A poem is never finished, only abandoned.
-- Paul Valery "Jesus died too soon. If he had lived to my age he would have repudiated his doctrine." (Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche) We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.
-- Aristotle Long engagements give people the opportunity of finding out each other's character before
marriage, which is never advisable.
-- Oscar Wilde Chance is always powerful. - Let your hook be always cast; in the pool where you least expect it,
there will be a fish.
-- Ovid G There are only two things a child will share willingly communicable diseases and his mother's
age.
-- Modern Maturity There ought to be one day - just one - when there is open season on senators.
-- Will Rogers "I met someone on the street who said wasn't it great that we're going to have a movie star for president, that it was so Pop, and (laughs) when you think about it like that, it is great, it's so Amer G
"There is nothing more fearful than ignorance in action." (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, 1749-1832, Criticisms, Reflections and Maxims) "Mistakes are the portals of discovery." (James Joyce) If God does not exist, then everything is permitted.
-- Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Devils "The proper office of a friend is to side with you when you are wrong. Nearly anybody will side with you when you are right." (Mark Twain) I didn't have time to write a short letter, so I wrote a long one instead.
-- Mark Twain G All women are born evil. Some just realize their potential later in life than others.
-- Chad A. Gamble, Escape, short story Live truth instead of professing it.
-- Elbert Hubbard "I have made this letter longer than usual because I lack the time to make it shorter." (Blaise Pascal) G
Count your age with friends but not with years.
-- Anonymous "Nobody minds having what is too good for them." (Jane Austen) "Self confidence is the first requisite to great undertakings." (Samuel Johnson) Give me chastity and continence, but not yet.
- Saint Augustine A beauty is a woman you notice; A charmer is one who notices you.
-- Adlai Stevenson G "I would rather die standing than live on my knees!" (Emiliano Zapata) "In every gathering of thirteen, expect one guest will turn out to be a Judas." (Aleister Crowley) Whenever I climb I am followed by a dog called 'Ego'.
- Friedrich Nietzsche G
"In order to keep anything cultural, logical, or ideological, you have to reinvent the reality of it." (Ani Difranco) I couldn't remember when I had been so disappointed. Except perhaps the time I found out that
M&Ms really do melt in your hand...
-- Peter Oakley Luck is the residue of design.
- Branch Rickey - former owner of the Brooklyn Dodger Baseball Team The philosophy exam was a piece of cake -- which was a bit of a surprise, actually, because I
was expecting some questions on a sheet of paper.
-- Smith & Jones I am enough of an artist to draw freely upon my imagination. Imagination is more important than
knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world.
-- Albert Einstein G "God's creatures, great and small ... eat them one, eat them all." (John A. Simone Sr.) You don't have to suffer to be a poet; adolescence is enough suffering for anyone.
-- John Ciardi "We always get bored with those whom we bore." (François VI Duke (duc) de La Rochefoucauld, 1616-80) G
Such is life.
-- Ned Kelly, Last words, before being hung at Old Melbourne Gaol The democratic theory is that if you accumulate enough ignorance at the polls, you produce
intelligence.
-- Philo Vance The first rule of intelligent tinkering is to save all the parts.
-- Paul Ehrlich Children today are tyrants. They contradict their parent, gobble their food, and tyrannize their
teachers.
-- Socrates "Furious activity is no substitute for understanding." (H. H. Williams) G Having a family is like having a bowling alley installed in your brain.
-- Martin Mull As I would not be a slave, so I would not be a master. This expresses my idea of democracy.
-- Abraham Lincoln "Some people wear their heart up on their sleeve. I wear mine underneath my right pant leg, strapped to my boot." (Ani Difranco) G
"I should reproach him for not giving us enough evidence." (Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 1872-1970, what he would say to God if they 'met') "In fact, most deaths are not tragic. Few people die because of a flaw in character, which is the essential element of tragedy. They just die." (John Chancellor, The News Business) "In literary criticism the critic has no choice but to make over the victim of his attention into something the size and shape of himself." (John Steinbeck, Travels With Charley) I'm astounded by people who want to 'know' the universe when it's hard enough to find your way
around Chinatown.
-- Woody Allen The executive exists to make sensible exceptions to general rules.
-- Elting E. Morison G "In order to preserve your self-respect, it is sometimes necessary to lie and cheat." (Robert Byrne) And gain is gain, however small.
-- Robert Browning "Not only is there no guarantee of the temporal immortality of the human soul, that is to say of its eternal survival after death; but, in any case, this assumption completely fails to accomplish the G
Since Eve ate the apple, much depends on dinner.
-- Lord Byron I believe that mink are raised for being turned into fur coats and if we didn't wear fur coats those
little animals would never have been born. So is it better not to have been born or to have lived Man is the only animal that blushes--or needs to.
-- Mark Twain The first rule of intelligent tinkering is to save all the parts.
-- Paul Ehrlich If you are going to sin, sin against God, not the bureaucracy. God will forgive you but the
bureaucracy won't.
-- Hyman Rickover G Husbands are like fires. They go out if unattended.
-- Zsa Zsa Gabor "Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free." (Emma Lazarus) I do not have much patience with a thing of beauty that must be explained to be understood. If it
does need additional interpretation by someone other than the creator, then I question whether it
ha G
Never try to teach a pig to sing. It wastes your time and annoys the pig.
-- Anonymous "You make 'em, I amuse 'em." (Theodor Seuss Geisel, a.k.a. Dr. Seuss, 1904-1991, on children) He who conquers himself is the mightiest warrior.
-- Confucius "There are no uninteresting things, only uninteresting people." (Gilbert Keith Chesterton) Despite the high cost of living it remains a popular item.
-- Anonymous G The only limit to our realization of tomorrow will be our doubts of today.
-- Franklin D. Roosevelt In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity.
-- Albert Einstein The most wasted of all days is one without laughter.
-- ee cummings G
Politics have no relation to morals.
-- Niccolo Machiavelli "Have love for your friend up to a limit for it is possible he may turn into your enemy some day; and hate your enemy up to a limit for it is possible he may turn into your friend some day." (Ali bin Each friend represents a world in us, a world possibly not born until they arrive.
-- Anaïs Nin Celestial navigation is based on the premise that the Earth is the center of the universe. The
premise is wrong, but the navigation works. An incorrect model can be a useful tool.
-- Kelvin Throop I "Eternal vigilance is the price of freedom." (Raymonde Uy) G Giving every man a vote has no more made men wise and free than Christianity has made them
good.
-- H.L. Mencken One of the greatest discoveries a man makes, one of his great surprises, is to find he can do
what he was afraid he couldn't do.
-- Henry Ford "Boredom is a vital problem for the moralist, since at least half the sins of mankind are caused by the fear of it." (Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 1872-1970) G
"I'm so insane, I voted for Eisenhower."
"Oh yeah, well I'm so insane, I voted for Eisenhower TWICE!"
-- Ken Kesey from "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" The church must be the critic and guide of the state, and never its tool.
-- Martin Luther King, Jr. Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored.
-- Aldous Huxley When people talk, listen completely. Most people never listen.
-- Ernest Hemingway I hate mankind, for I think myself to be one of them, and I know how bad I am.
-- Samuel Johnson G Women: If they're not turning down your proposals for marriage, they're accusing you of
suspicious behavior in the women's lingerie changing room.
-- Cliff Clavin, character on "Cheers", U.S. Televi "To live in the hearts we leave behind is not to die." (Thomas Campbell) "Love is always a stranger in the house of avarice." (Andreas Capellanus) G
The best defense is a good offense.
-- Anonymous Thus the metric system did not really catch on in the States, unless you count the increasing
popularity of the nine-millimeter bullet.
-- Dave Barry The absolute yearning of one human body for another particular body and its indifference to
substitutes is one of life's major mysteries.
-- Iris Murdoch The Middle Eastern states aren't nations; they're quarrels with borders.
-- P. J. O'Rourke "Ninety percent of my salary I spent on booze and women ... and the other ten percent I wasted." (Tug McGraw, Major League Baseball pitcher) G Launch out into the deep. One discovers by living in scorn of consequence.
-- Essie Summers "A man who tells lies, like me, merely hides the truth. But a man who tells half-lies has forgotten where he put it." (Claude Rains, as Mr. Dryden, Lawrence of Arabia, 1962) One word frees us of all the weight and pain of life: that word is love.
-- Sophocles G
