Collected Quotes, in no particular order
Perhaps I should think about organizing these sometime...
When a train goes through a tunnel and it gets dark, you don't throw away the ticket and jump off. You sit still and trust the engineer. -Corrie Ten Boom, author and Holocaust survivor
Time has no divisions to mark its passage, there is never a thunderstorm or blare of trumpets to announce the beginning of a new month or year. Even when a new century begins it is only we mortals who ring bells and fire off pistols. -Thomas Mann, novelist, Nobel laureate (1875-1955)
The most perfect technique is that which is not noticed at all. -Pablo Casals, cellist, conductor, and composer (1876-1973)
Where it is a duty to worship the sun, it is pretty sure to be a crime to examine the laws of heat. -John Morley, statesman and writer (1838-1923)
"The question is," said Alice, "whether you CAN make words mean so many different things." "The question is," said Humpty Dumpty, "which is to be master--that's all." -Lewis Carroll (1832-1898) [Through the Looking Glass]
The urge to save humanity is almost always a false front for the urge to rule. -H.L. Mencken, writer, editor, and critic (1880-1956)
Success is not the key to happiness. Happiness is the key to success. -Albert Schweitzer, philosopher, physician, musician, Nobel laureate (1875-1965)
I am in the habit of looking not so much to the nature of a gift as to the spirit in which it is offered. -Robert Louis Stevenson, novelist, essayist, and poet (1850-1894)
In war, there are no unwounded soldiers. -Jose Narosky, writer
Sometimes I wonder whether the world is being run by smart people who are putting us on or by imbeciles who really mean it. -Mark Twain, author and humorist (1835-1910)
During times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act. -George Orwell, writer (1903-1950)
Whenever 'A' attempts by law to impose his moral standards upon 'B', 'A' is most likely a scoundrel. -H.L. Mencken, writer, editor, and critic (1880-1956)
The spirit of democracy cannot be imposed from without. It has to come from within. -Mohandas K. Gandhi (1869-1948)
What the world needs is more geniuses with humility, there are so few of us left. -- Oscar Levant
When will our consciences grow so tender that we will act to prevent human misery rather than avenge it? -Eleanor Roosevelt, diplomat and writer (1884-1962)
If you torture data sufficiently, it will confess to almost anything. -Fred Menger, chemistry professor (1937- )
Courage without conscience is a wild beast. -Robert Green Ingersoll, lawyer and orator (1833-1899)
Wrongs are often forgiven, but contempt never is. Our pride remembers it forever. -Lord Chesterfield, statesman and writer (1694-1773)
Life without industry is guilt, industry without art is brutality. -John Ruskin, author, art critic, and social reformer (1819-1900)
A book lying idle on a shelf is wasted ammunition. Like money, books must be kept in constant circulation. Lend and borrow to the maximum. -Henry Miller, novelist (1891-1980)
If you want your children to turn out well, spend twice as much time with them, and half as much money. -Abigail Van Buren, advice columnist (1918- )
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, author and humorist (1835-1910)
If privacy is outlawed, only outlaws will have privacy. -Phil Zimmermann, cryptographer (1954- )
The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, and wiser people so full of doubts. -Bertrand Russell, philosopher, mathematician, author, Nobel laureate (1872-1970)
No matter how far you have gone on the wrong road, turn back. -Turkish proverb
This aphorism would be seven words long if it were six words shorter.
It is inaccurate to say I hate everything. I am strongly in favor of common sense, common honesty, and common decency. This makes me forever ineligible for public office. -H.L. Mencken, writer, editor, and critic (1880-1956)
It is only those who have neither fired a shot nor heard the shrieks and groans of the wounded who cry aloud for blood, more vengeance, more desolation. War is hell. -William Tecumseh Sherman, Union General in the American Civil War (1820-1891)
A person usually has two reasons for doing something: a good reason and the real reason. -Thomas Carlyle, historian and essayist (1795-1881)
The only maxim of a free government ought to be to trust no man living with power to endanger the public liberty. -John Adams, 2nd US president (1735-1826)
Those who insist on the dignity of their office show they have not deserved it. -Baltasar Gracian, philosopher and writer (1601-1658)
Being rich is having money; being wealthy is having time. -Stephen Swid, executive
A thought is often original, though you have uttered it a hundred times. -- Oliver Wendell Holmes
Don't try to solve serious matters in the middle of the night.-- Philip K. Dick
Money can't buy friends, but it can get you a better class of enemy. - Spike Milligan
Sanity is a madness put to good use. -- George Santayana
I love deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly by. -- Douglas Adams
Books are like imprisoned souls till someone takes them down from a shelf and frees them. -Samuel Butler, writer (1835-1902)
There are books in which the footnotes or comments scrawled by some reader's hand in the margin are more interesting that the text. The world is one of these books. -George Santayana, philosopher (1863-1952)
My aim is to agitate and disturb people. I'm not selling bread, I'm selling yeast. -Miguel de Unamuno, writer and philosopher (1864-1936)
Autumn is a second spring when every leaf is a flower. -Albert Camus, writer and philosopher (1913-1960)
I love my country too much to be a nationalist. -Albert Camus, writer, philosopher, Nobel laureate (1913-1960)
Egotism is the anesthetic that dulls the pain of stupidity. -Frank William Leahy, football coach (1908-1973)
Trees are the earth's endless effort to speak to the listening heaven. -Rabindranath Tagore, poet, philosopher, author, songwriter, painter, educator, composer, Nobel laureate (1861-1941)
Patience is also a form of action. -Auguste Rodin, sculptor (1840-1917)
People rarely win wars; governments rarely lose them. -Arundhati Roy, writer and activist (1961- )
The negative is the equivalent of the composer's score, and the print the performance. -Ansel Adams, photographer (1902-1984)
"A citizen of America will cross the ocean to fight for democracy, but won't cross the street to vote in a national election." - Bill Vaughans
A great war leaves the country with three armies - an army of cripples, an army of mourners, and an army of thieves. -German proverb
Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge. -Charles Darwin, naturalist and author (1809-1882)
Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored. -Aldous Huxley, novelist (1894-1963)
You can never understand one language until you understand at least two. -Ronald Searle, artist (1920- )
A proverb is a short sentence based on long experience. -Miguel de Cervantes, novelist (1547-1616)
Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. -Carl Sagan, astronomer and author (1934-1996)
A visitor from Mars could easily pick out the civilized nations. They have the best implements of war. -Herbert V. Prochnow, banker (1897-1998)
The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there. -L.P. Hartley, writer (1895-1972)
The living language is like a cow-path: it is the creation of the cows themselves, who, having created it, follow it or depart from it according to their whims or their needs. From daily use, the path undergoes change. A cow is under no obligation to stay. -E.B. White, writer (1899-1985)
Patriotism is supporting your country all the time and the government when it deserves it. -Mark Twain, author and humorist (1835-1910)
Everything secret degenerates, even the administration of justice; nothing is safe that does not show how it can bear discussion and publicity. -Lord Acton, historian (1834-1902)
The first forty years of life give us the text; the next thirty supply the commentary on it. -Arthur Schopenhauer, philosopher (1788-1860)
The ultimate test of a moral society is the kind of world that it leaves to its children. -Dietrich Bonhoeffer, theologian (1906-1945)
Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown. -William Shakespeare, playwright and poet (1564-1616)
I ask you to judge me by the enemies I have made. -Franklin D. Roosevelt, 32nd US President (1882-1945)
One has to be a lowbrow, a bit of a murderer, to be a politician, ready and willing to see people sacrificed, slaughtered, for the sake of an idea, whether a good one or a bad one. -Henry Miller, writer (1891-1980)
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. -Theodore Roosevelt, Twenty-sixth US president (1858-1919)
Our elections are free, it's in the results where eventually we pay. -Bill Stern, sports announcer (1907-1971)
The best writing is rewriting. -E.B. White, writer (1899-1985)
The first method for estimating the intelligence of a ruler is to look at the men he has around him. -Niccolo Machiavelli, political philosopher and author (1469-1527)
The television, that insidious beast, that Medusa which freezes a billion people to stone every night, staring fixedly, that Siren which called and sang and promised so much and gave, after all, so little. -Ray Bradbury, science-fiction writer (1920- )
When two elephants fight it is the grass that gets trampled. -African proverb
The only devils in this world are those running around in our own hearts, and that is where all our battles should be fought. -Mahatma Gandhi (1869-1948)
It is not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change. -Charles Darwin, naturalist and author (1809-1882)
A thing long expected takes the form of the unexpected when at last it comes. -Mark Twain, author and humorist (1835-1910)
The folly of mistaking a paradox for a discovery, a metaphor for a proof, a torrent of verbiage for a spring of capital truths, and oneself for an oracle, is inborn in us. -Paul Valery, poet and philosopher (1871-1945)
A bit of perfume always clings to the hand that gives the rose. -Chinese proverb
Irreverence is the champion of liberty and its only sure defense. -Mark Twain
I know nothing about sex because I was always married. - Zsa Zsa Gabor
An intellectual is a person who has discovered something more interesting than sex. - Aldous Huxley
The real problem is not whether machines think but whether men do. - B.F. Skinner
If we couldn't laugh, we would all go insane. - Jimmy Buffett
Quit worrying about your health. It'll go away. -Robert Orben
You have to know how to accept rejection and reject acceptance. - Ray Bradbury
Television has done much for psychiatry by spreading information about it, as well as contributing to the need for it. - Alfred Hitchcock
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
Some editors are failed writers, but so are most writers. - E.B. White
If you want to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first create the universe. - Carl Sagan
Some editors are failed writers, but so are most writers. - T.S. Eliot
CNN is one of the participants in the war. I have a fantasy where Ted Turner is elected president but refuses because he doesn't want to give up power. - Arthur C. Clarke
Glory is fleeting, but obscurity is forever. - Napoleon Bonaparte
My way of joking is to tell the truth. It is the funniest joke in the world. - George Bernard Shaw
Just because something doesn't do what you planned it to do doesn't mean it's useless. - Thomas A. Edison
It was wonderful to find America, but it would have been more wonderful to miss it. - Mark Twain
Work on good prose has three steps: a musical stage when it is composed, an architectonic one when it is built, and a textile one when it is woven. -Walter Benjamin, critic and philosopher (1982-1940)
It is as impossible to translate poetry as it is to translate music. -Voltaire, writer (1694-1778)
Other men are lenses through which we read our own minds. -Ralph Waldo Emerson , writer and philosopher (1803-1882)
A man is not old until his regrets take the place of dreams. -Yiddish proverb
Hatred - the anger of the weak. -Alphonse Daudet, writer (1840-1897)
What is reading, but silent conversation. -Walter Savage Landor, writer (1775-1864)
Everything is for the eye these days - TV, Life, Look, the movies. Nothing is just for the mind. The next generation will have eyeballs as big as cantaloupes and no brain at all. -Fred Allen
In America, anybody can be president. That's one of the risks you take. -Adlai Stevenson, statesman (1900-1965)
I distrust those people who know so well what God wants them to do because I notice it always coincides with their own desires. -Susan B Anthony, reformer and suffragist (1820-1906)
In a consumer society there are inevitably two kinds of slaves: the prisoners of addiction and the prisoners of envy. -Ivan Illich, priest (1926-2002)
Words are a mirror of their times. By looking at the areas in which the vocabulary of a language is expanding fastest in a given period, we can form a fairly accurate impression of the chief preoccupations of society at that time and the points at which the boundaries of human endeavour are being advanced. -John Ayto, lexicographer (1949- )
Many highly intelligent people are poor thinkers. Many people of average intelligence are skilled thinkers. The power of the car is separate from the way the car is driven. -Edward De Bono, consultant, writer, and speaker (1933- )
Good music is very close to primitive language. -Denis Diderot, philosopher (1713-1784)
A wise man will make more opportunities than he finds. - Sir Francis Bacon
Do not worry about your difficulties in Mathematics. I can assure you mine are still greater. - Albert Einstein
Every great advance in natural knowledge has involved the absolute rejection of authority. - Thomas H. Huxley
The major difference between a thing that might go wrong and a thing that cannot possibly go wrong is that when a thing that cannot possibly go wrong goes wrong it usually turns out to be impossible to get at or repair. - Douglas Adams
The marvel of all history is the patience with which men and women submit to burdens unnecessarily laid upon them by their governments. - William H. Borah
Stoop and you'll be stepped on; stand tall and you'll be shot at. - Carlos Urbitzo
It was such a lovely day I thought it a pity to get up. - W. Somerset Maugham
I prefer the company of peasants because they have not been educated sufficiently to reason incorrectly. -- Michel de Montaigne
Of all the preposterous assumptions of humanity over humanity, nothing exceeds most of the criticisms made on the habits of the poor by the well-housed, well- warmed, and well-fed. - Herman Melville
Quotation, n: The act of repeating erroneously the words of another. - Ambrose Bierce
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
Treat your friend as if he might become an enemy. - Publius Syrus
A friend may well be reckoned the masterpiece of Nature. - Ralph Waldo Emerson
But in deede, A friend is never knowne till a man have neede. - John Heywood
Few men have the natural strength to honour a friend's success without envy... - Aeschylus
He was once asked what a friend is, and his answer was, 'One soul abiding in two bodies.' - Diogenes Lartius
Defend me from my friends; I can defend myself from my enemies. - Marchal Villars
He deserves Paradise who makes his companions laugh. - the Koran
Laughter is the closest distance between two people. - Victor Borge
And do as adversaries do in law, - Strive mightily, but eat and drink as friends. - William Shakespeare
He used to say that it was better to have one friend of great value than many friends who were good for nothing. - Diogenes Lartius
Have no friends not equal to yourself. - Confucius
When the character of a man is not clear to you, look at his friends. - Japanese proverb
Without friends no one would choose to live, though he had all other goods. - Aristotle
No army can withstand the strength of an idea whose time has come. -Victor Hugo, poet, novelist and dramatist (1802-1885)
Reading makes a full man, meditation a profound man, discourse a clear man. -Benjamin Franklin
Poetry should please by a fine excess and not by singularity. It should strike the reader as a wording of his own highest thoughts, and appear almost as a remembrance. -John Keats, poet (1795-1821)
Just because you do not take an interest in politics doesn't mean politics won't take an interest in you. -Pericles, statesman (430 BCE)
She runs the gamut of emotions from A to B. - Dorothy Parker
Those who profess to favor freedom and yet deprecate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing the ground. -Frederick Douglass, abolitionist, editor and orator (1817-1895)
Revenge has no more quenching effect on emotions than salt water has on thirst. -Walter Weckler
If we escape punishment for our vices, why should we complain if we are not rewarded for our virtues? -John Churton Collins, literary critic (1848-1908)
The enemy is anybody who's going to get you killed, no matter which side he's on. -Joseph Heller, novelist (1923-1999)
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead; I lift my eyes and all is born again. -Sylvia Plath, poet (1932-1963)
A grass-blade's no easier to make than an oak. -James Russell Lowell, poet, editor, and diplomat (1819-1891)
If you want total security, go to prison. There you're fed, clothed, given medical care and so on. The only thing lacking... is freedom. -Dwight D. Eisenhower, U.S. general and 34th president (1890-1969)
Some people think they are worth a lot of money just because they have it. -Fannie Hurst, writer (1889-1968)
Honesty is the best image. - Tom Wilson
Nothing fails like success. - Gerald Nachman
"The world is full of willing people, some willing to work, the rest willing to let them. - Robert Frost
On the whole human beings want to be good, but not too good, and not quite all the time.- George Orwell
A person who trusts no one can't be trusted.- Jerome Blattner
You must not think me necessarily foolish because I am facetious, nor will I consider you necessarily wise because you are grave.- Sydney Smith
Home computers are being called upon to perform many new functions, including the consumption of homework formerly eaten by the dog. - Doug Larson
It is forbidden to kill; therefore all murderers are punished unless they kill in large numbers and to the sound of trumpets. -Voltaire, philosopher (1694-1778)
The history of liberty is a history of the limitation of government power, not the increase of it. -Woodrow Wilson, 28th president of the U.S., Nobel peace prize winner (1856-1924)
If we were to wake up some morning and find that everyone was the same race, creed and color, we would find some other cause for prejudice by noon. -George D. Aiken, US senator (1892-1984)
The more I study religions the more I am convinced that man never worshipped anything but himself. -Richard Francis Burton, explorer and writer (1821-1890)
Rain! whose soft architectural hands have power to cut stones, and chisel to shapes of grandeur the very mountains. -Henry Ward Beecher, preacher and writer (1813-1887)
I frequently tramped eight or ten miles through the deepest snow to keep an appointment with a beech-tree, or a yellow birch, or an old acquaintance among the pines. -Henry David Thoreau, naturalist and author
The drying up a single tear has more of honest fame than shedding seas of gore. -Lord Byron, poet (1788-1824)
Everyone wishes to have truth on his side, but not everyone wishes to be on the side of truth. -Richard Whately, philosopher, reformer, theologian, economist (1787-1863)
A man who works with his hands is a laborer; a man who works with his hands and his brain is a craftsman; but a man who works with his hands and his brain and his heart is an artist. -Louis Nizer, lawyer (1902-1994)
We have just enough religion to make us hate but not enough to make us love one another. -Jonathan Swift, satirist (1667-1745)
He who opens a school door, closes a prison. -Victor Hugo, poet, novelist, and dramatist (1802-1885)
The trouble with the world is that the stupid are cocksure and the intelligent are full of doubt. -Bertrand Russell, philosopher, mathematician, and author (1872-1970)
Love is like war; easy to begin but very hard to stop. -H.L. Mencken, writer, editor, and critic (1880-1956)
The bicycle is the most civilized conveyance known to man. Other forms of transport grow daily more nightmarish. Only the bicycle remains pure in heart. -Iris Murdoch, writer (1919-1999)
No snowflake ever falls in the wrong place. -Zen saying
To a worm in horseradish, the whole world is horseradish. -Yiddish proverb
You have to hold your audience in writing to the very end -- much more than in talking, when people have to be polite and listen to you. -Brenda Ueland, writer (1891-1985)
Learning is like rowing upstream: not to advance is to drop back. -Chinese proverb
Promises are like the full moon: if they are not kept at once they diminish day by day. -German proverb
We can put television in its proper light by supposing that Gutenberg's great invention had been directed at printing only comic books. -Robert M. Hutchins, educator (1899-1977)
It (marriage) may be compared to a cage, the birds without try desperately to get in, and those within try desperately to get out. -Michel de Montaigne, essayist (1533-1592)
I am extraordinarily patient, provided I get my own way in the end. Margaret Thatcher
One of the symptoms of an approaching nervous breakdown is the belief that one's work is terribly important. -Bertrand Russell, philosopher, mathematician, author, Nobel laureate (1872-1970)
In a time of drastic change it is the learners who inherit the future. The learned usually find themselves equipped to live in a world that no longer exists. -Eric Hoffer, philosopher and author (1902-1983)
Unthinking respect for authority is the greatest enemy of truth. -Albert Einstein, physicist, Nobel laureate (1879-1955)
Did you know that the worldwide food shortage that threatens up to five hundred million children could be alleviated at the cost of only one day, only ONE day, of modern warfare. -Peter Ustinov, actor, writer and director (1921-2004)
It is surprising what a man can do when he has to, and how little most men will do when they don't have to. -Walter Linn
The eyes of others our prisons; their thoughts our cages. -Virginia Woolf, writer (1882-1941)
The fact that a believer is happier than a skeptic is no more to the point than the fact than a drunken man is happier than a sober one. -George Bernard Shaw, writer, Nobel laureate (1856-1950)
To kill time is not murder, it's suicide. -William James, psychologist and philosopher (1842-1910)
What soap is for the body, tears are for the soul. -Jewish proverb
Even a lie is a psychic fact. -Carl Jung, psychiatrist (1875-1961)
One glance at a book and you hear the voice of another person, perhaps someone dead for 1,000 years. To read is to voyage through time. -Carl Sagan, astronomer and writer (1934-1996)
Those who wish to sing always find a song. -Swedish proverb
There is no surer way to misread any document than to read it literally. -Learned Hand, jurist (1872-1961)
To the complaint, 'There are no people in these photographs,' I respond, 'There are always two people: the photographer and the viewer.' -Ansel Adams, photographer (1902-1984)
The one thing that doesn't abide by majority rule is a person's conscience. -Harper Lee, writer (1926- )
Three grand essentials to happiness in this life are something to do, something to love, and something to hope for. -Joseph Addison, writer (1672-1719)
No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it's not the same river and he's not the same man. -Heraclitus, philosopher (c. 540-470 BCE)
Marriage: a book of which the first chapter is written in poetry and the remaining chapters written in prose. -Beverly Nichols, author
Ships that pass in the night and speak each other in passing; / Only a signal shown and a distant voice in the darkness; / So on the ocean of life we pass and speak one another, / Only a look and a voice; then darkness again and a silence. -Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, poet (1807-1882)
The biggest problem with communication is the illusion that it has occurred. -Karl Sabbagh
When nations grow old, the arts grow cold and commerce settles on every tree. -William Blake, poet, engraver, and painter (1757-1827)
What is the purpose of the giant sequoia tree? The purpose of the giant sequoia tree is to provide shade for the tiny titmouse. -Edward Abbey, naturalist and author (1927-1989)
Earth laughs in flowers. -Ralph Waldo Emerson, writer and philosopher (1803-1882)
The world in general doesn't know what to make of originality; it is startled out of its comfortable habits of thought, and its first reaction is one of anger. -W. Somerset Maugham, writer (1874-1965)
I wish you all the joy that you can wish. -William Shakespeare, playwright and poet (1564-1616)
May your trails be crooked, winding, lonesome, dangerous, leading to the most amazing view. May your mountains rise into and above the clouds. -Edward Abbey, naturalist and author (1927-1989)
When women love us, they forgive us everything, even our crimes; when they do not love us, they give us credit for nothing, not even our virtues. -Honore de Balzac, novelist (1799-1850)
God is a comedian playing to an audience too afraid to laugh. -Voltaire, philosopher (1694-1778)
Be thou the first true merit to befriend, his praise is lost who stays till all commend. -Alexander Pope, poet (1688-1744)
Money may be the husk of many things but not the kernel. It brings you food, but not appetite; medicine, but not health; acquaintance, but not friends; servants, but not loyalty; days of joy, but not peace or happiness. -Henrik Ibsen, playwright (1828-1906)
I'm proud to pay taxes in the United States; the only thing is, I could be just as proud for half the money. -Arthur Godfrey, television host, entertainer (1903-1983)
You take your life in your own hands, and what happens? A terrible thing: no one to blame. -Erica Jong, writer (1942- )
America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter, and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves. -Abraham Lincoln, 16th U.S. President (1809-1865)
When money speaks, the truth keeps silent. -Russian proverb
The quarrels of lovers are like summer storms. Everything is more beautiful when they have passed. -Suzanne Necker, author (1739-1794)
You never know till you try to reach them how accessible men are; but you must approach each man by the right door. -Henry Ward Beecher, preacher and writer (1813-1887)
The light which experience gives is a lantern on the stern, which shines only on the waves behind us. -Samuel Taylor Coleridge, poet, critic (1772-1834)
But words are things, a small drop of ink, / Falling like dew upon a thought, produces / That which makes thousands, perhaps millions, think. -Lord Byron, poet (1788-1824)
Many ideas grow better when transplanted into another mind than in the one where they sprang up. -Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., US Supreme Court Justice (1841-1935)
No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it's not the same river and he's not the same man. -Heraclitus, philosopher (c. 540-470 BCE)
Never let your sense of morals get in the way of doing what's right. -Isaac Asimov, scientist and writer (1920-1992)
The true danger is when liberty is nibbled away, for expedients, and by parts. -Edmund Burke, statesman and writer (1729-1797)
There is pleasure in the pathless woods, / There is rapture in the lonely shore, / There is society where none intrudes, / By the deep sea, and music in its roar: / I love not man the less, but nature more. -Lord Byron, poet (1788-1824)
If men could regard the events of their own lives with more open minds, they would frequently discover that they did not really desire the things they failed to obtain. -Emile Herzog, writer (1885-1967)
To do nothing is sometimes a good remedy. -Hippocrates, physician (460-c.377 BCE)
In a democracy dissent is an act of faith. Like medicine, the test of its value is not in its taste, but in its effects. -J. William Fulbright, US Senator (1905-1995)
Never spend your money before you have it. -Thomas Jefferson, third US president, architect and author (1743-1826)
I have never met a man so ignorant that I couldn't learn something from him. -Galileo Galilei, physicist and astronomer (1564-1642)
Until you've lost your reputation, you never realize what a burden it was or what freedom really is. -Margaret Mitchell, novelist (1900-1949)
Men of genius are often dull and inert in society, as a blazing meteor when it descends to earth, is only a stone. -Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, poet (1819-1892)
Teachers open the door, but you must enter by yourself. -Chinese Proverb
As I would not be a slave, so I would not be a master. This expresses my idea of democracy. -Abraham Lincoln, 16th U.S. President (1861-1865)
Computer Science is no more about computers than astronomy is about telescopes. -Edsger W. Dijkstra, computer science professor
He who sacrifices his conscience to ambition burns a picture to obtain the ashes. -Chinese Proverb
Buying books would be a good thing if one could also buy the time to read them in: but as a rule the purchase of books is mistaken for the appropriation of their contents. -Arthur Schopenhauer, philosopher
Adults are obsolete children. -Dr. Seuss, humorist, illustrator, and author (1904-1991)
When I was a boy I was told that anybody could become President. Now I'm beginning to believe it. -Clarence Darrow, lawyer and author (1857-1938)
Tact is the ability to describe others as they see themselves. -Abraham Lincoln, 16th president of the U.S (1809-1865)
Since Auschwitz we know what man is capable of. And since Hiroshima we know what is at stake. -Viktor Frankl, author, neurologist and psychiatrist, Holocaust survivor (1905-1997)
What other dungeon is so dark as one's own heart! What jailer is as inexorable as one's self! -Nathaniel Hawthorne, novelist and short-story writer (1804-1864)
To have and not to give is often worse than to steal. -Marie Von Ebner-Eschenbach
I do not know whether I was then a man dreaming I was a butterfly, or whether I am now a butterfly dreaming I am a man. -Chuang Tzu, mystic and philosopher (c. 4th century BC)
They say that God is everywhere, and yet we always think of Him as somewhat of a recluse. -Emily Dickinson, poet (1830-1886)
Writing is like driving a car at night. You can only see as far as the headlights, but you make the whole trip that way. -E.L. Docorow, writer (1931- )
My soul is a broken field, plowed by pain. -Sara Teasdale, poet (1884-1933)
Nature will bear the closest inspection. She invites us to lay our eye level with her smallest leaf, and take an insect view of its plain. -Henry David Thoreau, naturalist and author (1817-1862)
For a man to achieve all that is demanded of him he must regard himself as greater than he is. -Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, poet, dramatist, novelist, and philosopher (1749-1832) A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds. -Ralph Waldo Emerson, writer and philosopher (1803-1882)
Absolute freedom mocks at justice. Absolute justice denies freedom. -Albert Camus, writer philosopher, Nobel laureate (1913-1960)
The only real way to look younger is not to be born so soon. -Charles Schulz, cartoonist (1922-2000)
This grand show is eternal. It is always sunrise somewhere: the dew is never all dried at once: a shower is forever falling, vapor is ever rising. Eternal sunrise, eternal sunset, eternal dawn and gloaming, on sea and continents and islands, each in its turn, as the round earth rolls. -John Muir, naturalist, explorer, and writer (1838-1914)
The least initial deviation from the truth is multiplied later a thousandfold. -Aristotle, philosopher (384-322 B.C.)
It is not the mountain we conquer but ourselves. -Edmund Hillary, mountaineer and explorer (1919- )
"Would it not expidite matters if you restricted yourself to categorical satements of fact unencumbered with obstructing accumulations of metaphor and allegory?" -Mark Twain, "Roughing It"
Daring ideas are like chessmen moved forward. They may be beaten, but they may start a winning game. -Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, poet, dramatist, novelist, and philosopher (1749-1832)
A mind all logic is like a knife all blade. It makes the hand bleed that uses it. -Rabindranath Tagore, poet, philosopher, author, songwriter, painter, educator, composer, Nobel laureate (1861-1941)
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, writer, editor, and critic (1880-1956)
Library: A place where the dead lie. -Elbert Hubbard, author, editor, printer (1856-1915) [The Roycroft Dictionary]
If I have any beliefs about immortality, it is that certain dogs I have known will go to heaven, and very, very few persons. -James Thurber, writer and cartoonist (1894-1961)
I have yet to hear a man ask for advice on how to combine marriage and a career. -Gloria Steinem, women's rights activist, editor (1934- )
Fame is a vapor; popularity an accident; the only earthly certainty is oblivion. -Mark Twain, author and humorist (1835-1910)
The main dangers in this life are the people who want to change everything - or nothing. -Nancy Astor, first woman member of Parliament in England (1879-1964)
The reason there are so few female politicians is that it is too much trouble to put makeup on two faces. -Maureen Murphy
Natural ability without education has more often attained to glory and virtue than education without natural ability. -Cicero, statesman, orator, writer (106-43 B.C)
The opposite of a correct statement is a false statement. But the opposite of a profound truth may well be another profound truth. -Niels Bohr, physicist (1885-1962)
Anyone can do any amount of work provided it isn't the work he is supposed to be doing at the moment. -Robert Benchley, humorist, drama critic, and actor (1889-1945)
Brain: an apparatus with which we think we think. -Ambrose Bierce (1842-1914) [The Devil's Dictionary]
``Often the test of courage is not to die but to live.'' - Vittorio Alfieri, Italian dramatist (1749-1803)
He who asks is a fool for five minutes, but he who does not ask remains a fool forever. -Chinese proverb
If pleasures are greatest in anticipation, just remember that this is also true of trouble. -Elbert Hubbard, author, editor, printer (1856-1915)
At a dinner party one should eat wisely but not too well, and talk well but not too wisely. -W. Somerset Maugham, novelist, dramatist, and short-story writer (1874-1965)
Talking is like playing the harp; there is as much in laying the hand on the strings to stop their vibrations as in twanging them to bring out their music. -Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr., poet, novelist, essayist, and physician (1809-1894)
I am not sincere, even when I say I am not. -Jules Renard, writer (1864-1910)
Write down the advice of him who loves you, though you like it not at present. --English Proverb
The soul would have no rainbow had the eyes no tears. -John Vance Cheney, poet (1848-1922)
"History repeats itself" and "History never repeats itself" are about equally true ... We never know enough about the infinitely complex circumstances of any past event to prophesy the future by analogy. - George Macaulay Trevelyan, English historian (1876-1962)
Everyone is a genius at least once a year. -Georg Christoph Lichtenberg, scientist and philosopher (1742-1799)
Faults are thick where love is thin. - Danish proverb.
There is a foolish corner in the brain of the wisest man. -Aristotle, philosopher (384-322 B.C.)
A book is a garden carried in the pocket. -Chinese proverb
Love is like quicksilver in the hand. Leave the fingers open and it stays. Clutch it, and it darts away. -Dorothy Parker, author (1893-1967)
Every society honors its live conformists and its dead troublemakers. -Mignon McLaughlin, author
A house is no home unless it contains food and fire for the mind as well as the body. -Sarah Margaret Fuller, author (1810-1850)
Give me the luxuries of life and I will willingly do without the necessities. - Frank Lloyd Wright, American architect (1869-1959)
To laugh often and much; to win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children; to earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends; to appreciate beauty; to find the best in others; to leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch or a redeemed social condition; to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded. -Ralph Waldo Emerson, writer and philosopher (1803-1882)
Education is a progressive discovery of our own ignorance. -Will Durant, historian (1885-1981)
Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, give him power. -Abraham Lincoln, U.S. president (1809-1865)
Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction. -Blaise Pascal, philosopher and mathematician (1623-1662)
A bird in the hand is a certainty, but a bird in the bush may sing. -Bret Harte, author (1836-1902)
Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness. -Mark Twain, author and humorist (1835-1910)
Nothing worse could happen to one than to be completely understood. -Carl Gustav Jung, psychiatrist (1875-1961)
If a man have a genius for painting, poetry, music, architecture, or philosophy, he makes a bad husband, and an ill provider. -Ralph Waldo Emerson, writer and philosopher (1803-1882)
If you are afraid of being lonely, don't try to be right. -Jules Renard, writer (1864-1910)
Don't discuss yourself, for you are bound to lose; if you belittle yourself, you are believed; if you praise yourself, you are disbelieved. -Michel de Montaigne, essayist (1533-1592)
The best effect of fine persons is felt after we have left their presence. -Ralph Waldo Emerson, writer and philosopher (1803-1882)
There are two ways of spreading light: to be the candle or the mirror that reflects it. -Edith Wharton, novelist (1862-1937)
Pleasure is very seldom found where it is sought; our brightest blazes of gladness are commonly kindled by unexpected sparks. -Samuel Johnson, lexicographer (1709-1784)
Dreams have only one owner at a time. That's why dreamers are lonely. -Erma Bombeck, author (1927-1996)
The sun, with all those planets revolving around it and dependent upon it, can still ripen a bunch of grapes as it if had nothing else in the universe to do. -Galileo Galilei, physicist and astronomer (1564-1642)
It is as hard for the good to suspect evil, as it is for the bad to suspect good. -Marcus Tullius Cicero, statesman, orator, writer (106-43 BCE)
If the camel once gets his nose in a tent, his body will soon follow. -Arabian proverb
The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man. -George Bernard Shaw, writer, Nobel laureate (1856-1950)
You desire to know the art of living, my friend? It is contained in one phrase: make use of suffering. -Henri Frederic Amiel, philosopher and writer (1821-1881)
The two most engaging powers of an author are to make new things familiar, and familiar things new. -Samuel Johnson, lexicographer (1709-1784)
There is a pleasure sure, in being mad, which none but madmen know. -John Dryden, poet and dramatist (1631-1700)
What a strange illusion it is to suppose that beauty is goodness. -Leo Tolstoy, novelist and philosopher (1828-1910)
When I despair, I remember that all through history, the way of truth and love has always won. There have been murderers and tyrants, and for a time they can seem invincible. But in the end they always fall. Think of it, always. -Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (1869-1948)
Those who dream by day are cognizant of many things which escape those who dream only by night. -Edgar Allan Poe, poet and short-story writer (1809-1849)
The road uphill and the road downhill are one and the same. -Heraclitus, philosopher (Ca. 540-470 BCE)
Some people come into our lives and quickly go. Others stay for a while and leave footprints on our hearts and we are never the same.
One of the keys to happiness is a bad memory. -Rita Mae Brown, author (1944- )
When a man wants to murder a tiger he calls it sport; when the tiger wants to murder him he calls it ferocity. -George Bernard Shaw, writer, Nobel laureate (1856-1950)
All the world's a stage and most of us are desperately unrehearsed. -Sean O'Casey, playwright (1880-1964)
Keep me away from the wisdom which does not cry, the philosophy which does not laugh and the greatness which does not bow before children. -Kahlil Gibran, mystic, poet and artist (1883-1931)
With time and patience the mulberry leaf becomes a silk gown. -Chinese proverb
Our houses are such unwieldy property that we are often imprisoned rather than housed in them. -Henry David Thoreau, naturalist and author (1817-1862)
There's nothing that keeps its youth, / So far as I know, but a tree and truth. -Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., justice (1841-1935)
Compassion will cure more sins than condemnation. -Henry Ward Beecher, preacher and writer (1813-1887)
It is of interest to note that while some dolphins are reported to have learned English -- up to fifty words used in correct context -- no human being has been reported to have learned dolphinese. -Carl Sagan, astronomer and writer (1934-1996)
Better to write for yourself and have no public, than to write for the public and have no self. -Cyril Connolly, critic and editor (1903-1974)
Those who write clearly have readers, those who write obscurely have commentators. -Albert Camus, writer and philosopher (1913-1960)
If you have knowledge, let others light their candles in it. -Margaret Fuller, author (1810-1850)
The beginnings and endings of all human undertakings are untidy. -John Galsworthy, author, Nobelist (1867-1933)
Nobody in the game of football should be called a genius. A genius is somebody like Norman Einstein. -Joe Theisman, Former quarterback
My theology, briefly, is that the universe was dictated but not signed. -Christopher Morley, writer (1890-1957)
There is no character, howsoever good and fine, but it can be destroyed by ridicule, howsoever poor and witless. -Mark Twain, author and humorist (1835-1910)
Our houses are such unwieldy property that we are often imprisoned rather than housed in them. -Henry David Thoreau, naturalist and author (1817-1862)
Conversation, n. A fair to the display of the minor mental commodities, each exhibitor being too intent upon the arrangement of his own wares to observe those of his neighbor. -Ambrose Bierce, writer (1842-1914) [The Devil's Dictionary]
Patriotism is often an arbitrary veneration of real estate above principles. -George Jean Nathan, author and editor (1882-1958)
In the mountains of truth you never climb in vain. -Friedrich Nietzsche, philosopher (1844-1900)
In everyone's life, at some time, our inner fire goes out. It is then burst into flame by an encounter with another human being. We should all be thankful for those people who rekindle the inner spirit. -Albert Schweitzer, philosopher, physician, and musician (1875-1965)
Education: That which discloses to the wise and disguises from the foolish their lack of understanding. -Ambrose Bierce, writer (1842-1914)
"A thing is not necessarily true because a man dies for it." -- Oscar Wilde
I believe in God, only I spell it Nature. -Frank Lloyd Wright, architect (1867-1959)
It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong. -Voltaire, philosopher (384-322 BCE)
The luck of having talent is not enough; one must also have a talent for luck. -Louis-Hector Berlioz, composer (1803-1869)
Language exerts hidden power, like a moon on the tides. -Rita Mae Brown, writer (1944- )
Millions long for immortality who do not know what to do with themselves on a rainy Sunday afternoon. -Susan Ertz, author (1894-1985)
Experience teaches us to be most on our guard to protect liberty when the government's purpose is beneficent. Men born to freedom are naturally alert to repel invasion of their liberty by evil-minded rulers. The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well-meaning but without understanding. -Louis Dembitz Brandeis, lawyer, judge, and writer (1856-1941)
When I play with my cat, who knows whether I do not make her more sport than she makes me? -Michel de Montaigne, essayist (1533-1592)
One kind word can warm three winter months. -Japanese proverb
A good laugh and a long sleep are the best cures in the doctor's book. -Irish proverb
Language is not neutral. It is not merely a vehicle which carries ideas. It is itself a shaper of ideas. -Dale Spender, writer (1943- )
Dignity consists not in possessing honors, but in the consciousness that we deserve them. -Aristotle, philosopher (384-322 BCE)
The question is not can they reason? Nor can they talk? But can they suffer? -Jeremy Bentham, jurist and philosopher (1748-1832)
"A good traveller has no fixed plans and is not intent on arriving." -- Lao Tzu (570-490 BC)
By words the mind is winged. -Aristophanes, dramatist (c. 448-385 BCE)
Luck never gives; it only lends. -Swedish proverb
Many people hear voices when no-one is there. Some of them are called mad and are shut up in rooms where they stare at the walls all day. Others are called writers and they do pretty much the same thing. -Margaret Chittenden, writer
I object to violence because when it appears to do good, the good is only temporary; the evil it does is permanent. -Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (1869-1948)
Never confuse motion with action. -Benjamin Franklin, statesman, author, and inventor (1706-1790)
One must be drenched in words, literally soaked in them, to have the right ones form themselves into the proper patterns at the right moment. -Hart Crane, American Poet (1899-1932)
I'm a great believer in luck and I find the harder I work, the more I have of it. -Thomas Jefferson, third US president, architect and author (1743-1826)
There is, nevertheless, a certain respect and a general duty of humanity that ties us, not only to beasts that have life and sense, but even to trees and plants. -Michel de Montaigne, essayist (1533-1592)
As an adolescent I aspired to lasting fame, I craved factual certainty, and I thirsted for a meaningful vision of human life - so I became a scientist. This is like becoming an archbishop so you can meet girls. -Matt Cartmill, anthropology professor and author (1943- )
Work saves us from three great evils: boredom, vice and need. -Voltaire, philosopher (1694-1778)
When I play with my cat, who knows whether I do not make her more sport than she makes me? -Michel de Montaigne, essayist (1533-1592)
Often you must turn your stylus to erase, if you hope to write anything worth a second reading. -Horace, poet and satirist (65-8 BCE)
He whom the gods love, dies young. -Titus Maccius Plautus, dramatist (circa 254-184 BCE)
Our sun is one of 100 billion stars in our galaxy. Our galaxy is one of the billions of galaxies populating the universe. It would be the height of presumption to think that we are the only living things within that enormous immensity. -Wernher von Braun, rocket engineer (1912-1977)
Iron rusts from disuse, stagnant water loses its purity, and in cold weather becomes frozen, even so does inaction sap the vigor of the mind. -Leonardo Da Vinci, painter, engineer, musician, and scientist (1452-1519)
People who are willing to give up freedom for the sake of short term security, deserve neither freedom nor security. -Benjamin Franklin, statesman, author, and inventor (1706-1790)
The devil can cite Scripture for his purpose. -William Shakespeare, poet and dramatist (1564-1616)
Clay is moulded to make a vessel, but the utility of the vessel lies in the space where there is nothing. Thus, taking advantage of what is, we recognize the utility of what is not. -Lao Tzu, philosopher (circa 600 BCE)
Be master of your petty annoyances and conserve your energies for the big, worthwhile things. It isn't the mountain ahead that wears you out - it's the grain of sand in your shoe. -Robert Service, writer (1874-1958)
``I do not prize the word cheap. It is not a badge of honor ... it is a symbol of despair. Cheap prices make for cheap goods; cheap goods make for cheap men; and cheap men make for a cheap country!'' - President William McKinley (1843-1901)
By three methods we may learn wisdom: First, by reflection, which is noblest; second, by imitation, which is easiest; and third, by experience, which is the bitterest. -Confucius, philosopher and teacher (c. 551-478 BCE)
I do not think there is any thrill that can go through the human heart like that felt by the inventor as he sees some creation of the brain unfolding to success... Such emotions make a man forget food, sleep, friends, love, everything. -Nikola Tesla, electrical engineer and inventor (1856-1943)
A pedestal is as much a prison as any small space. -Gloria Steinem, women's rights activist, editor (1934- )
If you wish to make an apple pie truly from scratch, you must first invent the universe. -Carl Sagan, astronomer and writer (1934-1996)
Inside my empty bottle I was constructing a lighthouse while all the others were making ships. -Charles Simic
The wastebasket is a writer's best friend. -Isaac Bashevis Singer, writer, Nobel laureate (1904-1991)
Won't you come into the garden? I would like my roses to see you. -Richard Brinsley Sheridan, playwright (1751-1816)
You can discover what your enemy fears most by observing the means he uses to frighten you. -Eric Hoffer, philosopher and author (1902-1983)
Never lend books -- nobody ever returns them; the only books I have in my library are those which people have lent me. -Anatole France, novelist, essayist, Nobel laureate (1844-1924)
The hardest years in life are Those between ten and seventy. -Helen Hayes (at 73)
A man's got to do what a man's got to do. A woman must do what he can't. - Rhonda Hansome
Whatever women must do they must do twice as well as men to be thought half as good. Luckily, this is not difficult. -Charlotte Whitton
Thirty-five is when you finally get your head together and your body starts falling apart. -Caryn Leschen
If you can't be a good example, then you'll just have to be a horrible warning. -Catherine Aird
You see a lot of smart guys with dumb women, but you hardly ever see a smart woman with a dumb guy. -Erica Jong
If high heels were so wonderful, men would still be wearing them. -Sue Grafton
I think---therefore I'm single. -Lizz Winstead
When women are depressed they either eat or go shopping. Men invade another country. -Elayne Boosler
Behind every successful man is a surprised woman. -Maryon Pearson
In politics, if you want anything said, ask a man--if you want anything done, ask a woman. -Margaret Thatcher
I have yet to hear a man ask for advice on how to combine marriage and a career. -Gloria Steinem
I never married, because there was no need. I have three pets at home which answer the same purpose as a husband. I have a dog that growls every morning, a parrot that swears all afternoon, and a cat that comes home late every night. -Marie Corelli
If men can run the world, why can't they stop wearing neckties? How intelligent is it to start the day by tying a noose around your neck? -Linda Ellerbee
I am a marvelous housekeeper. Every time I leave a man I keep his house. -Zsa Zsa Gabor
Nobody can make you feel inferior without your permission. -Eleanor Roosevelt
Until it is kindled by a spirit as flamingly alive as the one which gave it birth a book is dead to us. Words divested of their magic are but dead hieroglyphs. -Henry Miller, novelist (1891-1980)
Art is a house that tries to be haunted. -Emily Dickinson, poet (1830-1886)
Not all those that wander are lost. -J.R.R. Tolkien, novelist and philologist (1892-1973)
I believe that the first test of a truly great man is his humility. I do not mean by humility, doubt of his own powers. But really great men have a curious feeling that the greatness is not in them, but through them. And they see something divine in every other man and are endlessly, foolishly, incredibly merciful. -John Ruskin, author, art critic, and social reformer (1819-1900)
There is no den in the wide world to hide a rogue. Commit a crime and the earth is made of glass. Commit a crime, and it seems as if a coat of snow fell on the ground, such as reveals in the woods the track of every partridge, and fox, and squirrel. -Ralph Waldo Emerson, writer and philosopher (1803-1882)
Take a music bath once or twice a week for a few seasons, and you will find that it is to the soul what the water bath is to the body. -Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., US Supreme Court Justice (1841-1935)
Never advise anyone to go to war or to marry. -Spanish Proverb
The bamboo that bends is stronger than the oak that resists. -Japanese proverb
People travel to wonder at the height of mountains, at the huge waves of the sea , at the long courses of rivers, at the vast compass of the ocean, at the circular motion of the stars; and they pass by themselves without wondering. -Saint Augustine (354-430)
There was never a genius without a tincture of madness. -Aristotle, philosopher (384-322 BCE)
Money, n. A blessing that is of no advantage to us excepting when we part with it. An evidence of culture and a passport to polite society. -Ambrose Bierce, writer (1842-1914)
Solitude, though it may be silent as light, is like light, the mightiest of agencies; for solitude is essential to man. All men come into this world alone; all leave it alone. -Thomas De Quincey, writer (1785-1859)
There is no terror in the bang, only in the anticipation of it. -Alfred Hitchcock, film-maker (1899-1980)
"Subscribing is something uniquely American. Who else would scribble his name just for the chance to be part of an anonymous community?"
--Mark Twain
A brother is a friend given by nature. -Gabriel Legouve, writer (1807-1903)
Life consists not in holding good cards but in playing those you hold well. -Josh Billings, columnist and humorist (1818-1885)
In three words I can sum up everything I've learned about life: it goes on. -Robert Frost, poet (1874-1963)
This is the way the world ends / Not with a bang but a whimper. -T.S. Eliot, poet (1888-1965)
Mathematics is the language with which God has written the universe. -Galileo Galilei, physicist and astronomer (1564-1642)
"Hanging is too good for a man who makes puns; he should be drawn and quoted." -Fred Allen
The mind commands the body and the body obeys. The mind commands itself and finds resistance. -St. Augustine (354-430)
Holding on to anger is like grasping a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else; you are the one getting burned. -Buddha (c. 566-480 BCE)
I feel we are all islands -- in a common sea. -Anne Morrow Lindbergh, writer (1906-2001)
Why should I fear death? If I am, death is not. If death is, I am not. Why should I fear that which cannot exist when I do? -Epicurus, philosopher (c. 341-270 BCE)
A committee is a cul-de-sac down which ideas are lured and then quietly strangled. -Barnett Cocks
Nature is trying very hard to make us succeed, but nature does not depend on us. We are not the only experiment. -R. Buckminster Fuller, engineer, designer, and architect (1895-1983)
Speech is conveniently located midway between thought and action, where it often substitutes for both. -John Andrew Holmes
The reading of all good books is like a conversation with the finest men of past centuries. -Rene Descartes, philosopher and mathematician (1596-1650)
It's a shallow life that doesn't give a person a few scars. -Garrison Keillor, radio host and author (1942- )
The poet judges not as a judge judges but as the sun falling around a helpless thing. -Walt Whitman, poet (1819-92)
Love is never lost. If not reciprocated, it will flow back and soften and purify the heart. -Washington Irving, writer (1783-1859)
The skill of writing is to create a context in which other people can think. -Edwin Schlossberg, designer (1945- )
Many live in the ivory tower called reality; they never venture on the open sea of thought. -Francois Gautier, journalist (1950- )
Poetry is what gets lost in translation. -Robert Frost, poet (1874-1963)
Those who know nothing of foreign languages know nothing of their own. -Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, dramatist, novelist, and philosopher (1749-1832)
Maybe this world is another planet's Hell. -Aldous Huxley, novelist (1894-1963)
In rivers, the water that you touch is the last of what has passed and the first of that which comes; so with present time. -Leonardo da Vinci, painter, engineer, musician, and scientist (1452-1519)
To the mind that is still, the whole universe surrenders. -Lao-Tzu, philosopher (6th century BCE)
Humility like darkness reveals the heavenly lights. -Henry David Thoreau, naturalist and author (1817-1862)
Nature does nothing uselessly. -Aristotle (384-322 BCE)
Non-violence leads to the highest ethics, which is the goal of all evolution. Until we stop harming all other living beings, we are still savages. -Thomas Edison, inventor (1847-1931)
Most men pursue pleasure with such breathless haste they hurry past it. -Soren Kierkegaard, philosopher (1813-1855)
Worry is interest paid on trouble before it comes due. -William R. Inge, clergyman, scholar, and author (1860-1954)
A poem is never finished, only abandoned. -Paul Valery, poet and philosopher (1871-1945)
Every man supposes himself not to be fully understood or appreciated. -Ralph Waldo Emerson, writer and philosopher (1803-1882)
Assassination: The extreme form of censorship. -George Bernard Shaw, writer, Nobel laureate (1856-1950)
Nature never did betray the heart that loved her. -William Wordsworth (1770-1850)
A society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade they know they shall never sit in. -Greek proverb
There are times when we must sink to the bottom of our misery to understand truth, just as we must descend to the bottom of a well to see the stars in broad daylight. -Vaclav Havel, writer, Czech Republic president (1936- )
Knowing trees, I understand the meaning of patience. Knowing grass, I can appreciate persistence. -Hal Borland, journalist (1900-1978)
And the day came when the risk it took to remain tight inside the bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom. -Anais Nin, writer (1903-1977)
Coincidences are spiritual puns. -G.K. Chesterton, essayist and novelist (1874-1936)
What you are thunders so that I cannot hear what you say to the contrary. -Ralph Waldo Emerson, writer and philosopher (1803-1882)
I used to be pure as the driven snow.... but then I drifted. -Mae West
Letter writing is the only device for combining solitude with good company. -George Gordon Byron, poet (1788-1824)
I look for what needs to be done.... After all, that's how the universe designs itself. -R. Buckminster Fuller, engineer, designer, and architect (1895-1983)
Your only obligation in any lifetime is to be true to yourself. Being true to anyone else or anything else is ... impossible. -Richard Bach, writer (1936- )
A man does not show his greatness by being at one extremity, but rather by touching both at once. -Blaise Pascal, philosopher and mathematician (1623-1662)
Real knowledge is to know the extent of one's ignorance. -Confucius, philosopher and teacher (c. 551-478 BCE)
Each man carries within him the soul of a poet who died young. -Charles Augustin Sainte-Beuve, literary critic (1804-1869)
You can never solve a problem on the level on which it was created. -Albert Einstein, physicist, Nobel laureate (1879-1955)
To live content with small means; to seek elegance rather than luxury, and refinement rather than fashion; to be worthy, not respectable, and wealthy, not, rich; to listen to stars and birds, babes and sages, with open heart; to study hard; to think quietly, act frankly, talk gently, await occasions, hurry never; in a word, to let the spiritual, unbidden and unconscious, grow up through the common--this is my symphony. -William Henry Channing, clergyman, reformer (1810-1884)
Please subdue the anguish of your soul. Nobody is destined only to happiness or to pain. The wheel of life takes one up and down by turn. -Kalidasa, dramatist (c. 4th century)
Without darkness there are no dreams. -Karla Kuban, novelist
When a thing is funny, search it carefully for a hidden truth. -George Bernard Shaw, writer, Nobel laureate (1856-1950)
Little Strokes, Fell great Oaks. -Benjamin Franklin, statesman, author, and inventor (1706-1790)
Praise, like gold and diamonds, owes its value to its scarcity. -Samuel Butler, poet (1612-1680)
You become writer by writing. It is a yoga. -R.K. Narayan, novelist (1906-2001)
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 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, philosopher and mathematician (1642-1727)
A good heart is better than all the heads in the world. -Edward Bulwer-Lytton, writer (1803-1873)
No one should drive a hard bargain with an artist. -Ludwig Van Beethoven, composer (1770-1827)
I have never been contained except I made the prison. -Mary Evans, actress (1888-1976)
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. -Arthur C Clarke, science fiction writer (1917- )
A calamity that affects everyone is only half a calamity. -Italian proverb
His mother had often said, When you choose an action, you choose the consequences of that action. She had emphasized the corollary of this axiom even more vehemently: when you desired a consequence you had damned well better take the action that would create it. -Lois McMaster Bujold, writer (1949- )
The great rulers - the people do not notice their existence. The lesser ones they attach to and praise them. The still lesser ones - they fear them. The still lesser ones - they despise them. For where faith is lacking it cannot be met by faith. -Tao Te Ching
An optimist is a person who sees a green light everywhere, while a pessimist sees only the red stoplight... The truly wise person is color-blind. -Albert Schweitzer, philosopher, physician, musician, Nobel laureate (1875-1965)
Judge not the horse by his saddle. -Chinese Proverb
Everything you've learned in school as `obvious' becomes less and less obvious as you begin to study the universe. For example, there are no solids in the universe. There's not even a suggestion of a solid. There are no absolute continuums. There are no surfaces. There are no straight lines. -R. Buckminster Fuller, engineer, designer, and architect (1895-1983)
The truth is rarely pure, and never simple. -Oscar Wilde, writer (1854-1900)
God could not be everywhere, and therefore he created mothers. -Jewish proverb
There should be a special sort of rainbow for when it snows on a sunny day. -Kevin Mitcham
I don't need time. What I need is a deadline. -Duke Ellington, jazz pianist, composer, and conductor (1899-1974)
To announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or that we are to stand by the President, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public. -Theodore Roosevelt, 26th US President (1858-1919)
The only wisdom we can hope to acquire is the wisdom of humility: Humility is endless. -T.S Eliot, poet (1888-1965)
I have always found that mercy bears richer fruits than strict justice. -Abraham Lincoln, 16th U.S. President (1809-1865)
A good cook is like a sorceress who dispenses happiness. -Elsa Schiaparelli, fashion designer (1890-1973)
It is chiefly through books that we enjoy intercourse with superior minds. -William Ellery Channing, clergyman and writer (1780-1842)
How do I love thee? Let me count the ways. I love thee to the depth and breadth and height my soul can reach. -Elizabeth Barrett Browning, poet (1806-1861)
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 are not clothed. -Dwight D. Eisenhower, U.S. general and 34th president (1890-1969)
Who is content with nothing possesses all things. -Nicolas Boileau-Despreaux, poet (1636-1711)
Sometimes even to live is an act of courage. -Lucius Annaeus Seneca, writer and philosopher (BCE 3-65 CE)
Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard / Are sweeter. -John Keats, poet (1795-1821)
Laughter is inner jogging. -Norman Cousins, editor and author (1915-1990)
To know how to hide one's ability is great skill. -Francois de La Rochefoucauld, writer (1613-1680)
Any fine morning, a power saw can fell a tree that took a thousand years to grow. -Edwin Way Teale, naturalist and author (1899-1980)
The death of democracy is not likely to be an assassination from ambush. It will be a slow extinction from apathy, indifference, and undernourishment. -Robert Maynard Hutchins, educator (1899-1977)
Success usually comes to those who are too busy to be looking for it. -Henry David Thoreau, naturalist and author (1817-1862)
Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard / Are sweeter. -John Keats, poet (1795-1821)
Love is like an hourglass, with the heart filling up as the brain empties. -Jules Renard, writer (1864-1910)
A scholar knows no boredom. -Jean Paul Richter, writer (1763-1825)
It's splendid to be a great writer, to put men into the frying pan of your imagination and make them pop like chestnuts. -Gustave Flaubert, French novelist, letter, 1851
A bit of fragrance always clings to the hand that gives the rose. -Chinese proverb
What is the purpose of the giant sequoia tree? The purpose of the giant sequoia tree is to provide shade for the tiny titmouse. -Edward Abbey, naturalist and author (1927-1989)
I like to believe that people in the long run are going to do more to promote peace than our governments. Indeed, I think that people want peace so much that one of these days governments had better get out of the way and let them have it. -Dwight D. Eisenhower, U.S. general and 34th president (1890-1969)
To himself everyone is immortal; he may know that he is going to die, but he can never know that he is dead. -Samuel Butler, writer (1835-1902) A nation, like a tree, does not thrive well till it is engrafted with a foreign stock. -Ralph Waldo Emerson, writer and philosopher (1803-1882)
I never vote for anyone; I always vote against. -W.C. Fields, comedian (1880-1946)
In all of us, even in good men, there is a lawless wild-beast nature, which peers out in sleep. -Socrates, philosopher (469?-399 BCE)
It's a poor sort of memory that only works backward. -Lewis Carroll, mathematician and writer (1832-1898)
One of the strongest characteristics of genius is the power of lighting its own fire. -John W. Foster, clergyman (1770-1843)
When people tell you how young you look, they are also telling you how old you are. -Cary Grant, actor (1904-1986)
Belief like any other moving body follows the path of least resistance. -Samuel Butler, poet (1612-1680)
We choose our joys and sorrows long before we experience them. -Kahlil Gibran, mystic, poet, and artist (1883-1931)
What is life? It is the flash of a firefly in the night. It is the breath of a buffalo in the wintertime. It is the little shadow which runs across the grass and loses itself in the sunset. -Crowfoot, Native American warrior and orator (1821-1890)
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, poet (1573-1631)
Ships that pass in the night and speak each other in passing; / Only a signal shown and a distant voice in the darkness; / So on the ocean of life we pass and speak one another, / Only a look and a voice; then darkness again and a silence. -Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, poet (1807-1882)
"An expert is a man who has made all the mistakes which can be made in a very narrow field."" Niels Bohr (1885-1962)
One may have a blazing hearth in one's soul, and yet no one ever comes to sit by it. -Vincent van Gogh, painter (1853-1890)
The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits.... (Albert Einstein)
Danger and delight grow on one stalk. -English Proverb
Drama is life with the dull bits cut out. -Alfred Hitchcock, film-maker (1899-1980)
I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than to those attending too small a degree of it. -Thomas Jefferson, 3rd US president, architect and author (1743-1826)
We confess our little faults to persuade people that we have no large ones. -Francois de La Rochefoucauld, writer (1613-1680)
What a strange machine man is! You fill him with bread, wine, fish, and radishes, and out comes sighs, laughter, and dreams. -Nikos Kazantzakis, poet and novelist (1883-1957)
Perfect love is rare indeed - for to be a lover will require that you continually have the subtlety of the very wise, the flexibility of the child, the sensitivity of the artist, the understanding of the philosopher, the acceptance of the saint, the tolerance of the scholar and the fortitude of the certain. -Leo Buscaglia, author, speaker and professor (1924-1998)
The charm, one might say the genius of memory, is that it is choosy, chancy and temperamental; it rejects the edifying cathedral and indelibly photographs the small boy outside, chewing a hunk of melon in the dust. -Elizabeth Bowen, novelist (1899-1973)
The easiest kind of relationship for me is with ten thousand people. The hardest is with one. -Joan Baez, musician (1941- )
Some fellows pay a compliment like they expected a receipt. -Kin Hubbard, humorist (1868-1930)
If you don't execute your ideas, they die. -Roger von Oech, author and consultant
Poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world. -Percy Bysshe Shelley, poet (1792-1822)
The fetters imposed on liberty at home have ever been forged out of the weapons provided for defence against real, pretended, or imaginary dangers from abroad. -James Madison, 4th US president (1751-1836)
A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against its government. -Edward Abbey, naturalist and author (1927-1989)
The course of true love never did run smooth. -William Shakespeare, playwright and poet (1564-1616)
If a triangle could speak, it would say, that God is eminently triangular, while a circle would say that the divine nature is eminently circular. -Baruch Spinoza, philosopher (1632-1677)
"When people speak to you about a preventive war, you tell them to go and fight it. After my experience, I have come to hate war. War settles nothing." -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
A teacher affects eternity; he can never tell where his influence stops. -Henry Adams, historian and teacher (1838-1918)
There are 10^11 stars in the galaxy. That used to be a huge number. But it's only a hundred billion. It's less than the national deficit! We used to call them astronomical numbers. Now we should call them economical numbers. -Richard Feynman, physicist, Nobel laureate (1918-1988)
Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity. -Hanlon's Razor
Few people think more than two or three times a year. I've made an international reputation for myself by thinking once or twice a week. -George Bernard Shaw, writer, Nobel laureate (1856-1950)
This is the devilish thing about foreign affairs: they are foreign and will not always conform to our whim. -James Reston, journalist (1909-1995)
Every creature is better alive than dead, men and moose and pine trees, and he who understands it aright will rather preserve its life than destroy it. -Henry David Thoreau, naturalist and author (1817-1862)
Man is so made that he can only find relaxation from one kind of labor by taking up another. -Anatole France, novelist, essayist, Nobel laureate (1844-1924)
Swords and guns have no eyes. -Chinese proverb
Nature teaches more than she preaches. There are no sermons in stones. It is easier to get a spark out of a stone than a moral. -John Burroughs, naturalist and writer (1837-1921)
The death of democracy is not likely to be an assassination from ambush. It will be a slow extinction from apathy, indifference, and undernourishment. -Robert Maynard Hutchins, educator (1899-1977)
Nature uses as little as possible of anything. -Johannes Kepler, astronomer (1571-1630)
When one tugs at a single thing in nature, he finds it attached to the rest of the world. -John Muir, naturalist, explorer, and writer (1838-1914)
May your trails be crooked, winding, lonesome, dangerous, leading to the most amazing view. May your mountains rise into and above the clouds. -Edward Abbey, naturalist and author (1927-1989)
The gem cannot be polished without friction, nor man perfected without trials. -Chinese Proverb
The function of the imagination is not to make strange things settled, so much as to make settled things strange. -G.K. Chesterton, essayist and novelist (1874-1936)
A single rose can be my garden... a single friend, my world. -Leo Buscaglia, author, speaker and professor (1924-1998)
Music was invented to confirm human loneliness. -Lawrence Durrell, novelist and poet (1912-1990)
Moral certainty is always a sign of cultural inferiority. The more uncivilized the man, the surer he is that he knows precisely what is right and what is wrong. All human progress, even in morals, has been the work of men who have doubted the current moral values, not of men who have whooped them up and tried to enforce them. The truly civilized man is always skeptical and tolerant, in this field as in all others. His culture is based on "I am not too sure." - H.L.Mencken
When governments fear the people there is liberty. When the people fear the government there is tyranny. -Thomas Jefferson, third US president, architect and author (1743-1826)
Oh, we have a home. We just need a house to put it in. -An anonymous child
He who has imagination without learning has wings and no feet. -Joseph Joubert, essayist (1754-1824)
Children enter school as question marks and leave as periods. -Neil Postman, professor and author (1931- )
Writers, like teeth, are divided into incisors and grinders. -Walter Bagehot, economist and journalist (1826-1877)
We despise all reverences and all objects of reverence which are outside the pale of our list of sacred things. And yet, with strange inconsistency, we are shocked when other people despise and defile the things which are holy to us. -Mark Twain, author and humorist (1835-1910)
Poetry is the art of uniting pleasure with truth. -Samuel Johnson, lexicographer (1709-1784)
An artist is not paid for his labor but for his vision. -James McNeill Whistler, painter (1834-1903)
Silence will save me from being wrong (and foolish), but it will also deprive me of the possibility of being right. -Igor Stravinsky, composer (1882-1971)
Never idealize others. They will never live up to your expectations. -Leo Buscaglia, author, speaker and professor (1924-1998)
The end of the human race will be that it will eventually die of civilization. -Ralph Waldo Emerson, writer and philosopher (1803-1882)
There is also this benefit in brag, that the speaker is unconsciously expressing his own ideal. Humor him by all means, draw it all out, and hold him to it. -Ralph Waldo Emerson, writer and philosopher (1803-1882)
It is often forgotten that (dictionaries) are artificial repositories, put together well after the languages they define. The roots of language are irrational and of a magical nature. -Jorge Luis Borges, writer (1899-1986)
Peter Principle: In a hierarchy, every employee tends to rise to his level of incompetence. -Laurence J Peter, educator and author (1919-1990)
ÒLife is either a daring adventure or nothing. To keep our faces toward change and behave like free spirits in the presence of fate is strength undefeatable.Ó ÊÊÊÊÊÊ ÑHelen Keller
Intellectuals solve problems: geniuses prevent them. -Albert Einstein, physicist, Nobel laureate (1879-1955)
In order for something to become clean, something else must become dirty. -Imbesi's Law of Conservation of Filth
If you want creative workers, give them enough time to play. -John Cleese, comic actor (1939- )
Efficiency is intelligent laziness. -David Dunham
My play was a complete success. The audience was a failure. -Ashleigh Brilliant, writer (1933- )
Life is an adventure in forgiveness. -Norman Cousins, author and editor (1915-1990)
Everybody's talking about people breaking into houses but there are more people in the world who want to break out of houses. -Thornton Wilder, writer (1897-1975)
The aim of an argument or discussion should not be victory, but progress. -Joseph Joubert, essayist (1754-1824)
Youth is the first victim of war - the first fruit of peace. It takes 20 years or more of peace to make a man; it takes only 20 seconds of war to destroy him. -Boudewijn I, King of Belgium (1934-1993)
If you give me six lines written by the most honest man, I will find something in them to hang him. -Cardinal Richelieu (1585-1642)
Trees are not known by their leaves, nor even by their blossoms, but by their fruits. -Eleanor of Aquitaine (1122-1204)
I don't necessarily agree with everything I say. -Marshall McLuhan, cultural historian and communications theorist (1911-1980)
The tears of strangers are only water. -Russian proverb
To sit alone in the lamplight with a book spread out before you, and hold intimate converse with men of unseen generations--such is a pleasure beyond compare. -Kenko Yoshida, essayist (1283-1352)
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, philosopher and writer (1694-1778)
Winter is an etching, spring a watercolor, summer an oil painting and autumn a mosaic of them all. -Stanley Horowitz
A book is a story for the mind. A song is a story for the soul. -Eric Pio, poet
If you believe the doctors, nothing is wholesome; if you believe the theologians, nothing is innocent; if you believe the military, nothing is safe. -Lord Salisbury, British prime minister(1830-1903)
Assumptions are the termites of relationships. -Henry Winkler, actor (1945- )
People change and forget to tell each other. -Lillian Hellman, playwright (1905-1984)
The perfection of art is to conceal art. -Quintilian (Marcus Fabius Quintilianus), rhetorician (c. 35-95)
I was never less alone than when by myself. -Edward Gibbon, historian (1737-1794 )
The best way to predict the future is to invent it. -Alan Kay, inventor (1940- )
What is life? It is the flash of a firefly in the night. It is the breath of a buffalo in the wintertime. It is the little shadow which runs across the grass and loses itself in the sunset. -Crowfoot, Native American warrior and orator (1821-1890)
What a child doesn't receive he can seldom later give. -P.D. James, writer (1920- )
Sometime they'll give a war and nobody will come. -Carl Sandburg, poet and biographer (1878-1967)
Life is a foreign language; all men mispronounce it. -Christopher Morley, writer (1890-1957)
You have not converted a man because you have silenced him. -John Morley, statesman and writer (1838-1923)
Absolute faith corrupts as absolutely as absolute power. -Eric Hoffer, philosopher and author (1902-1983)
The meeting of two personalities is like the contact of two chemical substances: if there is any reaction, both are transformed. -Carl Jung, psychiatrist (1875-1961)
Words form the thread on which we string our experiences. -Aldous Huxley, novelist (1894-1963)