Joe's Collection of Quotes I
This is my first collection of quotations, gathered mainly from MSN, RocketMail, and several note-worthy encounters in my travels. I am currently compiling a second collection of quotes
The last thing on my mind ... was anything.
AnonymousOur greatest glory is not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall.
ConfuciusOut of the quarrel with others we make rhetoric; out of the quarrel with ourselves we make poetry.
W. B. YeatsIf you love what you do, you'll never work another day in your life.
AnonymousLove looks not with the eyes, but with the mind; And therefore is wing'd Cupid painted blind.
William ShakespeareI never travel without my diary. One should always have something sensational to read in the train.
Oscar WildeMusic expresses that which cannot be said and on which it is impossible to be silent.
AnonymousYour mind is like a parachute -- it works best when it's open.
AnonymousThose who deny freedom to others, deserve it not for themselves.
Abraham LincolnI disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.
VoltaireConfidence is a plant of slow growth in an aged bosom.
William Pitt the ElderI am not an Athenian or a Greek, but a citizen of the world.
SocratesAll great truths begin as blasphemies.
George Bernard ShawVariety's the very spice of life That gives it all its flavour.
William CowperIt is one of the most beautiful compensations of life, that no man can sincerely try to help another without helping himself.
EmersonMan can learn nothing except by going from the known to the unknown.
Claude BernardProgress, far from consisting in change, depends on retentiveness. Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.
George SantayanaI tore myself away from the safe comfort of certainties through my love for truth; and truth rewarded me.
Simone de BeauvoirWe have, in fact, two kinds of morality side by side; one which we preach but do not practise, and another which we practise but seldom preach.
Bertrand RussellMutually consenting classes may of course do whatever they like with each other, but even that doesn't necessarily make it right.
Programming Perl, 2nd ed.There is nothing like desire for preventing the thing one says from bearing any resemblance to what one has in mind.
Marcel ProustOur knowledge can only be finite, while our ignorance must necessarily be infinite.
Karl PopperTis with our judgments as our watches, none go just alike, yet each believes his own.
Alexander PopeLife's too short for worrying. Yes, that's what worries me.
AnonymousMusic is your own experience, your thoughts, your wisdom. If you don't live it, it won't come out of your horn.
Charlie ParkerDoublethink means the power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one's mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them.
George OrwellAll religions are founded on the fear of the many and the cleverness of the few.
StendhalTempt not the stars, young man, thou canst not play With the severity of fate.
John FordDo not stand in a place of danger trusting in miracles.
AnonymousThe most participatory form of mass speech yet developed ... a never-ending worldwide conversation.
AnonymousTrees are poems that the earth writes upon the sky. We fell them down and turn them into paper that we may record our emptiness.
Kahlil GibranWhile not exactly disgruntled, he was far from feeling gruntled.
P. G. WodehouseOh, what a tangled web do parents weave, When they think that their children are naive.
Ogden NashThose who do not read are no better off than those who can not.
Chinese ProverbBy working faithfully eight hours a day you may eventually get to be a boss and work twelve hours a day.
Robert FrostThere is dignity in work only when it is work freely accepted.
Albert CamusMan does not live by words alone, despite the fact that sometimes he has to eat them.
Adlai StevensonOur scientific power has outrun our spiritual power. We have guided missiles and misguided men.
Martin Luther King, Jr.The heart has its reasons which reason does not know.
Blaise PascalLove is like quicksilver in the hand. Leave the fingers open and it stays. Clutch it, and it darts away.
Dorothy ParkerI have but ninepence in ready money, but I can draw for a thousand pounds.
Joseph AddisonEconomics is a subject that does not greatly respect one's wishes.
Nikita KhrushchevIf silence be good for the wise, how much better for fools.
AnonymousIn high school and college my sister Mary was very popular with the boys, but I had braces on my teeth and got high marks.
Betty MacDonaldIn skating over thin ice, our safety is in our speed.
Ralph Waldo EmersonAxioms in philosophy are not axioms until they are proved upon our pulses; we read fine things but never feel them to the full until we have gone the same steps as the author.
John KeatsWhen power narrows the areas of man's concern, poetry reminds him of the richness and diversity of his existence.
John Fitzgerald KennedyThe critical period in matrimony is breakfast-time.
A. P. HerbertLife is mostly froth and bubble; Two things stand like stone, Kindness in another's trouble, Courage in your own.
Adam Lindsay GordonWhat we want is a story that starts with an earthquake and works its way up to a climax.
Samuel GoldwynTwo roads diverged in a wood, and I - I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference.
Robert FrostTime was away and somewhere else, There were two glasses and two chairs And two people with one pulse.
Louis MacNeiceMy center is giving way, my right is retreating; situation excellent. I shall attack.
Marshal Ferdinand FochUntil we learn the use of living words we shall continue to be waxworks inhabited by gramophones.
Walter De La MareWhen you meet someone better than yourself, turn your thoughts to becoming his equal. When you meet someone not as good as you are, look within and examine your own self.
ConfuciusI do not know whether I was then a man dreaming I was a butterfly, or whether I am now a butterfly dreaming I am a man.
ZhuangziThe weak have one weapon: the errors of those who think they are strong.
Georges BidaultFuture: That period of time in which our affairs prosper, our friends are true and our happiness is assured.
Ambrose BierceWhere shall I begin, please your Majesty? he asked. Begin at the beginning the King said, gravely, and go on till you come to the end: then stop.
Lewis CarrollHe who would do good to another must do it in Minute Particulars. General Good is the plea of the scoundrel, hypocrite, and flatterer.
William BlakeSince wars begin in the minds of men, it is in the minds of men that the defenses of peace must be constructed.
AnonymousFloat like a butterfly, sting like a bee
Muhammad AliThe surest way to ruin a man who doesn't know how to handle money is to give him some.
George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950), Anglo-Irish playwright, critic. Boss Mangan, in Heartbreak House, act 2.Get your facts first, and then you can distort them as much as you please.
Mark Twain (1835-1910), U.S. author. Quoted in: Rudyard Kipling, From Sea to Sea, Letter 37 (1899).It is not the oath that makes us believe the man, but the man the oath.
Aeschylus (525-456 B.C.), Greek dramatist. Fragments, no. 385.Every journey into the past is complicated by delusions, false memories, false namings of real events.
Adrienne Rich (b. 1929), U.S. poet. Of Woman Born, Foreword (1976).He's a wonderful talker, who has the art of telling you nothing in a great harangue.
Molière (1622-73), French dramatist. Célimène, in Le Misanthrope, act 2 sc. 5.You can tell the ideals of a nation by its advertisements.
Norman Douglas (1868-1952), British author. South Wind, ch. 7 (1917).She is such a good friend that she would throw all her acquaintances into the water for the pleasure of fishing them out again.
Charles Talleyrand, Count (1754-1838), French statesman. Quoted in: A. Duff Cooper, Talleyrand, ch. 3 (1932), speaking to Napoleon of Madame de Staël.Nothing so dates a man as to decry the younger generation.
Adlai Stevenson (1900-1965), U.S. Democratic politician. Speech, 8 Oct. 1952, University of Wisconsin.True creativity often starts where language ends.
Arthur Koestler (1905-83), Hungarian-born British novelist, essayist. The Act of Creation, bk. 1, pt. 2, ch. 7 (1964).You have not converted a man because you have silenced him.
John Morley, Lord (1838-1923), English writer, Liberal politician. On Compromise, ch. 5 (1874).Wit lies in recognising the resemblance among things which differ and the difference between things which are alike.
Madame de Staël (1766-1817), Swiss-French writer, wit. Germany, pt. 3, ch. 8 (1813).I know not anything more pleasant, or more instructive, than to compare experience with expectation, or to register from time to time the difference between idea and reality. It is by this kind of observation that we grow daily less liable to be disappointed.
Samuel Johnson (1709-84), English author, lexicographer. Letter, 27 June 1758 (published in James Boswell, Life of Samuel Johnson, 1791).We know what happens to people who stay in the middle of the road. They get run over.
Aneurin Bevan (1897-1960), British Labour politician. Quoted in: Observer (London, 9 Dec. 1935).Everyone realizes that one can believe little of what people say about each other. But it is not so widely realized that even less can one trust what people say about themselves.
Rebecca West (1892-1983), British author. Quoted in: Sunday Telegraph (London, 1975), as epigraph to Victoria Glendinning, Rebecca West: A Life (1987).He uses statistics as a drunken man uses lamp-posts -- for support rather than illumination.
Andrew Lang (1844-1912), Scottish author. Quoted in: Alan L. Mackay, The Harvest of a Quiet Eye (1977).To make a good salad is to be a brilliant diplomatist - the problem is entirely the same in both cases. To know exactly how much oil one must put with one's vinegar.
Oscar Wilde (1854-1900), Anglo-Irish playwright, author. Prince Paul, in Vera, or The Nihilists, (1880).The difficult part in an argument is not to defend one's opinion, but rather to know it.
André Maurois (1885-1967), French author, critic. Quoted in: Frederic B. Wilcox, A Little Book of Aphorisms (1947).The law, in its majestic equality, forbids rich and poor alike to sleep under bridges, beg in the streets or steal bread.
Anatole France (1844-1924), French author. The Red Lily, ch. 7 (1894).It still holds true that man is most uniquely human when he turns obstacles into opportunities.
Eric Hoffer (1902-83), U.S. philosopher. Reflections on the Human Condition, aph. 27 (1973).Every writer hopes or boldly assumes that his life is in some sense exemplary, that the particular will turn out to be universal.
Martin Amis (b. 1949), British novelist. Observer (London, 30 Aug. 1987).The man who insists upon seeing with perfect clearness before he decides, never decides. Accept life, and you must accept regret.
Henri-Frédéric Amiel (1821-81), Swiss philosopher, poet. Journal Intime (1882; tr. by Mrs. Humphry Ward, 1892), entry for 17 Dec. 1856.Absurdity. A statement or belief manifestly inconsistent with one's own opinion.
Ambrose Bierce (1842-1914), U.S. author. The Devil's Dictionary (1881-1906).Hollywood is a place where people from Iowa mistake each other for stars.
Fred Allen (1894-1957), U.S. radio comic. Quoted in: Maurice Zolotow, No People Like Show People, ch. 8 (1951).Never play cards with a man called Doc. Never eat at a place called Mom's. Never sleep with a woman whose troubles are worse than your own.
Nelson Algren (1909-81), U.S. author. Quoted in: Newsweek New York, 2 July 1956).It is the supreme art of the teacher to awaken joy in creative expression and knowledge.
Albert Einstein (1879-1955), German-born U.S. physicist. Motto for the astronomy building of Junior College, Pasadena, California.Histories are more full of examples of the fidelity of dogs than of friends.
Alexander Pope (1688-1744), English satirical poet. Letter, 9 Oct. 1709.The finest works of art are precious, among other reasons, because they make it possible for us to know, if only imperfectly and for a little while, what it actually feels like to think subtly and feel nobly.
Aldous Huxley (1894-1963), British author. Ends and Means, ch. 12 (1937).When you are courting a nice girl an hour seems like a second. When you sit on a red-hot cinder a second seems like an hour. That's relativity.
Albert Einstein (1879-1955), German-American theoretical physicist. Quoted in: News Chronicle (14 March 1949).This is what music's all about -- moving shit.
Dan Graham (quoted while packing up sound board, amps and wires after playing in a church musical, ~1992-1993).