Troilus and Cressida,Act 5, Scene 3

If music be the food of love, play on;
Give me excess of it, that, surfeiting,
The appetite may sicken, and so die.
— William Shakespeare, Twelfth-Night; or, What You Will,Act 1, Scene 1

She is mine own,
And I as rich in having such a jewel
As twenty seas, if all their sand were pearl,
The water nectar, and the rocks pure gold.
— William Shakespeare, The Two Gentleman of Verona, Act 2, Scene 4

 

More on    George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950), British author and socialist activist.

A life spent in making mistakes is not only more honorable but more useful than a life spent in doing nothing.
— George Bernard Shaw

As long as I have a want, I have a reason for living. Satisfaction is death.
— George Bernard Shaw

Assassination is the extreme form of censorship.
— George Bernard Shaw

Better keep yourself clean and bright; you are the window through which you must see the world.
— George Bernard Shaw

Common sense is instinct. Enough of it is genius.
—George Bernard Shaw

He knows nothing; and he thinks he knows everything. That points clearly to a political career.
—George Bernard Shaw

I am a gentleman: I live by robbing the poor.
— George Bernard Shaw

I often quote myself, it adds spice to my conversation.
—George Bernard Shaw

I learned long ago never to wrestle with a pig. You get dirty, and besides, the pig likes it.
— George Bernard Shaw

If all economists were laid end to end, they would not reach a conclusion.
—George Bernard Shaw

If you have an apple and I have an apple and we exchange these apples then you and I will still each have one apple. But if you have an idea and I have an idea and we exchange these ideas, then each of us will have two ideas.
— George Bernard Shaw

It is dangerous to be sincere unless you are also stupid.
— George Bernard Shaw

Liberty means responsibility. That is why most men dread it.
— George Bernard Shaw

Life is no brief candle to me. It is a sort of splendid torch which I have got a hold of for the moment, and I want to make it burn as brightly as possible before handing it on to future generations.
— George Bernard Shaw

Patriotism is your conviction that this country is superior to all other countries because you were born in it.
— George Bernard Shaw

Reasonable people adapt themselves to the world. Unreasonable people attempt to adapt the world to themselves. All progress, therefore, depends on unreasonable people.
— George Bernard Shaw

Some men see things as they are and ask why. Others dream things that never were and ask why not.
—George Bernard Shaw

Success does not consist in never making mistakes but in never making the same one a second time.
— George Bernard Shaw

The 100% American is 99% idiot
— George Bernard Shaw

The liar's punishment is not in the least that he is not believed, but that he cannot believe anyone else.
— George Bernard Shaw

The longer I live the more I see that I am never wrong about anything, and that all the pains that I have so humbly taken to verify my notions have only wasted my time.
— George Bernard Shaw

The power of accurate observation is commonly called cynicism by those who have not got it.
—George Bernard Shaw

What is the matter with the poor is poverty; what is the matter with the rich is uselessness.
—George Bernard Shaw

When a man wants to murder a tiger he calls it sport; when a tiger wants to murder him he calls it ferocity.
— George Bernard Shaw

You have no more right to consume happiness without producing it, than to consume wealth without producing it.
— George Bernard Shaw

When there is an original sound in the world, it makes a hundred echoes.
— John Shedd

I could never be the president. Think about it. I've abused cocaine, I've been arrested, I'm not a very smart guy. It's a big joke to think people would want someone like me just because his dad was president.
— Charlie Sheen, asked on Saturday Night Live if he'd ever like the job his father has playing the president on West Wing

Death will come when thou art dead, soon, too soon.
— Percy Bysshe Shelley, English poet (1792–1822)

Fear not the future, weep not for the past.
— Percy Bysshe Shelley, English poet (1792–1822)

He gave man speech, and speech created thought, which is the measure of the universe.
— Percy Bysshe Shelley, English poet (1792–1822)

His fine wit makes such a wound, the knife is lost in it.
— Percy Bysshe Shelley, English poet (1792–1822)

I love all waste and solitary places.
— Percy Bysshe Shelley, English poet (1792–1822)

Nought may endure but Mutability.
— Percy Bysshe Shelley, English poet (1792–1822)

Our sincerest laughter
With some pain is fraught:
Our sweetest songs are those which tell of saddest thought.
— Percy Bysshe Shelley, English poet (1792–1822)

Poetry is the record of the best and happiest moments of the happiest and best minds.
— Percy Bysshe Shelley, English poet (1792–1822)

Revenge and wrong bring forth their kind; The foul cubs like their parents are.
— Percy Bysshe Shelley, English poet (1792–1822)

The world is weary of the past, oh, might it die or rest at last.
— Percy Bysshe Shelley, English poet (1792–1822)

What is Love? It is that powerful attraction towards all that we conceive, or fear, or hope beyond ourselves.
— Percy Bysshe Shelley, English poet (1792–1822)

The warm sun is failing, the bleak wind is wailing,
The bare boughs are sighing, the pale flowers are dying;
And the year
On the earth her deathbed, in a shroud of leaves dead,
Is lying.
Come months, come away,
From November to May,
In your saddest array;
Follow the bier
Of the dead cold year,
And like dim shadows watch by her sepulchre.
— Percy Bysshe Shelley, English poet (1792–1822), "Autumn — A Dirge"

Strange thoughts beget strange deeds.
— Percy Bysshe Shelley, English poet (1792–1822), "The Cenciquot" (act IV, sc. 4)

First our pleasures die — and then
Our hopes, and then our fears — and when
These are dead, the debt is due,
Dust claims dust — and we die too.
— Percy Bysshe Shelley, English poet (1792–1822), "Death"

January grey is here,
Like a sexton by her grave;
February bears the bier,
March with grief doth howl and rave,
And April weeps — but, O ye hours!
Follow with May's fairest flowers.
— Percy Bysshe Shelley, English poet (1792–1822), "Dirge for the Yearquot"; (st. 4)

The babe is at peace with the womb,
The corpse is at rest within the tomb.
We begin in what we end.
— Percy Bysshe Shelley, English poet (1792–1822), "Fragments"

Reviewers, with some rare exceptions, are a most stupid and malignant race. As a bankrupt thief turns thief-taker in despair, so an unsuccessful author turns critic.
— Percy Bysshe Shelley, English poet (1792–1822), "Fragments of Adonais"

Life may change, but it may fly not;
Hope may vanish, but can die not;
Truth be veiled, but still it burneth;
Love repulsed, — but it returneth.
— Percy Bysshe Shelley, English poet (1792–1822), "Hellas" (semi-chorus)

A little child born yesterday
A thing on mother's milk and kisses fed.
— Percy Bysshe Shelley, English poet (1792–1822), "Homer's Hymn to Mercury" (st. 69)

Men must reap the things they sow,
Force from force must ever flow,
Or worse; but 'tis a bitter woe
That love or reason cannot change.
— Percy Bysshe Shelley, English poet (1792–1822), " Lines Written among the Euganean Hills" (l. 232)

Music, when soft voices die,
Vibrates in the memory;
Odors, when sweet violets sicken,
Live within the sense they quicken.
— Percy Bysshe Shelley, English poet (1792–1822), "Music, When Soft Voices Die"

Rose leaves, when the rose is dead,
Are heaped for the beloved's bed;
And so thy thoughts, when thou art gone,
Love itself shall slumber on.
— Percy Bysshe Shelley, English poet (1792–1822), "Music, When Soft Voices Die"

If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?
— Percy Bysshe Shelley, English poet (1792–1822), "Ode to the West Wind" (pt. V)

I met a traveler from an antique land
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read.
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed;
And on the pedestal these words appear:
"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!"
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away.
— Percy Bysshe Shelley, English poet (1792–1822), "Ozymandias" (1819)

And many an ante-natal tomb
When butterflies dream of the life to come.
— Percy Bysshe Shelley, English poet (1792–1822), "Sensitive Plant"

I could lie down like a tired child,
And weep away the life of care
Which I have borne, and yet must bear.
— Percy Bysshe Shelley, English poet (1792–1822), "Stanzas, written in Dejection, near Naples"

I am the daughter of the earth and water,
And the nursling of the sky;
I pass through the pores of the ocean and shores;
I change, but I cannot die.
— Percy Bysshe Shelley, English poet (1792–1822), "The Cloud"

I fear thy kisses, gentle maiden,
Thou needest not fear mine;
My spirit is too deeply laden
Ever to burden thine.
— Percy Bysshe Shelley, English poet (1792–1822), "To —. I fear thy Kisses"

We look before and after,
And pine for what is not,
Our sincerest laughter
With some pain is fraught:
Our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thought.
— Percy Bysshe Shelley, English poet (1792–1822), "To a Skylark" (st. 18)

A lovely lady, garmented in light
From her own beauty.
— Percy Bysshe Shelley, English poet (1792–1822), "The Witch of Atlas" (st. 5)

The meek shall inherit the Earth; now lets check out who gets heaven.
— J. Neil Shulman

Only the actions of the just smell sweet and blossom in the dust.
— James Shirley (1596–1666)

Top management must know how good or bad employees' working conditions are. They must eat in the employees' restaurants, see whether the food is well cooked, visit the washroom and lavatories. If they are not good enough for those in charge they are not good enough for anyone.
— Lord Sieff

I am the Roman Emperor, and am above grammar.
— Emperor Sigismund

There is only one principle of war and that's this. Hit the other fellow, as quickly as you can, as hard as you can, where it hurts him most, when he ain't lookin'.
— Sir William Slim

Those exertions of the natural liberty of a few individuals, which might endanger the security of the whole society, are, and ought to be, restrained by the laws of all governments.
— Adam Smith

The real price of everything is the toil and trouble of acquiring it.
— Adam Smith

It was not by gold or by silver, but by labor, that all the wealth of the world was originally purchased.
— Adam Smith: The Wealth of Nations

[Manufacturers and merchants are] men whose interest is never exactly the same with that of the public, who have generally an interest to deceive and even to oppress the public, and who accordingly have, upon many occasions, both deceived and oppressed it.
— Adam Smith: The Wealth of Nations

Look at everthing as though you were seeing it either for the first or last time. Then your time on earth will be filled with glory.
— Betty Smith

Leaders get out in front and stay there by raising the standards by which they judge themselves — and by which they are willing to be judged.
— Fredrick Smith

Facts are stubborn things.
— Tobias Smollett (1721–1771), Scottish novelist, surgeon. Gil Blas de Santillane, Book 10, Chapter 1 (1715), translated by Alain Renι Lesage (1755).

Never accept failure, no matter how often it visits you. Keep on going. Never give up. Never.
— Michael Smurfit

In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice. But, in practice, there is.
— Jan L.A. van de Snepscheut

There is only one good, knowledge, and one evil, ignorance.
— Socrates

Truth is always the strongest argument.
— Sophocles (B.C. 495–406)

Being cheerful keeps you healthy.
— King Solomon

If you are never scared or embarrassed or hurt, it means you never take any chances.
— Julia Sorel

Tomorrow is often the busiest time of the year.
— Spanish Proverb

Decisions determine destiny.
— Frederick Speakman

Ay me, how many perils doe enfold
The righteous man, to make him daily fall!
— Edmund Spenser (1552?–1599), Faerie Queene, Book i. Canto viii. St. 1.

Those who cast the ballots decide nothing; those who count the ballots decide everything.
— Josef Stalin (1879–1953)

But time shall come that all shall changed be,
And from thenceforth, none no more change shall see.
— Edmund Spenser (1552?–1599)

He has achieved success who has lived well, laughed often and loved much; who has enjoyed the trust of pure women, the respect of intelligent men and the love of little children; who has filled his niche and accomplished his task; who has left the world better than he found it, whether by an improved poppy, a perfect poem, or a rescued soul; who has never lacked appreciation of earth's beauty or failed to express it; who has always looked for the best in others and given them the best he had; whose life was an inspiration; whose memory is a benediction.
— Bessie A. Stanley (b.1879), in Notes and Queries July 1976. (frequently misattributed to Emerson)

It was fear that first made gods in the world. (Primus in orbe deos fecit timor.)
— Statius

There are really not many jobs that actually require a penis or a vagina, and all other occupations should be open to everyone.
— Gloria Steinem

The president has kept all of the promises he intended to keep.
— George Stephanopolous

Man does not live by words alone, despite the fact that sometimes he has to eat them.
— Adlai Stevenson

In America, anybody can be president. That's one of the risks you take.
— Adlai Stevenson

There can be no justice so long as rules are absolute.
— Patrick Stewart

There are three things men can do with women: love them, suffer for them, or turn them into literature.
— Stephen Stills

Any man who pays more for labor than the lowest sum he can get men for is robbing his stockholders. If he can secure men for $6 and pays more, he is stealing from the company.
— Stockholder of American Woolen (Lawrence, Massachusetts) 1911, told to the Rev. Harry Emerson Fosdick

There is little difference in people, but that little difference makes a big difference. The little difference is attitude. The big difference is whether it is positive or negative.
— W. Clement Stone

There are two kinds of statistics, the kind you look up and the kind you make up.
— Rex Stout (1886–1975)

No dictator, no invader, can hold an imprisoned population by force of arms forever. There is no greater power in the universe than the need for freedom. Against that power, governments and tyrants and armies cannot stand. The Centauri learned this lesson once. We will teach it to them again. Though it take a thousand years, we will be free.
— written by J. Michael Straczynski, in the TV series Babylon V

The avalanche has already started. It is too late for the pebble to vote.
— written by J. Michael Straczynski, in the TV series Babylon V, spoken by the character Ambassador Kosh

People spend too much time finding other people to blame, too much energy finding excuses for not being what they are capable of being, and not enough energy putting themselves on the line, growing out of the past, and getting on with their lives.
— J. Michael Straczynski

Do not follow where the path may lead. Go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.
— Muriel Strode

They say the Pharaohs built the pyramids Do you think one Pharaoh dropped one bead of sweat? We built the pyramids for the Pharaohs and we're building for them yet.
— Anna Louise Strong

To fall in love is easy, even to remain in it is not difficult; our human loneliness is cause enough. But it is a hard quest worth making to find a comrade through whose steady presence one becomes steadily the person one desires to be.
— Anna Louise Strong

Success is a rare paint, hides all the ugliness.
— John Suckling (1609–1642)

Each problem has hidden in it an opportunity so powerful that it literally dwarfs the problem. The greatest success stories were created by people who recognized a problem and turned it into an opportunity.
— Joseph Sugarman

I've always thought that underpopulated countries in Africa are vastly underpolluted.
— Lawrence Summers, chief economist of the World Bank (afterwards U.S. Treasury Secretary under Clinton, then president of Harvard University), explaining why we should export toxic wastes to Third World countries. Internal World Bank memo, 12/12/1991

Invincibility lies in the defense; the possibility of victory in the attack. One defends when his strength is inadequate; he attacks when it is abundant.
— Sun-tzu, The Art of War

Opportunities multiply as they are seized.
— Sun-tzu, The Art of War

The best victory is when the opponent surrenders of its own accord before there are any actual hostilities ... It is best to win without fighting.
— Sun-tzu, The Art of War, Planning a Siege

When you can't have what you want, it's time to start wanting what you have.
— Kathleen A. Sutton

For the crown of our life as it closes
Is darkness, the fruit there of dust;
No thorns go as deep as the rose's,
And love is more cruel than lust.
Time turns the old days to derision,
Our loves into corpses or wives;
And marriage and death and division
Make barren our lives.
— Algernon Charles Swinburne, "Dolores"

Every one desires to live long, but no one would be old.
— Jonathan Swift (1667–1745)

May you live all the days of your life.
— Jonathan Swift (1667–1745)

Men are happy to be laughed at for their humor, but not for their folly.
— Jonathan Swift (1667–1745)

Vision is the art of seeing things invisible.
— Jonathan Swift (1667–1745)

We have just enough religion to make us hate, but not enough to make us love on another.
— Jonathan Swift (1667–1745)

When a true genius appears in the world you may know him by this sign: that all the dunces are in confederacy against him.
— Jonathan Swift (1667–1745)

People who soar are those who refuse to sit back, sigh and wish things would change. They neither complain of their lot nor passively dream of some distant ship coming in. Rather, they visualize in their minds that they are not quitters; they will not allow life's circumstances to push them down and hold them under.
— Charles Swindoll

The remarkable thing we have is a choice every day regarding the attitude we will embrace for that day. We cannot change our past... We cannot change the fact that people will act in a certain way. We cannot change the inevitable. The only thing we can do is play on the one string we have, and that is our attitude.
— Charles Swindoll

I cannot even imagine where I would be today were it not for that handful of friends who have given me a heart full of joy. Let's face it, friends make life a lot more fun.
— Charles R. Swindoll

It is amazing how much people can get done if they do not worry about who gets the credit.
— Sandra Swinney

It is a bad plan that admits of no modification.
— Publilius Syrus, (1st century B.C.), Roman (Syrian-born) writer of mimes

As men, we are all equal in the presence of death.
— Publilius Syrus, (1st century B.C.), Roman (Syrian-born) writer of mimes, Maxims Maxim 1.

Let a fool hold his tongue and he will pass for a sage.
— Publilius Syrus, (1st century B.C.), Roman (Syrian-born) writer of mimes, Maxims

No pleasure endures unseasoned by variety.
— Publilius Syrus, (1st century B.C.), Roman (Syrian-born) writer of mimes, Maxims Maxim 406.

It is vain to look for a defence against lightning.
— Publilius Syrus, (1st century B.C.), Roman (Syrian-born) writer of mimes, Maxims Maxim 835.

It is not every question that deserves an answer.
— Publilius Syrus, (1st century B.C.), Roman (Syrian-born) writer of mimes, Sententiae, no. 581.

It is sometimes expedient to forget who we are.
— Publilius Syrus, (1st century B.C.), Roman (Syrian-born) writer of mimes

The timid man calls himself cautious, the sordid man thrifty.
— Publilius Syrus, (1st century B.C.), Roman (Syrian-born) writer of mimes, Sententiae, no. 689.

Discovery is seeing what everybody else has seen, and thinking what nobody else has thought.
— Albert Szent-Gyorgi

T<     

It is human nature to hate him whom you have injured.
— Tacitus

Noir comme le diable,
Chaud comme l'enfer,
Pur comme un ange,
Doux comme l'amour.
 
Black like the devil,
Hot like hell,
Pure like an angel,
Soft like love.
— Charles Maurice de Talleyrand-Perigord, description of coffee

The nice thing about standards is that there are so many of them to choose from.
— Andrew S. Tanenbaum

Victory goes to the player who makes the next-to-last mistake.
— Savielly Grigorievitch Tartakower

I want you to let a wave of hatred wash over you. Yes, hate is good ... our goal is a Christian nation. We have a biblical duty, we are called on by God to conquer this country. We don't want equal time. We don't want pluralism.
— Randall Terry, head of Operation Rescue; The News-Sentinel, Fort Wayne, Indiana. 8-16-93

Standing in the middle of the road is very dangerous; you get knocked down by traffic from both sides.
— Margaret Thatcher

Being in power is like being a lady. If you have to tell people you are, you aren't.
— Margaret Thatcher

My job is to stop Britain going red.
— Margaret Thatcher

You may have to fight a battle more than once to win it.
— Margaret Thatcher

Nobody in football should be called a genius. A genius is a guy like Norman Einstein.
— Joe Theismann

I’ve got money so I’m a Conservative.
— Lord Thomson of Fleet (Roy Herbert Thomson), recalled on his death 4 August 4, 1976

 

More on    Henry David Thoreau

Any fool can make a rule, and any fool will mind it.
— Henry David Thoreau

Distrust any enterprise that requires new clothes.
— Henry David Thoreau

Every generation laughs at the old fashions, but religiously follows the new.
— Henry David Thoreau

I never found a companion that was so companionable as solitude.
— Henry David Thoreau

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

If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them.
— Henry David Thoreau

In the long run, men only hit what they aim at.
— Henry David Thoreau

Men are born to succeed, not to fail.
— Henry David Thoreau

Only nature has a right to grieve perpetually, for she only is innocent. Soon the ice will melt, and the blackbirds sing along the river which he frequented, as pleasantly as ever. The same everlasting serenity will appear in this face of God, and we will not be sorrowful, if he is not.
— Henry David Thoreau (upon the death of his brother)

Read the best books first, or you may not have a chance to read them at all.
— Henry David Thoreau

That government is best which governs least.
— Henry David Thoreau

The language of friendship is not words but meanings.
— Henry David Thoreau

The man for whom law exists — the man of forms, the Conservative, is a tame man.
— Henry David Thoreau

The man who goes alone can start today; but he who travels with another must wait till that other is ready.
— Henry David Thoreau

The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation.
— Henry David Thoreau

The price of anything is the amount of life you exchange for it.
— Henry David Thoreau

To know that we know what we know, and that we do not know what we do not know, that is true knowledge.
— Henry David Thoreau

You must live in the present, launch yourself on every wave, find your eternity in each moment.
— Henry David Thoreau

It is better to ask some of the questions than to know all the answers.
— James Thurber

We succeed in enterprises which demand the positive qualities we possess, but we excel in those which can also make use of our defects.
— Alexis De Tocqueville

You've got to think about "big things" while you're doing small things, so that all the small things go in the right direction.
— Alvin Toffler

Nietzche was stupid and abnormal.
— Leo Tolstoy (1828–1910), Russian Author

Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no-one thinks of changing himself
— Leo Tolstoy (1828–1910), Russian Author

When you get right down to it, one of the most important tasks of a leader is to eliminate his people's excuse for failure.
— Robert Townsend

I have found the best way to give advice to your children is to find out what they want and then advise them to do it.
— Harry S. Truman

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

My choice early in life was either to be a piano player in a whorehouse or a politician. And to tell the truth, there's hardly any difference.
— Harry S. Truman

Republicans believe in the minimum wage — as minimum as possible!
— Harry Truman

The "C" students run the world.
— Harry S. Truman

Wherever you have an efficient government you have a dictatorship.
— Harry S. Truman

The point is that you can't be too greedy.
— Donald Trump: Trump: The Art of the Deal (written with Tony Schwartz, 1987).

I like thinking big. If you're going to be thinking anything, you might as well think big.
— Donald Trump

I wanted to see whether or not the great Louis XIV style, which I consider the most beautiful style, could work in a modern building. I didn't want to buy old columns, because they're cracked and broken. I waited to have brand-new minted marble columns... I've used all onyx. Onyx is a precious stone, many times more beautiful. I don't believe there is an apartment like this anywhere in the world. The view, the solid bronze window frames, the fountain all brand new and carved. Did you see the way the window shades go up and down, all remote? And they're bulletproof... I don't care about material needs. I could be happy in a studio apartment with a television and a telephone.
— Donald Trump, Zen Buddhist, showing off his Trump Tower digs, in InStyle magazine (as excerpted by Leah Garchik in the San Francisco Chronicle, December 5, 1995).

...Nobody ever helped me into carriages, or over mud puddles, or gives me any best place, and ain't I a woman? Look at me! Look at my arm! I have plowed, and planted, and gathered into barns, and no man could heed me—and ain't I a woman? I could work as much and eat as much as a man (when I could get it), and bear the lash as well—and ain't I a woman? I have borne thirteen children and seen 'em mos' all sold off into slavery, and when I cried out with a mother's grief, none but Jesus heard—and ain't I a woman? Then they talk about this thing in the head—what they call it? Intellect. That's it, honey. What's that got to do with women's rights or nigger's rights...Then that little man in black there, he say women can't have as much rights as man, cause Christ wasn't a woman. Where did your Christ come from? Where did your Christ come from? From God and a woman. Man had nothing to do with him.
— Sojourner Truth, ex-slave, from a speech at the Woman's Rights Convention at Akron, Ohio, 1851. From Narrative of Sojourner Truth

Never wound a snake. Kill it.
— Harriet Tubman

Well-timed silence hath more eloquence than speech.
— Martin Fraquhar Tupper

No matter how far you have gone on the wrong road, turn back.
— Turkish proverb

The greatest of all faults is to be conscious of none. Recognizing our limitations and imperfections is the first requisite of progress. Those who believe they have "arrived " believe they have nowhere to go. Some not only have closed their minds to new truth, but they sit on the lid.
— Dale Turner

 

More on    Mark Twain (Samuel Langhorne Clemmons)

A Banker is a fellow who lends you his umbrella when the sun is shining and wants it back the minute it begins to rain.
— Mark Twain (1835–1910)

Advertisements contain the only truths to be relied on in a newspaper.
— Mark Twain (1835–1910)

A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on.
— Mark Twain (1835–1910)

Always acknowledge a fault. This will throw those in authority off their guard and give you an opportunity to commit more.
— Mark Twain (1835–1910)

Always do right. This will gratify some people and astonish the rest.
— Mark Twain (1835–1910)

All you need in this life is ignorance and confidence, and then success is sure.
— Mark Twain (1835–1910)

A man cannot be comfortable without his own approval.
— Mark Twain (1835–1910)

A man never reaches that dizzy height of wisdom that he can no longer be led by the nose.
— Mark Twain (1835–1910)

A man’s character may be learned from the adjectives which he habitually uses in conversation.
— Mark Twain (1835–1910)

Armaments were not created chiefly for the protection of nations but for their enslavement.
— Mark Twain (1835–1910)

A soiled baby, with a neglected nose, cannot be conscientiously regarded as a thing of beauty.
— Mark Twain (1835–1910)

A solemn, unsmiling, sanctimonious old iceberg who looked like he was waiting for a vacancy in the Trinity.
— Mark Twain (1835–1910)

Be careful of reading health books, you might die of a misprint.
— Mark Twain (1835–1910)

But it was ever thus, all through my life: whenever I have diverged from custom and principle and uttered a truth, the rule has been that the hearer hadn't strength of mind enough to believe it.
— Mark Twain (1835–1910), Autobiography of Mark Twain

Buy land. They've stopped making it.
— Mark Twain (1835–1910)

By trying we can easily learn to endure adversity. Another man's, I mean.
— Mark Twain (1835–1910)

Cauliflower is nothing but Cabbage with a College Education.
— Mark Twain (1835–1910)

Change is the hand maiden that Nature requires to do her miracles with.
— Mark Twain (1835–1910)

Civilization is a limitless multiplication of unnecessary necessities.
— Mark Twain (1835–1910)

Clothes make the man. Naked people have little or no influence on society.
— Mark Twain (1835–1910)

Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear — not absence of fear.
— Mark Twain (1835–1910)

Don't go around saying the world owes you a living. The world owes you nothing. It was here first.
— Mark Twain (1835–1910)

Don't let school interfere with your education.
— Mark Twain (1835–1910)

Don't part with your illusions. When they are gone you may still exist, but you have ceased to live.
— Mark Twain (1835–1910)

Each man must for himself alone decide what is right and what is wrong, which course is patriotic and which isn't. You cannot shirk this and be a man.
— Mark Twain (1835–1910)

Everyone is a moon, and has a dark side which he never shows to anybody.
— Mark Twain (1835–1910)

Familiarity breeds contempt — and children.
— Mark Twain (1835–1910)

Few things are harder to put up with than a good example.
— Mark Twain (1835–1910)

Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities. Truth isn't.
— Mark Twain (1835–1910)

Get your facts first, and then you can distort them as much as you please.
— Mark Twain (1835–1910)

God made the Idiot for practice, and then He made the School Board.
— Mark Twain (1835–1910)

Golf is a good walk spoiled.
— Mark Twain (1835–1910)

Good breeding consists in concealing how much we think of ourselves and how little we think of the other person.
— Mark Twain (1835–1910)

Grief can take care of itself, but to get the full value of a joy you must have somebody to divide it with.
— Mark Twain (1835–1910)

Go to Heaven for the climate, Hell for the company.
— Mark Twain (1835–1910)

History, although sometimes made up of the few acts of the great, is more often shaped by the many acts of the small.
— Mark Twain (1835–1910)

Honesty is the best policy — when there is money in it.
— Mark Twain (1835–1910)

I admire the serene assurance of those who have religous faith. It is wonderful to observe the calm confidence of a Christian with four aces.
— Mark Twain (1835–1910)

I am the entire human race compacted together. I have found that there is no ingredient of the race which I do not possess in either a small way or a large way.
— Mark Twain (1835–1910)

I did not attend his funeral; but I wrote a nice letter saying I approved of it.
— Mark Twain (1835–1910)

I don't give a damn for a man who can spell a word only one way.
— Mark Twain (1835–1910)

If Christ were here now there is one thing he would not be — a Christian.
— Mark Twain (1835–1910)

If man could be crossed with the cat, it would improve the man but deteriorate the cat.
— Mark Twain (1835–1910)

If you invent two or three people and turn them loose in your manuscript, something is bound to happen to them — you can't help it; and then it will take you the rest of the book to get them out of the natural consequences of that occurrence, and so first thing you know, there's your book all finished up and never cost you an idea.
— Mark Twain (1835–1910)

If you pick up a starving dog and make him prosperous, he will not bite you. This is the principal difference between a dog and a man.
— Mark Twain (1835–1910)

If you tell the truth you don't have to remember anything.
— Mark Twain (1835–1910)

I got so frustrated with the infernal contraption that I traded it for a dog, and shot the dog.
— Mark Twain (1835–1910)

I have never let my schooling interfere with my education.
— Mark Twain (1835–1910)

I have never taken any exercise except sleeping and resting.
— Mark Twain (1835–1910)

I have no color prejudices nor caste prejudices nor creed prejudices. All I care to know is that a man is a human being, and that is enough for me; he can't be any worse.
— Mark Twain (1835–1910)

I was born modest; not all over, but in spots.
— Mark Twain (1835–1910)

I'm opposed to millionaires, but it would be dangerous to offer me the position.
— Mark Twain (1835–1910)

In India, "cold weather" is merely a conventional phrase and has come into use through the necessity of having some way to distinguish between weather which will melt a brass door-knob and weather which will only make it mushy.
— Mark Twain (1835–1910)

In Paris they simply stared when I spoke to them in French; I never did succeed in making those idiots understand their language.
— Mark Twain (1835–1910)

In religion and politics people's beliefs and convictions are in almost every case gotten at second-hand, and without examination.
— Mark Twain (1835–1910)

It ain't the part of the Bible that I can't understand that bother me, it's the parts that I do understand.
— Mark Twain (1835–1910)

I think a compliment ought always to precede a complaint, where one is possible, because it softens resentment and insures for the complaint a courteous and gentle reception.
— Mark Twain (1835–1910)

I thoroughly disapprove of duels. I consider them unwise and I know they are dangerous. Also, sinful. If a man should challenge me now I would go to that man and take him kindly and forgivingly by the hand and lead him to a quiet retired spot and kill him.
— Mark Twain (1835–1910)

If you tell the truth, you don't have to remember anything.
— Mark Twain (1835–1910)

It is agreed, in this country, that if a man can arrange his religion so that it perfectly satisfies his conscience, it is not incumbent on him to care whether the arrangement is satisfactory to anyone else or not.
— Mark Twain (1835–1910)

It is better to keep your mouth shut and appear stupid than to open it and remove all doubt.
— Mark Twain (1835–1910)

It is by the goodness of God that in our country we have those three unspeakably precious things: freedom of speech, freedom of conscience, and the prudence never to practice either.
— Mark Twain (1835–1910)

It is easier to stay out than get out.
— Mark Twain (1835–1910)

It is good sportsmanship to not pick up lost golf balls while they are still rolling.
— Mark Twain (1835–1910)

It is just like man's vanity and impertinence to call an animal dumb because it is dumb to his dull perceptions.
— Mark Twain (1835–1910)

It is noble to be good; it is still nobler to teach others to be good — and less trouble.
— Mark Twain (1835–1910)

It is not worth while to try to keep history from repeating itself, for man's character will always make the preventing of the repetitions impossible.
— Mark Twain (1835–1910)

It takes your enemy and your friend, working together, to hurt you; the one to slander you, and the other to bring the news to you.
— Mark Twain (1835–1910)

It usually takes more than three weeks to prepare a good impromptu speech.
— Mark Twain (1835–1910)

It was wonderful to find America, but it would have been more wonderful to miss it.
— Mark Twain (1835–1910)

I was gratified to be able to answer promptly. I said I don't know.
— Mark Twain (1835–1910)

Just the omission of Jane Austen's books alone would make a fairly good library out of a library that hadn't a book in it.
— Mark Twain (1835–1910)

Let us be thankful for the fools. But for them the rest of us could not succeed.
— Mark Twain (1835–1910)

Let us endeavor so to live that when we come to die even the undertaker will be sorry.
— Mark Twain (1835–1910)

Let your secret sympathies and your compassion be always with the under dog in the fight — this is magnanimity; but bet on the other one — this is business.
— Mark Twain (1835–1910)

Love – irresistible desire to be irresistibly desired.
— Mark Twain (1835–1910)

Loyalty to petrified opinion never yet broke a chain or freed a human soul.
— Mark Twain (1835–1910): Consistency, paper, read in Hartford, Connecticut, 1884 (published in 1923; reprinted in Complete Essays, ed. Charles Neider, 1963) (inscription beneath his bust in the Hall of Fame)

Man is the only animal that blushes — or needs to.
— Mark Twain (1835–1910)

Man will do many things to get himself loved; he will do all things to get himself envied.
— Mark Twain (1835–1910)

Martyrdom covers a multitude of sins.
— Mark Twain (1835–1910)

My mother had a great deal of trouble with me, but I think she enjoyed it.
— Mark Twain (1835–1910)

Necessity is the mother of taking chances.
— Mark Twain (1835–1910)

Never put off until tomorrow what you can do the day after tomorrow.
— Mark Twain (1835–1910)

(see also Oscar Wilde quote)

Never tell the truth to people who are not worthy of it.
— Mark Twain (1835–1910)

Of all the animals, man is the only one that is cruel. He is the only one that inflicts pain for the pleasure of doing it.
— Mark Twain (1835–1910)

Often it does seem a pity that Noah and his party did not miss the boat.
— Mark Twain (1835–1910)

Once you put it down, you can't pick it up.
— Mark Twain (1835–1910), of a novel by Henry James

Part of the secret of a success in life is to eat what you like and let the food fight it out inside.
— Mark Twain (1835–1910)

Power, money, persuasion, supplication, persecution — these can lift at a colossal humbug — push it a little — weaken it a little over the course of a century; but only laughter can blow it to rags and atoms at a blast. Against the assault of laughter nothing can stand.
— Mark Twain (1835–1910)

Principles have no real force except when one is well-fed.
— Mark Twain (1835–1910)

Reader, suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself.
— Mark Twain (1835–1910)

Sacred cows make the best hamburger.
— Mark Twain (1835–1910)

Soap and education are not as sudden as a massacre, but they are more deadly in the long run.
— Mark Twain (1835–1910)

Substitute "damn" every time you're inclined to write "very;" your editor will delete it and the writing will be just as it should be.
— Mark Twain (1835–1910)

The best way to cheer yourself up is to try to cheer somebody else up.
— Mark Twain (1835–1910)

The difference between the truth and almost the truth is like the difference between lightning and a lightning bug.
— Mark Twain (1835–1910)

The holy passion of Friendship is of so sweet and steady and loyal and enduring a nature that it will last through a whole lifetime, if not asked to lend money.
— Mark Twain (1835–1910)

The human race has one really effective weapon, and that is laughter.
— Mark Twain (1835–1910)

The man who does not read good books has no advantage over the man who cannot read them.
— Mark Twain (1835–1910)

The man with a new idea is a Crank until the idea succeeds.
— Mark Twain (1835–1910)

The New York papers have long known that no large question is ever really settled until I have been consulted.
— Mark Twain (1835–1910)

The only way to keep your health is to eat what you don't want, drink what you don't like, and do what you'd rather not.
— Mark Twain (1835–1910)

The past does not repeat itself, but it rhymes.
— Mark Twain (1835–1910)

The political and commercial morals of the United States are not merely food for laughter, they are an entire banquet.
—Mark Twain (1835–1910) on the Impeachment of Andrew Johnson

The principle of give and take is the principle of diplomacy — give one and take ten.
— Mark Twain (1835–1910)

The proper office of a friend is to side with you when you are in the wrong.
— Mark Twain (1835–1910)

The radical invents the views. When he has worn them out the conservative adopts them.
— Mark Twain (1835–1910), Notebook

The secret source of humour itself is not joy, but sorrow. There is no humour in heaven.
— Mark Twain (1835–1910)

There are several good protections against temptations, but the surest is cowardice.
— Mark Twain (1835–1910)

There are two times in a man's life when he should not speculate: when he can't afford it, and when he can.
— Mark Twain (1835–1910)

There is no distinctly American criminal class, except Congress.
— Mark Twain (1835–1910)

There's one way to find out if a man is honest; ask him; if he says yes, you know he is crooked.
— Mark Twain (1835–1910)

There is something fascinating about science. One gets such wholesale returns of conjecture out of such a trifling investment of fact.
— Mark Twain (1835–1910)

There was never yet an uninteresting life. Such a thing is an impossibility. Inside of the dullest exterior there is a drama, a comedy and a tragedy.
— Mark Twain (1835–1910)

They spell it "da Vinci" and pronounce it "da Vinchy". Foreigners always spell better than they pronounce.
— Mark Twain (1835–1910)

To succeed in life, you need two things: ignorance and confidence.
— Mark Twain (1835–1910)

Truth is more of a stranger than fiction.
— Mark Twain (1835–1910)

Truth is our most valuable commodity — let us economize.
— Mark Twain (1835–1910), Following the Equator

Under certain circumstances, profanity provides a relief denied even to prayer.
— Mark Twain (1835–1910)

Wagner's music is better than it sounds.
— Mark Twain (1835–1910)

Water, taken in moderation, cannot hurt anybody.
— Mark Twain (1835–1910)

We all do no end of feeling, and we mistake it for thinking.
— Mark Twain (1835–1910)

We do no benevolences whose first benefit is not for ourselves.
— Mark Twain (1835–1910)

What is the difference between a taxidermist and a tax collector? The taxidermist takes only your skin.
— Mark Twain (1835–1910)

Whenever you find that you are on the side of the majority, it is time to reform.
— Mark Twain (1835–1910)

When in doubt, tell the truth.
— Mark Twain (1835–1910)

When I think of number of disagreeable people that I know who have gone to a better world, I am sure hell won't be bad at all.
— Mark Twain (1835–1910)

When I was a boy of 14 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 the old man had learnt in seven years.
— Mark Twain (1835–1910)

When we remember we are all mad, the mysteries disappear and life stands explained.
— Mark Twain (1835–1910)

Where prejudice exists it always discolors our thoughts.
— Mark Twain (1835–1910)

Whoever has lived long enought to find out what life is, knows how deep a debt of gratitude we owe to Adam, the first great benefactor of our race. He brought death into the world.
— Mark Twain (1835–1910)

Why is it that we rejoice at a birth and grieve at a funeral? It is because we are not the person involved
— Mark Twain (1835–1910)

You cannot depend on your eyes when your imagination is out of focus.
— Mark Twain (1835–1910)

U<     

Women constitute half the world's population, perform nearly two-thirds of its work hours, receive one-tenth of the world's income and own less than one-hundredth of the world's property.
— United Nations report, 1980

A liberal is someone too poor to be a capitalist, and too rich to be a communist.
— Unknown

A reactionary is a man whose political opinions always manage to keep up with yesterday.
— Unknown

There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.
— Unknown (attributed by Mark Twain to Benjamin Disraeli, but unsure)

A real patriot is the fellow who gets a parking ticket and rejoices that the system works.
— Unknown

All extremists should be taken out and shot.
— Unknown

People do not resist change — they resist being changed.
— Unknown

You are only young once, but you can stay immature indefinitely.
— Unknown

Isn't it strange that the same people that laugh at gypsy fortune tellers take economists seriously?
— Unknown

All things are possible except skiing thru a revolving door.
— Unknown

Health is merely the slowest possible rate at which one can die.
— Unknown

Perfectionism is the enemy of creation, as extreme self-solicitude is the enemy of well-being.
— John Updike

Excuses are like assholes, everyone has one, and they all stink.
— US Marine Proverb

It is always easier to ask forgiveness than permission.
— US Marine Proverb

V<     

Be glad of life because it gives you the chance to love and to work and to play and to look at the stars.
— Henry Van Dyke

It is better to be high-spirited even though one makes more mistakes, than to be narrow-minded and all too prudent.
— Vincent Van Gogh

Do not quench your inspiration and your imagination; do not become the slave of your model.
— Vincent Van Gogh

Writing a book is a very lonely business. You are totally cut off from the rest of the world, submerged in your obsessions and memories.
— Mario Vargas Llosa (1936 –), Peruvian writer

Trust not too much to an enchanting face.
— Vergil (B.C. 70–19)

Common Sense is not so common.
— Voltaire (1694–1778) French philosopher, poet, novelist, playwright

Doubt is uncomfortable, certainty is ridiculous.
— Voltaire (1694–1778) French philosopher, poet, novelist, playwright

Faith consists in believing when it is beyond the power of reason to believe. It is not enough that a thing be possible for it to be believed.
— Voltaire (1694–1778) French philosopher, poet, novelist, playwright

God is a comedian, playing to an audience too afraid to laugh.
— Voltaire (1694–1778) French philosopher, poet, novelist, playwright

History can be written well only in a free country.
— Voltaire (1694–1778) French philosopher, poet, novelist, playwright

History is little else than a picture of human crimes and misfortunes.
— Voltaire (1694–1778) French philosopher, poet, novelist, playwright

I advise you to go on living solely to enrage those who are paying your annuities. It is the only pleasure I have left.
— Voltaire (1694–1778) French philosopher, poet, novelist, playwright

I disagree with what you say, but I shall defend to the death your right to say it.
— Voltaire (1694–1778) French philosopher, poet, novelist, playwright

If we believe absurdities we shall commit atrocities.
— Voltaire (1694–1778) French philosopher, poet, novelist, playwright

It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong.
— Voltaire (1694–1778) French philosopher, poet, novelist, playwright

It is not enough to conquer; one must learn to seduce.
— Voltaire (1694–1778) French philosopher, poet, novelist, playwright

Judge a man by his questions rather than by his answers.
— Voltaire (1694–1778) French philosopher, poet, novelist, playwright

Love is a canvas furnished by Nature and embroidered by imagination.
— Voltaire (1694–1778) French philosopher, poet, novelist, playwright

Men use thought only to justify their wrongdoings, and speech only to conceal their thoughts.
— Voltaire (1694–1778) French philosopher, poet, novelist, playwright

Originality is nothing by judicious imitation. The most original writers borrowed one from another.
— Voltaire (1694–1778) French philosopher, poet, novelist, playwright

The art of medicine consists of amusing the patient while nature cures the disease.
— Voltaire (1694–1778) French philosopher, poet, novelist, playwright

The best government is a benevolent tyranny tempered by an occasional assassination.
— Voltaire (1694–1778) French philosopher, poet, novelist, playwright

The instruction we find in books is like fire. We fetch it from our neighbours, kindle it at home, communicate it to others, and it becomes the property of all.
— Voltaire (1694–1778) French philosopher, poet, novelist, playwright

To hold a pen is to be at war.
— Voltaire (1694–1778) French philosopher, poet, novelist, playwright

Weakness on both sides is, as we know, the motto of all quarrels.
— Voltaire (1694–1778) French philosopher, poet, novelist, playwright

When it's a question of money, everybody is of the same religion.
— Voltaire (1694–1778) French philosopher, poet, novelist, playwright

Whoever serves his country well has no need of ancestors.
— Voltaire (1694–1778) French philosopher, poet, novelist, playwright

W<     

Why does the Air Force need expensive new bombers? Have the people we've been bombing over the years been complaining?
— George Wallace

Outstanding leaders go out of their way to boost the self-esteem of their personnel. If people believe in themselves, it's amazing what they can accomplish.
— Sam Walton, founder/owner of WalMart

High expectations are the key to everything.
— Sam Walton

Who the hell wants to hear actors talk?
— H.M. Warner, founder of Warner Brothers, in 1927.

No race can prosper til it learns there is as much dignity in tilling a field as in writing a poem.
— Booker T. Washington, address to the Atlanta Exposition, Sept. 18, 1895

Success is to be measured not so much by the position that one has reached in life, as by the obstacles one has overcome trying to succeed.
— Booker T. Washington

To hold a man down, you have to stay down with him.
— Booker T. Washington

Character is power.
— Booker T. Washington

Friendship is a plant of slow growth and must undergo and withstand the shocks of adversity before it is entitled to the appellation.
— George Washington

I conceive that a knowledge of books is the basis on which all other knowledge rests.
— George Washington

The greatest part of our happiness depends on our dispositions, not our circumstances.
— Martha Washington

I think there is a world market for maybe five computers.
— Thomas J. Watson, Chairman of IBM, 1943

Recently, I was asked if I was going to fire an employee who made a mistake that cost the company $600,000. No, I replied, I just spent $600,000 training him. Why would I want somebody to hire his experience?
— Thomas J. Watson, Chairman of IBM

All the problems of the world could be settled easily if men were only willing to think. The trouble is that men very often resort to all sorts of devices in order not to think, because thinking is such hard work.
— Thomas J. Watson, Chairman of IBM

Nothing so conclusively proves a man's ability to lead others as what he does from day to day to lead himself.
— Thomas J. Watson, Chairman of IBM

If you want to succeed, double your failure rate.
— Thomas J. Watson, Chairman of IBM

It is a curious thing... that every creed promises a paradise which will be absolutely uninhabitable for anyone of civilized taste.
— Evelyn Waugh

Punctuality is the virtue of the bored.
— Evelyn Waugh

Life is tough, but it's tougher if you're stupid.
—John Wayne

I don't feel we did wrong in taking this great country away from them. there were great numbers of people who needed new land, and the Indians were selfishly trying to keep it for themselves.
— John Wayne

It's what you learn after you know it all that counts.
— Earl Weaver

It is a wasted day unless you have learned something new and made someone smile.
—Mark Weingartz

I don't say we all ought to misbehave, but we ought to look as if we could.
— Orson Welles (1915–1985), actor, author, director

I passionately hate the idea of being with it, I think an artist has always to be out of step with his time.
— Orson Welles (1915–1985), actor, author, director

Man is a rational animal who always loses his temper when called upon to act in accordance with the dictates of reason.
— Orson Welles (1915–1985), actor, author, director

My doctor told me to stop having intimate dinners for four. Unless there are three other people.
— Orson Welles (1915–1985), actor, author, director

Do all the good you can, By all the means you can, In all the ways you can, In all the places you can, At all the times you can, To all the people you can, As long as ever you can.
— John Wesley

Everything's in the mind. That's where it all starts. Knowing what you want is the first step toward getting it.
— Mae West (1892–1980)

Good girls go to heaven, bad girls go everywhere.
— Mae West (1892–1980)

Good sex is like good Bridge. If you don't have a good partner, you'd better have a good hand.
— Mae West

He who hesitates is a damned fool.
— Mae West (1892–1980)

I have been on more laps than a napkin.
— Mae West (1892–1980)

Keep a diary and one day it'll keep you.
— Mae West (1892–1980)

Marriage is a great institution, but I'm not ready for an institution yet.
— Mae West

Sex is an emotion in motion.
— Mae West (1892–1980)

They say love is blind...and marriage is an institution. Well, I'm not ready for an institution for the blind just yet.
— Mae West (1892–1980)

Those who are easily shocked should be shocked more often.
— Mae West (1892–1980)

To err is human — but divine!
— Mae West (1892–1980)

Too much of a good thing is wonderful.
— Mae West (1892–1980)

When choosing between two evils, I always like to try the one I've never tried before.
— Mae West, Klondike Annie

You're never too old to become younger.
— Mae West

This 'telephone' has too many shortcomings to be seriously considered as a means of communication. The device is inherently of no value to us.
— Western Union internal memo, 1876.

The easiest way for your children to learn about money is for you not to have any.
—Katherine Whitehorn

A good listener is a good talker with a sore throat.
—Katherine Whitehorn

Find out what you like doing best and get someone to pay you for doing it.
—Katherine Whitehorn

First things first, but not necessarily in that order.
— Doctor Who

Expecting the world to treat you fairly because you are a good person is a little like expecting the bull not to attack you because you are a vegetarian.
— Dennis Wholey

A conservative is a man who believes that nothing should be done for the first time.
— Alfred E. Wiggam

 

More on    Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)

A bad man is the sort of man who admires innocence, and a bad woman is the sort of woman a man never gets tired of.
— Oscar Wilde (1854–1900), A Woman of No Importance 1893

A cynic is a person who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing.
— Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)

A dreamer is one who can only find his way by moonlight, and his punishment is that he sees the dawn before the rest of the world.
— Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)

After a good dinner one can forgive anybody, even one's own relatives.
— Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)

A kiss may ruin a human life.
— Oscar Wilde (1854–1900), A Woman of No Importance 1893

All the good things in life are immoral, illegal, or heavily taxed.
— Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)

Always forgive your enemies. Nothing annoys them more.
— Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)

A man can be happy with any woman as long as he does not love her.
— Oscar Wilde (1854–1900), The Picture of Dorian Gray 1891

A man can't be too careful in the choice of his enemies.
— Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)

A man's face is his autobiography. A woman's face is her work of fiction.
— Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)

A man who desires to get married should know either everything or nothing.
— Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)

A man who moralizes is usually a hypocrite, and a woman who moralizes is invariably plain.
— Oscar Wilde (1854–1900), Lady Windermere's Fan (1892)

A poet can survive anything but a misprint.
— Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)

A really well made buttonhole is the only link between art and nature.
— Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)

A visionary is one who can find his way by moonlight, and see the dawn before the rest of the world.
— Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)

A well-tied tie is the first serious step in life.
— Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)

America is the only country that went from barbarism to decadence without civilization in between.
— Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)

Ambition is the last refuge of the failure.
— Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)

And now, I am dying beyond my means.
— Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) while sipping champagne on his deathbed.

An idea that is not dangerous is unworthy of being called an idea at all.
— Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)

Anybody can be good in the country; there are no temptations there.
— Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)

Anybody can make history; only a great man can write it.
— Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)

Anybody can sympathise with the sufferings of a friend, but it requires a very fine nature to sympathise with a friend's success.
— Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)

As long as a woman can look ten years younger than her own daughter, she is perfectly satisfied.
— Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)

At six o'clock we cleaned our cells,
At seven all was still,
But the sough and swing of a mighty wing
The prison seemed to fill,
For the Lord of Death with icy breath
Had entered in to kill.
— Oscar Wilde (1854–1900), The Ballad of Reading Gaol

Bad artists always admire each other’s work.
— Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)

Being natural is simply a pose.
— Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)

Bernard Shaw is an excellent man; he has not an enemy in the world, and none of his friends like him.
— Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)

Between men and women there is no friendship possible. There is passion, enmity, worship, love, but no friendship.
— Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)

Bigamy is having one wife too many. Monogamy is the same.
— Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)

Caricature is the tribute that mediocrity pays to genius.
— Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)

Clever people never listen and stupid people never talk.
— Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)

Crying is the refuge of plain women but the ruin of pretty ones.
— Oscar Wilde (1854–1900), Lady Windermere's Fan (1892)

Democracy means simply the bludgeoning of the people, by the people, for the people.
— Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)

Divorces are made in heaven.
— Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)

Don't be misled into the paths of virtue.
— Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)

Duty is what one expects from others.
— Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)

Education is an admirable thing, but it well to remember from time to time that nothing that is worth knowing can be taught.
— Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)

Every great man has his disciples, and it is always Judas who writes the biography.
— Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)

Everyone should keep someone else's diary.
— Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)

Everybody who is incapable of learning has taken up teaching.
— Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)

Experience is the name everyone gives to his mistakes.
— Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)

Faithfulness is to the emotional life what consistency is to the life of the intellect — simply a confession of failures.
— Oscar Wilde (1854–1900), The Picture of Dorian Gray 1891

Fashion is a form of ugliness so intolerable that we have to alter it every six months.
— Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)

He hadn't a single redeeming vice.
— Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)

He had the sort of face that, once seen, is never remembered.
— Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)

He knew the precise psychological moment when to say nothing.
— Oscar Wilde (1854–1900), The Picture of Dorian Gray 1891

Her capacity for family affection is extraordinary: when her third husband died, her hair turned quite gold from grief.
— Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)

He was always late on principle; his principle being that punctuality is the thief of time.
— Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)

I can resist everything except temptation.
— Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)

I do not approve of anything that tampers with natural ignorance. Ignorance is like a delicate exotic fruit; touch it, and the bloom is gone.
— Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)

I am not young enough to know everything.
— Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)

I am sick of women who love me. Women who hate me are much more interesting.
— Oscar Wilde (1854–1900), The Picture of Dorian Gray 1891

I do not play cricket because it requires me to assume such indecent postures
— Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)

I don't know that women are always rewarded for being charming. I think they are usually punished for it!
— Oscar Wilde (1854–1900), An Ideal Husband 1895

I don't like compliments, and I don't see why a man should think he is pleasing a woman enormously when he says to her awhile heap of things that he doesn't mean.
— Oscar Wilde (1854–1900), said by Lady Windemere in Lady Windermere's Fan (1892)

I don't think there is a woman in the world who would not be a little flattered if one made love to her. It is that which makes women so irresistibly adorable.
— Oscar Wilde (1854–1900), A Woman of No Importance 1893

I find that alcohol when taken in sufficient quantities can bring about all the effects of drunkeness.
— Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)

I have the simplest tastes. I am always satisfied with the best.
—Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)

I know not whether Laws be right, Or whether Laws be wrong; All that we know who lie in gaol Is that the wall is strong; And that each day is like a year, A year whose days are long.
— Oscar Wilde (1854–1900), The Ballad of Reading Gaol

I like men who have a future and women who have a past.
— Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)

I must decline your invitation owing to a subsequent engagement.
— Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)

I never put off till tomorrow what I can do the day after.
— Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)

I never travel without my dairy. One should always have something sensational to read.
— Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)

I prefer women with a past. They're always so damned amusing to talk to.
— Oscar Wilde (1854–1900), Lady Windermere's Fan (1892)

I sometimes think that God in creating man, somewhat overestimated His ability.
—Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)

If you are not too long, I will wait here for you all my life.
— Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)

If one tells the truth, one is sure sooner or later to be found out.
— Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)

In America the President reigns for four years and journalism governs forever and ever.
— Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)

In examinations the foolish ask questions that the wise cannot answer.
— Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)

In the old day men had the rack; now they have the press.
— Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)

It is better to have a permanent income than to be fascinating.
— Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)

It is dangerous to be sincere unless you are also stupid.
— Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)

It is perfectly monstrous the way people go about, nowadays, saying things against one behind one's back that are absolutely and entirely true.
— Oscar Wilde (1854–1900), A Woman of No Importance 1893

It is very vulgar to talk like a dentist when one isn't a dentist. It produces a false impression.
— Oscar Wilde (1854–1900): The Importance of Being Earnest 1895

It takes a thoroughly good woman to do a thoroughly stupid thing.
— Oscar Wilde (1854–1900), Lady Windermere's Fan (1892)

Laughter is not at all a bad beginning for a friendship, and it is far the best ending for one.
—Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)

Life is much too important a thing ever to talk seriously about it.
— Oscar Wilde (1854–1900), Vera, of The Nihilists

Life is never fair...And perhaps it is a good thing for most of us that it is not.
— Oscar Wilde (1854–1900), An Ideal Husband 1895

Marriage is the triumph of imagination over intelligence. Second marriage is the triumph of hope over experience.
— Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)

Men always want to be a woman's first love; women have a more subtle instinct: what they like is to be a man's last romance.
— Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)

Men are horribly tedious when they are good husbands, and abominably conceited when they are not.
— Oscar Wilde (1854–1900), A Woman of No Importance 1893

Men become old, but they never become good.
— Oscar Wilde (1854–1900), Lady Windermere's Fan (1892)

Men marry because they are tired; women because they are curious. Both are disappointed.
— Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)

Morality is simply the attitude we adopt towards people whom we generally dislike.
— Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)

More than half modern culture depends on what one shouldn't read.
— Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)

Most men and women are forced to perform parts for which they have no qualification.
— Oscar Wilde (1854–1900), Lord Arthur Savile's Crime 1887

Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else's opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation.
— Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)

My dear young lady, there was a great deal of truth, I dare say, in what you said, and you looked very pretty while you said it, which is much more important.
— Oscar Wilde (1854–1900), A Woman of No Importance 1893

My own business always bore's me to death; I prefer other people's.
— Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)

Never buy a thing you don't want merely because it is dear.
— Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)

No man is rich enough to buy back his past.
— Oscar Wilde (1854–1900), An Ideal Husband 1895

No man should have a secret from his wife; she invariably finds out.
— Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)

Nothing is so aggravating as calmness.
— Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)

Nothing looks so like innocence as an indiscretion.
— Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)

Nothing spoils a romance so much as a sense of humor in the woman — or the want of it in the man.
— Oscar Wilde (1854–1900), A Woman of No Importance 1893

Nothing succeeds like excess.
— Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)

Nowdays all married men live like bachelors, and all the bachelors live like married men.
— Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)

Nowdays to be intelligible is to be found out.
— Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)

One can survive everything nowdays except death.
— Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)

One should always be in love. That is the reason one should never marry.
— Oscar Wilde (1854–1900), In Conversation

One should always play fairly when one has the winning cards.
— Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)

One should never trust a woman who tells one her real age. A woman who would tell one that, would tell one anything.
— Oscar Wilde (1854–1900), A Woman of No Importance 1893

One's real life is so often the life that one does not lead.
— Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)

Only great masters of style can succeed in being obtuse.
— Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)

Only the shallow know themselves.
— Oscar Wilde (1854–1900), Phrases and Philosophies for the Use of the Young

People who count their chickens before they are hatched, act very wisely, because chickens run about so absurdly that it is impossible to count them accurately.
— Oscar Wilde (1854–1900), Letter from Paris, May 1900

Plain women are always jealous of their husbands. Beautiful women never are. They are always so occupied with being jealous of other women's husbands.
— Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)

Questions are never indiscreet; answers sometimes are.
— Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)

Rich bachelors should be heavily taxed. It is not fair that some men should be happier than others.
— Oscar Wilde (1854–1900), In Conversation

Seriousness is the only refuge of the shallow.
— Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)

She looks like a woman with a past. Most pretty women do.
— Oscar Wilde (1854–1900), An Ideal Husband 1895

She who hesitates is won.
— Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)

She wore too much rouge last night and not quite enough clothes. That is always a sign of despair in a woman.
— Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)

Society produces rogues, and education makes one rogue cleverer than another.
— Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)

Some cause happiness wherever they go; others, whenever they go.
— Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)

Something was dead in each of us, And what was dead was Hope.
— Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)

The advantages of the emotions is that they lead us astray.
— Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)

The best way to make children is to make them happy.
— Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)

The Book of Life begins with a man and woman in a garden. It ends with Revelation.
— Oscar Wilde (1854–1900), A Woman of No Importance 1893

The books that the world calls immoral are the books that show the world its own shame.
— Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)

The clever people never listen, and the stupid people never talk.
— Oscar Wilde (1854–1900), A Woman of No Importance 1893

The condition of perfection is idleness; The aim of perfection is youth.
— Oscar Wilde (1854–1900), Phrases and Philosopies for the Use of the Young

The difference between literature and journalism is that journalism is unreadable and literature is not read.
— Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)

The English country gentleman galloping after a fox — the unspeakable in full pursuit of the uneatable.
— Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)

The English public take no interest in a work of art until it is told that the work in question is obscene.
— Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)

The liar at any rate recognizes that recreation, not instruction, is the aim of conversation, and is a far more civilized being than the blockhead who loudly expresses his disbelief in a story which is told simply for the amusement of the company.
— Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)

The more one analyses people, the more all reasons for analysis disappear. Sooner or later one comes to that dreadful universal thing called human nature.
— Oscar Wilde (1854–1900), The Decay of Lying

The old believe everything, the middle-aged suspect everything, the young know everything.
— Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)

The only thing one can do with good advice is to pass it on. It is never of any use to oneself.
— Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)

The public have an insatiable curiosity to know everything, except what is worth knowing.
— Oscar Wilde (1854–1900), The Soul of Man Under Socialism

The reason we are so pleased to find other people's secrets is that it distracts public attention from our own.
— Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)

The stage is not merely the meeting place of all the arts, but is also the return of art to life.
— Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)

The true perfection of man lies, not in what man has, but in what man is. Nothing should be able to harm a man but himself. Nothing should be able to rob a man at all. What a man really has is what is in him. What is outside of him should be a matter of no importance.
— Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)

There are people who say I have never really done anything wrong in my life; of course, they only say it behind my back.
— Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)

There is hardly a person in the House of Commons worth painting, although many of them would be better for a little whitewashing.
— Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)

There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book. Books are well written or badly written.
—Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)

There is only one class in the community that thinks more about money than the rich, and that is the poor.
—Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)

There is only one thing in the world worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about.
— Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)

<

The soul is born old but grows young. That is the comedy of life. And the body is born young and grows old. That is life's tragedy.
— Oscar Wilde (1854–1900), A Woman of No Importance 1893

The truth is rarely pure and never simple.
— Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)

The world is a stage, but the play is badly cast.
— Oscar Wilde (1854–1900), Lord Arthur Savile's Crime 1887

The world is divided into two classes; those who believe the incredible, and those who do the improbable.
— Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)

Those who are faithless know the pleasures of love; it is the faithful who know love's tragedies.
— Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)

To have lost one parent is a misfortune. To have lost both looks like carelessness.
— Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)

To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all.
— Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)

To love oneself is the beginning of a life-long romance.
— Oscar Wilde (1854–1900), Phrases and Philosophies for the Use of the Young

True friends stab you in the front.
— Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)

Truth, in matters of religion, is simply the opinion that has survived.
— Oscar Wilde (1854–1900), The Critic as Artist (1891)

Twenty years of romance make a woman look like a ruin, but twenty years of marriage make her something like a public building.
— Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)

Vulgarity is simply the conduct of others.
— Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)

We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.
— Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)

We are each our own devil, and we make this world our hell.
— Oscar Wilde (1854–1900), The Duchess of Padua 1883

We live in age when unnecessary things are our only necessities.
— Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)

We were all born in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.
— Oscar Wilde (1854–1900), Lady Windermere's Fan (1892)

What people call insincerity is simply a method by which we can multiply our personalities. Ambition is the last refuge of the failure.
— Oscar Wilde (1854–1900), The Critic as Artist

When a woman marries again it is because she detested her first husband. When a man marries again, it is because he adored his first wife. Women try their luck; men risk it.
— Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)

Whenever cannibals are on the brink of starvation, Heaven in its infinite mercy sends them a nice plump missionary.
— Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)

Whenever people agree with me I always feel I must be wrong.
— Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)

When one is in love, one always begins by deceiving one's self, and one always ends by deceving others. That is what the world calls a romance.
— Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)

When the gods wish to punish us they answer our prayers.
— Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)

Who, being loved, is poor?
— Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)

Why was I born with such contemporaries?
— Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)

Wicked women bother one; good women bore one; that is the only difference between them.
— Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)

Woman begins by resisting a man's advances and ends by blocking his retreat.
— Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)

Women are meant to be loved, not to be understood.
— Oscar Wilde (1854–1900), The Sphinx Without a Secret

Women give to men the very gold of their lives. But they invariably want it back in small change.
— Oscar Wilde (1854–1900), The Picture of Dorian Gray 1891

Women's styles may change but their designs remain the same.
— Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)

You must not find symbols in everything you see. It makes life impossible.
— Oscar Wilde (1854–1900), Salome 1894

Young men want to be faithful and are not; old men want to be faithless and cannot.
— Oscar Wilde (1854–1900), The Picture of Dorian Gray 1891

The pursuit of perfection often impedes improvement.
— George F. Will

The unpleasant sound Bush is emitting as he traipses from one conservative gathering to another is a thin, tinny “arf”—the sound of a lap dog.
— George F. Will, on then Vice President George Bush, Washington Post, January 30, 1986

Life is the acceptance of responsibilities or their evasion, it is a business of meeting obligations or avoiding them. To every man the choice is continually being offered, and by the manner of his choosing you may fairly measure him.
— Ben Ames Williams

Make voyages! Attempt them...there's nothing else.
— Tennessee Williams (1911–1983)

We all live in a house on fire, no fire department to call; no way out, just the upstairs window to look out of while the fire burns the house down with us trapped, locked in it.
— Tennessee Williams (1911–1983)

All cruel people describe themselves as paragons of frankness.
— Tennessee Williams (1911–1983)

We are all sentenced to solitary confinement inside our own skins, for life.
— Tennessee Williams (1911–1983)

I can't stand a naked light bulb, any more than I can a rude remark or a vulgar action.
— Tennessee Williams (1911–1983)

In memory everything seems to happen to music.
— Tennessee Williams (1911–1983)

Luxury is the wolf at the door and its fangs are the vanities and conceits germinated by success. When an artist learns this, he knows where the danger is.
— Tennessee Williams (1911–1983)

Time rushes toward us with its hospital tray of infinitely varied narcotics, even while it is preparing us for its inevitably fatal operation.
— Tennessee Williams (1911–1983)

Cynics regarded everybody as equally corrupt... Idealists regarded everybody as equally corrupt, except themselves.
— Robert Anton Wilson

A conservative is a man who sits and thinks, mostly sits.
— Woodrow Wilson

The truth is we are all caught in a great economic system which is heartless.
— Woodrow Wilson

A cult is a religion with no political power.
— Tom Wolfe

Be more concerned with your character than your reputation. Your character is what you really are while your reputation is merely what others think you are.
— John Wooden

You can't let praise or criticism get to you. It's a weakness to get caught up in either one.
— John Wooden

It is amazing how much can be accomplished if no one cares who gets the credit.
— John Wooden

It is what you learn after you know it all that counts.
— John Wooden

 

More on    William Wordsworth (1770–1850), English poet

A traveller on the skirt of Sarum's Plain
 Pursued his vagrant way, with feet half bare;
Stooping his gait, but not as if to gain
 Help from the staff he bore; for mien and air
Were hardy, though his cheek seemed worn with care
 Both of the time to come, and time long fled:
Down fell in straggling locks his thin grey hair;
 A coat he wore of military red
But faded, and stuck o'er with many a patch and shred.

While thus he journeyed, step by step led on,
 He saw and passed a stately inn, full sure
That welcome in such house for him was none.
 No board inscribed the needy to allure
Hung there, no bush proclaimed to old and poor
 And desolate, "Here you will find a friend!"
The pendent grapes glittered above the door;—
 On he must pace, perchance 'till night descend,
Where'er the dreary roads their bare white lines extend.
— William Wordsworth (1770–1850), English poet, Incidents Upon Salisbury Plain (also called Guilt and Sorrow

And homeless near a thousand homes I stood,
 And near a thousand tables pined and wanted food.
— William Wordsworth (1770–1850), English poet, Incidents Upon Salisbury Plain

And ’t is my faith, that every flower
 Enjoys the air it breathes.
— William Wordsworth (1770–1850), English poet, Lines written in Early Spring

    But hearing oftentimes
The still, sad music of humanity.
— William Wordsworth (1770–1850), English poet, Lines completed a few miles above Tintern Abbey

My heart leaps up when I behold
    A rainbow in the sky:
So was it when my life began;
So is it now I am a man;
So be it when I shall grow old,
    Or let me die!
The Child is father of the Man;
    I could wish my days to be
Bound each to each by natural piety.

— William Wordsworth (1770–1850), English poet, The Rainbow, 1802

    That best portion of a good man’s life,—
His little, nameless, unremembered acts
 Of kindness and of love.
— William Wordsworth (1770–1850), English poet, Lines completed a few miles above Tintern Abbey

We'll talk of sunshine and of song,
 And summer days, when we were young;
  Sweet childish days, that were as long
   As twenty days are now.
— William Wordsworth (1770–1850), English poet, To a Butterfly

The thing you really believe in always happens... and the belief in a thing makes it happen.
— Frank Lloyd Wright

X<     

The primary purpose of the Data statement is to give names to constants; instead of referring to pi as 3.141592653589793 at every appearance, the variable Pi can be given that value with a Data statement and used instead of the longer form of the constant. This also simplifies modifying the program, should the value of pi change.
— Xerox Computers Fortran manual

Y<     

Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire.
— William Butler Yeats (1865 - 1939), Irish poet and revivalist of Irish literature

I heard the old, old men say,
 "Every thing alters,
  And one by one we drop away."
They had hands like claws, and their knees
 Were twisted like the old thorn trees
  By the waters.
I heard the old, old men say,
 "All that's beautiful drifts away
  Like the waters."
— William Butler Yeats (1865 - 1939), Irish poet and revivalist of Irish literature, The Old Men admiring themselves in the Water

    Land of Heart’s Desire,
Where beauty has no ebb, decay no flood,
 But joy is wisdom, Time an endless song.
— William Butler Yeats (1865 - 1939), Irish poet and revivalist of Irish literature, Land of Heart’s Desire

Do, or do not. There is no "try."
— Yoda

Nothing is illegal if one hundred businessmen decide to do it.
— Andrew Young

It isn't the incompetent who destroys an organization. The incompetent never gets in a position to destroy it. It is those who have achieved something and want to rest upon their achievements who are forever clogging things up.
— F.M. Young

It is not the crook in modern business we fear, but the honest man who doesn't know what he is doing.
— Owen D. Young

Z <     

It is better to die on your feet than to live on your knees.
— Emiliano Zapata

You can't be a Real Country unless you have a beer and an airline. It helps if you have some kind of a football team, or some nuclear weapons, but at the very least you need a beer.
— Frank Zappa (1940 - 1993), American singer, guitarist, philosopher and actor

I'm not black but there's times I wish I could say I wasn't white.
— Frank Zappa (1940 - 1993), American singer, guitarist, philosopher and actor

My best advice to anyone who wants to raise a happy, mentally healthy child is: Keep him or her as far away from a church as you can.
— Frank Zappa (1940 - 1993), American singer, guitarist, philosopher and actor

There is more stupidity than hydrogen in the universe, and it has a longer shelf life.
— Frank Zappa (1940 - 1993), American singer, guitarist, philosopher and actor

No nation ancient or modern ever lost the liberty of freely speaking, writing, or publishing their sentiments, but forthwith lost their liberty in general and became slaves.
— John Peter Zenger

I'll sleep when I'm dead.
— Warren Zevon

Nothing can stop people with the right mental attitude from achieving their goals; nothing on earth can help those with the wrong mental attitude.
— W. W. Zieg

Real love is a growing and development process that involves every emotion, problem, joy and triumph known to man.
— Zig Ziglar

You cannot tailor-make the situations in life, but you can tailor-make the attitudes to fit those situations.
— Zig Ziglar

The foundation stones for a balanced success are honesty, character, integrity, faith, love and loyalty.
— Zig Ziglar

When you are tough on yourself, life is going to be infinitely easier on you.
— Zig Ziglar

Those who say it can't be done are usually interupted by others doing it.
— Zig Ziglar

Expect the best. Prepare for the worst. Capitalize on what comes.
— Zig Ziglar

If you learn from defeat, you haven't really lost.
— Zig Ziglar

Remember that failure is an event, not a person
— Zig Ziglar

Opportunity lies in the man and not in the job.
— Zig Ziglar

One forges one's style on the terrible anvil of daily deadlines.
— Emile Zola (1840 - 1902), French novelist

The artist is nothing without the gift, but the gift is nothing without work.
— Emile Zola (1840 - 1902), French novelist

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