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A

Failure is a part of success.  There is no such thing as a bed of roses all your life.  But failure will never stand in the way of success if you learn from it. –Hank Aaron, Hall of Fame baseball player, 1934-

Growth for the sake of growth is the ideology of the cancer cell. –Edward Abbey, American ecologist, anarchist, and author, 1927-1989

A memorandum is written not to inform the reader but to protect the writer. –Dean Gooderham Acheson, American statesman, 1893-1971

Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. –John Emrich Dalberg Acton, English Historian, 1834-1902

Human beings, who are almost unique in having the ability to learn from the mistakes of others, are also remarkable for their apparent disinclination to do so. –Douglas Noel Adams, British humorous writer, 1952-2001

They also serve who only stand and cheer. –Henry Brooks Adams, American historian, 1838-1918

There never was a democracy that did not commit suicide. –Samuel Adams, American Revolutionary leader, 1722-1803

The post of honor is a private station. –Joseph Addison, English essayist and statesman, 1672-1719

There is not a being more unhappy than a superannuated idol. –Addison

We are growing serious, and let me tell you, that’s the next step to being dull. –Addison

A lie would have no sense unless the truth were felt as dangerous. –Alfred Adler, Austrian psychiatrist, 1870-1937

Tradition is what you resort to when you don’t have the time or money to do it right. –Kurt “Kit” Herbert Adler, German-American therapist and writer, 1905-1997

Of the world as it exists, one cannot be enough afraid. –Theodor Weisengrund Adorno, German philosopher and sociologist, 1903-1969

Few men have the natural strength to honor a friend’s success without envy. – Æschylus, Greek dramatist, 525-456 BC

It is easy to despise what you cannot get. –Aesop, Greek fabelist, 6^th century BC

You may share the labors of the great, but you will not share the spoil. –Aesop

Even God cannot change the past. –Agathon, Athenian tragedian, c.450-c.400 BC

Don’t worry about people stealing your ideas.  If your ideas are any good, you’ll have to ram them down people’s throats. –Aiken, Howard Hathaway, American physicist and computer scientist, 1907-1973

A positive attitude may not solve all your problems, but it will annoy enough people to make it worth the effort. –Herm Albright

Often the test of courage is not to die but to live. –Vittorio Alfieri, Italian dramatist and poet, 1749-1803

Never play cards with a man named Doc.  Never eat at a place called Mom’s.  Never sleep with a woman whose troubles are worse than your own. –Nelson Abraham Algren, American writer, 1909-1981

The man who views the world the same at fifty as he did at twenty has wasted thirty years of his life. –Muhammad Ali, American boxer, 1942-

The shortest distance between two points is under construction. –Noelie Alito

A study of economics usually reveals that the best time to buy anything was last year. –Marty Allen, American comedian, 1922-

The lion and the calf will lie down together, but the calf won’t get much sleep. –Woody Allen, American director, 1935-

I have yet to see any problem, however complicated, which when looked at in the right way, did not become still more complicated. –Paul Anderson, American writer, 1926-2001

Saintliness is also temptation. –Jean Anoulih, French playwright, 1910-1987

Man forgives woman anything save the wit to outwit him. –Minna Antrim, American epigrammatist, 1861-?

A homely face and no figure have aided many women heavenward. –Minna Antrim

Not everything that is more difficult is more meretious. –Thomas Aquinas, Italian theologian, 1225-1274

It is far easier to act under conditions of tyranny than to think. –Hannah Arendt, German-born American political scientist, 1906-1975

How useless is a decent education. –Aristophanes, Greek comic playwright, 448? -385 BC

How many a dispute could have been deflated into single paragraph if the disputants had dared to define their terms. –Aristotle, Greek philosopher, 384-322 BC

There is no great genius without a mixture of madness. –Aristotle

The worst form of inequality is to make unequal things equal. –Aristotle

Failure to hit the bull’s eye is never the fault of the target.  To improve the aim-improve yourself. –Gilbert Arland

The world isn’t interested in the storms you encountered, but whether or not you brought in the ship. –Raul Armesto

It’s all right to hold a conversation, but you should let it go off now and then. –Richard William Armour

Distrust yourself, and sleep before you fight. –Dr. John Armstrong, American soldier, diplomat, and politician, 1758-1843

Speak well of your enemies, sir.  You made them. –Oren Arnold, American author, 1900-1980

...It was from an old friend who thought he was dying. Anyway, he said, "Life and death issues don't come along that often, thank God, so don't treat everything like it's life or death. Go easier. –Thomas Arnold, British historian and educator, 1795-1842

There is the view that poetry should improve your life.  I think people confuse it with the Salvation Army. –John Ashbery, American poet, 1927-

I do not fear computers.  I fear the lack of them. –Isaac Asimov, Russian-born American writer, 1900-1992

You win some, you lose some, and some get rained out, but you gotta suit up for them all. –J. Askenberg

A minor operation is one that was performed on the other fellow. –Russell Pettis Askue

No one has yet computed how many imaginary triumphs are silently celebrated each year by people to keep up their courage. –Athenaeus, Christian theologian, 292-373

If you don’t run your own life, somebody else will. –John Atkinson-Grimshaw, British painter, 1836-1893

Most fathers would rather see their sons dead than either cultivated or devout. –Louis Stanton Auchincloss, American novelist and biographer, 1917- 

Evil is unspectacular and always human, and shares our bed and eats at our table. –Wysten Hugh Auden, English poet and playwright, 1907-1973

The theatre has never been any good since the actors became gentlemen. –W.H. Auden

Lost time is never found again. –John Hill Aughey, American writer, 1828-1911

There is more than one way of sacrificing to the fallen angels. –Augustine, Church Doctor, 354-430

How much trouble he avoids who does not look to see what his neighbor says or does or thinks. –Marcus Aurelius, Roman emperor (161-180) and philosopher, 121-180

A large income is the best recipe for happiness I ever heard of. –Jane Austen, English novelist, 1775-1817

To say that authority, whether secular or religious, supplies no ground for morality is not to deny the obvious fact that it supplies a sanction. –Alfred Jules Ayer, British philosopher, 1910-1989

B 

A small town is a place where there’s nowhere to go where you shouldn’t. –Burt Bacharach, American composer, 1928-

Many a man owes his success to his first wife and his second wife to his success. –Jim Backus, American actor, 1913-1989

All colors will agree in the dark. –Francis Bacon, English philosopher and statesman, 1561-1626

All rising to a great place is by a winding stair. –Bacon

Hope is a good breakfast, but it is a bad supper. –Bacon

More dangers have deceived men than forced them. –Bacon

Silence is the virtue of fools. –Bacon

The more I study religions, the more I am convinced that man never worshipped anything but himself. –Bacon

(Dolendi modus, timendi non item.)
To suffering there is a limit, to fearing, none. –Bacon

It’s important to let people know what you stand for.  It’s also equally important that they know what you won’t stand for. –B. Bader

A money order would have saved the prodigal son the trouble of coming home. –Arthur “Bugs” Baer,  1886-1969

Ever notice that people never say, “It’s only a game” when they’re winning? –Ivern Ball

Most of us ask for advice when we know the answer but want a different one. –Ivern Ball

Equality may perhaps be a right, but no power on earth can ever turn it into a fact. –Honoré de Balzac, French novelist, 1799-1850

The first mistake of art is to assume it’s serious. –Lester Bangs, American rock journalist, 1948-1982

The only way to prove you’re a good sport is to lose. –Ernie Banks, American Hall of Fame baseball player, 1931-

Bias and impartiality is (sic) in the eye of the beholder. –Barnett, British conservative politician, 1923-

If it was an overnight success, it one long, hard, sleepless night. –Dicky Barrett

You grow up the day you have your first real laugh at yourself. –Ethel Barrymore, American actress, 1897-1959

The world may be full of fourth-rate writers, but it is also full of fourth-rate readers. –Stan Barstow, British novelist and playwright, 1928-

The fellow who says he’ll meet you halfway usually thinks he’s standing on the dividing line. –Orlando A. Battista

There is no aphrodisiac like innocence. –Jean Baudrillard, French semiologist, 1929-

There are many people who think that Sunday is a sponge to wipe out all the sins of the week. –Henry Ward Beecher, American clergyman and writer, 1813-1887

Nobody ever died of laughter. –Henry Maximilian Beerbohm, British author, 1872-1956

Vulgarity often cuts ice which refinement scrapes at vainly. –Max Beerbohm

There is no sinner like a young saint. –Aphra Behn, English playwright, 1640-1689

Telling lies does not work in advertising. –Tim Bell

To understand is to perceive patterns. –Isaiah Berlin, British educator and author, 1909-

Damn it all, you can’t have a crown of thorns and thirty pieces of silver. –Aneurin Bevan, British Labor politician, 1897-1960

We all know what happens to people who stay in the middle of the road.  They get run down. –Aneurin Bevan

If thou faint in the day of adversity, thy strength is small. –Proverbs 24: 10

Admiration-our polite acknowledgement of another’s resemblance to us. –Ambrose Gwinett Bierce, American author and humorist, 1842-1914

Bigot: One who is zealously and obstinately attached to an opinion that you do not entertain. –Bierce

Bore: A person who talks when you want him to listen. –Bierce

Cynic: A blackguard who sees things as they are and not as they ought to be. –Bierce

Destiny: A tyrant’s authority for crime and a fool’s excuse for failure. –Bierce

Epitaph: An inscription on a tomb showing that virtues acquired by death have a retroactive effect. –Bierce

Mad: adj., Affected with a high degree of intellectual independence. –Bierce

Patience: A minor form of despair, disguised as a virtue. –Bierce

Saint: A dead sinner revised and edited.  –Bierce

There are four kinds or homicide: felonious, excusable, justifiable, and praiseworthy. –Bierce

The world has suffered more form the ravages of ill-advised marriages than from virginity. –Bierce

To consult is to seek another’s advice on a course already decided on. –Bierce

As long as we are lucky we attribute it to our smartness; our bad luck we give the gods credit for. –Josh Billings, aka Henry Wheeler Shaw, American humorist, 1818-1885

Better make a weak man your enemy than your friend. –Josh Billings

Newfoundland dogs are good to save children from drowning, but you must have a pond of water handy and a child or else there will be no profit in boarding a Newfoundland. –Josh Billings

It’s a wise man who profits by his own experience, but it’s a good deal wiser one who lets the rattlesnake bite the other fellow. –Josh Billings

Silence is one of the hardest arguments to refute. –Josh Billings

The best way to convince a fool that he is wrong is to let him have his own way. –Josh Billings

The choicest compliment that can be paid to virtue is that the best lies we have are those which most resemble the truth. –Josh Billings

What is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? I suppose this depends somewhat upon the size of the soul. I think there are cases where the trade would do. –Josh Billings

If there is a group of men doing anything with a ball in a field, another group of men will watch. –Jasmine Birtles, British writer, journalist, and comedienne

To fool the world, tell the truth. –Otto Edward Leopold von Bismarck, Prussian statesman, 1815-1898

When you say you agree with a thing in principle you mean you have not the slightest intention of carrying it out in practice. –Bismarck

He who has suffered you to impose on him, knows you. –William Blake, English poet and painter, 1757-1827

Silence gives consent. –Boniface VIII, born Benedetto Caetani, Italian pope (1294-1303), c.1235-1303

On moving house, the first candidates for the dustbin are your rose colored glasses with special hindsight attachment. –Basil Boothroyd, British writer, playwright, and journalist, -1910-1988

A throne is only a bench covered in velvet. –Napoleon Bonaparte, French general and dictator, 1769-1821

Men are never attached to you by favors. –Napoleon Bonaparte

One murder makes a villain; millions, a hero. –Napoleon Bonaparte

When you drive men from the public arena, where debate is free, you send them to the cellar, where revolutions are born.  “Better an uproar than a whisper.” –William E. Borah, American politician, 1865-1940

Perhaps no one can really be a good appreciating pagan who has not once been a bad Puritan. –Bourne

Jealousy is no more than feeling alone against smiling enemies. –Elizabeth Dorothea Cole Bowen, Anglo-Irish novelist, 1899-1973

I don’t try to describe the future.  I try to prevent it. –Ray Douglas Bradbury, 1920-

Where everything is bad it must be good to know the worst. –Bradley

I always did think that cleverness was the art of hiding ignorance. –Shelland Bradley

There is no crisis to which academics will not respond with a conference. –Marvin Bressler, American educator and sociologist

If a tie is like kissing your sister, losing is like kissing you grandmother with her teeth out. –George Brett, American Hall of Fame baseball player, 1953-

The worst curse in life is unlimited potential. –Ken Brett, American baseball player, 1948-

The modern definition of a racist is someone who win an argument with a liberal. –Peter Brimelow, British political and economic author, 1947-

Anybody that (sic) wants the presidency so much that he will spend two years organizing and campaigning for it is not to be trusted with the office. –David Broder, American political writer,

In Scotland we have a verdict “not proven”.  That means “not guilty, but don’t do it again”. –Andrew Brodie

Every actor has a natural animosity to every other actor, present or past, living or dead. –Louise Brooks, American actress, 1906-1985

Most beautiful but dumb girls think they are smart and get away with it because other people, on the whole, aren’t much smarter. –Louise Brooks

You can’t be truly rude until you understand good manners. –Rita Mae Brown, American feminist writer, 1944-

Never offend people with style when you can offend them with substance. –Sam Brown

Since when was genius found respectable? –Elizabeth Barrett Browning, English poet, 1806-61

A liberal is a man who leaves a room when the fight begins. –Heywood Broun, American journalist and novelist, 1888-1939

Appeasers believe that if you keep on throwing steaks to a tiger, the tiger will turn vegetarian. –Heywood Brown

Everywhere, people are straying away from the church and going back to God. –Lenny Bruce, American comedian, 1925-1966

Most men employ the first part of life to make the rest miserable. –Jean de la Bruyère, French writer and moralist, 1645-1696

If anything goes bad, I did it.  If anything goes semi-good, we did it.  If anything goes really good, then you did it.  That’s all it takes to get people to win football games for you. –Paul William ‘Bear” Bryant, 1913-1983

The purpose of a democratic society is to make great persons. –Lyman Bryson, American educator, 1888-1959

Some of the most beautiful passages in the Christian writings are quotations from pagan authors. –Henry T. Buckle, English historian, 1821-1862

All adventure is now reactionary. –William F. Buckley, Jr., American politician and author, 1925-

…etiquette is the first value only of the society that has no values. –Buckle

How can the modern relativist exercise tolerance if he doesn’t believe in anything to begin with? –Buckley

I’d rather entrust the government of the United States to the first 400 people listed in the Boston Telephone Directory than to the faculty of Harvard University. –Buckley

Policemen, they say, should be human.  But when they act human, it is deeply resented that they are not inhuman. –Buckley

Our mania for a comatose togetherness…-Buckley

Socialize the individual’s surplus, and you socialize the spirit and creativeness; you cannot paint the Mona Lisa by assigning one brush stoke each to a thousand painters. –Buckley

The doctrine that a man is innocent until proved guilty seems to have stretched to mean that the apprehending officials are guilty unless proved innocent. –Buckley

The intellectual probity of a person is measured not merely by what comes out of him, but by what he puts up with from others. –Buckley

We worry about how much academic freedom there is on this campus or that one, rather than about what is being done by the intellect made free. –Buckley

The real slavery in Egypt was this: the Israelites learned to endure it. –Simcha Bunim

The people no longer believe in principles, but will periodically believe in saviors. –Jacob Christoph Burckhardt, Swiss historian, 1818-1897

All that is necessary for the forces of evil to win in the world is for enough good men to do nothing. –Edmund Burke, Irish philosopher and statesman, 1729-1797

Am I to congratulate an highwayman and murderer, who has broke prison, on the recovery of his natural rights? –Edmund Burk

Neutrality, as a lasting principle, is evidence of weakness. –Edmund Burke

Revolutions are favorable to confiscation; and it’s impossible to know under what obnoxious names the next confiscation will be authorized. –Edmund Burke

The concessions of the weak are the concessions of fear. –Edmund Burke

The greater the power, the more dangerous the abuse. –Edmund Burke

Tyrants seldom want pretexts. –Edmund Burke

…liberals…invoke the name of Freedom the way a drill sergeant invokes his favorite obscenity. –James Burnham, British anti-communist, 1905-1987

…the prime mark of autonomous power, of independence, is the ability to say No. –James Burnham

Don’t stay in bed…unless you can make money in bed. –George Burns, American comedian, 1896-1996

No snowflake in an avalanche ever feels responsible. –George Burns

Conscience is thoroughly well bred and soon leaves off talking to those who don’t wish to hear it. –Samuel Butler, British author, 1835-1902 

It is tact that is golden, not silence. –Samuel Butler  

The devil tempted Christ, but it was Christ who tempted the devil to tempt him. – Samuel Butler

The gods are those who either have money or do not want it. –Samuel Butler

There is no such source of error as the pursuit of absolute truth. –Samuel Butler

I would rather have a nod from an American,

than a snuff box from an emperor. –George Gordon Noel Byron, English poet, 1788-1824

Tempted fate will leave the loftiest star. –Byron

C 

If you are to stand up for your government, you must be able to stand up to your government. -Harold Caccia, British ambassador, 1905-1990?

Democracy is the name we give the people whenever we need them. –Robert de Fleur and Armand de Caillavet

Freedom is nothing but a chance to be better, whereas enslavement is the certainty of the worst. –Albert Camus, French-Algerian author and philosopher, 1913-1960

It is a kind of spiritual snobbery that makes people think they can be happy without money. –Camus

Those who lack courage will always find a philosophy to justify it. –Camus

You know what charm is: a way of getting the answer “yes” without asking any clear question. –Camus

Sometimes in politics one must duel with skunks, but no one should be fool enough to allow the skunks to choose the weapons. –Joe (Joseph Gurney) “Uncle Joe” Cannon, American politician and Speaker of the House (1903-1911), 1836-1926

You can get more with a kind word and a gun than with a kind word alone. – Al (Alphonse) Capone, American gangster and crime boss, 1899-1947

The heroic hours of life do not announce their presence by drum and trumpet. –Benjamin Nathan Cardozo, American Supreme Court justice (1932-1938), 1870-1938

If Jesus Christ were to come today, people would not even crucify him.  They would ask him to diner, and hear what he had to say, and make fun of it. –Thomas Carlyle, Scottish essayist and historian, 1795-1881

Let me have my way in exactly everything and a sunnier and more pleasant creature does not exist. –Carlyle

The devil has his elect. –Carlyle

The greatest of all faults, I should say, is to be conscious of none. –Carlyle

The tragedy of life is not so much what men suffer, but rather what they miss. –Carlyl

You may prove anything by figures. –Carlyle

No amount of ability is of the slightest account without honor. –Dale Carnegie, American educator, 1888-1955

A silly remark can be made in Latin as well as Spanish. –Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Spanish writer, 1547-1616

…blood is inherited, but virtue is achieved. –Cervantes

God bears with the wicked, but not forever. –Cervantes

The most difficult character in a comedy is that of the fool, and he must be no simpleton that plays the part. –Cervantes

When God sends the dawn, he sends it for all. –Cervantes

There are well-dressed foolish ideas just as there are well-dressed fools. -Sébastien-Roch Nicolas de Chamfort, French writer, 1741-1794

In order to be irreplaceable, one must always be different. –Coco Chanel, French couturière, 1883-1971

Scheherazade is easy; a little black dress is difficult. –Coco Chanel

In the end, everything is a gag. –Charlie (Charles Spencer) Chaplin, British comic actor, 1889-1977

Man as an individual is a genius.  But men in the mass form the Headless Monster, a great, brutish idiot that (sic) goes where prodded. –Charlie Chaplin

A thing is not a truth till it is so strongly believed in that the believer is convinced that its existence does not depend upon him. –John Jay Chapman, American author, 1862-1933

A vision of truth which does not call upon us to get out of our armchair-why, this is the desideratum of mankind. –John Jay Chapman

It is difficult to speak out a sentiment that your companions disapprove of. –John Jay Chapman

(Of power) Iron hand in a velvet glove. –Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor (1519-1558) and Charles I of Spain (1516-1556), 1500-1558 

Truly decent people only exist among men with definite convictions, whether conservative or radical; so-called moderates are much drawn to rewards, orders, commissions, promotions. –Anton Pavlovich Chekov, Russian playwright, 1860-1904

You will not become a saint through other people’s sins. –Chekov

Be wiser than other people if you can, but do not tell them so. –Phillip Dormer Stanhope Chesterfield, English writer and statesman, 1694-1773

Most people enjoy the inferiority of their best friends. –Chesterfield

Polished brass will pass upon more people than rough gold. –Chesterfield

There are some occasions when a man must tell half his secret in order to conceal the rest. –Chesterfield

Angels can fly because they take themselves lightly. –Gilbert Keith Chesterton, English writer, 1874-1936

A yawn is a silent shout. –G.K. Chesterton

Don’t ever take a fence down until you know why it was put up. – G.K. Chesterton

I believe in getting into hot water.  It keeps you clean. – G.K. Chesterton

It is the test of a good religion whether you can make a joke about it. –G.K. Chesterton

Joking is undignified.  That’s why it’s so good for one’s soul. –G.K. Chesterton

The man who sees the consistency in things is a wit…The man who sees the inconsistencies in things is a humorist. –  G.K. Chesterton

There is more simplicity in the man who eats caviar on impulse than the man who eats grapenuts on principle. –G.K. Chesterton

They say travel broadens the mind, but you must have the mind. –G.K. Chesterton

When you find three young cads and idiots going about together and getting drunk together every day, you generally find that one of the three cads and idiots is (for some extraordinary reason) not a cad and not an idiot. –G.K. Chesterton

Where else do you hide a tree but in a forest? –G.K. Chesterton

Advertising nourished the consuming power of men...sets up the goal of a better home, better clothing, better food for himself and his family. It spurs individual exertion and greater production. It brings together in fertile union those things which otherwise would not have met. -Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill, British statesman and Prime Minister(1940-1945, 1951-1955), 1874-1965

An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile, hoping it will eat him last. –Churchill

The best argument against democracy is a five minute talk with the average voter. –Churchill

When you have to kill a man it costs nothing to be polite. –Churchill

If it has to choose who is to be crucified, the crowd will always save Barabbas. –Jean Cocteau, French surrealist, 1889-1963

Tact consists in knowing how far to go in going too far. –Cocteau

The purity of a revolution can last a fortnight. –Cocteau

Tell a man that there are five-hundred billion stars in the universe and he will believe you.  Tell him a fence has just been painted and he has to touch it to find out that is has been. –Herb Cohe

Many people lose their temper just from seeing you keep yours. –Frank Moore Colby, American editor and essayist, 1865-1925

You don’t drown by falling in the water, but by staying there. –Edwin Louis Cole

I have seen gross intolerance shown in support of tolerance. –Samuel Taylor Coleridge, English poet and philosopher, 1772-1834

No man does anything from a single motive. –Coleridge

The wise only possess ideas; the greater part of mankind are possessed by them. –Coleridge

You will do foolish things, but do them with enthusiasm. –Sidonie Gabrielle Claudine Collette, French novelist, 1873-1954

Never trust a man who speaks well of everybody. –Collins 

All charming people have something to conceal, usually their total dependence on the appreciation of others. –Cyril Vernon Connolly, English critic and writer, 1903-1974

Whom the gods wish to destroy, they first call promising. –Cyril Connolly

Most men…attribute the results of their imprudence to the firmness of their principles. –Henry Benjamin Constant de Rebecque – French writer, 1767-1830

If a man lacks a steak of kindly egotism, beware of him. –Charles Horton Cooley, American sociologist, 1864-1929

If you don’t say anything, you won’t be called upon  to repeat it. –John Calvin Coolidge, 30^th US President (1923-1929), 1872-1933

I have never been hurt by anything I didn’t say. –Coolidge

Those who trust to chance must abide by the results of chance.  They have no legitimate complaint against anyone but themselves. –Coolidge

No man is a hero to his valet. –Mme. Cornuel

There is a moment when individualism becomes a uniform in spite of itself. –Malcom Cowley, American writer, editor, and critic, 1870-1938

A man is known by the company he keeps out of. –A. Craig

I like villains because there’s something so attractive about a committed person-they have a plan, an ideology, no matter how twisted.  They’re motivated. –Russell Crowe

The supreme satisfaction is to be able to despise one’s neighbor and this fact goes far to account for religious intolerance.  It is evidently consoling that the people next door are headed for hell. –Aleister Crowley, British occultist and founder of British Church of Satanism, 1875-1947

D

What men desire is a virgin who’s a whore. –Edward Dahlberg, American author and critic, 1900-1977

I have suffered from being misunderstood, but I would have suffered a hell of a lot more if I had been understood. –Clarence Seward Darrow, American lawyer and writer, 1857-1938

It is easier to forgive an enemy than a friend. –Dorothy Deluzy

One crime is everything; two nothing.  -Dorothy Deluzy

I have often seen an actor laugh off stage, but I have never seen one weep. –Denis Diderot, French author and philosopher, 1713-1784

Be careful what you show-and what you don’t show. –Marlene Dietrich, German born American actress and singer, 1901-1992

It’s the ones you can call at 4:00 A.M. that really matter. –Dietrich

Think twice before burdening a friend with a secret. –Dietrich

(To Sol Linowitz on his appointment as governor) Never for a day let them forget that you can pick up your marbles and go home. –C. Douglas Dillon, American Secretary of the Treasury (1961-1965)

The mob is the brother of tyrants. –Diogenes of Sinope, Greek philosopher and moralist, c. 410 – c. 320 BC

Next to knowing when to seize an opportunity, the next most important thing in life is knowing when to forego an advantage. –Benjamin (“Dizzy”) Disraeli, English statesman, author, and Prime Minister (1868, 1874-1880), 1804-1881

Something unpleasant is coming when men are anxious to hear the truth. –Disraeli

If you want to be respected by others, the great thing is to respect yourself. –Fydor Mikhaylovich Dostoyevsky, Russian author, 1821-1881

Distrust of authority should be the first civic duty. –Norman Douglas, British author, 1868-1952

All heiresses are beautiful. –John Dryden, English poet, playwright, and critic, 1631-1700

Beware the fury of a patient man. –John Dryden

I prefer the wicked rather than the foolish.  The wicked sometimes rest. –Alexander Dumas, fils, French dramatist, 1824-1895

Virtue does not always demand a heavy sacrifice-only the willingness to make it when necessary. –Frederick Dunn

Nothing is often a good thing to say, and always a clever thing to say. –Will (William James) Durant, American historian and philosopher, 1885-1981

When liberty becomes license, dictatorship is near. –Will Durant

E

The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources. –Albert Einstein, German-born American physicist, 1879-1955

Reading the epitaphs, our own salvation lies in resurrecting the dead and burying the living. –Paul Eldridge

Don’t go to visit your friend in his hour of disgrace. –Simeon Ben Eleazer

One must be poor to know the luxury of giving. –George Eliot, born Marian Evans, English novelist, 1819-1880

To be a leader of men one must turn one’s back on man. – Henry Havelock Ellis, British psychologist, 1859-1939

Every reform is only a mask under cover of which a more terrible reform, which does not yet name itself, advances. –Ralph Waldo Emerson, American essayist, poet, and philosopher, 1803-1882

Fame is proof that people are gullible. –Emerson

No great man ever complains of want of opportunity. –Emerson

No sensible person ever made an apology. –Emerson

The imbecility of man is always inviting the impudence of power. –Emerson

The only reward of virtue is virtue. –Emerson

The value of a principle is the number of things it will explain. –Emerson

What you do speaks so loudly that I cannot hear what you say. –Emerson

Only the educated are free. –Epicetus, Greek Stoic philosopher, c. 55 – c. 135 

The louder he talked of his honor, the faster we counted our spoons. –Epicetus, Greek Stoic philosopher, c. 55 – c. 135

Concealed talent brings no reputation. –Desiderius Erasmus, Dutch humanist, c. 1466-1536

(Dulce bellum inexpertis.)
War is sweet to those who have not experienced it. –Erasmus

A petition is a list of people who don’t have the courage to say no. –Evan Esar

There is nothing like the sight of an old enemy down on his luck. –Euripides, Greek dramatist and tragic poet, c. 480- c. 406 BC

The crowd gives the leader new strength. –Evenius

F

Those who know the least obey the best. –George Farquhar, Irish dramatist, 1678-1707

It isn’t what they say about you.  It’s what they whisper. –Errol Flynn, American actor, 1909-1959

Better a living beggar than a buried emperor. – Jean de La Fontaine, French poet, 1621-1695

It is impossible to please all the world and one’s father. –La Fontaine

No path of flowers leads to glory. –La Fontaine

The law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread. –Anatole France, French author, 1844-1924

To die for an idea is to place a pretty high price upon conjecture. –Anatole France

All would live long but none would be old. –Benjamin Franklin, American Revolutionary leader and author, 1706-1790

If rascals knew the advantages of virtue they would become honest men out of rascality. –Franklin

Under current law, it is a crime for a private citizen to lie to a government official, but not for the government official to lie to the people. Donald M. Fraser

Underlying most arguments against the free market is a lack of belief in freedom itself. –Milton Freidman, American economist, 1912-

Beware of no man more than thyself. –Thomas Fuller, English clergyman and author, 1608-1661

Send your noble blood to the market and see what it will bring. –Thomas Fuller

Sudden acquaintance brings repentance. –Thomas Fuller

To make a trade of laughing at a fool is the highway to become one. –Thomas Fuller

G

Ugliness is in a way superior to beauty because it lasts. –Serge Gainsbourg, French singer

An error gracefully acknowledged is a victory won. –Caroline E. Gascoigne

I’ll not listen to reason.  Reason always means what someone else has got to say. –Elizabeth Cleghorn Stevenson Gaskell, English novelist, 1810-1865

Music can’t change the world. –Bon Geldof, American rock singer, 1954-

The poor shall inherit the earth, but not its mineral rights. –John Paul Getty, American oil executive and financier, 1892-1976 

If children grew up according to early indications, we should have nothing but geniuses. –Johann Wolfgang  von Göethe, German poet, playwright, and scientist, 1749-1832

It is a maxim of wise government not to deal with men as they ought to be but as they are. -Göethe

It is much easier to recognize error than to find truth. –Göethe

Mediocrity has no greater consolation than in the thought that genius is not immortal. –Göethe

…reason remains ever the property of the few. –Göethe

The intelligent man finds almost everything ridiculous, the sensible man hardly anything. –Göethe

There is nothing more frightful than ignorance in action. –Göethe

We are never deceived; we deceive ourselves. –Göethe

We are shaped and fashioned by what we love. –Göethe

If you want to judge a man, take a good look at his enemies. –Harry Golden, Jewish-American humorist, 1902-1981

There’s never been a good government. –Emma Goldman, American anarchist, 1869-1940

A government that is big enough to give you all you want is big enough to take it all away. –Barry Morris Goldwater, American conservative politician, 1909-1998

The guy you've really got to reach with your advertising is the copywriter for you chief rival's advertising agency. If you can terrorize him, you've got it licked--Howard Gossage

Never contend with a man who has nothing to lose. –Baltasar Gracián y Morales, Spanish Jesuit and writer, 1601-1658

A penny will hide the biggest star in the Universe if you hold it close enough to your eye. –Samuel Grafton

When people tell you how young you look, they are also telling you how old you are. –Cary Grant, British born American actor, 1904-1986

Hell hath no fury like a liberal scorned. –Dick Gregory, American comedian and civil rights activist, 1932-

The world is always upside-down to a baccalaureate speaker…Things have got to be wrong in order that they may be deplored. –Whitney Griswold, American educator and political scientist, 1906-1963

It is the duty of the host to make his guests feel at home.  It is the duty of the guests to remember that they are not. –J.S. Groenfeldt

H

If life is to be valued and secured, it must be known that anyone who takes a life forfeits his own. –Ernst van der Haag

Nothing has an uglier look to us than reason, when it is not on our side. –Edward Frederick Linley Halifax, British statesman and ambassador, 1881-1959

TV is simultaneously blamed, often by the same people, for worsening the world and for being powerless to change it. –Ian Hamilton

Nine-tenths of the letters in which people speak unreservedly of their innermost feelings are written after ten o’clock at night. –Thomas Hardy, English novelist and poet, 1840-1928

Regret for the things we did can be tempered by time; it is regret for the things we did not do that is inconsolable. –Sydney J. Harris, American journalist, 1917-

We Americans have no commission from God to police the world. –Benjamin Harrison, 23^rd US president (1889-1893), 1833-1901

If you want peace, understand war. –Basil Henry Liddell Hart, British military analyst, 1895-1970

Capital punishment is our society’s recognition of the sanctity of human life. –Orrin G. Hatch, American conservative politician, 1934-

Those who are fond of setting things to rights have no great objection to setting them wrong. –William Hazlitt, English essayist, 1778-1830

Those who cannot miss an opportunity of saying a good thing…are not to be trusted with the management of any good question. –Hazlitt

Where books are burnt, humans will be burnt in the end. –Heinrich Heine, German poet and journalist, 1797-1856

Cynicism is an unpleasant way of saying the truth. –Lillian Florence Hellman, American playwright, 1907-1984

If you give your audience a chance, they will do half your acting for you. –Katherine Houghton Hepburn, American actress, 1909-

Plain women know more about men than beautiful ones do. –Hepburn

Modesty: the gentle art of enhancing your charm by pretending not to be aware of it. –Oliver Herford, American poet and illustrator, 1863-1905

…to be really cosmopolitan, a man must be at home even in his own country. –Thomas Wentworth Storrow Higginson, American clergyman and author, 1832-1911

The victor will never be asked if he told the truth. –Adolf Hitler, German dictator, 1889-1945

What luck for rulers that men do not think. –Hitler

It is easier to love humanity than to love your neighbor. –Eric Hoffer, American philosopher, 1902-1983

Mass movements can rise and spread without a belief in God, but never without a belief in a devil. –Eric Hoffer

Passionate hatred can give meaning and purpose to an empty life. –Eric Hoffer

Power corrupts the few while weakness corrupts the many. –Eric Hoffer

The basic test of freedom is perhaps less in what we are free to do but in what we are free not to do. –Eric Hoffer

We have rudiments of reverence for the human body, but we consider as nothing the rape of the human mind. –Eric Hoffer

When people are free to do as they please, they usually just imitate each other. –Eric Hoffer

Apology is only egotism wrong way out. –Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., American jurist and Supreme Court justice (1902-1932), 1841-1935

When you are in trouble, people calling to sympathize are really only looking for the particulars. –Edgar Watson Howe, American author and editor, 1853-1937

If you don't advertise yourself, you'll be advertised by your loving enemies. -Elbert Hubbard, American author, 1856-1915

Nobody ever forgets where he buried the hatchet. –Kin Hubbard, American humorist and journalist, 1868-1930

Nothing dispels enthusiasm like a small admission fee. –Kin Hubbard

The quickest way to make a million is to start your own religion. –L. Ron (Lafayette Ronald) Hubbard, American founder of Scientology,

We are under a Constitution, but the Constitution is what the judges say it is. –Charles Evans Hughes, American jurist, statesman, Supreme Court Justice (1910-1916), and Supreme Court Chief Justice (1930-1941), 1862-1948

Melancholy is the pleasure of being sad. –Victor Marie Hugo, French poet, novelist, and playwright, 1802-1885

The malicious have a dark happiness. –Hugo

The right to be heard does not automatically include the right to be taken seriously. –Hubert Horatio Humphrey, 38^th US vice-president (1965-1969), 1911-1978

Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored. –Aldous Leonard Huxley, English author, poet, and critic, 1894-1963

Nobody can make a habit of self-exhibition, nobody can exploit his personality for the sake of exercising a kind of hypnotic power over others, and remain untouched by the process. –Aldous Huxley

So long as man worships the Ceasars and Napoleons, Ceasars and Napoleons will duly arrive and make them miserable. –Aldous Huxley

I have never been able to understand why pigeon-shooting at Hurlingham should be refined and polite, while a rat killing match in Whitechapel is low. –Thomas Henry Huxley, British biologist, 1825-1895

…one of the unpardonable sins, in the eyes of most people, is for man to go about unlabeled. –T.H. Huxley

I

You should never wear your best trousers when you go to fight for freedom and truth. – An Enemy of the People, Henrik Johan Ibsen, Norwegian dramatist, 1828-1906

It is useless for the sheep to pass resolutions in favor of vegetarianism while the wolf remains of a different opinion. –William Ralph Inge (“the Gloomy Dean”), Dean of St. Paul’s, London and writer, 1860-1954

J

Religion is a monumental chapter in the history of human egotism. –William James, American psychologist and philosopher, 1842-1910

We are all ready to be savage in some cause.  The difference between a good man and a bad one is the choice of the cause. –William James

Advertisements contain the only truths to be relied on in a newspaper. -Thomas Jefferson, American Revolutionary leader and 3^rd president (1801-1809), 1743-1826

Revolutions are not made with rosewater. –Jefferson 

The ugliest of trades have their moments of enjoyment.  If I were a gravedigger, or even a hangman, there are some people I could work for with a great deal of enjoyment. –Douglas William Jerold, English playwright and humorist, 1803-1857

If the first person who answers the phone cannot answer you question, it is a bureaucracy. –Lyndon Baines Johnson, 36^th US president(1963-1969), 1880-1973

Any of us would rather kill a cow than go without beef. –Samuel Johnson, English author and lexicographer, 1709-1784

Every man has a right to utter what he thinks truth, and every other man has a right to knock him down for it. –Samuel Johnson

Honesty is praised and starves. –Juvenal, Roman satiric poet, 40-125

One man meets an infamous punishment for that crime which confers a diadem on another. –Juvenal

K

From such crooked wood as man is made of, nothing straight can be fashioned. –Immanual Kant, German philosopher, 1724-1804

The Washington reflex: you discover a problem, throw money at it and hope it will go away. –Kenneth Bernard Keating, American conservative politician and diplomat, 1900-1975

College isn’t the place to go for ideas. –Helen Adams Keller, American author and lecturer, 1880-1968

Flattery very seldom changes a woman’s character, though it may sway her judgement.  She accepts it as her right but very seldom believes it. –Orpheus C. Kerr, aka Robert Henry Newell, American humorist and journalist, 1836-1901

If the don’t justify the means, what can? –John Maynard Keynes, British economist, 1883-1946

Call it what we will, incentives are what get people to work hard. –Nikita Sergeyevich Khruschev, Soviet Premier (1958-1964), 1894-1971

You cannot put theory into your soup, or Marxism into your clothes.  If, after forty years of communism, a person cannot have a glass of milk or a pair of shoes, he will not believe that communism is a good thing, no matter what you tell him. –Khruschev

A man who could not seduce men cannot save them either. –Søren Aabye Kierkegaard, Danish religious philosopher, 1813-1855

The secret of the demagogue is to make himself as stupid as his audience so that they believe they are as clever as he. –Karl Kraus, Austrian satirist, 1874-1936

L

A politician would do well to remember that he has to live with his conscience a lot longer than he does with his constituents. –Melvin Robert Laird, American conservative politician and Secretary of Defense, 1922-

I wonder where all the bad people are buried. –Charles Lamb, age 9, wandering through a graveyard, English essayist and critic, 1755-1834

Heredity is a splendid phenomenon that relieves us of the responsibility for our shortcomings. –Doug Larson

Science has promised us truth…It has never promised us either peace or happiness. –Gustav Le Bon, French social scientist and philosopher, 1841-1931

You will always find some Eskimo ready to instruct the Congolese on how to deal with heat waves. –Stanislaw Jerzu Lec, Polish aphorist, satirist, and poet, 1909-1966

Your criticism hurt me so much I cried all the way to the bank. –(Wladziv Valentino) Liberace, American entertainer, 1919-1987

It is a golden rule not to judge men by their opinions but by what their opinions make of them. –Georg Christoph Lichtenberg, German physicist and philosopher, 1742-1799

Some people think that whatever is done solemnly must make sense. –G.C. Lichtenberg

There are incompetent enthusiasts, and they are a mighty dangerous lot. –G.C. Lichtenberg

Human nature will not change. –Abraham Lincoln, 16^th US president (1861-1865), 1809-1865

There are just two rules for success: 1. Never tell all you know. –Roger H. Lincoln

Men kick friendship around like a football, but it doesn’t seem to crack.  Women treat it like glass and it goes to pieces. –Anne Spencer Morrow Lindbergh, American writer, 1906-2000?

You can’t expect to win unless you know why you lose. –Benjamin Lipson

Winning isn’t everything, but wanting to win is. –Vince Lombardi, American football coach, 1913-1970

What we see depends mainly on what we look for. –John Lubbock, British banker, politician, and naturalist, 1834-1987

Communism is the opiate of the intellectuals. –Clare Boothe Luce, American diplomat and writer, 1903-1987

Every man of genius is considerably helped by being dead. –Robert Staughton Lynd, American sociologist, 1892-1970

Who would wish to be valued must make himself scarce. –Thomas Lynch, Jr., American farmer, Revolutionary politician, and signer of the Declaration of Independence, 1749-1779

M

The object of oratory is not truth but persuasion. –Thomas Babington Macaulay, British essayist, historian, and statesman, 1800-1859

To be trusted is a greater compliment than to be loved. –George MacDonald, Scottish children’s author, 1824-1905

Armed prophets succeed, but unarmed prophets come to ruin. –Nicolò Machiavelli, Italian political philosopher and statesman, 1469-1527

The ends justify the means. –Machiavelli

When taking a country the conqueror must be careful to commit all his cruelties at once, to avoid being obliged to be cruel every day. –Machiavelli

The truth is that all men having power ought to be distrusted. –James Madison, American Revolutionary leader and 4^th president (1809-1817), 1751-1836

Never tell a story because it is true: tell it because it is a good story. –John Pentland Mahaffy, Swiss-born Irish educator and philologist, 1839-1919

Everything that used to be a sin is now a disease. –Bill Maher, American comedian and television host, 1956-

I don’t know what a scoundrel is like, but I know what a respectable man is like, and it’s enough to make your flesh creep. –Joseph M. de Maistre, French diplomat and philosopher, 1753-1821

Never assume that habitual silence means ability in reserve. –Geoffrey Mandan

The object of punishment is prevention from evil; it never can be made impulsive from good. –Horace Mann, American educator, 1796-1859

To pity distress is but human; to relieve it is Godlike. –Horace Mann

Opinions cannot survive if one has no chance to fight for them. –Thomas Mann, German author and critic, 1875-1955

If I am ever stuck on a respirator or a life support system, I definitely want to be unplugged, but not until I get down to a size eight. –Henriette Mantel

Communism has nothing to do with love.  It is an excellent hammer which we use to destroy our enemies. –Mao-tse Tung (also spelled Mao Zedong), Chinese dictator, 1893-1976

There is a serious tendency toward capitalism among the well-to-do peasants. –Mao-tse Tung

Hell hath no limits. –Christopher Marlowe, English dramatist and poet, 1564-1593

An idea isn’t responsible for the people who believe in it. –Don (Donald Robert Perry) Marquis, American humorist and journalist, 1878-1937

A pessimist is a person who has had to listen to too many optimists. –Marquis

The females of all species are most dangerous when they appear to retreat. –Marquis

There is no sweeter sound than the crumbling of your fellow man. –Groucho Marx, American comic actor, 1895-1977

Whoever named it necking was a poor judge of anatomy. –Groucho Marx

Art for art’s sake makes no more sense than gin for gin’s sake. –William Somerset Maugham, British author, 1876-1966

Failure makes people cruel and bitter. –Maugham

The value of money is that with it we can tell any man to go to the devil.  It is the sixth sense which enable you to enjoy the other five. –Maugham

Conversation can be improved by the use of four simple words: I do not know. –André Maurois, French author and critic, 1885-1967

Men so like to be talked about that a discussion of their faults delights them. –Maurois

The only thing experience teaches us is that experience teaches us nothing. –Maurois

A prohibitionist is the sort of man you wouldn’t care to drink with, even if he drank. –Henry Louis Mencken, American satirist and journalist, 1880-1956

A Sunday School is a prison in which children do penance for the evil conscience of their parents. –H.L. Mencken

Christian endeavor is notoriously hard on female pulchritude. –H.L. Mencken

Christian theology is not only opposed to the scientific spirit; it is opposed to every other form of rational thinking. –H.L. Mencken

Conscience is the inner voice that warns us that somebody might be looking. –H.L. Mencken

Criticism is prejudice made plausible. –H.L. Mencken

Democracy is also a form of religion; it is the worship of jackals by jackasses. –H.L. Mencken

Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want and deserve to get it good and hard. –H.L. Mencken

Every decent man is ashamed of the government he lives under. –H.L. Mencken

Every normal man may be tempted at times to spit upon his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin slitting throats. –H.L. Mencken

Faith may be defined briefly as an illogical belief in the occurrence of the improbable. –H.L. Mencken

Gentleman: One who never strikes a woman without provocation. –H.L. Mencken

Idealist: One who upon observing that a rose smells better than a cabbage concludes that it will also make better soup. –H.L. Mencken

Injustice is relatively easy to bear; it’s justice that hurts. –H.L. Mencken

In this world of sin and sorrow, there is always something to be thankful for. –H.L. Mencken

It is hard to believe that a man is telling the truth when you know that you would lie if you were in is place. –H.L. Mencken

It may be a sin to think evil of your fellow man, but it is seldom a mistake. –H.L. Mencken

No matter how much a woman loved a man, it would still give her a glow to see him commit suicide for her. –H.L. Mencken

Say what you will about the Ten Commandments, you must always come back to the pleasant fact that there are only ten of them. –H.L. Mencken

Self-respect is the secure feeling that no one, as yet, is suspicious. –H.L. Mencken

Temptation is a woman’s weapon and a man’s excuse. –H.L. Mencke

The cynics are right nine times out of ten. -H.L. Mencken

The difference between and moral man and a man of honor is that the latter regrets a discreditable act even when it has worked. –H.L. Mencken

The theory seems to be that as long as a man is a failure he is one of God’s children, but that as soon as he succeeds he is taken over by the devil. –H.L. Mencken

There is no record in history of a nation that ever gained anything valuable by being unable to defend itself. –H.L. Mencken

The universe seems to be in a conspiracy to encourage the endless reproduction of lodge-joiners and socialists, but a subtle and mysterious opposition eternally stands against the reproduction of philosophers. –H.L. Mencken

The urge to save humanity is almost always a false pretense for the urge to rule. –H.L. Mencken

What men value in this world is not rights but privileges. –H.L. Mencken

When women kiss, it always reminds one of prizefighters shaking hands. –H.L. Mencken

The worst part of success is trying to find someone who is happy for you. –Bette Midler, American singer, 1945-

You can get away with saying anything stupid, so long as you attribute it to Samuel Johnson, Marcus Aurelius, or Dorothy Parker. –George Mikes, Hungarian born British humorist, 1912-

No doubt Jack the Ripper excused himself on the grounds that it was human nature. –A.A. Mile

The “stone of insult” is a very small diamond offered for one’s virtue. –Nancy Mitford, British author, 1904-1973

Don’t talk about yourself.  It will be done when you leave. –Addison Mitzner

Be nice to people on your way up, because you’ll meet them on your way down. Wilson Mizner, American dramatist and humorist, 1876-1933

The critic is the one who surprises the author by informing him of what he meant. –Wilson Mizner

An untempted woman cannot boast of her chastity. –Michel Eyquem de Montaigne, French essayist, 1533-1592

God defend me from being an honest man according to the ideas of honesty which men every day ascribe to themselves!  -Montaigne

Perched on the loftiest throne in the world, we are still sitting on our own behinds. –Montaigne

Do not confuse motion and progress. A rocking horse keeps moving but does not make any progress. –Alfred A. Montapart

Rule one of the book of war is: Don’t march of Moscow. –Bernard Montgomery, British solider and statesman, 1887-1976

There is no stronger bond of friendship than a mutual enemy. –Frank Frankfort Moore, British dramatist, poet, and novelist, 1855-1931

(On the overall essence of acting) Left eyebrow raised.  Right eyebrow raised. –Roger Moore, British actor, 1927-

People don’t change.  Only their costumes do. –Gene Moorse

You can do business with anyone, but you can only sail a boat with a gentleman. –John Pierpont Morgan, American financier and philanthropist, 1837-1913

You have not converted a man because you have silenced him. –Christopher Darlington Morley, American writer and journalist, 1890-1957

An orgy looks particularly alluring seen through the eyes of righteous indignation. –Malcom Muggeridge, British broadcaster, 1903-1990

A real individual is a man who would hate to be anybody but himself. –Henry A. Murray

If you cannot get people to listen to you any other way, tell them it’s confidential. –James Patrick “Jim” Murray, American sportswriter, 1919-1998

How glorious it is-and also how painful-to be an exception. –Louis Charles Alfred de Musset, French Romantic poet, 1810-1857

If a man tells you he’s going to make a “realistic decision”, you immediately understand that he has resolved to do something bad. –Mary Therese McCarthy, American writer, 1912-1989

The longer the title, the less important the job. –George Stanley McGovern, American politician, 1922-

To be a celebrity in America is to be forgiven everything. –Mary McGrory, American political columnist

Before we can find the true remedy, we must appreciate the real evil. –William McKinley, 25^th US president (1897-1901), 1843-1901

Be aware that a halo has to fall only a few inches to be a noose. –Dan McKinnon, New Zealand diplomat, 1939-

Advertising is the greatest art form of the twentieth century. –Herbert Marshall McLuhan, Canadian communications theorist, 1911-1980

N

Sufficiently advanced political correctness is indistinguishable from sarcasm. –Eric Naggum

Fortune does not change men; it unmasks them. –Suzanne Necker, French aristocrat, 18^th century

With all my admiration and love for democracy, I am not prepared to accept the statement that the largest number of people are always right. –Jawaharlal Nehru, Indian statesman, 1889-1964

All you earnest young men out there to save the world…please, have a laugh. –Reinhold Neibuhr, American theologian and historian, 1892-1971

Man’s capacity for justice makes democracy possible, but man’s capacity for injustice makes democracy necessary. –Reinhold Neibuhr

One of the minor pleasures of life is to be slightly ill. –Thomas Nicholson

A theme for a great poet would be God’s boredom on the seventh day of creation. –Freidrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, German philosopher, 1844-1900

Distrust all men in whom the urge to punish is powerful. –Nietzsche, Thus Spake Zarathustra

Everything absolute belongs in the realm of pathology. –Nietzsche

Great intellects are skeptical. –Nietzsche

He who deserts us may not be insulting us, but he is certainly insulting our disciples. –Nietzsche

He who lives by fighting with an enemy has an interest in the preservation of the enemies’ life. –Nietzsche

In disrespecting, we show that we still maintain a sense of respect. –Nietzsche

In large states the public education will always be mediocre, for the same reason that in large kitchens the cooking is usually bad. –Nietzsche

Never to talk about oneself is a very refined form of hypocrisy. –Nietzsche

Not by wrath does one kill, but by laughter. –Nietzsche

Nothing on earth consumes a man more quickly than the passion of resentment. –Nietzsche, Ecce Homo

Of all that is written, I love only that which is written in a person’s own blood. –Nietzsche

The criminal is prevented, by the very witnessing of the legal process, from regarding his deed as intrinsically evil. –Nietzsche

The gilded sheath of pity conceals the dagger of contempt. –Nietzsche

The last Christian died on the cross. –Nietzsche

The philosopher has to be the bad conscience of his age. –Nietzsche

There are few pains so grievous as to have seen, denied, or experienced how an exceptional man has missed his way and deteriorated. –Nietzsche

There is no feast without cruelty. –Nietzsche

There is no quicker way of getting the world to shout Hosanna than by riding into the city on the back of an ass. –Nietzsche

The visionary lies to himself, the liar only to others. –Nietzsche

To forget one’s purpose is the commonest form of stupidity. –Nietzsche

To take upon ourselves not punishment, but guilt- that alone would be god-like. –Nietzsche

Where there is a struggle, it is a struggle for power. –Nietzsche

Whoever battles with monsters had better see that it does not turn him into a monster.  And if you gaze long into the abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you. –Nietzsche

If a person continues to see only giants, it means he is still looking at the world through the eyes of a child. –Anaïs Nin, Franco-American author, 1903-1977

Kind words will never die-neither will they buy groceries. –Edgar Wilson ‘Bill’ Nye, American humorist, 1850-1896

O

Power is not a means; it is an end. –George Orwell, born Eric Author Blair, British author, 1903-1950

Who controls the past controls the future.  Who controls the present controls the past. –Orwell

In seeking to save another beware of drowning yourself. –Francis Osborne, American actress,

(Video meliora proboque, deterora sequor.)
I see the better course and approve it; I follow the worse. –Ovid, Roman poet, 43 BC – c. 17

(Spectatum veniunt, veniunt spectatum ut ipsae.)
They come to see, they come so that they may be seen. –Ovid

The world’s a stage and most of us are desperately unrehearsed. –Sean O’Casey, Irish dramatist, 1880-1964

Anyone who thinks he has a better idea of what’s good for people than people do is a swine. –Patrick Jake O’Rourke, American journalist and humorist, 1947-

Anyway, no drug, not even alcohol, causes the fundamental ills of society.  If we’re looking for the source of our troubles, we shouldn’t test people for drugs, we should test them for stupidity, ignorance, greed, and love of power. –P.J. O’Rourke

Certainty: That happy sense of purpose people have when they are standing up for a principle they haven’t really been knocked down for yet. –P.J. O’Rourke

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 succubae own all the liquor stores in heaven. –P.J. O’Rourke

Giving certain races or ethnic groups special rights and privileges is no better (in fact, no different) than giving special rights and privileges to dukes and earls.  Noblemen are a minority, too, after all. –P.J. O’Rourke

If you want to do something for the dignity of people in sub-Saharan countries, you can stop donating bell bottom pants to Goodwill. –P.J. O’Rourke

Politics is the business of getting power and privilege without possessing merit –P.J. O’Rourke

Poverty can’t be eliminated by punishing people who’ve escaped poverty, taking their money and giving it as a reward to those people who have failed to escape. –P.J. O’Rourke

Reacting to a plague by holding demonstrations, by announcing how upset we are that disease exists is no more effacious than sacrificing virgins (or, in the case of AIDS, throwing drug-free, monogamous heterosexual members of the middle class down a well). –P.J. O’Rourke

Santa Claus is preferable to God in every way but one: there is no such thing as Santa Claus. –P.J. O’Rourke

The harbingers of civilization rarely go anywhere to deliver Girl Scout cookies. –P.J. O’Rourke

P

Character is much easier kept than reclaimed. –Thomas Paine, American Revolutionary leader, writer, and political theorist, 1737-1809

He that would make his own liberty secure must guard even his enemy from oppression. –Thomas Paine

Vengeance is sweet. –William Painter, English translator, 16^th century

I’m not offended by dumb blonde jokes because I know I’m not dumb, and I know I’m not blonde. –Dolly Parton, American singer and actress, 1946-

Fame is so sweet that we love anything with which we connect it, even death. –Blaise Pascal, French scientist and philosopher, 1623-1662

Force and not opinion is the queen of the world; but it is opinion that uses the force. –Pascal

Many men on the point of an edifying death would be furious if they were suddenly restored to health. –Cesare Pavese, Italian poet, novelist, and translator, 1908-1950

Ghengis Kahn conquered Asia with an army only one half the size of New York City’s civil service. –Laurence Johnston Peter, Canadian author and management theorist, 1919-1990

I realized the problem was me and nobody could change me except myself. –John Petworth

Suffering only becomes unbearable when separated from the great silence in the world; it is merely a part of the noise of history, and then has to bear its burden alone. –John Picard, French cleric and astronomer, 1620-1682

The poor will inherit the earth, but the rich will inherit the church. –James A. Pike, Jr., American clergyman and theologian, 1913-1969 

Good people do not need laws to tell them to act responsibly, while bad people will find a way around the laws. –Plato, Greek philosopher, c. 427-347 BC

Calumny is like counterfeit money: many people who would not coin it circulate it without qualms. –Dianne de Poiters, French aristocrat and mistress of Henry II, 1499-1566

Culture is what your butcher would have if he were a surgeon. –Mary Pettibone Poole

Those who promised us paradise on earth never produced anything but a hell. –Karl Raimund Popper, Anglo-Austrian philosopher, 1902- 1994

A slave is one who waits for someone to come and free him. –Ezra Loomis Pound, American poet and critic, 1885-1972

I don’t want to read about some of the actresses who are around today.  They sound like my niece in Scarsdale.  I love my niece in Scarsdale, but I won’t but tickets to see her act. –Vincent Price, American actor, 1911-1994

In communism, inequality stems from placing mediocrity on a level with excellence. –Pierre-Joseph Proudhan, French political theorist, 1809-1865

All our final resolutions are made in a state of mind which is not going to last. –Marcel Proust, French novelist, 1872-1922

Q

When I have been asked during these last weeks who caused the riots and the killings in LA, my answer is direct and simple.  Who is to blame for the riots?  The rioters are to blame.  Who is to blame for the killings?  The killers are to blame. –Dan (James Danforth) Quayle, 44^th US vice-president (1989-1993), 1947-

R

Oh thrice and four times happy are those who plant cabbages! –François Rabelais, French writer, 1493?-1553?

A computer lets you make more mistakes faster than any other invention in human history, with the possible exception of handguns and tequila. –Mitch Radcliffe

A nuclear power plant is infinitely safer than eating because three-hundred people choke to death every year. –Dixie Lee Ray, American liberal politician, 1924-1994

If you are not big enough to lose, you are not big enough to win. –Walter Phillip Reuther, American labor leader, UAW president (1946-1970), and CIO president (1952-1955), 1907-1970

Give me six lines written by the most honorable of men, and I will find in them an excuse to hang him. –Armand Jean du Plessis Richelieu, French cardinal and statesman, 1585-1642

A man never describes his character so clearly when he describes another. –Jean Paul Friedrich Richter, German writer and humorist, 1763-1825

Fine minds are seldom fine souls. –Jean Paul Richter

He who has not lost his head over some things has no head to lose. –Jean Paul Richter

It is easy to flatter; it is harder to praise. –Jean Paul Richter

I have sometimes been tempted to point out that the rich are a minority and have rights, too. –David Riesman, Jr., American sociologist, 1909- and Sidney Hook, American philosopher, 1902-1989

We’re our own dragons as well as our own heroes. –Thomas Eugene “Tom” Robbins, American novelist, 1936-

A refusal of praise is a desire to be praised twice. –François de La Rochefoucauld, French epigrammatist and moralist, 1613-1680

Everyone complains of memory, no one of his judgement. –La Rochefoucauld

It is sometimes necessary to play the fool to avoid being deceived by clever men. –La Rochefoucauld

Many men want to be devout, but no one wants to be humble. –La Rochefoucauld

No man should be praised for his goodness if he lacks the strength to be bad; in such cases goodness is usually only the effect of indolence or impotence of will. –La Rochefoucauld

Our virtues are most frequently but vices disguised. –La Rochefoucauld

Perfect courage means doing unwitnessed what we would with the world looking on. –La Rochefoucauld

The fame of great men ought always to be estimated by the means used to acquire it. –La Rochefoucauld

There are bad people who would be less dangerous of they were quite devoid of goodness. -La Rochefoucauld

There are few virtuous women who do not tire of the role. –La Rochefoucaul

Truth does less good in the world than its appearances do harm. –La Rochefoucauld

We all of us have sufficient fortitude to bear the misfortune of others. –La Rochefoucauld

We are much harder on people who betray us in small ways than on people who betray others in great ways. –La Rochefoucauld

We confess our little faults to convince people that we have no large ones. –La Rochefoucauld

The main thing about being a hero is knowing when to die. –Will (William Penn Adair) Rogers, American humorist, writer, and actor, 1879-1935

They are the weakest-minded and hardest-hearted men who most love change. –John Ruskin, English writer, art critic, and reformer, 1819-1900

Conventional people are roused to frenzy by departure from convention, largely because they regard such departure as criticism of themselves. –Bertrand Arthur William Russell, British philosopher and mathematician, 1872-1970

Even in the valley of the shadow of death, two and two do not make five. –Russell

The infliction of cruelty with a good conscience pleases the moralists, which is why they invented Hell. –Russell

S

A little inaccuracy sometimes saves tons of explaining. –Saki, aka H.R. Munro, Scottish author, 1870-1916

Fanaticism consists in redoubling your effort when you have forgotten your aim. –George Santayana, American philosopher and poet, 1863-1952

People are usually more firmly convinced that their opinions are precious than that they are true. – Santayana

Be wary of the man who urges an action in which he himself incurs no risk. –Joaquin Satanti

Whenever governments adopt a moral tone-as opposed to an ethical tone-you know something is wrong. –John Ralston Saul, British historian and novelist,

One difference between death and taxes is that death doesn’t get worse every time Congress meets. –Ray L. Schaefer

It is criminal to steal a purse, daring to steal a fortune, a mark of greatness to steal a crown.  The blame diminishes as the greatness increases. –Johan Cristroph Freidrich Schiller, German dramatist, poet, and essayist, 1759-1805

Martyrdom has always been a proof of the intensity, never the correctness, of a belief. –Arthur Schinitzler, Austrian physicist, dramatist, and novelist, 1862-1931

Don’t ask questions you don’t want answers to. –Capt. Schroeder, USCG

Never take a reference from a clergyman.  They always want to give somebody a second chance. –Selborne

The devil can cite Scripture for his purpose. – The Merchant of Venice, William Shakespeare, English dramatist and poet, 1564-1616

The prince of darkness is a gentleman. –Shakespeare, King Lear

The worst is not so long as we can say, “This is the worst”. –Shakespeare, King Lear

What’s done can’t be undone. –Shakespeare, Macbeth

A government that robs Peter to pay Paul can, as a rule, calculate on the support of Paul. –George Bernard Shaw, Irish playwright and critic, 1856-1950

A man of great common sense and good taste, meaning thereby a man without originality or moral courage. –G.B. Shaw

It is dangerous to be sincere, unless you are also stupid. –G.B. Shaw

Liberty means responsibility.  That’s why most men dread it. –G.B. Shaw

Self-denial is not a virtue; it is only the effect of prudence on rascality.  –G.B. Shaw

There are no secrets better kept than the secrets everybody guesses. –G.B. Shaw

What really flatters a man is that you think him worth flattering. –G.B. Shaw

If absolute power corrupts absolutely, does absolute powerlessness make you pure? –Harry Shearer, American actor

Don’t expect perfect products unless you are willing to pay for perfection. –Robert Siegmeister

Suspect everybody, and even be suspicious to yourself. –Charles Simmons

No matter how big or soft or warm your bed is, you still have to get out of it. –Grace Slick, American rock singer, 1939-

It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the maker that we expect our diner, but from their regard from their own interest. –Adam Smith, Scottish economist, 1723-1790

The most sincere form of praise can give little pleasure when it cannot be considered as some sort of proof of praise-worthiness. –Smith

Nature has no cure for the madness of Bolshevism, though I have known a legacy from a rich relative tow work wonders. –Frederick Edwin Smith-Birkenhead, British politician and lawyer, 1872-1930

Those who set out to worship God and Mammon soon find that there is no God. –Logan Pearsoll Smith, American essayist and aphorist, 1865-1946

What music is more enchanting than the voices of young people when you can’t hear what they say? –Logan Pearsoll Smith

Talk is cheap.  But if it keeps your stomach full and your grave empty, it’s worth more than gold. –Mike Smith

Far more, and far more hideous, crimes have been committed in the name of obedience than have ever been committed in the name of rebellion. –Charles Percy Snow, British writer and scientist, 1905-1980

When you have a robbed a man of everything, he is no longer in your possession.  He is free again. –Alexander Isayevich Solzhenitsyn, Russian novelist, 1918- 

None are more easily taken with flattery than the proud who wish to be first and are not. –Baruch or Benedict Spinoza, Dutch rationalist philosopher, 1632-1677

One death is a tragedy.  A million deaths is a statistic. –Josef Vissarionovich Stalin, Soviet dictator, 1879-1959

Egotism-usually just a case of mistaken nonentity. –Barbara Stanwyck, American actress

The secret of managing is the keep the guys who hate you away from the guys who are undecided. –Casey (Charles Dillon) Stengal, American baseball player and manager, 1890-1975

Do you know the difference between a beautiful woman and a charming one?  A beauty is a woman you notice; a charmer is one who notices you. –Adlai Ewing Stevenson, American liberal politician, 1900-1965

The cruelest lies are often told in silence. –Adlai E. Stevenso

A psychiatrist is a man who goes to the Folies-Bergere and looks at the audience.  –Mervyn Stockwood, British ecclesiastic and author, 1913-

Death is always a great pity of course but it’s not as though the alternative were immortality.  –Tom Stoppard, British playwright, 1937-

If you were handed power on a plate, you’d be left fighting over the plate. –Tom Stoppard

It is better to be quotable than to be honest. –Tom Stoppard

If you live in a country run by a committee, be on that committee. –William Graham Sumner, American sociologist, 1840-1910

Everyone constructs his own bed of nails. –D. Sutten

When the world has once begun to use us ill, it afterward continues the same treatment with less scruple or ceremony, as men do to a whore. –Jonathan Swift, Irish satirical writer, 1667-1745

T

Lust of power is the most flagrant of all the passions. –Cornelius Tacitus, Roman historian, 55? -after 117

All brides are beautiful-and all corpses look pious. –The Talmud

No one would remember the Good Samaritan if he only had good intentions.  He had money as well. –Margaret Hilda Thatcher, British prime minister (1979-1990), 1925

Beware of all enterprises that require new clothes. –Henry David Thoreau, American writer, philosopher, and naturalist, 1817-1862

If I knew for a certainty that a man was coming to my house with the conscious design of doing me good, I should run for my lie. –Thoreau

If you wonder which is the stronger sex, watch which one twists the other around her little finger. –James Grover Thurber, American cartoonist, author, and humorist, 1894-1961

We are paid to have dirty minds. –John Trevelyan

Our culture peculiarly honors the act of blaming, which it takes as a sign of virtue and intellect. –Lionel Trilling,  American educator and literary critic, 1905-1975

It is amazing what you can accomplish is you don’t care who gets the credit. –Harry S. Truman, 33^rd US president(1945-1953), 1884-1972

Always acknowledge a fault frankly.  This will throw those in authority of their guard and give you the opportunity to commit more. –Mark Twain, born Samuel Langhorne Clemens, American writer and humorist, 1835-1910

A soiled baby with a neglected nose cannot be conscientiously regarded as a thing of beauty. –Twain

Behold, the fool saith, Put not all thine eggs in the one basket, -- which is but a manner of saying, Scatter your money and your attention, but the wise man saith, Put all your eggs in the one basket and -- watch that basket. -Twain

If you pick up a starving dog and make him prosperous, he will not bite you.  This is the principle difference between and dog and a man. –Twain

Man is the only animal that blushes.  Or needs to. –Twain

Secondhand diamonds are better than none. –Twain

U

He may be fat, stupid, and old, but none the less he can condemn the woman’s flabby body and menopause and encounter only sympathy if he exchanges her for a younger one. –Liv Ullman, Norwegian actress and director, 1939-

V

It is not enough to succeed.  Others must fail. –Gore Vidal, American novelist and critic, 1925-

Anyone who conducts an argument by appealing to authority is not using his intelligence, he is just using his memory. –Leonardo da Vinci, Florentine artist and scientist, 1452-1519

A dying man enjoys free speech. –François Villon, French poet, 1431?-1463?

May god defend me from my friends.  I can defend myself from my enemies. –François Marie Arouet de Voltaire, French philosopher and author, 1694-1778

In all my life I have prayed one prayer.  “Oh, Lord, make my enemies ridiculous”.  And God granted it. –Voltaire

It’s not enough to conquer; one must know how to seduce. –Voltaire

Nothing is more annoying than to be obscurely hanged. –Voltaire

The act of government consists of taking as much money as possible from one class of citizens to give to another. –Voltaire

The way to become boring is to say everything. –Voltaire

To a toad, what is beauty?  A female with two pop eyes, a wide mouth, yellow belly, and spotted back. –Voltaire

To hold a pen is to be at war. –Voltaire

To succeed in chaining the crowd, you must seem to wear the same chain. –Voltaire

What a heavy burden is a name that has become too famous. –Voltaire

Who serves his country well has no need of ancestors. –Voltaire

Who does not love wine, women, and song, remains a fool his whole life. –Johann Heinrich Voss, German poet and philologist, 18^th century 

It is the final proof of God’s existence that he need not exist at all to save us. –Peter de Vries, American author, 1910-1993

W

A reformer is a guy who rides through a sewer in a glass-bottom boat. –James “Jimmy” Walker, American politician, 1881-1946

The world is a comedy to those who feel and a tragedy to those who think. –Horace Walpole, English novelist and legal writer, 1717-1797

Virtue knows to a farthing what it has lost by not having been vice. –Horace Walpole

Every man has his price. –Robert Walpole, British statesman, 1^st Prime Minister , 1676-1745

To make mistakes is human, to stumble is commonplace, to be able to laugh at yourself is maturity. –William Arthur Ward

It’s what you learn after you know it all that counts. –Earl Weaver, American Hall of Fame baseball player and manager (also attributed to John Wooden)

If you stop to be kind, you must swerve often from your path. –Mary Webb, British author, 1881-1921

One may live as a conqueror, a king or a magistrate; but he must die as a man. –Daniel Webster, American statesman and orator, 1782-1852

Moral indignation is jealousy with a halo. –Herbert George Wells, English author and political philosopher, 1866-1946

A gentleman is someone who never hurt anyone’s feelings unintentionally. –Oscar Fingal O’Flarhertie Wills Wilde, Irish author, poet, playwright, and critic, 1854-1900

A little sincerity is a dangerous thing, and a great deal of it is absolutely fatal. –Wilde

Anybody can be good in the country. –Wilde

A thing is not necessarily true because a man dies for it. –Wilde

A true friend always stabs you in the front. –Wilde

Duty is what one expects from others.  It is not what one does oneself. –Wilde

Murderer: One who is presumed to be innocent until he is proven to be insane. –Wilde

No man is rich enough to buy back his past. –Wilde

Only an auctioneer can equally and impartially admire all schools of art. –Wilde

Selfishness is not living as one wishes to live.  It is expecting others to live as we wish them to live.  -Wilde

The books that the world calls immoral are the books that show the world its shame. –Wilde

The man who sees both sides of the question is the man who sees absolutely nothing. –Wilde 

The truth is rarely pure and never simple. –Wilde

There are many things that we might throw away, if we were not afraid others might pick them up. –Wilde

There is no such thing as a moral or immoral book.  Books are well written or badly written. –Wilde

There is nothing more interesting than a man with a future or a woman with a past. –Wilde

There is only one thing worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about. –Wilde

There’s always something ridiculous about the passions of people whom one has ceased to love. –Wilde

Truth in religion is simply the opinion that has survived. –Wilde

We all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars. –Wilde

When the gods wish to punish us, they answer our prayers. –Wilde

Wickedness is a myth invented by good people to account for the curious attractiveness of others. –Wilde

Only the winners decide what were war crimes. –Gary Willis

I have not yet heard one intellectually respectable defense of criminal rehabilitation. –James Quinn Wilson, American criminologist and sociologist, 1931-

I think, therefore I am single. –Lizz Winstead

It is a good rule in life never to apologize.  The right sort of people do not want apologies, and the wrong sort take a men advantage of them. –Pelham Grenville Wodeghouse, English comic writer, 1871-1975

Its what you learn after you know it all that counts. –John Wooden, American basketball player and coach, 1910-

For most of history, Anonymous was a woman. –Adeline Virginia Stephen Woolf, English novelist and critic, 1882-1941

Y

If you’re going to so something tonight that you’ll feel sorry for tomorrow morning, sleep late. –Henry “Henny” Youngman, English-born American comedian and violinist, 1906-1998

Z

If you wish to strengthen a lie, mix a little truth in with it. –Zohar, aka Zoroaster, Persian religious prophet, 630?-550 BC

?

It is one of the superstitions of the human mind to have imagined that virginity could be a virtue. –?

And so on and so Forth…

A cynic is a man who, when he smells flowers, looks around for a coffin.

A decision delayed until it is too late is not a decision; it’s an evasion.

Adversity introduces a man to himself.

A halo is, after all, just another thing to keep clean.

All are brave when the enemy flies.

A man is not always asleep when his eyes are closed.

A man shows his character by what he laughs at.

Compliments are only lies in court clothing.

Cultivate good manners and you’ll be mistaken for a doorman.

Etiquette is the art of knowing the right way to do the wrong thing.

Every doctor has his favorite disease.

Health is the slowest rate at which you can die.

Heroes die.

If you don’t get the better of yourself, someone else will.

If you want a place in the sun, you’ve got to expect a few blisters.

Just because a dress is red satin doesn’t mean it will come off easily.

Knot in de plank will show through de whitewash.

Marriage is a romance in which the hero dies n the first chapter.

No man is born wise or learned.

No matter which finger you bite, it will hurt.

No morning can last a whole day.

Old wounds easily bleed.

One meets his destiny often in the road he takes to avoid it.

Rome was not built in a day.

Serious people seldom have ideas.  People with ideas are seldom serious.

Shrouds have no pockets.

Silence is also speech.

Silence is not always golden.  Sometimes it is just yellow.

Smile.  It makes people wonder what you’re up to.

Tact: Thinking all you say without saying all you think.

The difference between “involved” and “committed” is like ham and eggs for breakfast.  The chicken was “involved”.  The pig was “committed”.

The Golden Rule: Whoever has the gold makes the rules.

There is no job so simple that it can’t be done wrong.

There’s no dying by proxy.

Virtue is its own reward, but so is vice!

We are merchants of dreams. (advertising slogan form 1920’s and 30’s)

We never forgive those who make us bleed.

We triumph without glory when we conquer without danger.

You cannot plough a field by turning it over in your mind.

You can’t answer for your courage if you have never been in danger.

You choose which party to attend.

You will always find some Eskimo ready to instruct the Congolese on how to deal with heat waves.

Proverbs, Blessings, and Sayings

Do not look where you fell but where you slipped. –African

No one tests the depth of a river with both feet. –African

Whether the knife falls on the melon or the melon on the knife, the melon suffers. –African

All sunshine makes the desert. –Arab

Make your bargain before beginning to plough. –Arab

If you wish to drown, do not torture yourself with shallow water. –Bulgarian

Crows are black all the world over. –Chinese

Who must die must die in the dark, even though he sells candles. –Colombian

Do not be in a hurry to tie what you cannot untie. –English

For whom does the blind man’s wife paint herself? –English

He who can lick can bite. –French

Skeptics are never deceived. –French

(Besser stumm als dumm.)
Better silent than stupid. –German

Do not ask a blind man which way is the right way. –German

Old thieves make good jailers. –German

The devil catches most souls in a golden net. –German

The devil is civil when he is flattered. –German

The only real equality is in the cemetery. –German

(Es sind nicht alle Koche, die lange Messer tragen.)
They are not all cooks who carry long knives. –German

When a dove begins to associate with crows its feathers remain white but its heart grows black. –German

When the fox preaches, look to your geese. –German

Who does not punish evil invites it. –German

Who has lost his freedom has nothing else to lose. –German

Don’t shake hands too eagerly. –Greek

Gray hair is a sign of age, not of wisdom. –Greek

To forgive everyone is as much cruelty as to forgive no one. –Greek

God burdens no man beyond his power. –Indian

If you live in the river, you should make friends with the crocodile. –Indian

Better be quarreling than lonesome. –Irish

Everyone thinks that his own cross is heaviest. –Italian

If you try to be too sharp, you will cut yourself. –Italian

Beware of him who has nothing to lose. –Italian

When the game is over, the king and pawn go into the same box. –Italian

A man is not honest simply because he never had a chance to steal. –Jewish

If charity cost nothing, the world would be full of philanthropists. –Jewish

If prayer did any good, they’d be hiring men to pray. –Jewish

Locks keep out only the honest. –Jewish

The charming don’t have to be beautiful. –Jewish

What you don’t see with your eyes, don’t witness with your mouth. –Jewish

(Amphora sub veste numquam poratur honeste.)
A jug is never carried under one’s coat for an honest reason. –Latin

Believe nothing and be on your guard against everything. –Latin

In doing what we ought, we deserve no praise. –Latin

Keep quiet and people will think you are a philosopher. –Latin

To accept a benefit is to sell one’s freedom. –Latin 

(Sub omni lapide scorpio dormit.)
Under every rocks sleeps a scorpion.-Latin

To spare the ravening leopard is an act of injustice to the sheep. –Persian

Use your enemy’s hand to catch a snake. -Persian

That which everybody guards will soon disappear. –Polish

Watch the faces of those who bow low. –Polish

Not every crusader is a saint. –Russian

The wolf will hire himself out very cheaply as a shepherd. –Russian

The devil’s boots don’t creak. –Scottish

Speak the truth, but leave immediately after. –Slovenian

(En boca cerrada no entran moscas.)
If you keep your mouth shut the flies won’t get in. -Spanish

(No es lo mismo hablar de toros que estar en el redonel.)
It is not the same to talk of bulls as to be in the bullring. –Spanish

(No se puede repicar y andar en la procesion.)
One can’t ring the bells and walk in the procession. –Spanish

They are all honest men, but my cloak can’t be found. –Spanish

Whoever gossips to you will gossip of you. –Spanish

He who would speak the truth must have one foot in the stirrup. –Turkish

Trust in Allah but tie up your camel. –Turkish

Three things it is best to avoid: a strange dog, a flood, and a man who thinks he is wise. –Welsh

Come for your inheritance and you may have to pay for the funeral. –Yiddish

If you can’t bite, don’t show your teeth. –Yiddish

One good deed has many claimants. –Yiddish

Films:

Ah, but you should have seen me when I had stage fever.  You know, every girl has a time in her life when she’s positive she’s divinely talented for the stage.  I used to play Juliet alone in my room. –Katherine Hepburn, Alice Adams

Man in conceived in sin and born in corruption. -Broderick Crawford, All the King's Men

I guess when you're used to standing on the outside looking in, you can see a lot of things other people can't. -John Garfield, Four Daughters

Flattery’ll get you anywhere. -Jane Russell, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes

We didn’t really believe your story, Miss O’Shaughnessy.  We believed your $200. -Humphrey Bogart, The Maltese Falcon

That’s what I always say.  Love flies out the door when money comes innuendo. –Groucho Marx, Monkey Business

Television is not the truth.  Television is a goddamn amusement park.  Television is a circus, a carnival, and a traveling troupe of acrobats, storytellers, dancers, singers, jugglers, sideshow freaks, lion tamers, and football players.  We’re in the boredom killing business. -Peter Finch, Network

How can a guy get so low?
He reached too high.  Good night, boys.  Lock up. -(workmen) and Roy Roberts, Nightmare Alley

No mob ever wants justice.  They want vengeance. –Peter Ustinov, Quo Vadis

People who are very beautiful make their own laws. -Vivien Leigh, The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone

A gladiator is like a stallion.  You’ll be pampered.  You’ll be oiled, bathed, shaved, massaged, taught to use your head.  A good body with a dull brain is as cheap as life itself. -Peter Ustinov, Spartacus