"Nothing touches a work of art so little as words of criticism: they always result in more or less fortunate misunderstandings." (Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet) "Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It's not." (Theodor Seuss Geisel, a.k.a. Dr. Seuss, 1904-1991) Some birds aren't meant to be caged, their feathers are just too bright. And when they fly away,
the part of you that knows it was a sin to lock them up, does rejoice. I guess I just miss my friend. "I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than to those attending too small a degree of it." (Thomas Jefferson, to Archibald Stuart, 1791) Between men and women there is no friendship possible. There is passion, enmity, worship, love,
but no friendship.
-- Oscar Wilde Maps and Views "There is no quality in this world that is not what it is merely by contrast. Nothing exists in itself." (Herman Melville) "The man who lets himself be bored is even more contemptible than the bore." (Samuel Butler) Life is like a dogsled team. If you ain't the lead dog, the scenery never changes.
-- Lewis Grizzard Maps and Views
"In all affairs it's a healthy thing now and then to hang a question mark on the things you have long taken for granted." (Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 1872-1970) "Listen, or your tongue will make you deaf." (Native American Proverb) Eternal boyhood is the dream of a depressing percentage of American males, and the locker
room is the temple where they worship arrested development.
-- Russell Baker "An imbalance between rich and poor is the oldest and most fatal ailment of all republics." (Plutarch) What kills a skunk is the publicity it gives itself.
-- Abraham Lincoln Maps and Views Love is much nicer to be in than an automobile accident, a tight girdle, a higher tax bracket, or a
holding pattern over Philadelphia.
-- Judith Viorst Natural ability without education has more often attained to glory and virtue than education
without natural ability.
Cicero (106 BC - 43 BC) Work is the refuge of people who have nothing better to do.
-- Oscar Wilde Maps and Views
Manuscript: something submitted in haste and returned at leisure.
-- Oliver Herford "If you're in a bad situation, don't worry it'll change. If you're in a good situation, don't worry it'll change." (John A. Simone Sr.) "Humans beings can always be relied upon to assert, with vigor, their god-given right to be stupid." (Dean Koontz, Seize the Night) What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us.
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson Marriages are made in heaven and consummated on Earth. -- John Lyly Maps and Views Why do grandparents and grandchildren get along so well? They have the same enemy-- the
mother.
-- Claudette Colbert A man who marries a woman to educate her falls a victim to the same fallacy as the woman who
marries a man to reform him.
-- Elbert Hubbard If you can't annoy somebody, there's little point in writing.
-- Kingsley Amis Maps and Views
Mathematicians are like Frenchmen: whatever you say to them they translate into their own
language and forthwith it is something entirely different.
-- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe I am beginning to suspect all elaborate and special systems of education. They seem to me to be
built upon the supposition that every child is a kind of idiot who must be taught to think.
-- Anne S "I don't understand why people are frightened of new ideas. I'm frightened of the old ones." (John Cage) "There is no quality in this world that is not what it is merely by contrast. Nothing exists in itself." (Herman Melville) Never express yourself more clearly than you are able to think.
-- Niels Bohr Maps and Views Give the people not hell, but hope and courage.
-- John Murray 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 If you are afraid of loneliness, don't marry.
-- Chekhov Maps and Views
"Brevity is the soul of wit." (William Shakespeare) Many a man's reputation would not know his character if they met on the street.
- Elbert Hubbard You can get more with a kind word and a gun than you can with a kind word alone.
-- Al Capone "Even a stopped clock is right twice a day." (Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach) I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work.
-- Thomas Edison Maps and Views blah "Each friend represents a world in us; a world possibly not born until they arrive, and it is only in meeting them that a new world is born." (Anais Nin) The authority of those who teach is often an obstacle to those who want to learn.
-- Cicero "Try not to have a good time ... This is supposed to be educational." (Charles Schultz) Maps and Views
I think 'Hail to the Chief' has a nice ring to it.
- John F. Kennedy when asked what is his favorite song Love is a perky elf dancing a merry little jig and then suddenly he turns on you with a miniature
machine gun.
-- Matt Groening, Love is Hell If you can't convince them, confuse them.
-- Harry S. Truman Obstacles are those frightful things you see when you take your eyes off your goal.
-- Henry Ford 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 Maps and Views "Our destiny exercises its influence over us even when, as yet, we have not learned its nature: it is our future that lays down the law of our today." (Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche) Books, like friends, should be few and well chosen.
-- Samuel Paterson The church must be the critic and guide of the state, and never its tool.
-- Martin Luther King, Jr. Maps and Views
I've been trying desperately to save my marriage for the last 35 years. If I had been around when Rubens was painting, I would have been revered as a fabulous model.
Kate Moss? Well, she would have been the paintbrush...
-- Dawn French Genius is an African who dreams up snow.
-- Vladimir Nabokov If the government wants people to respect the law, it should set a better example.
-- Anon. Behind every great fortune there is a crime.
- Honore de Balzac Maps and Views It is no use walking anywhere to preach unless our walking is our preaching.
-- St. Francis of Assisi Men have a much better time of it than women; for one thing, they marry later; for another thing, they die earlier. --H.L. Mencken Ideas are like rabbits. You get a couple, learn how to handle them, and pretty soon you have a
dozen.
-- John Steinbeck Maps and Views
Shoot for the moon. Even if you miss, you'll land among the stars
-- Les Brown I belong to Bridegrooms Anonymous. Whenever I feel like getting married, they send over a lady in a housecoat and hair curlers to burn my toast for me. -- Dick Martin "If a million people say a foolish thing, it is still a foolish thing." (Anatole France) Ninety percent of the game is half mental.
-- Yogi Berra Shoot for the moon. Even if you miss, you'll land among the stars
-- Les Brown Maps and Views Even a band of angels can turn ugly and start looting if enough angels are unemployed and
hanging around the Pearly Gates convinced that all the succubi own all the liquor stores in
Heaven.
-- P. J More light!
-- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, dying words "To forget one's purpose is the commonest form of stupidity." (Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche) Maps and Views
Before marriage, a man will lie awake all night thinking about something you said; after marriage,
he'll fall asleep before you finish saying it.
-- Helen Roland "I would rather die standing than live on my knees!" (Emiliano Zapata) It destroys one's nerves to be amiable everyday to the same human being.
-- Benjamin Disraeli "I have learned that to be with those I like is enough." (Walt Whitman) If you want anything done well, do it yourself. This is why most people laugh at their own jokes.
-- Bob Edwards Maps and Views America is the only nation in history which miraculously has gone directly from barbarism to
degeneration without the usual intervention of civilization.
-- George Clemenceau An act of love that fails is just as much a part of the divine life as an act of love that succeeds, for
love is measured by fullness, not by reception.
-- Harold Loukes I've been asked to say a couple of words about my husband, Fang. How about "short" and
"cheap"?
-- Phyllis Diller Maps and Views
"I have realized that the past and future are real illusions, that they exist in the present, which is what there is and all there is." (Alan Watts) "As a child, I thought I hated everybody, but when I grew up I realized it was just children I didn't like." (Philip Larkin) Marriage is an adventure, like going to war.
-- G. K. Chesterton I have been attacked by Rush Limbaugh on the air, an experience somewhat akin to being
gummed by a newt. It doesn't actually hurt, but it leaves you with slimy stuff on your ankle.
-- Molly Ivins What sets worlds in motion is the interplay of differences, their attractions and repulsions; life is
plurality, death is uniformity.
-- Octavio Paz Maps and Views "The last Christian died on the cross." (Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche) Everything that can be invented has been invented.
- Charles H. Duell, Commissioner, U.S. Office of Patents, 1899 "In order to keep anything cultural, logical, or ideological, you have to reinvent the reality of it." (Ani Difranco) Maps and Views
It is much more comfortable to be mad and know it, than to be sane and have one's doubts.
- G. B. Burgin When I have a kid, I wanna put him in one of those strollers for twins, then run around the mall
looking frantic.
-- Steven Wright The only thing you will ever be able to say in the so-called 'social' sciences is: "some do, some
don't."
-- Ernest Rutherford A man in the house is worth two in the street.
-- Mae West Jimmy Carter as President is like Truman Capote marrying Dolly Parton. The job is just too big for
him.
-- Rich Little Maps and Views Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana.
-- Groucho Marx Don't be so humble - you are not that great.
- Golda Meir (1898-1978) to a visiting diplomat Where there is marriage without love, there will be love without marriage.
-- Benjamin Franklin Maps and Views
