~ quotes ~
Pick small battles and win them all. Ted Purdy
As Nelson Mandela said, "It always seems impossible until it's done." Yes
Each of us must work for our own
improvement, and at the same time share a general responsibility for all humanity. wiki ~ Marie Curie
The greatest discovery of my
generation is that you can change your circumstances by changing your attitudes of mind. wiki ~ William James
Let them that would move the world,
first move themselves. wiki ~ Socrates
They who conquer others are strong,
Those who conquer themselves are mighty. wiki ~ Lao tzu
I have generally found that a person
who is good at excuses, is usually good at nothing else. wiki ~ Benjamin Franklin
Our unique reward, however, is that
while animals survive by adjusting themselves to their background, humankind survives by
adjusting to their backround. wiki ~ Ayn Rand
A wise person will make more
opportunities than they find. wiki ~ Francis
Bacon
Destiny is no matter of chance. It
is a matter of choice. It is not a thing to be waited for, it is a thing to be achieved. wiki ~ Willian Jennings Bryan
I don't wait for moods. You
accomplish nothing if you do that. Your mind must know that it has to get down to work. wiki ~ Pearl S. Buck
I think one's own feelings waste
themselves in words, they ought to be distilled into actions and into actions which bring
results. wiki ~ Florence
Nightingale
He that will not sail till all
dangers are over must never put out to sea. wiki ~ Thomas Fuller
Ah, but a person's reach should
exceed their grasp, or what's a heaven for? Robert Browning
As far as your self-control goes, as
far goes your freedom. Marie von Ebner - Eschenbach
Nothing ever comes to one, that is
worth having, except as a result of hard work. wiki ~ Booker T. Washington
What you can do, or dream you can,
begin it: Boldness has a genius, power and magic in it. wiki ~ Goethe
Do what you can, with what you have,
where you are. Theodore Roosevelt
Problems are only opportunities in
work clothes. Henry John Kaiser
You can't build a reputation on what
you are going to do. Henry Ford
You may be disappointed if you fail,
but you are doomed if you don't try. Beverly Sills
If we don't change, we don't grow.
If we don't grow, we aren't really living. Gail Sheehy
I have
missed more than 9000 shots in my career, I have lost almost 300 games, on 26
occasions I have been entrusted to take the game winning shot ... and missed, I have
failed over and over in my life, that is why I succeed. Michael Jordon
No one can make you feel inferior
without your own consent. Eleanor Roosevelt
Parents can only give good advice or
put them on the right paths, but the final forming of a person's character lies in their
own hands. Anne Frank
Our doubts are traitors and make us
lose the good we oft might win by fearing to attempt. William Shakespeare
You must be the change you wish to
see in the world. Mohandas K. Ghandi
The heir to the kingdom is taught
that he may become a king in reality by first governing his own appetites. Plato
You must do the things you cannot
do. Eleanor Roosevelt
Courage is being scared to death -
and saddling up anyway. John Wayne
A person is not idle because they
are absorbed in thought. There is a visible labor and there is an invisible labor. Victor
Hugo
Many persons have a wrong idea of
what constitutes real happiness. It is not obtained through self-gratification, but
through fidelity to a worthy purpose. Helen Keller
Die when I may, I want it said of me
by those who new me best, that I always plucked a thistle and planted a flower where i
thought a flower would grow. Abraham Lincoln
They who have a why to live
for can bear almost any how. Friedrich Nietzsche
The greatest use of life is to spend
it for something that will outlast it. William James
The future belongs to those who
believe in the beauty of their dreams. Eleanor Roosevelt
The beginning is the most important
part in any work. Plato
Imagination is more important than
knowledge. Albert Einstein
Our life is what our thoughts make
it. Marcus Aurelius Antoninus
Hitch your wagon to a star. Ralph
Waldo Emerson
The secret of success is constancy
to purpose. Benjamin Disraeli
It is good to have and end to
journey toward, but it is the journey that matters in the end. Ursula K. Le Guin
The art of being wise is the art of
knowing what to overlook. William James
Learn to say no. It will be of more
use to you than being able to read Latin. Charles Haddon Spurgeon
Dost thou love life? Then do not
squander Time, for that's the stuff life is made of. Benjamin Franklin
Even if your on the right track,
you'll get run over if you just sit there. Will Rogers
We must adjust to changing times and
still hold to unchanging principles. Jimmy Carter
The journey of a thousand miles
begins with one step. Lao tzu
What matters in a character is not
whether one holds this or that opinion: what matters is how proudly one upholds it.
Germaine de Stael
I cannot and will not cut my
conscience to fit this years fashions. Lillian Hellman
One makes things easier for oneself
by making things easier for others. Asian Proverb
People who fight fire with fire
usually end up with ashes. Abigail Van Buren
The only way on earth to multiply
happiness is to divide it. Paul Scherer
One person cannot hold another down
in the ditch without remaining down in the ditch with them. Booker T. Washington
Talent is always conscious of its
own abundance and does not object to sharing. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
Listen, or thy tongue will keep you
deaf. American Indian Proverb
Love is a fruit in season at all
times, and within reach of every hand. Anyone may gather it and no limit is set. Mother
Teresa
Never impose your language on people
you wish to reach. Abbie Hoffman
The eye sees only what the mind is
prepared to comprehend. Robertson Davies
I praise loudly, I blame softly.
Catherine II of Russia
It takes a great person to be a good
listener. Calvin Coolidge
Everbody is ignorant, only on
different subjects. Will Rogers
Discovery consists of seeing what
everbody has seen and thinking what nobody else has thought. Albert Szent-Gyorgyi
I have never met a person who was
not my superior in some particular. Ralph Waldo Emerson
Bring ideas in and treat them
royally, for one of them may be the king. Mark Van Doren
It takes two flints to make a fire.
Louisa May Alcott
The significant problems we face
cannot be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them. Albert
Einstein
People are never so near playing the
fool as when they think themselves wise. Mary Wortley Montagu
Light is the task where many share
the toil. Homer
I not only use all the brains I
have, but all I can borrow. Woodrow Wilson
Alone we can do so little, together
we can do so much. Helen Keller
I find television very educating.
Every time somebody turns on the set I go into the other room and read a book. Groucho
Marx
The only lightless dark is the night
of darkness in ignorance and insensibilty. Helen Keller
Iron rusts from disuse, stagnant
water loses its purity and in cold water becomes frozen, even so does inaction sap the
vigors of the mind. Leonardo da Vinci
To keep a lamp burning we have to
keep putting oil in it. Mother Theresa
If you think education is expensive,
try ignorance. Derek Bok
One is not born a genius, one
becomes a genius. Simone de Beauvoir
Knowledge is the most precious
treasure of all things because it can never be given away, stolen or consumed. Sanskrit
proverb
It is the mind that makes the body.
Sojourner Truth
Man's mind, stretched to a new idea,
never goes back to its original dimensions. Oliver Wendell Holmes
We are what we repeatedly do.
Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit. Aristotle
The road to a friend's home is never
too long. Danish proverb.
- "Moral indignation is jealousy
with a halo."
- - H. G. Wells (1866-1946)
- "Glory is fleeting, but
obscurity is forever."
- - Napoleon Bonaparte (1769-1821)
- "Victory goes to the player who
makes the next-to-last mistake."
- - Chessmaster Savielly Grigorievitch
Tartakower (1887-1956)
- "Don't be so humble - you are
not that great."
- - Golda Meir (1898-1978) to a
visiting diplomat
- "His ignorance is
encyclopedic"
- - Abba Eban (1915-2002)
- "If a man does his best, what
else is there?"
- - General George S. Patton
(1885-1945)
- "I can write better than anybody
who can write faster, and I can write faster than anybody who can write better."
- - A. J. Liebling (1904-1963)
- "People demand freedom of speech
to make up for the freedom of thought which they avoid."
- - Soren Aabye Kierkegaard (1813-1855)
- "Give me chastity and
continence, but not yet."
- - Saint Augustine (354-430)
- "Not everything that can be
counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted."
- - Albert Einstein (1879-1955)
- "Only two things are infinite,
the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former."
- - Albert Einstein (1879-1955)
- "A lie gets halfway around the
world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on."
- - Sir Winston Churchill (1874-1965)
- "The artist is nothing without
the gift, but the gift is nothing without work."
- - Emile Zola (1840-1902)
- "This book fills a much-needed
gap."
- - Moses Hadas (1900-1966) in a review
- "The full use of your powers
along lines of excellence."
- - definition of"happiness"
by John F. Kennedy (1917-1963)
- "I'm living so far beyond my
income that we may almost be said to be living apart."
- - e e cummings (1894-1962)
- "Give me a museum and I'll fill
it."
- - Pablo Picasso (1881-1973)
- "Assassins!"
- - Arturo Toscanini (1867-1957) to his
orchestra
- "I'll moider da bum."
- - Heavyweight boxer Tony Galento,
when asked what he thought of William Shakespeare
- "Everything in moderation, even moderation." Jackie Carr
-
- "In theory, there is no
difference between theory and practice. But, in practice, there is."
- - Jan L.A. van de Snepscheut
- "I find that the harder I work,
the more luck I seem to have."
- - Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826)
- "Each problem that I solved
became a rule which served afterwards to solve other problems."
- - Rene Descartes (1596-1650),
"Discours de la Methode"
- "In the End, we will remember
not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends."
- - Martin Luther King Jr. (1929-1968)
- "Whether you think that you can,
or that you can't, you are usually right."
- - Henry Ford (1863-1947)
- "Do, or do not. There is no
'try'."
- - Yoda ('The Empire Strikes Back')
- "The only way to get rid of a
temptation is to yield to it."
- - Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)
- "Don't stay in bed, unless you
can make money in bed."
- - George Burns (1896-1996)
- "I don't know why we are here,
but I'm pretty sure that it is not in order to enjoy ourselves."
- - Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889-1951)
- "The use of COBOL cripples the
mind; its teaching should, therefore, be regarded as a criminal offense."
- - Edsgar Dijkstra
- "C makes it easy to shoot
yourself in the foot; C++ makes it harder, but when you do, it blows away your whole
leg."
- - Bjarne Stroustrup
- "A mathematician is a device for
turning coffee into theorems."
- - Paul Erdos
- "The only difference between me
and a madman is that I'm not mad."
- - Salvador Dali (1904-1989)
- "If you can't get rid of the
skeleton in your closet, you'd best teach it to dance."
- - George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950)
- "But at my back I always hear
Time's winged chariot hurrying near."
- - Andrew Marvell (1621-1678)
- "Good people do not need laws to
tell them to act responsibly, while bad people will find a way around the laws."
- - Plato (427-347 B.C.)
- "The power of accurate
observation is frequently called cynicism by those who don't have it."
- - George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950)
- "Whenever I climb I am followed
by a dog called 'Ego'."
- - Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900)
- "We have art to save ourselves
from the truth."
- - Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900)
- "Never interrupt your enemy when
he is making a mistake."
- - Napoleon Bonaparte (1769-1821)
- "I think 'Hail to the Chief' has
a nice ring to it."
- - John F. Kennedy (1917-1963) when
asked what is his favorite song
- "Human history becomes more and
more a race between education and catastrophe."
- - H. G. Wells (1866-1946)
- "Talent does what it can; genius
does what it must."
- - Edward George Bulwer-Lytton
(1803-1873)
- "The difference between
'involvement' and 'commitment' is like an eggs-and-ham breakfast: the chicken was
'involved' - the pig was 'committed'."
- - unknown
- "If you are going through hell,
keep going."
- - Sir Winston Churchill (1874-1965)
- "I'm all in favor of keeping
dangerous weapons out of the hands of fools. Let's start with typewriters."
- - Frank Lloyd Wright (1868-1959)
- "Some cause happiness wherever
they go; others, whenever they go."
- - Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)
- "He is one of those people who
would be enormously improved by death."
- - H. H. Munro (Saki) (1870-1916)
- "I am ready to meet my Maker.
Whether my Maker is prepared for the great ordeal of meeting me is another matter."
- - Sir Winston Churchill (1874-1965)
- "I shall not waste my days in
trying to prolong them."
- - Ian L. Fleming (1908-1964)
- "If you can count your money,
you don't have a billion dollars."
- - J. Paul Getty (1892-1976)
- "Facts are the enemy of
truth."
- - Don Quixote - "Man of La
Mancha"
- "When you do the common things
in life in an uncommon way, you will command the attention of the world."
- - George Washington Carver
(1864-1943)
- "How wrong it is for a woman to
expect the man to build the world she wants, rather than to create it herself."
- - Anais Nin (1903-1977)
- "I have not failed. I've just
found 10,000 ways that won't work."
- - Thomas Alva Edison (1847-1931)
- "I begin by taking. I shall find
scholars later to demonstrate my perfect right."
- - Frederick (II) the Great
- "Maybe this world is another
planet's Hell."
- - Aldous Huxley (1894-1963)
- "Blessed is the man, who having
nothing to say, abstains from giving wordy evidence of the fact."
- - George Eliot (1819-1880)
- "Once you eliminate the
impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth."
- - Sherlock Holmes (by Sir Arthur
Conan Doyle, 1859-1930)
- "I've had a wonderful time, but
this wasn't it."
- - Groucho Marx (1895-1977)
- "It's kind of fun to do the
impossible."
- - Walt Disney (1901-1966)
- "We didn't lose the game; we
just ran out of time."
- - Vince Lombardi
- "The optimist proclaims that we
live in the best of all possible worlds, and the pessimist fears this is true."
- - James Branch Cabell
- "A friendship founded on
business is better than a business founded on friendship."
- - John D. Rockefeller (1874-1960)
- "All are lunatics, but he who
can analyze his delusion is called a philosopher."
- - Ambrose Bierce (1842-1914)
- "You can only find truth with
logic if you have already found truth without it."
- - Gilbert Keith Chesterton
(1874-1936)
- "An inconvenience is only an
adventure wrongly considered; an adventure is an inconvenience rightly considered."
- - Gilbert Keith Chesterton
(1874-1936)
- "I have come to believe that the
whole world is an enigma, a harmless enigma that is made terrible by our own mad attempt
to interpret it as though it had an underlying truth."
- - Umberto Eco
- "Be nice to people on your way
up because you meet them on your way down."
- - Jimmy Durante
- "The true measure of a man is
how he treats someone who can do him absolutely no good."
- - Samuel Johnson (1709-1784)
- "A people that values its
privileges above its principles soon loses both."
- - Dwight D. Eisenhower (1890-1969),
Inaugural Address, January 20, 1953
- "The significant problems we
face cannot be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them."
- - Albert Einstein (1879-1955)
- "Basically, I no longer work for
anything but the sensation I have while working."
- - Albert Giacometti (sculptor)
- "All truth passes through three
stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as
being self-evident."
- - Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860)
- "Many a man's reputation would
not know his character if they met on the street."
- - Elbert Hubbard (1856-1915)
- "There is more stupidity than
hydrogen in the universe, and it has a longer shelf life."
- - Frank Zappa
- "Perfection is achieved, not
when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away."
- - Antoine de Saint Exupery
- "Life is pleasant. Death is
peaceful. It's the transition that's troublesome."
- - Isaac Asimov
- "If you want to make an apple
pie from scratch, you must first create the universe."
- - Carl Sagan
- "It is much more comfortable to
be mad and know it, than to be sane and have one's doubts."
- - G. B. Burgin
- "Once is happenstance. Twice is
coincidence. Three times is enemy action."
- - Auric Goldfinger, in
"Goldfinger" by Ian L. Fleming (1908-1964)
- "To love oneself is the
beginning of a lifelong romance"
- - Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)
- "Knowledge speaks, but wisdom
listens."
- - Jimi Hendrix
- "A clever man commits no minor
blunders."
- - Goethe (1749-1832)
- "Argue for your limitations, and
sure enough they're yours."
- - Richard Bach
- "A witty saying proves
nothing."
- - Voltaire (1694-1778)
- "Education is a progressive
discovery of our own ignorance."
- - Will Durant
- "I have often regretted my
speech, never my silence."
- - Xenocrates (396-314 B.C.)
- "It was the experience of
mystery -- even if mixed with fear -- that engendered religion."
- - Albert Einstein (1879-1955)
- "If everything seems under
control, you're just not going fast enough."
- - Mario Andretti
- "I do not consider it an insult,
but rather a compliment to be called an agnostic. I do not pretend to know where many
ignorant men are sure -- that is all that agnosticism means."
- - Clarence Darrow, Scopes trial,
1925.
- "Obstacles are those frightful
things you see when you take your eyes off your goal."
- - Henry Ford (1863-1947)
- "I'll sleep when I'm dead."
- - Warren Zevon
- "When you gaze long into the
abyss, the abyss also gazes into you."
- - Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900)
- "The instinct of nearly all
societies is to lock up anybody who is truly free. First, society begins by trying to beat
you up. If this fails, they try to poison you. If this fails too, the finish by loading
honors on your head."
- - Jean Cocteau (1889-1963)
- "Everyone is a genius at least
once a year; a real genius has his original ideas closer together."
- - Georg Lichtenberg (1742-1799)
- "Success usually comes to those
who are too busy to be looking for it"
- - Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862)
- "While we are postponing, life
speeds by."
- - Seneca (3BC - 65AD)
- "Where are we going, and why am
I in this handbasket?"
- - Bumper Sticker
- "God, please save me from your
followers!"
- - Bumper Sticker
- "Fill what's empty, empty what's
full, and scratch where it itches."
- - the Duchess of Windsor, when asked
what is the secret of a long and happy life
- "First they ignore you, then
they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win."
- - Mahatma Gandhi (1869-1948)
- "Luck is the residue of
design."
- - Branch Rickey - former owner of the
Brooklyn Dodger Baseball Team
- "Tragedy is when I cut my
finger. Comedy is when you walk into an open sewer and die."
- - Mel Brooks
- "Most people would sooner die
than think; in fact, they do so."
- - Bertrand Russell (1872-1970)
- "Wit is educated
insolence."
- - Aristotle (384-322 B.C.)
- "My advice to you is get
married: if you find a good wife you'll be happy; if not, you'll become a
philosopher."
- - Socrates (470-399 B.C.)
- "Egotist: a person more
interested in himself than in me."
- - Ambrose Bierce (1842-1914)
- "A narcissist is someone better
looking than you are."
- - Gore Vidal
- "Wise men make proverbs, but
fools repeat them."
- - Samuel Palmer (1805-80)
- "It has become appallingly
obvious that our technology has exceeded our humanity."
- - Albert Einstein (1879-1955)
- "The secret of success is to
know something nobody else knows."
- - Aristotle Onassis (1906-1975)
- "Sometimes when reading Goethe I
have the paralyzing suspicion that he is trying to be funny."
- - Guy Davenport
- "When you have to kill a man, it
costs nothing to be polite."
- - Sir Winston Churchill (1874-1965)
- "Any man who is under 30, and is
not a liberal, has not heart; and any man who is over 30, and is not a conservative, has
no brains."
- - Sir Winston Churchill (1874-1965)
- "The opposite of a correct
statement is a false statement. The opposite of a profound truth may well be another
profound truth."
- - Niels Bohr (1885-1962)
- "We all agree that your theory
is crazy, but is it crazy enough?"
- - Niels Bohr (1885-1962)
- "When I am working on a problem
I never think about beauty. I only think about how to solve the problem. But when I have
finished, if the solution is not beautiful, I know it is wrong."
- - Buckminster Fuller (1895-1983)
- "In science one tries to tell
people, in such a way as to be understood by everyone, something that no one ever knew
before. But in poetry, it's the exact opposite."
- - Paul Dirac (1902-1984)
- "I would have made a good
Pope."
- - Richard M. Nixon (1913-1994)
- "In any contest between power
and patience, bet on patience."
- - W.B. Prescott
- "Anyone who considers
arithmetical methods of producing random digits is, of course, in a state of sin."
- - John von Neumann (1903-1957)
- "The mistakes are all waiting to
be made."
- - chessmaster Savielly Grigorievitch
Tartakower (1887-1956) on the game's opening position
- "It is unbecoming for young men
to utter maxims."
- - Aristotle (384-322 B.C.)
- "Grove giveth and Gates taketh
away."
- - Bob Metcalfe (inventor of Ethernet)
on the trend of hardware speedups not being able to keep up with software demands
- "Reality is merely an illusion,
albeit a very persistent one."
- - Albert Einstein (1879-1955)
- "One of the symptoms of an
approaching nervous breakdown is the belief that one's work is terribly important."
- - Bertrand Russell (1872-1970)
- "A little inaccuracy sometimes
saves a ton of explanation."
- - H. H. Munro (Saki) (1870-1916)
- "There are two ways of
constructing a software design; one way is to make it so simple that there are obviously
no deficiencies, and the other way is to make it so complicated that there are no obvious
deficiencies. The first method is far more difficult."
- - C. A. R. Hoare
- "Make everything as simple as
possible, but not simpler."
- - Albert Einstein (1879-1955)
- "What do you take me for, an
idiot?"
- - General Charles de Gaulle
(1890-1970), when a journalist asked him if he was happy
- "I heard someone tried the
monkeys-on-typewriters bit trying for the plays of W. Shakespeare, but all they got was
the collected works of Francis Bacon."
- - Bill Hirst
- "Three o'clock is always too
late or too early for anything you want to do."
- - Jean-Paul Sartre (1905-1980)
- "A doctor can bury his mistakes
but an architect can only advise his clients to plant vines."
- - Frank Lloyd Wright (1868-1959)
- "It is dangerous to be sincere
unless you are also stupid."
- - George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950)
- "If you haven't got anything
nice to say about anybody, come sit next to me."
- - Alice Roosevelt Longworth
(1884-1980)
- "A man can't be too careful in
the choice of his enemies."
- - Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)
- "Forgive your enemies, but never
forget their names."
- - John F. Kennedy (1917-1963)
- "Logic is in the eye of the
logician."
- - Gloria Steinem
- "No one can earn a million
dollars honestly."
- - William Jennings Bryan (1860-1925)
- "Everything has been figured
out, except how to live."
- - Jean-Paul Sartre (1905-1980)
- "Well-timed silence hath more
eloquence than speech."
- - Martin Fraquhar Tupper
- "Thank you for sending me a copy
of your book - I'll waste no time reading it."
- - Moses Hadas (1900-1966)
- "From the moment I picked your
book up until I laid it down I was convulsed with laughter. Some day I intend reading
it."
- - Groucho Marx (1895-1977)
- "It is better to have a
permanent income than to be fascinating."
- - Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)
- "When ideas fail, words come in
very handy."
- - Goethe (1749-1832)
- "In the end, everything is a
gag."
- - Charlie Chaplin (1889-1977)
- "The nice thing about egotists
is that they don't talk about other people."
- - Lucille S. Harper
- "You got to be careful if you
don't know where you're going, because you might not get there."
- - Yogi Berra
- "I love Mickey Mouse more than
any woman I have ever known."
- - Walt Disney (1901-1966)
- "He who hesitates is a damned
fool."
- - Mae West (1892-1980)
- "Good teaching is one-fourth
preparation and three-fourths theater."
- - Gail Godwin
- "University politics are vicious
precisely because the stakes are so small."
- - Henry Kissinger (1923-)
- "The graveyards are full of
indispensable men."
- - Charles de Gaulle (1890-1970)
- "You can pretend to be serious;
you can't pretend to be witty."
- - Sacha Guitry (1885-1957)
- "Behind every great fortune
there is a crime."
- - Honore de Balzac (1799-1850)
- "If women didn't exist, all the
money in the world would have no meaning."
- - Aristotle Onassis (1906-1975)
- "I am not young enough to know
everything."
- - Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)
- "The object of war is not to die
for your country but to make the other bastard die for his."
- - General George Patton (1885-1945)
- "Sometimes a scream is better
than a thesis."
- - Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882)
- "There is no sincerer love than
the love of food."
- - George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950)
- "I don't even butter my bread; I
consider that cooking."
- - Katherine Cebrian
- "I have an existential map; it
has 'you are here' written all over it."
- - Steven Wright
- "Mr. Wagner has beautiful
moments but bad quarters of an hour."
- - Gioacchino Rossini (1792-1868)
- "Manuscript: something submitted
in haste and returned at leisure."
- - Oliver Herford (1863-1935)
- "I have read your book and much
like it."
- - Moses Hadas (1900-1966)
- "The covers of this book are too
far apart."
- - Ambrose Bierce (1842-1914)
- "Everywhere I go I'm asked if I
think the university stifles writers. My opinion is that they don't stifle enough of
them."
- - Flannery O'Connor (1925-1964)
- "Too many pieces of music finish
too long after the end."
- - Igor Stravinsky (1882-1971)
- "Anything that is too stupid to
be spoken is sung."
- - Voltaire (1694-1778)
- "When choosing between two
evils, I always like to try the one I've never tried before."
- - Mae West (1892-1980)
- "I don't know anything about
music. In my line you don't have to."
- - Elvis Presley (1935-1977)
- "No Sane man will dance."
- - Cicero (106-43 B.C.)
- "Hell is a half-filled
auditorium."
- - Robert Frost (1874-1963)
- "Show me a sane man and I will
cure him for you."
- - Carl Gustav Jung (1875-1961)
- "Vote early and vote
often."
- - Al Capone (1899-1947)
- "If I were two-faced, would I be
wearing this one?"
- - Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865)
- "Few things are harder to put up
with than a good example."
- - Mark Twain (1835-1910)
- "Hell is other people."
- - Jean-Paul Sartre (1905-1980)
- "I am become death, shatterer of
worlds."
- - Robert J. Oppenheimer (1904-1967)
(citing from the Bhagavad Gita, after witnessing the world's first nuclear explosion)
- "Happiness is good health and a
bad memory."
- - Ingrid Bergman (1917-1982)
- "Friends may come and go, but
enemies accumulate."
- - Thomas Jones
- "You can get more with a kind
word and a gun than you can with a kind word alone."
- - Al Capone (1899-1947)
- "The gods too are fond of a
joke."
- - Aristotle (384-322 B.C.)
- "Distrust any enterprise that
requires new clothes."
- - Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862)
- "The difference between
pornography and erotica is lighting."
- - Gloria Leonard
- "It is time I stepped aside for
a less experienced and less able man."
- - Professor Scott Elledge on his
retirement from Cornell
- "Every day I get up and look
through the Forbes list of the richest people in America. If I'm not there, I go to
work."
- - Robert Orben
- "The cynics are right nine times
out of ten."
- - Henry Louis Mencken (1880-1956)
- "There are some experiences in
life which should not be demanded twice from any man, and one of them is listening to the
Brahms Requiem."
- - George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950)
- "Attention to health is life's
greatest hindrance."
- - Plato (427-347 B.C.)
- "Plato was a bore."
- - Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900)
- "Nietzsche was stupid and
abnormal."
- - Leo Tolstoy (1828-1910)
- "I'm not going to get into the
ring with Tolstoy."
- - Ernest Hemingway (1899-1961)
-
- "How can I lose to such an
idiot?"
- - A shout from chessmaster Aaron
Nimzovich (1886-1935)
- "I don't feel good."
- - The last words of Luther Burbank
(1849-1926)
- "Nothing is wrong with
California that a rise in the ocean level wouldn't cure."
- - Ross MacDonald (1915-1983)
- "Men have become the tools of
their tools."
- - Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862)
- "I have never let my schooling
interfere with my education."
- - Mark Twain (1835-1910)
- "It is now possible for a flight
attendant to get a pilot pregnant."
- - Richard J. Ferris, president of
United Airlines
- "I never miss a chance to have
sex or appear on television."
- - Gore Vidal
- "I don't want to achieve
immortality through my work; I want to achieve immortality through not dying."
- - Woody Allen (1935-)
- "Men and nations behave wisely
once they have exhausted all the other alternatives."
- - Abba Eban (1915-2002)
- "To sit alone with my conscience
will be judgment enough for me."
- - Charles William Stubbs
- "Sanity is a madness put to good
uses."
- - George Santayana (1863-1952)
- "Imitation is the sincerest form
of television."
- - Fred Allen (1894-1956)
- "Always do right- this will
gratify some and astonish the rest."
- - Mark Twain (1835-1910)
- "In America, anybody can be
president. That's one of the risks you take."
- - Adlai Stevenson (1900-1965)
- "Copy from one, it's plagiarism;
copy from two, it's research."
- - Wilson Mizner (1876-1933)
- "Why don't you write books
people can read?"
- - Nora Joyce to her husband James
(1882-1941)
- "Some editors are failed
writers, but so are most writers."
- - T. S. Eliot (1888-1965)
- "Criticism is prejudice made
plausible."
- - Henry Louis Mencken (1880-1956)
- "It is better to be quotable
than to be honest."
- - Tom Stoppard
- "Being on the tightrope is
living; everything else is waiting."
- - Karl Wallenda
- "Opportunities multiply as they
are seized."
- - Sun Tzu
- "A scholar who cherishes the
love of comfort is not fit to be deemed a scholar."
- - Lao-Tzu (570?-490? BC)
- " The best way to predict the
future is to invent it."
- - Alan Kay
- "Never mistake motion for
action."
- - Ernest Hemingway (1899-1961)
- "Hell is paved with good
samaritans."
- - William M. Holden
- "The longer I live the more I
see that I am never wrong about anything, and that all the pains that I have so humbly
taken to verify my notions have only wasted my time."
- - George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950)
- "Silence is argument carried out
by other means."
- - Ernesto"Che"Guevara
(1928-1967)
- "Well done is better than well
said."
- - Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790)
- "The average person thinks he
isn't."
- - Father Larry Lorenzoni
- "Heav'n hath no rage like love
to hatred turn'd, Nor Hell a fury, like a woman scorn'd."
- - William Congreve (1670-1729)
- "A husband is what is left of
the lover after the nerve has been extracted."
- - Helen Rowland (1876-1950)
- "Learning is what most adults
will do for a living in the 21st century."
- - Perelman
- "The man who goes alone can
start today; but he who travels with another must wait till that other is ready."
- - Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862)
- "There is a country in Europe
where multiple-choice tests are illegal."
- - Sigfried Hulzer
- "Ask her to wait a moment - I am
almost done."
- - Carl Friedrich Gauss (1777-1855),
while working, when informed that his wife is dying
- "A pessimist sees the difficulty
in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty."
- - Sir Winston Churchill (1874-1965)
- "I think there is a world market
for maybe five computers."
- - Thomas Watson (1874-1956), Chairman
of IBM, 1943
- "I think it would be a good
idea."
- - Mahatma Gandhi (1869-1948), when
asked what he thought of Western civilization
- "The only thing necessary for
the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing."
- - Edmund Burke (1729-1797)
- "I'm not a member of any
organized political party, I'm a Democrat!"
- - Will Rogers (1879-1935)
- "If Stupidity got us into this
mess, then why can't it get us out?" "
- - Will Rogers (1879-1935)
- "The backbone of surprise is
fusing speed with secrecy."
- - Von Clausewitz (1780-1831)
- "Democracy does not guarantee
equality of conditions - it only guarantees equality of opportunity."
- - Irving Kristol
- "There is no reason anyone would
want a computer in their home."
- - Ken Olson, president, chairman and
founder of Digital Equipment Corp., 1977
- "The concept is interesting and
well-formed, but in order to earn better than a 'C', the idea must be feasible."
- - A Yale University management
professor in response to student Fred Smith's paper proposing reliable overnight delivery
service (Smith went on to found Federal Express Corp.)
- "Who the hell wants to hear
actors talk?"
- - H. M. Warner (1881-1958), founder
of Warner Brothers, in 1927
- "We don't like their sound, and
guitar music is on the way out."
- - Decca Recording Co. rejecting the
Beatles, 1962
- "Everything that can be invented
has been invented."
- - Charles H. Duell, Commissioner,
U.S. Office of Patents, 1899
- "Denial ain't just a river in
Egypt."
- - Mark Twain (1835-1910)
- "A pint of sweat, saves a gallon
of blood."
- - General George S. Patton
(1885-1945)
- "After I'm dead I'd rather have
people ask why I have no monument than why I have one."
- - Cato the Elder (234-149 BC, AKA
Marcus Porcius Cato)
- "He can compress the most words
into the smallest idea of any man I know."
- - Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865)
- "Don't let it end like this.
Tell them I said something."
- - last words of Pancho Villa
(1877-1923)
- "The right to swing my fist ends
where the other man's nose begins."
- - Oliver Wendell Holmes (1841-1935)
- "The difference between fiction
and reality? Fiction has to make sense."
- - Tom Clancy
- "It's not the size of the dog in
the fight, it's the size of the fight in the dog."
- - Mark Twain (1835-1910)
- "It is better to be feared than
loved, if you cannot be both."
- - Niccolo Machiavelli (1469-1527),
"The Prince"
- "Whatever is begun in anger ends
in shame."
- - Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790)
- "The President has kept all of
the promises he intended to keep."
- - Clinton aide George Stephanopolous
speaking on Larry King Live
- "We're going to turn this team
around 360 degrees."
- - Jason Kidd, upon his drafting to
the Dallas Mavericks
- "Half this game is ninety
percent mental."
- - Yogi Berra
- "There is only one nature - the
division into science and engineering is a human imposition, not a natural one. Indeed,
the division is a human failure; it reflects our limited capacity to comprehend the
whole."
- - Bill Wulf
- "There's many a bestseller that
could have been prevented by a good teacher."
- - Flannery O'Connor (1925-1964)
- "He has all the virtues I
dislike and none of the vices I admire."
- - Sir Winston Churchill (1874-1965)
- "I criticize by creation - not
by finding fault."
- - Cicero (106-43 B.C.)
- "Love is friendship set on
fire."
- - Jeremy Taylor
- "My occupation now, I suppose,
is jail inmate."
- - Unibomber Theodore Kaczynski, when
asked in court what his current profession was
- "This isn't right, this isn't
even wrong."
- - Wolfgang Pauli (1900-1958), upon
reading a young physicist's paper
- "For centuries, theologians have
been explaining the unknowable in terms of the-not-worth-knowing."
- - Henry Louis Mencken (1880-1956)
- "Pray, v.: To ask that the laws
of the universe be annulled on behalf of a single petitioner confessedly unworthy."
- - Ambrose Bierce (1842-1914)
- "Every normal man must be
tempted at times to spit upon his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin slitting
throats."
- - Henry Louis Mencken (1880-1956)
- "Now, now my good man, this is
no time for making enemies."
- - Voltaire (1694-1778) on his
deathbed in response to a priest asking that he renounce Satan.
- "Fill the unforgiving minute
with sixty seconds worth of distance run."
- - Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936)
- "He would make a lovely
corpse."
- - Charles Dickens (1812-1870)
- "I've just learned about his
illness. Let's hope it's nothing trivial."
- - Irvin S. Cobb
- "I worship the quicksand he
walks in."
- - Art Buchwald
- "Wagner's music is better than
it sounds."
- - Mark Twain (1835-1910)
- "A poem is never finished, only
abandoned."
- - Paul Valery (1871-1945)
- "We are not retreating - we are
advancing in another Direction."
- - General Douglas MacArthur
(1880-1964)
- "If you were plowing a field,
which would you rather use? Two strong oxen or 1024 chickens?"
- - Seymour Cray (1925-1996), father of
supercomputing
- "#3 pencils and quadrille
pads."
- - Seymoure Cray (1925-1996) when
asked what CAD tools he used to design the Cray I supercomputer; he also recommended using
the back side of the pages so that the lines were not so dominant.
- "I just bought a Mac to help me
design the next Cray."
- - Seymoure Cray (1925-1996) when was
informed that Apple Inc. had recently bought a Cray supercomputer to help them design the
next Mac.
- "I choose a block of marble and
chop off whatever I don't need."
- - Francois-Auguste Rodin (1840-1917),
when asked how he managed to make his remarkable statues
- "The man who does not read good
books has no advantage over the man who cannot read them."
- - Mark Twain (1835-1910)
- "The truth is more important
than the facts."
- - Frank Lloyd Wright (1868-1959)
- "Research is what I'm doing when
I don't know what I'm doing."
- - Wernher Von Braun (1912-1977)
- "There are only two tragedies in
life: one is not getting what one wants, and the other is getting it."
- - Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)
- "There are only two ways to live
your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a
miracle."
- - Albert Einstein (1879-1955)
"To avoid criticism do nothing, say nothing, be nothing." Elbert Hubbard.
"The amount of money one needs is terryfying." Ludwig van Beethoven.
"Music is your own experience, your
own thoughts, your wisdom. If you don't live it, it won't come out of your horn. They
teach you there's a boundary line to music. But, man, there's no boundary line to art." Charlie Parker ...
"The only place where
success comes before work is in the dictionary." Vince Lombardi