Re: Famous Quotations
 

"Faith in oneself is the best and safest course."

Michelangelo

Re: Famous Quotations
 

"Virtue is more to man than either water or fire. I have seen men die from treading on water and fire, but I have never seen a man die from treading the course of virtue."

Confucius

Re: Famous Quotations
 

Putting moral virtues at the highest, and religion at the lowest, religion must still be allowed to be a collateral security, at least, to virtue; and every prudent man will sooner trust to two securities than to one.

Lord Chesterfield

Re: Famous Quotations
 

"It is a profitable thing, if one is wise, to seem foolish."

Aeschylus

Re: Famous Quotations
 

The fact that an opinion has been widely held is no evidence whatever that it is not utterly absurd; indeed in view of the silliness of the majority of mankind, a widespread belief is more likely to be foolish than sensible.

Bertrand Russell

Re: Famous Quotations
 

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

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Re: Famous Quotations
 

Three o'clock is always too late or too early for anything you want to do.

Jean-Paul Sartre

Re: Famous Quotations
 

"People sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf."

George Orwell

Re: Famous Quotations
 

At least two-thirds of our miseries spring from human stupidity, human malice and those great motivators and justifiers of malice and stupidity: idealism, dogmatism and proselytizing zeal on behalf of religous or political ideas.

Aldous Huxley
English critic & novelist (1894 - 1963)

Re: Famous Quotations
 

"When ideas fail, words come in very handy."

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Re: Famous Quotations
 

The most annoying trait of Right-Wing Outlaws in general is a lazy incuriosity about the real world. They know their lines, they're sure who the good guys and the bad guys are. Therefore they view the passing world as a kind of animated "Bartlett's Quotations" - that is, as handy source material with which to illustrate, rather than challenge, preconceived views.

James Fallows

Re: Famous Quotations
 

Take short views, hope for the best, and trust in God.

Sydney Smith

Re: Famous Quotations
 

If only God would give me some clear sign! Like making a large deposit in my name in a Swiss bank.

Woody Allen
US movie actor, comedian, & director (1935 - )

Re: Famous Quotations
 

"Physically, I couldn't fold myself into a gray, invisible bank clerk. I just thought, It's the most amazing part. It's a pity that I'm wrong for it."

Terence Stamp

Re: Famous Quotations
 

"Even he, to whom most things that most people would think were pretty smart were pretty dumb, thought it was pretty smart."

Douglas Adams

Re: Famous Quotations
 

"Those who are too smart to engage in politics are punished by being governed by those who are dumber."

Plato

Re: Famous Quotations
 

I wrote myself a check for ten million dollars for acting services rendered and dated it Thanksgiving 1995. I put it in my wallet and it deteriorated. And then, just before Thanksgiving 1995, I found out I was going to make ten million dollars for Dumb & Dumber. I put that check in the casket with my father because it was our dream together.

Jim Carrey, Oprah Winfrey Show, 1997

Re: Famous Quotations
 

You shall be together when the white wings of death scatter your days.
Ay, you shall be together even in the silent memory of God.
But let there be spaces in your togetherness,
And let the winds of the heavens dance between you.

Kahlil Gibran

Re: Famous Quotations
 

Last night somebody broke into my apartment and replaced everything with exact duplicates... When I pointed it out to my roommate, he said, 'Do I know you?'

Steven Wright
US comedian and actor (1955 - )

Re: Famous Quotations
 

Hath not a Jew eyes? hath not a Jew hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions?...If you prick us, do we not bleed? if you tickle us, do we not laugh? if you poison us, do we not die? and if you wrong us, shall we not revenge?

William Shakespeare

Re: Famous Quotations
 

Man must evolve for all human conflict a method which rejects revenge, aggression and retaliation. The foundation of such a method is love.

Martin Luther King Jr.
US black civil rights leader & clergyman (1929 - 1968)

Re: Famous Quotations
 

"I love deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly by."

Douglas Adams

Re: Famous Quotations
 

Aristotle maintained that women have fewer teeth than men; although he was twice married, it never occurred to him to verify this statement by examining his wives' mouths.


Bertrand Russell, Impact of Science on Society (1952) ch. 1
British author, mathematician, & philosopher (1872 - 1970)

Re: Famous Quotations
 

"O God, that men should put an enemy in their mouths to steal away their brains!"

William Shakespeare - Othello

Re: Famous Quotations
 

"I have done some indiscreet things in my day, but this thing of playing myself for a prophet was the worst. Still, it had its ameliorations. A prophet doesn't have to have any brains. They are good to have, of course, for the ordinary exigencies of life, but they are no use in professional work. It is the restfulest vocation there is. When the spirit of prophecy comes upon you, you merely take your intellect and lay it off somewhere in a cool place for a rest, and unship your jaw and leave it alone; it will work itself. The result is prophecy."


Mark Twain

Re: Famous Quotations
 

"Prophecy: Two bull's eyes out of a possible million"

Mark Twain

Re: Famous Quotations
 

If the automobile had followed the same development cycle as the computer, a Rolls-Royce would today cost $100, get a million miles per gallon, and explode once a year, killing everyone inside.

Robert X. Cringely, InfoWorld magazine

Re: Famous Quotations
 

"Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend. Inside of a dog it's too dark to read."


Groucho Marx

Re: Famous Quotations
 

"It is a good thing for an uneducated man to read books of quotations."

Sir Winston Churchill

Re: Famous Quotations
 

"I hate quotations. Tell me what you know."

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Re: Famous Quotations
 

He is one of those orators of whom it was well said, 'Before they get up, they do not know what they are going to say; when they are speaking, they do not know what they are saying; and when they have sat down, they do not know what they have said.'

Winston Churchill

Re: Famous Quotations
 

"We are here and it is now. Further than that all human knowledge is moonshine."

H. L. Mencken

Re: Famous Quotations
 

"Out went the taper as she hurried in;
Its little smoke, in pallid moonshine, died."

John Keats

Re: Famous Quotations
 

"I bought a cactus. A week later it died. And I got depressed, because I thought, Damn. I am less nurturing than a desert."

Demetri Martin

Re: Famous Quotations
 

"He who neglects to drink from the spring of experience is likely to die of thirst in the desert of ignorance."

Ling Po

Re: Famous Quotations
 

"Ignorance is the night of the mind, but a night without moon and star."


Confucius

Re: Famous Quotations
 

"Returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars... Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that."

Martin Luther King Jr.

Re: Famous Quotations
 

"I think that God in creating Man somewhat overestimated his ability."

Oscar Wilde

Re: Famous Quotations
 

"Human beings, who are almost unique in having the ability to learn from the experience of others, are also remarkable for their apparent disinclination to do so."

Douglas Adams

Re: Famous Quotations
 

"It is a very sad thing that nowadays there is so little useless information."


Oscar Wilde

Re: Famous Quotations
 

"You are providing for your disciples a show of wisdom without the reality. For, acquiring by your means much information unaided by instruction, they will appear to possess much knowledge, while, in fact, they will, for the most part, know nothing at all; and, moreover, be disagreeable people to deal with, as having become wise in their own conceit, instead of truly wise."

Socrates