Famous Quotes |
| There exists no politician in India
daring enough to attempt to explain to the masses that cows can be eaten. |
Indira Gandhi |
Indian politician (1917 - 1984) |
| Mothers are a biological necessity; fathers are a social invention. |
Margaret Mead |
US anthropologist & popularizer of anthropology (1901 - 1978) |
| For the skeptic there remains only
one consolation: if there should be such a thing as superhuman law it is administered with subhuman inefficiency. |
Eric Ambler |
| Mothers, food, love, and career, the four major guilt groups. |
Cathy Guisewite |
| Striving for excellence motivates you; striving for perfection is
demoralizing. |
Harriet Braiker |
| Until you lose your reputation, you never realize what a burden it was or
what freedom really is. |
Margaret Mitchell |
US novelist (1900 - 1949) |
| The way to do research is to attack the facts at the point of greatest
astonishment. |
Celia Green |
| Life is a banquet, and most poor suckers are starving. |
Rosalind Russell, as Aunti Mame |
| My father was often angry when I was most like him. |
Lillian Hellman |
US dramatist (1905 - 1984) |
| Whenever I get married I start buying <br>Gourmet
Magazine<br>. |
Nora Ephron |
| Cooking is like love. It should be entered into with abandon or not at
all. |
Harriet Van Horne |
| What my mother believed about
cooking is that if you worked hard and prospered, someone else would do it for you. |
Nora Ephron |
| Family dinners are more often than
not an ordeal of nervous indigestion, preceded by hidden resentment and ennui and accompanied by psychosomatic
jitters. |
M. F. K. Fisher |
| No more tears now; I will think about revenge. |
Mary Queen of Scots |
| For what do we live, but to make sport for our neighbors and laugh at
them in our turn? |
Jane Austen |
English novelist (1775 - 1817) |
| The cry of equality pulls everyone down. |
Iris Murdoch |
British novelist (1919 - 1999) |
| I love children --- especially when they cry, for then someone takes them
away. |
Nancy Mitford |
| I was raised almost entirely on
turnips and potatoes, but I think that the turnips had more to do with the effect than the potatoes. |
Marlene Dietrich |
German movie actress (1901 - 1992) |
| The average man, who does not know
what to do with his life, wants another one which will last forever. |
Anatole France |
French novelist (1844 - 1924) |
| What a pity, when Christopher Columbus discovered America, that he ever
mentioned it. |
Margot Asquith |
| You should always believe what you
read in the newspapers, for that makes them more interesting. |
Rose Macauley |
| I feel sure that no girl would go to the altar if she knew all. |
Queen Victoria |
| Going to the opera, like getting drunk, is a sin that carries its own
punishment with it. |
Hannah More, 1775 |
| I married a German. Every night I dress up as Poland and he invades me. |
Bette Midler |
US actress, comedienne, & singer
(1945 - ) |
| I feel like a million tonight --- but one at a time. |
Mae West |
US movie actress (1892 - 1980) |
| This is not a novel to be tossed aside lightly. It should be thrown with
great force. |
Dorothy Parker, book review |
US author, humorist, poet, & wit
(1893 - 1967) |
| The best way to keep children at
home is to make the home atmosphere pleasant --- and let the air out of their tires. |
Dorothy Parker |
US author, humorist, poet, & wit
(1893 - 1967) |
| My favorite animal is steak. |
Fran Lebowitz |
US writer and humorist (1950
- ) |
| God is love, but get it in writing. |
Gypsy Rose Lee |
US actress & stripper (1914 -
1970) |
| The main difference between men and women is that men are lunatics and
women are idiots. |
Rebecca West |
Irish critic, journalist, & novelist
(1892 - 1983) |
| The two most beautiful words in the English language are ``check
enclosed.\ |
Dorothy Parker |
US author, humorist, poet, & wit
(1893 - 1967) |
| If pregnancy were a book they would cut the last two chapters. |
Nora Ephron |
| Nothing succeeds like address. |
Fran Lebowitz |
US writer and humorist (1950
- ) |
| Oregano is the spice of life. |
Henry J. Tillman |
| The prostitute is the only honest woman left in America. |
Ty-Grace Atkinson |
| I never see what has been done; I only see what remains to be done. |
Madame Curie |
| When women go wrong, men go right after them. |
Mae West |
US movie actress (1892 - 1980) |
| I never realized until lately that women were supposed to be the inferior
sex. |
Katharine Hepburn |
US actress (1907 - 2003) |
| When a man meets catastrophe on the
road, he looks in his purse, but a woman looks in her mirror. |
Margaret Turnbull |
| Puritanism: The haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy. |
H. L. Mencken |
US editor (1880 - 1956) |
| If someone wants a sheep, then that means that he exists. |
Antoine de Saint-Exupery, "The Little Prince" |
French writer (1900 - 1944) |
| My personal hobbies are reading, listening to music, and silence. |
Edith Sitwell |
English biographer, critic, novelist, & poet (1887 - 1964) |
| By whom? |
Dorothy Parker, when told she was outspoken |
US author, humorist, poet, & wit
(1893 - 1967) |
| It is better to be looked over than overlooked. |
Mae West |
US movie actress (1892 - 1980) |
| The penalty of success is to be bored by people who used to snub you. |
Nancy Astor |
British politician (1879 - 1964) |
| Good girls go to heaven, bad girls go everywhere. |
Helen Gurley Brown |
| If you educate a man you educate a person, but if you educate a woman you
educate a family. |
Ruby Manikan |
| This Englishwoman is so refined <br> She has no bosom and no
behind. |
Stevie Smith |
| I love acting. It is so much more real than life. |
Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray, 1891 |
Irish dramatist, novelist, & poet
(1854 - 1900) |
| I would venture to guess that Anon,
who wrote so many poems without signing them, was often a woman. |
Virginia Woolf |
English novelist (1882 - 1941) |
| Literature is strewn with the
wreckage of those who have minded beyond reason the opinion of others. |
Virginia Woolf |
English novelist (1882 - 1941) |
| Acting is standing up naked and turning around very slowly. |
Rosalind Russell |
| The lovely thing about being forty is that you can appreciate
twenty-five- year-old men more. |
Collen McCullough |
| Some people say that cats are
sneaky, evil, and cruel. True, and they have many other fine qualities as well. |
Missy Dizick |
| My husband said he wanted to have a relationship with a redhead, so I
dyed my hair. |
Jane Fonda |
| Actions lie louder than words. |
Carolyn Wells |
| There is not one female comic who was beautiful as a little girl. |
Joan Rivers |
US comedienne (1935 - ) |
| All creative people should be required to leave California for three
months every year. |
Gloria Swanson |
US actress (1899 - 1983) |
| It is easier to live through someone else than to become complete
yourself. |
Betty Friedan |
| Lack of education is an extraordinary handicap when one is being
offensive. |
Josephine Tey |
| Egotism -- usually just a case of mistaken nonentity. |
Barbara Stanwyck |
| If it were natural for father to
care for their sons, they would not need so many laws commanding them to do so. |
Phyllis Chesler |
| We can lie in the language of dress
or try ot tell the truth; but unless we are naked and bald, it is impossible to be silent. |
Alison Lurie |
| Friendship is not possible between two women, one of whom is very well
dressed. |
Laurie Colwin |
| If the world were a logical place, men would ride side saddle. |
Rita Mae Brown |
US author and social activist |
| The world wants to be cheated. So cheat. |
Xaviera Hollander |
| There is nothing like a good dose of another woman to make a man
appreciate his wife. |
Clare Booth Luce |
US diplomat, dramatist, journalist, & politician (1903 - 1987) |
| I have flabby thighs, but fortunately my stomach covers them. |
Joan Rivers |
US comedienne (1935 - ) |
| A lady is one who never shows her underwear unintentionally. |
Lillian Day |
| The woman whose behavior indicates
that she will make a scene if she is told the truth asks to be deceived. |
Elizabeth Jenkins |
| Experience: A comb life gives you after you lose your hair. |
Judith Stern |
| Excessive literary production is a social offense. |
George Eliot, a.k.a. Mary Ann Evans |
English novelist (1819 - 1880) |
| To fall in love you have to be in the state of mind for it to take, like
a disease. |
Nancy Mitford |
| The rule is perfect: in all matters of opinion our adversaries are
insane. |
Mark Twain, in Christian Science |
US humorist, novelist, short story author, & wit (1835 - 1910) |
| In love there are things --- bodies and words. |
Joyce Carol Oates |
US author (1938 - ) |
| Loves conquers all things except poverty and toothache. |
Mae West |
US movie actress (1892 - 1980) |
| Love is the difficult realization that something other than oneself is
real. |
Iris Murdoch |
British novelist (1919 - 1999) |
| Never give up and never face the facts. |
Ruth Gordon |
| In the arithmetic of love, one plus one equals everything, and two minus
one equals nothing. |
Mignon McLaughlin |
| No nice men are good at getting taxis. |
Katharine Whitehorn |
| The first time Adam had a chance, he laid the blame on woman. |
Nancy Astor |
British politician (1879 - 1964) |
| Some couples go over their budgets very carefully every month, other just
go over them. |
Sally Poplin |
| I was born at the age of twelve on an MGM lot. |
Judy Garland |
US actress & singer (1922 -
1969) |
| I believe in censorship. I made a fortune out of it. |
Mae West |
US movie actress (1892 - 1980) |
| I wish the government would put a tax on pianos for the incompetent. |
Dame Edith Sitwell |
| Politician talk themselves red, white, and blue in the face. |
Clare Booth Luce |
US diplomat, dramatist, journalist, & politician (1903 - 1987) |
| They say that women talk too much.
If you have worked in congress you know that the filibuster was invented by men. |
Clare Booth Luce |
US diplomat, dramatist, journalist, & politician (1903 - 1987) |
| The First Lady is an unpaid public servant elected by one person --- her
husband. |
Lady Bird Johnson |
US wife of Lyndon Johnson 1934
(1912 - ) |
| I prefer liberty to chains of diamonds. |
Lady Mary Wortley Montagu |
English letter author & poet
(1689 - 1762) |
| One should only see a psychiatrist out of boredom. |
Muriel Spark |
British author (1918 - ) |
| Power is the ability not to have to please. |
Elizabeth Janeway |
| It was wonderful to find America, but it would have been more wonderful
to miss it. |
Mark Twain |
US humorist, novelist, short story author, & wit (1835 - 1910) |
| Sanity is a cozy lie. |
Susan Sontag |
US author & critic (1933
- ) |
| Romance is the glamour which turns the dust of everyday life into a
golden haze. |
Elinor Glyn |
| It is a common enough case, that of
a man being suddenly captivated by a woman nearly the opposite of his ideal. |
George Eliot |
English novelist (1819 - 1880) |
| The head never rules the heart, but just becomes its partner in crime. |
Mignon McLaughlin |
| I succeeded by saying what everyone else is thinking. |
Joan Rivers |
US comedienne (1935 - ) |
| When I appear in public, people
expect me to neigh, grind my teeth paw the ground and swish my tail --- none of which is easy. |
Princess Anne |
| The trouble with America is that there are far too many wide-open spaces
surrounded by teeth. |
Charles Luckman |
| Whatever else can be said about sex, it cannot be called a dignified
performance. |
Helen Lawrenson |
| To err is human, but is feels divine. |
Mae West |
US movie actress (1892 - 1980) |
| There are men I could spend eternity with. but not this life. |
Kathleen Norris |
| Listening, not imitation, may be the sincerest form of flattery. |
Dr. Joyce Brothers |
US psychologist & television personality (1928 -
) |
| I fear nothing so much as a man who is witty all day long. |
Madame de Sevigne |
| I am one of those unhappy persons who inspire bores to the greatest
flights of art. |
Dame Edith Sitwell |
| The telephone is a good way to talk to people without having to offer
them a drink. |
Fran Lebowitz |
US writer and humorist (1950
- ) |
| Most conversations are simply monologues delivered in the presence of a
witness. |
Margaret Miller |
| The United States is a nation of laws: badly written and randomly
enforced. |
Frank Zappa |
US musician, singer, & songwriter
(1940 - 1993) |
| It is a common delusion that you can make things better by talking about
them. |
Dame Rose Macauley |
| There are days when any electrical
appliance in the house, including the vacuum cleaner, offers more entertainment than the TV set. |
Harriet Van Horne. |
| On a plane you can pick up more and
better people than on any other public conveyance since the stagecoach. |
Anita Loos |
| Virtue has its own reward, but no box office. |
Mae West |
US movie actress (1892 - 1980) |
| If you stop to be kind, you must swerve often from your path. |
Mary Webb |
| War has become a luxury that only small nations can afford. |
Hannah Arendt |
US (German-born) historian & social philosopher (1906 - 1975) |
| Before a war, military science seems
a real science, like astronomy. After a war it seems more like astrology. |
Dame Rebecca West |
| Plain women know more about men than beautiful ones do. |
Katharine Hepburn |
US actress (1907 - 2003) |
| All really great lovers are articulate, and verbal seduction is the
surest road to actual seduction. |
Marya Mannes |
| Behind almost every woman you ever heard of stands a man who let her
down. |
Naomi Bliven |
| A woman can look book moral and exciting ... if she also looks as if it
was quite a struggle. |
Edna Ferber |
US author (1887 - 1968) |
| The argument of the broken pane of glass is the most valuable argument in
modern politics. |
Emmeline Pankhurst |
| Elegance is refusal. |
Coco Chanel |
French fashion designer & perfumer
(1883 - 1971) |
| Everyone makes a greater effort to hurt other people than to help
himself. |
Alexis Carrel |
French biologist & surgeon
(1873 - 1944) |
| Most people ignore most poetry <br> because <br> most poetry
ignores most people. |
Adrian Mitchell |
| What a pity, when Christopher Colombus discovered America, that he ever
mentioned it. |
Margot Asquith |
| Changing husbands is only changing troubles. |
Kathleen Norris |
| It is really asking too much of a
woman to expect her to bring up her husband and her children too. |
Lillian Bell |
| To love deeply in one direction makes us more loving in all others. |
Madame Swetchine |
| Every man wants a woman to appeal to
his better side, his nobler instincts, and his higher nature --- and another woman to help him forget them. |
Helen Rowland |
(1876 - 1950) |
| People with bad consciences always fear the judgement of children. |
Mary McCarthy |
| Baby: an alimentary canal with a loud voice at one end and no
responsibility at the other. |
Elizabeth Adamson |
| My passport photo is one of the most
remarkable photographs I have ever seen --- no retouching, no shadows, no flattery --- just stark me. |
Anne Morrow Lindbergh |
| They say that God is everywhere, and yet we always think of Him as
somewhat of a recluse. |
Emily Dickinson |
US poet (1830 - 1886) |
| Perhaps, after all, America never
has been discovered. I myself would say that it had merely been detected. |
Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray, 1891 |
Irish dramatist, novelist, & poet
(1854 - 1900) |
| To be a hero or a heroine, one must give an order to oneself. |
Simone Weil |
French social philosopher (1909 -
1943) |
| Hope is a thing with feathers
<br> That perches in the soul, <br> And sings the tune without
words <br> And never stops at all. |
Emily Dickinson |
US poet (1830 - 1886) |
| Humor distorts nothing, and only false gods are laughed off their
pedestals. |
Agnes Repplier |
US essayist (1855 - 1950) |
| My mother is such a lousy cook that Thanksgiving at her house is a time
of sorrow. |
Rita Rudner |
US comedian |
| Have you ever taken something out of
the clothes hamper because it had become, relatively, the cleanest thing? |
Katharine Whitehorn |
| Eating without conversation is only stoking. |
Marcelene Cox |
| I am treating you as my friend
asking you share my present minuses in the hope I can ask you to share my future pluses. |
Katherine Mansfield |
New Zealand short story author
(1888 - 1923) |
| To be a saint does not exclude fine dresses nor a beautiful house. |
Katherine Tynan Hinkson |
| There are three social classes in
America: upper middle class, middle class, and lower middle class. |
Judith Martin, (Miss Manners) |
| The quickest way to know a woman is to go shopping with her. |
Marcelene Cox |
| All sins are attempts to fill voids. |
Simone Weil |
French social philosopher (1909 -
1943) |
| Who would ever think that so much went on in the soul of a young girl? |
Anne Frank |
German Jewish diarist (1929 -
1945) |
| I like people who refuse to speak until they are ready to speak. |
Lillian Hellman |
US dramatist (1905 - 1984) |
| It it not good to see people who
have been pretending strength all their lives lose it even for a minute. |
Lillian Hellman |
US dramatist (1905 - 1984) |
| Everyone has talent. What is rare is the courage to follow talent to the
dark place where it leads. |
Erica Jong |
| If you realize too acutely how valuable time it, you are too paralyzed to
do anything. |
Katharine Butler Hathaway |
| The tourist may complain of other tourists, but he would be lost without
them. |
Agnes Repplier |
US essayist (1855 - 1950) |
| Americans detest all lies except lies spoken in public or printed lies. |
Edgar Watson Howe |
US journalist (1853 - 1937) |
| Truth is always exciting. Speak it, then, Life is dull without it. |
Pearl Buck |
US novelist in China (1892 - 1973) |
| Those who are unhappy have no need
for anything in this world but people capable of giving them their attention. |
Simone Weil |
French social philosopher (1909 -
1943) |
| When you are unhappy, is there
anything more maddening than to be told that you should be contented with your lot? |
Kathleen Norris |
| A vacation frequently means that the
family goes away for a rest, accompanied by mother, who sees that the others get it. |
Marcelene Cox |
| Women are at last becoming persons first and wives second, and that is as
it should be. |
May Sarton |
| Writers should be read but not seen. Rarely are they a winsome sight. |
Edna Ferber |
US author (1887 - 1968) |
| Marriage is not just spiritual communion, it is also remembering to take
out the trash. |
Dr. Joyce Brothers |
US psychologist & television personality (1928 -
) |
| I have too many fantasies to be a housewife. I guess I am a fantasy. |
Marilyn Monroe |
US actress (1926 - 1962) |
| I refuse to believe that trading
recipes is silly. Tunafish casserole is at least as real as corporate stock. |
Barbara Grizzuti Harrison |
| I stopped believing in Santa Claus
at age six when my mother took me to see him in a store and he asked for my autograph. |
Shirley Temple Black |
| The eleventh commandment --- Thou
shalt not be found out --- is the only one that is virtually impossible to keep these days. |
Berta Buxton |
| Americans adore me and will go on adoring me until I say something nice
about them. |
George Bernard Shaw |
Irish dramatist & socialist
(1856 - 1950) |
| Appreciation is a wonderful thing: It makes what is excellent in others
belong to us as well. |
Voltaire |
French author, humanist, rationalist, & satirist (1694 - 1778) |
| It is not necessary to understand things in order to argue about them. |
Pierre Beaumarchais |
French businessman & comic dramatist
(1732 - 1799) |
| No degree of dullness can safeguard
a work against the determination of critics to find it fascinating. |
Harold Rosenberg |
| The real problem is not whether machines think but whether men do. |
B. F. Skinner |
US psychologist (1904 - 1990) |
| Life is a foreign language; all men mispronounce it. |
Christopher Morley |
US author & journalist (1890 -
1957) |
| Banking establishments are more dangerous than standing armies. |
Thomas Jefferson |
3rd president of US (1743 - 1826) |
| What a blessing it would be if we
could open and shut our ears as easily as we open and shut our eyes! |
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg |
(1742 - 1799) |
| Every improvement in communication makes the bore more terrible. |
Frank Moore Colby |
| Bureaucracy defends the status quo long past the time when the quo has
lost its status. |
Laurence J. Peter |
US educator & writer (1919 -
1988) |
| Bureaucrats write memoranda both
because they appear to be busy when they are writing and because the memos, once written, immediately become proof
that they were busy. |
Charles Peters |
| The only thing that saves us from
the bureaucracy is inefficiency. An efficient bureaucracy is the greatest threat to liberty. |
Eugene McCarthy, Time magazine, Feb. 12, 1979 |
US politician (1916 - ) |
| Hell hath no fury like a bureaucrat scorned. |
Milton Friedman |
US economist (1912 - ) |
| I find it rather easy to portray a
businessman. Being bland, rather cruel and incompetent comes naturally to me. |
John Cleese |
English actor & comedian (1939
- ) |
| This paperback is very interesting,
but I find it will never replace a hardcover book - it makes a very poor doorstop. |
Alfred Hitchcock |
British movie director (1899 -
1980) |
| I always wanted to be somebody, but I should have been more specific. |
Jane Wagner, (and Lily Tomlin) |
| Most modern calendars mar the sweet
simplicity of our lives by reminding us that each day that passes is the anniversary of some perfectly uninteresting
event. |
Oscar Wilde |
Irish dramatist, novelist, & poet
(1854 - 1900) |
| The big thieves hang the little ones. |
Czech Proverb |
| Is fuel efficiency really what we
need most desperatelly? I say that what we really need is a car that can be shot when it breaks down. |
Russell Baker |
US columnist & journalist
(1925 - ) |
| A celebrity is a person who works
hard all his life to become well known, then wears dark glasses to avoid being recognized. |
Fred Allen |
US radio comedian (1894 - 1956) |
| Early morning cheerfulness can be extremely obnoxious. |
William Feather |
(1908 - 1976) |
| A happy childhood is poor preparation for human contacts. |
Colette |
French novelist (1873 - 1954) |
| I am just going outside and may be some time. |
Captain Lawrence Oates, last words |
(1880 - 1912) |
| Never raise your hand to your children; it leaves your midsection
unprotected. |
Robert Orben |
| The advantage of a classical
education is that it enables you to despise the wealth that it prevents you from achieving. |
Russell Green |
| Not even computers will replace committees, because committees buy
computers. |
Edward Shepherd Mead |
| Let us make a special effort to stop
communicating with each other, so we can have some conversation. |
Judith Martin, (Miss Manners) |
| The computer is a moron. |
Peter Drucker |
| A conference is a gathering of
important people who singly can do nothing, but together can decide that nothing can be done. |
Fred Allen |
US radio comedian (1894 - 1956) |
| I used to wake up at 4 A.M. and
start sneezing, sometimes for five hours. I tried to find out what sort of allergy I had but finally came to the conclusion
that it must be an allergy to consciousness. |
James Thurber |
US author, cartoonist, humorist, & satirist (1894 - 1961) |
| All animals are equal but some animals are more equal than others. |
George Orwell, "Animal Farm" |
English essayist, novelist, & satirist (1903 - 1950) |
| Our constitution protects aliens, drunks and U.S. Senators. |
Will Rogers |
US humorist & showman (1879 -
1935) |
| Who is rich? He that is content. Who is that? Nobody. |
Benjamin Franklin |
US author, diplomat, inventor, physicist, politician, & printer (1706 - 1790) |
| Criminal: A person with predatory instincts who has not sufficient
capital to form a corporation. |
Howard Scott |
(1926 - ) |
| Perhaps in time the so-called Dark Ages will be thought of as including
our own. |
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg |
(1742 - 1799) |
| It was such a lovely day I thought it a pity to get up. |
W. Somerset Maugham |
English dramatist & novelist
(1874 - 1965) |
| Democracy means government by
discussion, but it is only effective if you can stop people talking. |
Clement Atlee |
| 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 |
US editor (1880 - 1956) |
| The only difference between the
Democrats and the Republicans is that the Democrats allow the poor to be corrupt, too. |
Oscar Levant |
(1906 - 1972) |
| In archaeology you uncover the unknown. In diplomacy you cover the known. |
Thomas Pickering |
US diplomat (1931 - ) |
| The quickest way of ending a war is to lose it. |
George Orwell, Polemic, May 1946, "Second Thoughts on James
Burnham" |
English essayist, novelist, & satirist (1903 - 1950) |
| Half of the modern drugs could well
be thrown out of the window, except that the birds might eat them. |
Dr. Martin Henry Fischer |
| It had only one fault. It was kind of lousy. |
James Thurber |
US author, cartoonist, humorist, & satirist (1894 - 1961) |
| An economist is a man who states the obvious in terms of the
incomprehensible. |
Alfred A. Knopf |
| Education... has produced a vast
population able to read but unable to distinguish what is worth reading. |
G. M. Trevelyan, English Social History (1942) |
British historian (1876 - 1962) |
| Egotism is the anesthetic that dulls the pain of stupidity. |
Frank Leahy |
| People seem to enjoy things more
when they know a lot of other people have been left out of the pleasure. |
Russell Baker |
US columnist & journalist
(1925 - ) |
| Equal opportunity means everyone will have a fair chance at being
incompetent. |
Laurence J. Peter |
US educator & writer (1919 -
1988) |
| I have never taken any exercise except sleeping and resting. |
Mark Twain |
US humorist, novelist, short story author, & wit (1835 - 1910) |
| One of the first duties of the physician is to educate the masses not to
take medicine. |
Sir William Osler, Aphorisms from his Bedside Teachings (1961) p. 105 |
British (Canadian-born) physician
(1849 - 1919) |
| Blessed is he who expects nothing, for he shall never be disappointed. |
Alexander Pope, Letter to Gay, October 6, 1727 |
English poet & satirist (1688
- 1744) |
| An expert is a person who avoids small error as he sweeps on to the grand
fallacy. |
Benjamin Stolberg |
| 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 |
| It is possible to be below flattery as well as above it. |
Thomas Babington Macaulay |
English author & politician
(1800 - 1859) |
| People demand freedom of speech as a
compensation for the freedom of thought which they seldom use. |
Soren Kierkegaard |
Danish philosopher (1813 - 1855) |
| When people are free to do as they please, they usually imitate each
other. |
Eric Hoffer |
(1902 - 1983) |
| I agree with everything you say, but I would attack to the death your
right to say it. |
Tom Stoppard |
British dramatist & screenwriter
(1937 - ) |
| A good listener is usually thinking about something else. |
Kin Hubbard |
(1868 - 1930) |
| Government is too big and too important to be left to the politicians. |
Chester Bowles |
US diplomat & economist (1901
- 1986) |
| One of the keys to happiness is a bad memory. |
Rita Mae Brown |
US author and social activist |
| To be stupid, selfish, and have good
health are three requirements for happiness, though if stupidity is lacking, all is lost. |
Gustave Flaubert |
French realist novelist (1821 -
1880) |
| It is a curious thing... that every
creed promises a paradise which will be absolutely uninhabitable for anyone of civilized taste. |
Evelyn Waugh |
English novelist & satirist
(1903 - 1966) |
| Events in the past may be roughly
divided into those which probably never happened and those which do not matter. |
William Ralph Inge |
English author & Anglican prelate
(1860 - 1954) |
| In Hollywood a marriage is a success if it outlasts milk. |
Rita Rudner |
US comedian |
| Oh, life is a glorious cycle of
song,<br> A medley of extemporanea; <br>And love is a thing that
can never go wrong; <br>And I am Marie of
Romania. |
Dorothy Parker, Not So Deep as a Well (1937), "Comment" |
US author, humorist, poet, & wit
(1893 - 1967) |
| Honesty is a good thing, but it is not profitable to its possessor unless
it is kept under control. |
Don Marquis |
US humorist (1878 - 1937) |
| Honesty is the best policy - when there is money in it. |
Mark Twain |
US humorist, novelist, short story author, & wit (1835 - 1910) |
| Most human beings have an almost infinite capacity for taking things for
granted. |
Aldous Huxley |
English critic & novelist
(1894 - 1963) |
| The capacity of human beings to bore
one another seems to be vastly greater than that of any other animal. |
H. L. Mencken |
US editor (1880 - 1956) |
| Both the cockroach and the bird
would get along very well without us, although the cockroach would miss us most. |
Joseph Wood Krutch |
US author & critic (1893 -
1970) |
| Everybody gets so much information all day long that they lose their
common sense. |
Gertrude Stein |
US author in France (1874 - 1946) |
| You can be a rank insider as well as a rank outsider. |
Robert Frost |
US poet (1874 - 1963) |
| Competence, like truth, beauty and contact lenses, is in the eye of the
beholder. |
Laurence J. Peter, The Peter Principle (1969), chapter 1 |
US educator & writer (1919 -
1988) |
| Instant gratification takes too long. |
Carrie Fisher |
US author & movie actress
(1956 - ) |
| There is no such thing as an underestimate of average intelligence. |
Henry Adams |
US author, autobiographer, & historian (1838 - 1918) |
| I believe in equality for everyone, except reporters and photographers. |
Mahatma Gandhi |
Indian ascetic & nationalist leader
(1869 - 1948) |
| An incompetent attorney can delay a
trial for months or years. A competent attorney can delay one even longer. |
Evelle J. Younger |
| Anyone nit-picking enough to write a
letter of correction to an editor doubtless deserves the error that provoked it. |
Alvin Toffler |
| Liberals are very broadminded: they
are always willing to give careful consideration to both sides of the same side. |
Anonymous |
| For most men life is a search for the proper manila envelope in which to
get themselves filed. |
Clifton Fadiman |
US author, editor, & radio host
(1904 - ) |
| A new scientific truth does not
triumph by convincing its opponents and making them to see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die,
and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it. |
Max Planck |
| The reward of a thing well done is to have done it. |
Ralph Waldo Emerson |
US essayist & poet (1803 -
1882) |
| Life is a long lesson in humility. |
James M. Barrie |
Scottish dramatist & novelist
(1860 - 1937) |
| Only a life lived for others is a life worth while. |
Albert Einstein |
US (German-born) physicist (1879 -
1955) |
| The only limits are those of vision. |
James Broughton |
| Maybe the gift of any great person is the power to converse with our own
hearts. |
Randall Wallace |
| You may regret your silence once, but you will regret your words often. |
Ian Gabirol |
| We are the total of our longings. |
Guy Gavriel Kay |
| In solitude especialy do we begin to
appreciate the advantage of living with someone who can think. |
Henry David Thoreau |
US Transcendentalist author (1817
- 1862) |
| Intelligence is nothing without delight. |
Paul Claudel |
| Hatred is the anger of the weak. |
Alphonse Daudet |
| When we remember we are all mad, the mysteries disappear and life stands
explained. |
Mark Twain |
US humorist, novelist, short story author, & wit (1835 - 1910) |
| What is ten thousand years? Time is short for one who thinks, endless for
one who yearns. |
Alain |
| Convictions are the more dangerous enemy of truth than lies. |
Friedrich Nietzsche |
German philosopher (1844 - 1900) |
| A slipping gear in your M203 grenade
launcher can cause it to fire when you least expect it. This could make you very unpopular with what is left of your
unit. |
Unknown, Army Magazine of Preventive Maintenance |
Quotations by unknown authors |
| Dream lofty dreams, as you dream, so
shall you become. Your vision is the promise of what you one day shall be: your ideal is the prophecy of what you
shall at last unveil. |
James Allen |
| Far away in the sunshine are my
highest aspirations. I may not reach them, but I can look up and see their beauty, believe in them, and try to follow
where they lead. |
Louisa May Alcott |
US juvenile novelist (1832 - 1888) |
| It is by not always thinking of
yourself, if you can manage it, that you might somehow be happy. Until you can make room in your life for someone as
important to you as yourself, you will always be searching and lost.... |
Richard Bach |
| Success means doing the best we can
with what we have. Success is the doing, not the getting; in the trying, not the triumph. Success is a personal
standard, reaching for the highest that is in us, becoming all that we can
be. If we do our best, we are a success. Success is the maximumutilization of
the ability that you have. |
Zig Ziglar |
| Not a shred of evidence exists in favor of the idea that life is serious. |
Brendan Gill |
| The fact that a believer is happier
than a skeptic is no more to the point than saying a drunken man is happier than a sober man. |
George Bernard Shaw |
Irish dramatist & socialist
(1856 - 1950) |
| The man who follows the crowd will
get no farther than the crowd. A man who walks alone is likely to get places no one has ever been before. |
Alan Ashley-Pitt |
| When you see a good man, try to
emulate his example, and when you see a bad man, search yourself for his faults. |
Confucious |
| Doubts are more cruel than the worst of truths. |
Moliere |
French actor & comic dramatist
(1622 - 1673) |
| Never judge a book by its movie. |
J. W. Eagan |
| Man can believe the impossible, but man can never believe the improbable. |
Oscar Wilde |
Irish dramatist, novelist, & poet
(1854 - 1900) |
| There is no death. Only a change of worlds. |
Chief Seattle |
| Consider the rights of others before
your own feelings, and the feelings of others before your own rights. |
John Wooden |
US basketball coach (1910 - ) |
| The worst thing you can do for those you love is the things they could
and should do themselves. |
Abraham Lincoln |
16th president of US (1809 - 1865) |
| To avoid criticism, do nothing, say nothing and be nothing. |
Elbert Hubbard |
US author (1856 - 1915) |
| If the day and the night are such
that you greet them with with joy, and life emits a fragrance like flowers and sweet-scented herbs, more elastic, more
starry, more immortal--that is your success. |
Henry David Thoreau |
US Transcendentalist author (1817
- 1862) |
| "Nothing for preserving the body like having no heart." |
John Petit-Senn |
| There is a time for departure even when there is no certain place to go. |
Tennessee Williams |
US dramatist (1911 - 1983) |
| No one ever told me grief felt so much like fear. |
C. S. Lewis |
English essayist & juvenile novelist
(1898 - 1963) |
| Lying increases the creative
faculties, expands the ego, and lessens the frictions of social contacts. |
Clare Booth Luce |
US diplomat, dramatist, journalist, & politician (1903 - 1987) |
| You cannot stand anywhere in the universe that is outside of yourself. |
Deepak Chopra |
| My friends, your people have both
intellect and heart; you use these to consider in what way you can do the best to live. |
Spotted Tail (Sioux Indian) |
| I was born on the prairies where the
wind blew free and there was nothing to break the light of the sun. I was born where there were no enclosures... |
Geronimo |
| Do not wrong or hate your neighbor, for it is not he that you wrong: You
wrong yourself. |
Shawnee Indian Chant |
| He who fights too long against
dragons becomes a dragon himself; and if you gaze too long into the abyss, the abyss will gaze into you. |
Friedrich Nietzsche |
German philosopher (1844 - 1900) |
| There are tones of voices that mean more than words. |
Robert Frost |
US poet (1874 - 1963) |
| Whenever you find that you are on the side of the majority, it is time to
reform. |
Mark Twain |
US humorist, novelist, short story author, & wit (1835 - 1910) |
| We need to make a decision, no matter what it is. |
Dr. Suzanne Botts |
| In times of joy, all of us wished we possessed a tail we could wag. |
W.H. Auden |
| It is even harder for the average ape to believe that he has descended
from man. |
H. L. Mencken |
US editor (1880 - 1956) |
| Man is the only animal that can
remain on friendly terms with the victims he intends to eat until he eats them. |
Samuel Butler |
English composer, novelist, & satiric author (1835 - 1902) |
| The conception of two people living
together for twenty-five years without having a cross word suggests a lack of spirit only to be admired in sheep. |
Alan Patrick Herbert |
| My fellow Americans, I am pleased to
tell you I just signed legislation which outlaws Russia forever. The bombing begins in five minutes. |
Ronald Reagan, Said during a radio microphone test, 1984 |
40th president of US (1911 - 2004) |
| We were happily married for eight
months. Unfortunately, we were married for four and a half years. |
Nick Faldo |
| Pity the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. |
Don Marquis |
US humorist (1878 - 1937) |
| 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 |
French author & moralist (1613
- 1680) |
| Nothing fixes a thing so intensely in the memory as the wish to forget
it. |
Michel de Montaigne |
French essayist (1533 - 1592) |
| All men are frauds. The only difference between them is that some admit
it. I myself deny it. |
H. L. Mencken |
US editor (1880 - 1956) |
