Great innovations should not be forced on slender majorities.
-- Thomas Jefferson What is politics, after all, but the compulsion to preside over property and make other peoples'
decisions for them?
-- Tom Robbins, Skinny Legs and All "One can never consent to creep when one feels an impulse to soar." (Helen Keller) "No man is clever enough to know all the evil he does." (François VI Duke (duc) de La Rochefoucauld, 1616-80) May you never leave your marriage alive. Society and Culture I hate it in friends when they come too late to help.
-- Euripides "I believe there are more instances of the abridgement of the freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments of those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations." (James Madison) There is a coherent plan in the universe, though I don't know what it's a plan for.
-- Fred Hoyle Society and Culture
Repentance is not so much remorse for what we have done as the fear of the consequences.
-- François de La Rouchefoucauld, Maxims, 1665 I love Mickey Mouse more than any woman I have ever known.
-- Walt Disney You can't say civilization isn't advancing: in every war they kill you in a new way.
-- Will Rogers There's nothing wrong with having nothing to say -- unless you insist on saying it.
-- Anonymous A jury consists of twelve persons chosen to decide who has the better lawyer.
Robert Frost (1874-1963) Society and Culture One cardinal rule of marriage should never be forgotten: "Give little, give seldom, and above all,
give grudgingly." Otherwise, what could have been a proper marriage could become an orgy of
sexual Tauzin backs term limits -- But he thinks it's a bad idea.
-- Headline, story in the New Orleans Times-Picayune, Feb 20, 1995 Giving a man space is like giving a dog a computer: the chances are he will not use it wisely.
-- Bette-Jane Raphael Society and Culture
"Love is always a stranger in the house of avarice." (Andreas Capellanus) "Forgiveness does not change the past, but it does enlarge the future." (Paul Boese) "Ninety percent of my salary I spent on booze and women ... and the other ten percent I wasted." (Tug McGraw, Major League Baseball pitcher) "... and then the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom." (Anais Nin) Asking politicians to vote themselves out of power is like asking rabbits not to multiply, it ain't
natural.
-- Bob Beckel, on term limits, CBS This Morning, 3/30/95 Society and Culture Even if you're on the right track, you'll get run over if you just sit there.
-- Will Rogers May you never leave your marriage alive. I love Mickey Mouse more than any woman I have ever known.
-- Walt Disney Society and Culture
They have come up with a perfect understanding. He won't try to run her life, and he won't try to
run his, either.
-- Anonymous There is nothing more notable in Socrates than that he found time, when he was an old man, to
learn music and dancing, and thought it time well spent.
-- Michel de Montaigne Experience is what you get when you don't get what you want.
-- Don Stanford It is much more comfortable to be mad and know it, than to be sane and have one's doubts.
- G. B. Burgin "It is my ambition to say in ten sentences what other men say in whole books--what other men do not say in whole books." (Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, Twilight of the Idols) Society and Culture "Dear World, I am leaving because I am bored. I feel I have lived long enough. I am leaving you with your worries in this sweet cesspool. Good luck." (George Sanders, suicide note) "The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom." (William Blake) We never live; we are always in the expectation of living.
-- Voltaire Society and Culture
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 I would venture to guess that Anon, who wrote so many poems without signing them, was often a
woman.
-- Virginia Woolf Viewed from the summit of reason, all life looks like a malignant disease and the world like a
madhouse.
-- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe "... What good are dreams if they come true?" (Frederick Exley, A Fan's Notes) Life isn't a matter of milestones, but of moments.
-- Rose Kennedy Society and Culture "I have the terrible feeling that, because I am wearing a white beard and am sitting in the back of the theatre, you expect me to tell you the truth about something. These are the cheap seats, not Mou Gravitation cannot be held responsible for people falling in love.
-- Albert Einstein We live at a time when man believes himself fabulously capable of creation, but he does not
know what to create.
-- Jose Ortega y Gasset Society and Culture
Many a man has finally succeeded only because he has failed after repeated efforts. If he had
never met defeat he would never have known any great victory.
-- Orison Swett Marden If other people are going to talk, conversation becomes impossible.
-- James McNeill Whistler Jealousy is the only vice that gives no pleasure.
-- Anonymous He who hesitates is a damned fool.
- Mae West There are trivial truths, and there are great truths. The opposite of a trivial truth is plainly false.
The opposite of a great truth is also true.
-- Neils Bohr Society and Culture A good cook is like a sorceress who dispenses happiness.
-- Elsa Schiapirelli Hell is paved with good samaritans.
-- William M. Holden The difference between a man who faces death for the sake of an idea and an imitator who goes
in search of martyrdom is that the former expresses his idea most fully in death while the latter
really Society and Culture
Bad officials are elected by good citizens who do not vote.
-- George Jean Nathan 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 A coward is a hero with a wife, kids, and a mortgage.
-- Marvin Kitman "Life does not cease to be funny when people die any more than it ceases to be serious when people laugh." (George Bernard Shaw) We cannot really love anybody with whom we never laugh.
-- Agnes Repplier Society and Culture Humanity has advanced, when it has advanced, not because it has been sober, responsible, and
cautious, but because it has been playful, rebellious, and immature.
-- Tom Robbins The heart has its reasons of which reason knows nothing.
-- Blaise Pascal, Pens&eactue;es, trans. A.J. Krailsheimer Blessed is the man, who having nothing to say, abstains from giving wordy evidence of the fact.
- George Eliot Society and Culture
We can do no great things; only small things with great love.
-- Mother Teresa Silence is argument carried out by other means.
- ErnestoCheGuevara Actually, the only memory I have of being a Cub Scout was trying to get my hat back. That was all
I did. Run back and forth at my bus stop going "Quit it."
-- Jerry Seinfeld Courage is the price that Love exacts for granting peace.
-- Amelia Earhart There's no problem so awful that you can't add some guilt to it and make it even worse!
-- Calvin Society and Culture "By seeing the seed of failure in every success, we remain humble. By seeing the seed of success in every failure we remain hopeful." (Mel Ziegler, founder of Banana Republic) The multitude is always in the wrong.
-- Wentworth Dillon, Earl of Roscommon, 1684 Jimmy Carter as President is like Truman Capote marrying Dolly Parton. The job is just too big for
him.
-- Rich Little Society and Culture
Only the little people pay taxes.
-- Leona Helmsley, hotel owner and prison inmate, 1989 Be willing to make decisions. That's the most important quality in a good leader. Don't fall victim
to what I call the 'ready-aim-aim-aim-aim syndrome.' You must be willing to fire.
-- Gen. George And in the end the love you take is equal to the love you make.
-- The Beatles, The last lyric of their last song She felt in italics and thought in capitals.
-- Henry James Change is not merely necessary to life, it is life.
-- Alvin Toffler Society and Culture You have it easily in your power to increase the sum total of this world's happiness now. How? By
giving a few words of sincere appreciation to someone who is lonely or discouraged. Perhaps you
will The full use of your powers along lines of excellence.
- definition of happiness by John F. Kennedy When making public policy decisions about new technologies for the Government, I think one
should ask oneself which technologies would best strengthen the hand of a police state. Then, do
not allow Society and Culture
Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the
truth.
- Sherlock Holmes If you can't sleep, then get up and do something instead of lying there and worrying. It's the worry
that gets you, not the loss of sleep.
-- Dale Carnegie "I have never met a man so ignorant that I couldn't learn something from him." (Galileo Galilei) Some people talk in their sleep. Lecturers talk while other people sleep.
-- Albert Camus I like nonsense -- it wakes up the brain cells. Fantasy is a necessary ingredient in living. It's a way
of looking at life through the wrong end of a telescope...and that enables you to laugh at all Society and Culture Love one another and you will be happy. It's as simple and as difficult as that.
-- Michael Leunig In a hierarchy, every employee tends to rise to his level of incompetence. Therefore:
? In time, every post tends to be occupied by an employee who is incompetent to carry out its
duties.
? Work There's too much blood in my caffeine system.
-- Seen on a bumper sticker Society and Culture
In the end, everything is a gag.
-- Charlie Chaplin "In every gathering of thirteen, expect one guest will turn out to be a Judas." (Aleister Crowley) "To live in the hearts we leave behind is not to die." (Thomas Campbell) The old believe everything, the middle-aged suspect everything, the young know everything.
-- Oscar Wilde "Let no one be discouraged by the belief there is nothing one person can do against the enormous array of the world's ills, misery, ignorance, and violence. Few will have the greatness to bend history Society and Culture "Great spirits have always found violent opposition from mediocrities. The latter cannot understand it when a man does not thoughtlessly submit to hereditary prejudices but honestly and courageously u Husbands are awkward things to deal with; even keeping them in hot water will not make them
tender.
-- Mary Buckley "I don't use drugs, my dreams are frightening enough." (M. C. Escher) Society and Culture
