Whenever I date a guy, I think, is this the man I want my children to spend their weekends with?
-- Rita Rudner Now is the time for all good men to come to.
-- Walt Kelly Jimmy Carter as President is like Truman Capote marrying Dolly Parton. The job is just too big for
him.
-- Rich Little Man is a rational animal who always loses his temper when he is called upon to act in
accordance with the dictates of reason.
-- Oscar Wilde There is a coherent plan in the universe, though I don't know what it's a plan for.
-- Fred Hoyle Translation I've had a perfectly wonderful evening. But this wasn't it.
-- Groucho Marx "Life is a great surprise. I don't see why death should not be an even greater one." (Vladimir Nabokov) Consequences, schmonsequences, as long as I'm rich!
-- Chuck Jones-directed cartoon Translation
The work of internal government has become the task of controlling the thousands of fifth-rate
men.
-- Henry B. Adams "We're all proud of making little mistakes. It gives us the feeling we don't make any big ones." (Andrew A. Rooney) Do or do not. There is no try.
-- Yoda, character in the movie The Empire Strikes Back Die? I should say not, dear fellow. No Barrymore would allow such a conventional thing to
happen to him.
-- John Barrymore - last words I know nothing about sex, because I was always married.
-- Zsa Zsa Gabor Translation 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 I love deadlines. I especially like the whooshing sound they make as they go flying by.
-- Douglas Adams "In large states public education will always be mediocre, for the same reason that in large kitchens the cooking is usually bad." (Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche) Translation
A teacher is one who makes himself progressively unnecessary.
-- Thomas Carruthers If you are afraid of loneliness, don't marry.
-- Chekhov If we do not maintain Justice, Justice will not maintain us.
-- Francis Bacon If we let people see that kind of thing, there would never again be any war.
-- Pentagon official, on why US military censored graphic footage from the Gulf War Having once decided to achieve a certain task, achieve it at all costs of tedium and distaste. The
gain in self-confidence of having accomplished a tiresome labor is immense.
-- Thomas Arnold Bennet Translation I support efforts to limit the terms of members of Congress, especially members of the House and
members of the Senate.
-- Dan Quayle, Former Vice-President Skill without imagination is craftsmanship and gives us many useful objects such as wickerwork
picnic baskets. Imagination without skill gives us modern art.
-- Tom Stoppard Acting is the most minor of gifts and not a very high-class way to earn a living. After all, Shirley
Temple could do it at the age of four.
-- Katharine Hepburn Translation
Hell hath no fury like a bureaucrat scorned.
-- Milton Friedman We have art to save ourselves from the truth.
- Friedrich Nietzsche "Experience is one thing you can't get for nothing." (Oscar Wilde) The grass may be greener on the other side of the fence, but you still have to mow it.
-- Anonymous "Commit yourself to quality from day one ... it's better to do nothing at all than to do something badly." (Mark McCormack) Translation I love deadlines. I especially like the whooshing sound they make as they go flying by.
-- Douglas Adams 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 Live out of your imagination, not your history.
-- Stephen Covey Translation
It is not enough to succeed. Others must fail.
-- Gore Vidal Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake.
- Napoleon Bonaparte "Nothing has been purchased more dearly than the little bit of reason and sense of freedom which now constitutes our pride." (Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche) "One of the advantages of being disorderly is that one is constantly making exciting discoveries." (A. A. Milne) Laundry increases exponentially in the number of children.
-- Miriam Robbins Translation Two souls with but a single thought,
Two hearts that beat as one.
-- Fredrich Halm "Expose yourself to your deepest fear; after that, fear has no power, and the fear of freedom shrinks and vanishes. You are free." (James Douglas Morrison, lead singer of The Doors) Politics is for people who have a passion for changing life but lack a passion for living it.
-- Tom Robbins Translation
"The concerned investment banker is the one who blows the horn on his Mercedes as he drives through a red light." (Anonymous) Faith is believing what you know ain't so.
-- Mark Twain You can observe a lot by watching.
-- Yogi Berra Matters of religion should never be matters of controversy. We neither argue with a lover about
his taste, not condemn him, if we are just, for knowing so human a passion.
-- George Santayana When you're away, I'm restless, lonely
Wretched, bored, dejected; only
here's the rub, my darling dear,
I feel the same when you are here.
-- Samuel Hoffenstein Translation The power of accurate observation is commonly called cynicism by those who have not got it.
-- George Bernard Shaw He who limps is still walking.
-- Stanislaw J. Lec "Brevity is the soul of wit." (William Shakespeare) Translation
"I was born and raised with crocodiles; they are a piece of cake. But kids are so ... unpredictable." (Steve Irwin, "Crocodile Hunter") When a friend is in trouble, don't annoy him by asking if there is anything you can do. Think up
something appropriate and do it.
-- E. W. Howe Christianity has not been tried and found wanting; it has been found difficult and not tried.
-- G. K. Chesterton Life is the flower for which love is the honey.
-- Victor Hugo "Humans beings can always be relied upon to assert, with vigor, their god-given right to be stupid." (Dean Koontz, Seize the Night) Translation "Expose yourself to your deepest fear; after that, fear has no power, and the fear of freedom shrinks and vanishes. You are free." (James Douglas Morrison, lead singer of The Doors) Nothing can so alienate a voter from the political system as backing a winning candidate.
-- Mark B. Cohen "A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds." (Ralph Waldo Emerson) Translation
We can do not great things - only small things with great love.
-- Mother Theresa "It is awfully easy to be hard-boiled about everything in the daytime, but at night it is another thing." (Ernest Hemingway, The Sun Also Rises) "Be not afraid of greatness. Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon 'em." (William Shakespeare, Twelfth Night, II:5) Every flower must grow through dirt.
-- Anonymous To expect defeat is nine-tenths of defeat itself.
-- Francis Crawford Translation Few men have virtue to withstand the highest bidder.
-- George Washington "The man who never made a mistake never made anything." (Derek Longdon, Tongariro Power Development, Turangi, New Zealand) It is because modern education is so seldom inspired by a great hope that it so seldom achieves
great results. The wish to preserve the past rather that the hope of creating the future dominates
the Translation
"Over grown military establishments are under any form of government inauspicious to liberty, and are to be regarded as particularly hostile to republican liberty." (George Washington) The lover knows much more about absolute good and universal beauty than any logician or
theologian, unless the latter, too, be lovers in disguise.
-- George Santayana The coziness between church and state is good for the state and bad for the church.
-- G. K. Chesterton They will say you are on the wrong road, if it is your own.
-- Antonio Porchi Work is the refuge of people who have nothing better to do.
-- Oscar Wilde Translation The world has achieved brilliance without conscience. Ours is a world of nuclear giants and
ethical infants.
-- General Omar Bradley "The easiest kind of relationship is with ten thousand people, the hardest is with one." (Joan Baez) We had a lot in common. I loved him and he loved him.
-- Shelley Winters Translation
If Satan ever loses his hair, there'll be hell toupee.
-- Anonymous If you would thoroughly know anything, teach it to others.
-- Tryon Edwards Beware of men on airplanes. The minute a man reaches thirty thousand feet, he immediately
becomes consumed by distasteful sexual fantasies which involve doing uncomfortable things in
those tiny toil The higher up you go, the more mistakes you are allowed. Right at the top, if you make enough of
them, it's considered to be your style.
-- Fred Astaire "Careful?! Was my mother careful when she stabbed me in the heart with a coat hanger while I was still in the womb?" (Trey Parker) Translation Never practice two vices at once.
-- Tallulah Bankhead "The masses are far more likely to believe a big lie than several small ones." (Adolf Hitler) There are three great friends: an old wife, an old dog, and ready money.
-- Benjamin Franklin Translation
I'm proud to be paying taxes in the United States. The only thing is - I could be just as proud for
half the money.
-- Arthur Godfrey "Expecting the world to treat you fairly because you are a good person is like expecting a bull not to attack you because you are a vegetarian." (Dennis Wholey) It is a known fact that men are practical, hardheaded realists, in contrast to women, who are
romantic dreamers and actually believe that estrogenic skin cream must do something or they
couldn't cha What if nothing exists and we're all in somebody's dream? Or what's worse, what if only that fat
guy in the third row exists?
-- Woody Allen "I was born lost and take no pleasure in being found..." (John Steinbeck, Travels With Charley) Translation "We always get bored with those whom we bore." (François VI Duke (duc) de La Rochefoucauld, 1616-80) If you cannot be the master of your language, you must be its slave. If you cannot examine your
thoughts, you have no choice but to think them, however silly they may be.
-- Richard Mitchell, from I think that I shall never see
A billboard lovely as a tree.
Indeed, unless the billboards fall,
I'll never see a tree at all.
-- Ogden Nash, Song of the Open Road, 1945 Translation
