Wild West Yorkshire - The nature diary of wildlife illustrator Richard Bell. Watercolour sketches, diary, and lots of links. Site search facility for over 1000 pages.
Familiarity breeds contempt -- and children.
-- Mark Twain I had some words with my wife, and she had some paragraphs with me. 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 It was the greatest of the imperfect ventriloquist acts: when his lips moved, her body sang.
-- Tom Robbins >From the Far East I send you one single thought, one sole idea--written in red on every
beachhead form Australia to Tokyo--There is no substitute for victory!
-- General Douglas MacArthur Science and Environment Democracy is a process by which the people are free to choose the man who will get the blame.
-- Laurence J. Peter The only thing worse than a man you can't control is a man you can.
-- Margo Kaufman "The best thing about the future is that it comes one day at a time." (Abraham Lincoln, 1809-65) Science and Environment
"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) What is the answer? In that case, what is the question?
-- Gertrude Stein, dying words "Great spirits have always faced voilent protest from mediocre minds." (Albert Einstein) I haven't committed a crime. What I did was fail to comply with the law.
-- David Dinkins, New York City Mayor, answering accusations that he failed to pay his taxes. Nothing can so alienate a voter from the political system as backing a winning candidate.
-- Mark B. Cohen Science and Environment I haven't committed a crime. What I did was fail to comply with the law.
-- David Dinkins, New York City Mayor, answering accusations that he failed to pay his taxes. I still say a church steeple with a lightning rod on top shows a lack of confidence.
-- Doug MacLeod Whoever controls the media--the images--controls the culture.
-- Allen Ginsberg Science and Environment
"The only way to have friends is to be one." (Ralph Waldo Emerson) "Oh, the tiger will love you. There is no sincerer love than the love of food." (George Bernard Shaw, Man and Superman) "May the forces of evil become confused on the way to your house." (George Carlin) "The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of the dream." (Eleanor Roosevelt) In olden times, sacrifices were made at the altar, a practice which is still very much practiced.
-- Helen Rowland Science and Environment The male is a domestic animal which, if treated with firmness, can be trained to do most things.
-- Jilly Cooper "Sometimes I think it's another sign of the sad necessity of our crowded, lonely lives, an urgent hopeless reaching out to touch something real, a deep hunger for something authentic when everything s Children are the only form of immortality that we can be sure of.
-- Peter Ustinov Science and Environment
No race can prosper till it learns that there is as much dignity in tilling a field as in writing a poem.
-- Booker T. Washington 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 Every major horror of history was committed in the name of an altruistic motive.
-- Ayn Rand Love thy neighbor, but make sure her husband is away first. A problem is a chance for you to do your best.
-- Buke Ellington Science and Environment Journalism is merely history's first draft.
-- Geoffrey C. Ward He would make a lovely corpse.
- Charles Dickens "If I work toward an end, meantime I am confined to a process. The rainbow is more beautiful than the pot at the end of it, because the rainbow is now. And the pot never turns out to be quite what I e Science and Environment
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 two most common elements in the universe are hydrogen and stupidity. But not in that order.
-- Brian Pickrell Our own heart, and not other men's opinions form our true honor.
-- Coleridge, Samuel Taylor "We're all proud of making little mistakes. It gives us the feeling we don't make any big ones." (Andrew A. Rooney) History repeats itself; that's one of the things that's wrong with history.
-- Clarence Darrow Science and Environment My best friend is the one who brings out the best in me!
-- Henry Ford The greatest test of courage on earth is to bear defeat without losing heart.
-- Robert G. Ingersoll And now here is my secret, a very simple secret; it is only with the heart that one can see rightly,
what is essential is invisible to the eye.
-- Antoine de Saint-Exupery Science and Environment
There's a fine line between fishing and standing on the shore like an idiot.
-- Steven Wright A real leader faces the music, even when he doesn't like the tune.
-- Anonymous Love means to love that which is unlovable; or it is no virtue at all.
-- G. K. Chesterton To love oneself is the beginning of a lifelong romance.
-- Oscar Wilde Marriage is a great institution, but I'm not ready for an institution.
-- Mae West Science and Environment 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 The advice your son rejected is now being given by him to your grandson. All women are born evil. Some just realize their potential later in life than others.
-- Chad A. Gamble, Escape, short story Science and Environment
Don't worry about people stealing your ideas. If your ideas are any good, you'll have to ram them
down people's throats.
-- Howard Aiken "Whether it is a black cat or a white cat, as long as it can catch the rat, it is a good cat." (Deng Xiao Ping) Giving every man a vote has no more made men wise and free than Christianity has made them
good.
-- H.L. Mencken The gods gave man fire and he invented fire engines. They gave him love and he invented marriage. Each friend represents a world in us, a world possibly not born until they arrive.
-- Anaïs Nin Science and Environment Grad school is the snooze button on the clock-radio of life.
-- John Rogers, comedian (who holds a graduate degree in physics) "You are rewarding a teacher poorly if you remain always a pupil." (Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche) Radio news is bearable. This is due to the fact that while the news is being broadcast the disc
jockey is not allowed to talk.
-- Fran Lebowitz Science and Environment
"My daughter has never forgiven me. for what, I don't know, because for years, she won't speak to me. She blackens my name in the press and makes me think abortion is an excellent idea." (Klaus Kinsk Manuscript: something submitted in haste and returned at leisure.
-- Oliver Herford I am free of all prejudice. I hate everyone equally.
-- W. C. Fields Live truth instead of professing it.
-- Elbert Hubbard Statistics have shown that mortality increases perceptibly in the military during wartime.
-- Alphonse Allais Science and Environment It's important to be open-minded, but not SO open-minded that your brains fall out.
-- Rick Radebaugh The democratic theory is that if you accumulate enough ignorance at the polls, you produce
intelligence.
-- Philo Vance You can't say civilization isn't advancing: in every war they kill you in a new way.
-- Will Rogers Science and Environment
There is no realizable power that man cannot, in time, fashion the tools to attain, nor any power so secure that the naked ape will not abuse it. So it is written in the genetic cards - only physics a blah "The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants." (Thomas Jefferson) We have children because we want immortality and this is the most reliable way of getting it.
-- Woodrow Wyatt "Everybody knows that if you are too careful, you become so occupied in being careful that you are sure to stumble over something." (Gertrude Stein) There is a coherent plan in the universe, though I don't know what it's a plan for.
-- Fred Hoyle Science and Environment "Contrariwise," continued Tweedledee, "if it was so, it might be, and if it were so, it would be; but
as it isn't, it ain't. That's logic!"
-- Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland Marriage is the one subject on which all women agree and all men disagree.
-- Oscar Wilde "So little done, so much to do." (Cecil Rhodes) Science and Environment
This novel is not to be tossed lightly aside, but hurled with great force.
-- Dorothy Parker ... it is certain that the real function of art is to increase our self-consciousness; to make us more
aware of what we are, and therefore of what the universe in which we live really is. And since
Gentlemen, it is better to have died a small boy than to fumble this football.
-- John Heisman And gain is gain, however small.
-- Robert Browning Honor's a good brooch to wear in a man's hat at all times.
-- Jonson, Ben Science and Environment "Like as the waves make towards the pebbl'd shore, so do our minutes, hasten to their end." (William Shakespeare) "Men act and women appear. Men look at women. Women watch themselves being looked at." (John Berger) All marriages are happy--it's the living together afterward that causes all the problems. Science and Environment
Govern a family as you would cook a small fish - very gently.
-- Chinese Proverb Perfection is what American women expect to find in their husbands, but English women only hope to find in their butlers. -- W. Somerset Maugham The west wasn't won on salad.
-- ND Beef Council, billboard advertisement, 1990 "Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful committed citizens can change the world, indeed it is the only thing that ever has." (Margaret Mead, 1901-78) People, like nails, lose their effectiveness when they lose direction and begin to bend.
-- Walter Savage Landor Science and Environment We are all here for a spell; get all the good laughs you can.
-- Will Rogers Women are the only exploited group in history to have been idealized into powerlessness.
-- Erica Jong By the time (the Leaning Tower of Pisa) was 10% built, everyone knew it would be a total
disaster. But the investment was so big they felt compelled to go on. Since its completion, it cost
a fortune Science and Environment
