Quotes R - Z (4/4)
I have been staying in Moscow for only 24 hours,
but already I feel almost at home.
- Hashemi Rafsanjani, in "New York Times", 22 June 1989
Courage is being afraid but going on anyhow.
- Dan Rather
A nuclear power plant is infinitely safer than eating,
because 300 people choke to death on food every year.
- Dixy Lee Ray, 1977, in "Loose Talk"
A woman is like a teabag - you can't tell how strong she is
until you put her in hot water.
- Nancy Reagan
115,000 acres of trees in the state park system is a lot to look at.
How long can you look?
- Ronald Reagan, in "Sacramento Bee", 28 March 1966
A tree's a tree. How many more do you need to look at?
- Ronald Reagan, in "Sacramento Bee", 12 March 1966
Abortion is advocated only by persons who have themselves been born.
- Ronald Reagan
All the wastes in a year from a nuclear power plant
can be stored under a desk.
- Ronald Reagan, in "Burlington Free Press", 15 February 1980
Approximately 80% of our air pollution stems from hydrocarbons released
by vegetation. So let's not go overboard in setting and enforcing tough
emissions standards for man-made sources.
- Ronald Reagan, in "Sierra", 10 September 1980
Because Vietnam was not a declared war, the veterans are not even eligible
for the G.I. Bill of Rights with respect to education or anything.
- Ronald Reagan, in "Newsweek", 21 April 1980
Draft registration destroys the very values that
our society is committed to defending.
- Ronald Reagan, May 5, 1980
Facts are stupid things.
- Ronald Reagan, 1988 Republican Convention
Fascism's private ownership, private enterprise, but total government
control and regulation. Well, isn't this the liberal philosophy?
- Ronald Reagan, in "Newsweek", 12 January 1976
Fascism was really the basis for the New Deal. It was Mussolini's success
in Italy, with his government-directed economy, that led the early New
Dealers to say 'But Mussolini keeps the trains running on time'.
- Ronald Reagan, in "Time", 17 May 1976
Government is like a baby. An alimentary canal with a big appetite
at one end and no sense of responsibility at the other.
- Ronald Reagan, in "Saturday Evening Post", 1965
Growing and decaying vegetation in this land are responsible
for 93 percent of the oxides of nitrogen.
- Ronald Reagan, in "LA Times", 9 October 1980
History shows that when the taxes of a nation approach about 20% of the
people's income, there begins to be a lack of respect for government....
When it reaches 25%, there comes an increase in lawlessness.
- Ronald Reagan, in "Time", 14 April 1980
I'm a fellow who bleeds every time a tree is cut down.
- Ronald Reagan, in "Sacramento Bee", 28 March 1966
I don't believe a tree is a tree and
if you've seen one you've seen them all.
- Ronald Reagan, in "Sacramento Bee", 28 March 1966
I favor the Civil Rights Act of 1964
and it must be enforced at gunpoint if necessary.
- Ronald Reagan, 20 October 1965
I have just signed legislation that will outlaw Russia forever;
we begin bombing in 5 minutes.
- Ronald Reagan, weekly radio address, 11 August 1984
I just didn't say it.
- Ronald Reagan, 5 October 1966
I would have voted against the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
- Ronald Reagan, 1968
If you've seen one redwood, you've seen them all.
- Ronald Reagan
Politics is just like show business. You have a hell of an opening,
coast for a while, and then have a hell of a close.
- Ronald Reagan, 1966
Politics is not a bad profession. If you succeed there are many rewards,
if you disgrace yourself you can always write a book.
- Ronald Reagan
The truth is, all of the nuclear waste now on hand and yet
to be accumulated between now and the year 2000, could be stacked
on a single football field and the stack would only be six feet high.
- Ronald Reagan, radio interview, 1978
The waste from one nuclear power plant in a year would take
less storage space than a dining room table.
- Ronald Reagan, radio interview, 1979
Trees cause more pollution than automobiles do.
- Ronald Reagan, 1981
Unemployment insurance is a pre-paid vacation for freeloaders.
- Ronald Reagan, in "Sacramento Bee", 28 April 1966
We should declare war on North Vietnam... We could pave the whole country
and put parking strips on it, and be home by Christmas.
- Ronald Reagan, quote in "Fresno Bee", 10 October 1965
We think there is a parallel between federal involvement in education
and the decline in profit over recent years.
- Ronald Reagan, 1983
Well, I learned a lot... I went down [to Latin America] to find out
from them and [learn] their views. You'd be surprised.
They're all individual countries.
- Ronald Reagan, in "Washington Post", 6 December 1982
Why should we subsidize intellectual curiosity?
- Ronald Reagan
They made us many promises, more than I can remember,
but they never kept but one; they promised to take our land,
and they took it.
- Red Cloud
The scientists split the atom; now the atom is splitting us.
- Quentin Reynolds, in "Quote & Unquote", 1970
What makes old age so sad is not that our joys but our hopes cease.
- Jean Paul Richter
The streets are safe in Philadelphia,
it's only the people who make them unsafe.
- Frank Rizzo
We need excellence in public education and if the teachers can't do it,
we'll send in a couple of policemen.
- Frank Rizzo, in "Philadelphia Bulletin", October 19, 1973
If little else, the brain is an educational toy.
- Tom Robbins
[Feminism is] a socialist, anti-family, political movement that
encourages women to leave their husbands, kill their children,
practice witchcraft, destroy capitalism and become lesbians.
- Pat Robertson, addressing 1992 Republican National Convention
One of the weaknesses of our age is our apparent inability
to distinguish our needs from our greeds.
- Don Robinson, in "Reader's Digest", 1963
If it takes a lot of words to say what you have in mind,
give it more thought.
- Dennis Roch
Conceit causes more conversation than wit.
- Franois, Duc de La Rochefoucauld
Good advice is something a man gives
when he is too old to set a bad example.
- Franois, Duc de La Rochefoucauld
It's easier to be wise for others than for ourselves.
- Franois, Duc de La Rochefoucauld
Mediocre minds usually dismiss anything which reaches
beyond their own understanding.
- Franois, Duc de La Rochefoucauld, "Maxims" 1665
Old people like to give good advice,
as solace for no longer being able to provide bad examples.
- Franois, Duc de La Rochefoucauld, "Maxims" 1665
Repentance is not so much remorse for what we have done
as the fear of the consequences.
- Franois, Duc de La Rochefoucauld, "Maxims" 1665
The reason that lovers never weary each other
is because they are always talking about themselves.
- Franois, Duc de La Rochefoucauld, "Maxims" 1665
There are very few people who are not ashamed of having been in love
when they no longer love each other.
- Franois, Duc de La Rochefoucald
We always love those who admire us,
but we do not always love those whom we admire.
- Franois, Duc de La Rochefoucauld
We promise according to our hopes and perform according to our fears.
- Franois, Duc de La Rochefoucauld
Wit sometimes enables us to act rudely with impunity.
- Franois, Duc de La Rochefoucauld
Diplomats are just as essential to starting a war as soldiers are
for finishing it.... You take diplomacy out of war, and the thing
would fall flat in a week.
- Will Rogers
Even if you're on the right track, you'll get run over if you just sit there.
- Will Rogers
Everybody is ignorant, only on different subjects.
- Will Rogers
Half our life is spent trying to find something to do with the time
we have rushed through life trying to save.
- Will Rogers
There is nothing as stupid as an educated man
if you get him off the thing he was educated in.
- Will Rogers
There's no trick to being a humorist when you have
the whole government working for you.
- Will Rogers
This country has come to feel the same when Congress is in session
as when the baby gets hold of a hammer.
- Will Rogers
We can't all be heroes because someone has to sit on the curb
and clap as they go by.
- Will Rogers
Everything is funny as long as it is happening to someone else.
- Will Rogers, "The Illiterate Digest", 1924
I never met a man I didn't like.
- Will Rogers, speech, June 1930
Half our life is spent trying to find something to do
with the time we have rushed through life trying to save.
- Will Rogers, "The Autobiography of Will Rogers", 1949
The world is an enormous injustice.
- Jules Romains
Computers make it easier to do a lot of things, but most of the things
they make it easier to do don't need to be done.
- Andy Rooney
We've sent a man to the moon, and that's 29,000 miles away. The center
of the Earth is only 4,000 miles away. You could drive that in a week,
but for some reason nobody's ever done it.
- Andy Rooney
No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.
- Eleanor Roosevelt, "This is My Story", 1937
The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those
who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little.
- Franklin D. Roosevelt
It is common sense to take a method and try it.
If it fails, admit it frankly and try another.
But above all, try something.
- Franklin D. Roosevelt, Speech, 22 May 1932
The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.
- Franklin D. Roosevelt, 1st Inaugural Address, 1933
Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.
- Theodore Roosevelt
First you forget names, then you forget faces,
then you forget to pull your zipper up,
then you forget to pull your zipper down.
- Leo Rosenberg
A technique is a trick that works.
- Gian-Carlo Rota
It's not whether you win or lose, it's how good you look playing!
- David Lee Roth
One half of the children born die before their eighth year.
This is nature's law; why try to contradict it?
- Jean Jacques Rousseau, "mile, ou de l'education", 1762
People who know little are usually great talkers,
while men who know much say little.
- Jean Jacques Rousseau, "mile, ou de l'education", 1762
Never trust anyone over thirty.
- Jerry Rubin, 1966
The race is not always to the swift, nor the battle to the strong -
but thats the way to bet.
- Damon Runyon
The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always
so certain of themselves, but wiser people so full of doubts.
- Bertrand Russell
Men fear thought as they fear nothing else on earth -
more than ruin, more even than death.
- Bertrand Russell, "Selected Papers"
You can outdistance that which is running after you,
but not what is running inside you.
- Rwandan proverb
A dress makes no sense unless it inspires men to want to take it off you.
- Franoise Sagan
A rock pile ceases to be a rock pile the moment a single man
contemplates it, bearing within him the image of a cathedral.
- Antoine de Saint-Exupery
A little inaccuracy sometimes saves tons of explanation.
- Saki, "The Square Egg", 1924
Women and elephants never forget an injury.
- Saki, "Reginald", 1904
Neither soldiers nor money can defend a king
but only friends won by good deeds, merit, and honesty.
- Sallust, "De bello Iugurthino"
In these times you have to be an optimist to open your eyes
when you awake in the morning.
- Carl Sandburg, in "New York Post", 1960
Slang is a language that rolls up its sleeves,
spits on its hands and goes to work.
- Carl Sandburg, in "New York Times", 1959
A child educated only at school is an uneducated child.
- George Santayana
A man's feet should be planted in his country,
but his eyes should survey the world.
- George Santayana
Progress, far from consisting in change, depends on retentiveness...
Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.
- George Santayana, "Life of Reason"
Skepticism, like chastity should not be relinquished too readily.
- George Santayana
I think it's about time we voted for senators with breasts.
After all, we've been voting for boobs long enough.
- Claire Sargent, Arizona senatorial candidate
When the rich make war it's the poor that die.
- Jean-Paul Sartre, "Le Diable et le bon Dieu", 1951
Tolerance means excusing the mistakes others make.
Tact means not noticing them.
- Arthur Schnitzler
Every man takes the limits of his own field of vision
for the limits of the world.
- Arthur Schopenhauer, "Studies in Pessimism"
There is no problem so big it cannot be run away from.
- Charles M. Schulz, "Peanuts"
There's a difference between a philosophy and a bumper sticker.
- Charles M. Schulz
The true worth of a man is not to be found in man himself,
but in the colours and textures that come alive in others.
- Albert Schweitzer
Comment is free, but facts are sacred.
- C. P. Scott, c.1900
They couldn't hit an elephant at this dist---
- General John B. Sedgwick, last words, 1864
They that govern the most make the least noise.
- John Seldon, 1689
People will swim through shit if you put a few bob in it.
- Peter Sellers
Every reign must submit to a greater reign.
- Seneca, "Thyestes"
It is better, of course, to know useless things than to know nothing.
- Seneca, "Epistles"
Sometimes even to live is an act of courage.
- Seneca
There is no great genius without some touch of madness.
- Seneca, "On Tranquility of the Mind"
It is difficult to produce a television documentary that is both
incisive and probing when every twelve minutes one is interrupted
by twelve dancing rabbits singing about toilet paper.
- Rod Serling
Singing makes all the sad people happy because it is the voice of happiness.
- Joseph Shabalala
Insisting on perfect safety is for people who don't have
the balls to live in the real world.
- Mary Shafer
Brevity is the soul of wit.
- Shakespeare
O God, that men should put an enemy in their mouths
to steal away their brains!
- Shakespeare, "Othello"
The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars,
But in ourselves, that we are underlings.
- Shakespeare, "Julius Caesar"
A government that robs Peter to pay Paul
can always depend upon the support of Paul.
- George Bernard Shaw
Any man who is not a communist at the age of twenty is a fool.
Any man who is still a communist at the age of thirty is an even bigger fool.
- George Bernard Shaw
Assassination is the extreme form of censorship.
- George Bernard Shaw, "The Rejected Statement"
Democracy is a form of government that substitutes election
by the incompetent many for appointment by the corrupt few.
- George Bernard Shaw
Every person who has mastered a profession is a skeptic concerning it.
- George Bernard Shaw
He's a man of great common sense and good taste - meaning thereby
a man without originality or moral courage.
- George Bernard Shaw.
He who can, does. He who cannot, teaches.
- George Bernard Shaw, "Man and Superman", 1903
I learned long ago, never to wrestle with a pig.
You get dirty, and besides, the pig likes it.
- George Bernard Shaw
I often quote myself. It adds spice to my conversation.
- George Bernard Shaw
If all economists were laid end to end, they would not reach a conclusion.
- George Bernard Shaw
It is dangerous to be sincere unless you are also stupid.
- George Bernard Shaw
It is most unwise for people in love to marry.
- George Bernard Shaw
Lack of money is the root of all evil.
- George Bernard Shaw, "Man and Superman", 1903
Martyrdom is the only way a person can become famous without ability.
- George Bernard Shaw
Men have to do some awfully mean things to keep up their respectability.
- George Bernard Shaw
Patriotism is your conviction that this country is superior
to all others because you were born in it.
- George Bernard Shaw
Peace is not only better than war, but infinitely more arduous.
- George Bernard Shaw
Reading made Don Quixote a gentleman, but believing what he read made him mad.
- George Bernard Shaw
She had lost the art of conversation,
but not, unfortunately, the power of speech.
- George Bernard Shaw
There is no satisfaction in hanging a man who does not object to it
- George Bernard Shaw
You see things; and you say, "Why?"
But I dream things that never were; and I say, "Why not?"
- George Bernhard Shaw, "Back to Methuselah"
Virtue is insufficient temptation.
- George Bernard Shaw.
We've already established what you are, ma'am.
Now we're just haggling over the price.
- George Bernard Shaw
Liars ought to have good memories.
- Algernon Sidney
What money does is give you the opportunity not to worry about money.
- Gene Simmons
Prayer is the last refuge of the scoundrel.
- Lisa Simpson, "The Simpsons"
Even rats learn from experience.
- George Skarbek
Education is what survives when what has been learned has been forgotten.
- B. F. Skinner
Woman's virtue is man's greatest invention.
- Cornelia Otis Skinner
It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker,
that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own self-interest.
- Adam Smith
Love is but the discovery of ourselves in others,
and the delight in the recognition.
- Alexander Smith
All reformers, however strict their social conscience,
live in houses just as big as they can pay for.
- Logan Pearsall Smith
The ability to accept responsibility is the measure of the man.
- Roy L. Smith
Yesterday I was a dog. Today I'm a dog.
Tomorrow I'll probably still be a dog.
Sigh! There's so little hope for advancement.
- Snoopy
I am not an Athenian or a Greek, but a citizen of the world.
- Socrates
I know nothing except the fact of my ignorance.
- Socrates
Once made equal to man, woman becomes his superior.
- Socrates
The only good is knowledge and the only evil is ignorance.
- Socrates
If God had meant there to be more than 2 factors of production,
He would have made it easier for us to draw three-dimensional diagrams.
- Robert Solow
Anxiety is a thin stream of fear trickling through the mind.
If encouraged, it cuts a channel into which all other thoughts are drained.
- Arthur Somers Roche
Interpretation is the revenge of the intellect upon art.
- Susan Sontag
A short saying contains much wisdom.
- Sophocles
From a fallen tree, all make kindling.
- Spanish proverb
Care of the poor is incumbent on society as a whole.
- Spinoza, 1677
If you want a thing well done, do it yourself.
- Charles Haddon Spurgeon
A single death is a tragedy, a million deaths is a statistic.
- Joseph Stalin
Gaiety is the most outstanding feature of the Soviet Union.
- Joseph Stalin, 1935
Print is the sharpest and the strongest weapon of our party.
- Joseph Stalin, Speech, 19 April 1923
The writer is the engineer of the human soul.
- Joseph Stalin
Must the hunger become anger and the anger fury before anything will be done?
- John Steinbeck
Time is the only critic without ambition.
- John Steinbeck, "Writers at Work', 1977
A woman without a man is like a fish without a bicycle.
- Gloria Steinem
There are really not many jobs that actually require a penis or a
vagina, and all other occupations should be open to everyone.
- Gloria Steinem
Anxiety is fear of one's self.
- Wilhelm Stekel
A hungry man is not a free man.
- Adlai Stevenson
In America, any boy may become president and I suppose
that's just one of the risks he takes.
- Adlai Stevenson
Man does not live by words alone, despite the fact
that sometimes he has to eat them.
- Adlai Stevenson
The time to stop a revolution is at the beginning, not the end.
- Adlai Stevenson, 9 September 1952
The cruelest lies are often told in silence.
- Robert Louis Stevenson, "Virginibus Puerisque", 1881
History will teach us nothing.
- Sting (Gordon Summer)
Success always necessitates a degree of ruthlessness.
Given the choice of friendship or success, I'd probably choose success.
- Sting (Gordon Summer), 1980
If God, as some now say, is dead, He no doubt died of trying
to find an equitable solution to the Arab-Jewish problem.
- I. F. Stone, 1967
I think age is a very high price to pay for maturity.
- Tom Stoppard
It is better to be quotable than to be honest.
- Tom Stoppard
The bitterest tears shed over graves are for words left
unsaid and for deeds left undone.
- Harriet Beecher Stowe
Lesser artists borrow, great artists steal.
- Igor Stravinsky
Ninety per cent of everything is crap.
- Theodore Sturgeon
Famous remarks are very seldom quoted correctly.
- Simeon Strunsky
There is nothing in this world constant but inconstancy.
- Swift
Discovery consists in seeing what everyone else has seen and
thinking what no one else has thought.
- Albert Szent-Gyorgi
And you may ask yourself "Am I right? ... Am I wrong?"
And you may say to yourself "MY GOD! ... WHAT HAVE I DONE?"
- The Talking Heads
The burden is equal to the horses strength.
- The Talmud
Think of three things and you will not sin:
whence you came, where you are going and to whom you must account.
- The Talmud
The nice thing about standards is that there are
so many of them to choose from.
- Andrew S. Tanenbaum
A bore is a man who, when you ask him how he is, will tell you.
- Bert Taylor, "The So-Called Human Race", 1922
'Tis better to have loved and lost
Than never to have loved at all.
- Alfred Lord Tennyson, "In Memoriam, xxvii"
Theirs not to make reply,
Theirs not to reason why,
Theirs but to do and die
- Alfred Lord Tennyson, "The Charge of the Light Brigade"
The hunger for love is much more difficult
to remove than the hunger for bread.
- Mother Teresa, in "Time", 4 December 1989
El infierno es el lugar donde no se ama.
(Hell is the place where love is not found.)
- Santa Teresa
I do not fear Satan half so much as I fear those who fear him.
- Santa Teresa de Avila
If you want anything said, ask a man.
If you want anything done, ask a woman.
- Margaret Thatcher
You don't tell deliberate lies, but sometimes you have to be evasive.
- Margaret Thatcher, 1976
I wouldn't recommend sex, drugs or insanity for everyone,
but they've always worked for me.
- Hunter S. Thompson
As if you could kill time without injuring eternity.
- Henry David Thoreau, "Walden", 1854
If a man does not keep pace with his companions,
perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer.
- Henry David Thoreau, "Walden", 1854
It takes two to speak the truth - one to speak and the other to hear.
- Henry David Thoreau
That government is best which governs least.
- Henry David Thoreau, "Civil Disobedience" 1849
The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation.
- Henry David Thoreau, "Walden", 1854
The savage in man is never quite eradicated.
- Henry David Thoreau, "Journal", 26 September 1859
Under a government which imprisons any unjustly,
the true place for a just man is also a prison.
- Henry David Thoreau
I think that maybe if women and children
were in charge we would get somewhere.
- James Thurber
It is better to know some of the questions than all of the answers.
- James Thurber
You can fool too many of the people too much of the time.
- James Thurber, "The Thurber Carnival", 1945
Truly great madness can not be achieved without significant intelligence.
- Henrik Tikkanen
The Law of Raspberry Jam - The wider any culture is spread,
the thinner it gets.
- Alvin Toffler, "The Culture Consumers", 1964
The trouble with the rat-race is that even if you win, you're still a rat.
- Lily Tomlin
Civilization is a movement, not a condition; it is a voyage, not a harbor.
- Toynbee
The function of genius is not to give new answers,
but to pose new questions - which time and mediocrity can solve.
- Hugh Trevor-Roper, "Men and Events"
The dictatorship of the Communist Party is maintained
by recourse to every form of violence.
- Leon Trotsky, "Terrorism and Communism", 1924
In Palm Springs, they think homelessness is caused by bad divorce lawyers.
- Gary Trudeau, "Doonesbury"
A President cannot always be popular.
- Harry S. Truman, "Memoirs, Vol. II", 1955
If you can't convince them, confuse them.
- Harry S. Truman
If you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen.
- Harry S. Truman
It's a recession when your neighbor loses his job;
it's a depression when you lose yours.
- Harry S. Truman, 1958
It is amazing what you can accomplish if you do not care who gets the credit.
- Harry S. Truman
Most of the problems a President has to face have their roots in the past.
- Harry S. Truman, "Memoirs, Vol. II", 1955
Whenever you have an efficient government you have a dictatorship.
- Harry S. Truman, 1959
A little more moderation would be good. Of course,
my life hasn't exactly been one of moderation.
- Donald Trump, in "Time", 16 January 1989
I like thinking big. If you're going to be thinking
anything, you might as well think big.
- Donald Trump, in "Time", 16 January 1989
The journey of a thousand miles begins with one step.
- Lao Tsu
The more laws and order are made prominent,
the more thieves and robbers there will be.
- Lao Tsu
Words divide us, action unites us.
- Slogan of the Tupamaros
If I had any humility I would be perfect.
- Ted Turner
A classic is something that everybody wants to have read
and nobody wants to read.
- Mark Twain
Better a broken promise than none at all.
- Mark Twain
Cauliflower is nothing but cabbage with a college education.
- Mark Twain
Clothes make the man. Naked people have little or no influence on society.
- Mark Twain
Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear - not absence of fear.
- Mark Twain, "Pudd'nhead Wilson", 1894
God made the Idiot for practice, and then He made the School Board.
- Mark Twain
Grief can take care of itself, but to get the full value of a joy
you must have somebody to divide it with.
- Mark Twain, "Following the Equator", 1897
If Christ were here now there is one thing he would not be - a Christian.
- Mark Twain
If you have trouble sleeping, try lying on the end of your bed.
With a little luck you'll drop off.
- Mark Twain
If you pick up a starving dog and make him prosperous, he will not bite you.
This is the principal difference between a dog and a man.
- Mark Twain
It is better to take what does not belong to you than
to let it lie around neglected.
- Mark Twain
It usually takes more than three weeks to prepare a good impromptu speech.
- Mark Twain
Loyalty to petrified opinion never broke a chain or freed a human soul.
- Mark Twain
Man is the only animal that blushes -- or needs to.
- Mark Twain
Many a small thing has been made large by the right kind of advertising.
- Mark Twain
Noise proves nothing. Often a hen who has merely laid an egg
cackles as if she had laid an asteroid.
- Mark Twain
Patriot: the person who can holler the loudest
without knowing what he is hollering about.
- Mark Twain
The difference between the right word and a similar word is
the difference between lightning and a lightning bug.
- Mark Twain
The human race has one really effective weapon, and that is laughter.
- Mark Twain
The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated.
- Mark Twain
There are people who think that honesty is always the best policy.
This is a superstition; there are times when the appearance of it
is worth six of it.
- Mark Twain
There is no distinctly native American criminal class except Congress.
- Mark Twain
There is something fascinating about science. One gets such wholesale
returns of conjecture out of such a trifling investment of fact.
- Mark Twain
Thunder is good, thunder is impressive;
but it is lightning that does the work.
- Mark Twain, Correspondence, 1908
Truth is more of a stranger than fiction.
- Mark Twain
Truth is most valuable thing we have. Let us economize it.
- Mark Twain
We all live in the protection of certain cowardices
which we call our principles.
- Mark Twain
When I was a boy of fourteen, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand
to have the old man around. But when I got to be twenty-one, I was astonished
at how much he had learned in seven years.
- Mark Twain
Whenever you find that you are on the side of the majority,
it is time to reform.
- Mark Twain
Why is it that we rejoice at a birth and grieve at a
funeral? It is because we are not the person involved.
- Mark Twain
Words are only painted fire; a book is the fire itself.
- Mark Twain
You cannot depend on your eyes when your imagination is out of focus.
- Mark Twain
Good politics are often inextricably intertwined.
- Morris Udall, "Too Funny to Be President", 1988
Lord, give us the wisdom to utter words that are gentle and tender,
for tomorrow we may have to eat them.
- Morris Udall, in "Sierra", May/June 1989
To fall into a habit is to begin to cease to be.
- Miguel de Unamuno, "The Tragic Sense of Life", 1913
The Vice Presidency is sort of like the last cookie on the plate.
Everybody insists he won't take it, but somebody always does.
- Bill Vaughan
I won't use words again
They don't mean what I meant
They don't say what I said
They're just the crust of the meaning
- Suzanne Vega, "Language"
Words are too solid
They don't move fast enough
To catch the blur in the brain
That flies by and is gone
- Suzanne Vega, "Language"
Forsan et haec olim meminisse iuvabit.
(And perhaps at some later date it will be pleasant to remember these things.)
- Vergil
Time is flying never to return.
- Vergil
Half of the American people never read a newspaper.
Half never voted for President. One hopes it is the same half.
- Gore Vidal
It is not enough to succed. Others must fail.
- Gore Vidal
There's a lot to be said for being noveau riche,
and the Reagans mean to say it all.
- Gore Vidal, in "The Observer", 1981
Whenever a friend succeeds, a little something in me dies.
- Gore Vidal
Don't let it end like this. Tell them I said something.
- Pancho Villa, dying words
A witty saying proves nothing.
- Voltaire
I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the
death your right to say it.
- Voltaire
If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him.
- Voltaire, "ptres, XCVI"
The multitude of books is making us ignorant.
- Voltaire
We are what we pretend to be.
- Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
The mediocre teacher tells. The good teacher explains.
The superior teacher demonstrates. The great teacher inspires.
- William Arthur Ward
One's company, two's a crowd and three's a party.
- Andy Warhol, in "Exposures", 1979
The sports page records people's accomplishments;
The front page nothing but their failures.
- Supreme Court Justice Earl Warren
The government of the United States is not, in any sense,
founded on the Christian religion.
- George Washington
My responsibility is to follow the Scriptures which call upon us
to occupy the land until Jesus returns.
- James Watt, in "The Washington Post", 24 May 1981
If you worry about your customers,
you won't have to worry about money.
- Les Welch, in "Bicycle USA", March/April 1990
A mind once stretched by a new idea never regains its original dimension.
- Oliver Wendell Holmes
I passionately hate the idea of being with it,
I think an artist has always to be out of step with his time.
- Orson Welles, 1966
I never loved another person the way I loved myself.
- Mae West
I'll try anything once, twice if I like it, three times to make sure.
- Mae West
Is that a gun in your pocket, or are you just glad to see me?
- Mae West
Too much of a good thing is wonderful.
- Mae West
When choosing between two evils, I always like to take
the one I've never tried before.
- Mae West, in "Klondike Annie" 1936
When I'm good, I'm very good. But when I'm bad I'm better.
- Mae West
I myself have never been able to find out precisely what feminism is;
I only know that people call me a feminist whenever I express
sentiments that differentiate me from a doormat.
- Rebecca West, 1913
Democracy is the recurrent suspicion that more than half of
the people are right more than half of the time.
- E. B. White
Do I contradict myself?
Very well then I contradict myself,
(I am large, I contain multitudes.)
- Walt Whitman, "Leaves of Grass", 1855
Gosh that takes me back... or is it forward? That's the trouble with
time travel, you never can tell.
- Doctor Who, "Androids of Tara"
There's no point in being grown up if you can't be childish sometimes.
- Doctor Who
Intelligence appears to be the thing that enables
a man to get along without an education.
Education appears to be the thing that enables
a man to get along without the use of his intelligence.
- A. E. Wiggan
A man cannot be too careful in the choice of his enemies.
- Oscar Wilde, "The Picture of Dorian Grey", 1891
Children begin by loving their parents; as they grow older they judge them;
sometimes they forgive them.
- Oscar Wilde, "The Picture of Dorian Grey", 1891
Experience... is simply the name we give our mistakes.
- Oscar Wilde
He hadn't a single redeeming vice.
- Oscar Wilde
I think that God in creating man somewhat overestimated his ability.
- Oscar Wilde
Man is a rational animal who always loses his temper when
he is called upon to act in accordance with the dictates of reason.
- Oscar Wilde
Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else's
opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation.
- Oscar Wilde
No man is rich enough to buy back his past.
- Oscar Wilde
Relations are simply a tedious pack of people,
who haven't got the remotest knowledge of how to live,
nor the smallest instinct about when to die.
- Oscar Wilde, "The Importance of Being Earnest", 1895
The typewriting machine, when played with expression, is no more annoying
than the piano when played by a sister or near relation.
- Oscar Wilde
There is no sin except stupidity.
- Oscar Wilde, "The Critic as Artist", 1891
There is only one thing in the world worse than being talked about,
and that is not being talked about.
- Oscar Wilde
We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.
- Oscar Wilde, "Lady Windermere's Fan", 1892
Whenever people agree with me I always feel I must be wrong.
- Oscar Wilde
Hindsight is always 20:20.
- Billy Wilder
Voters do not decide issues. They decide *who* will decide issues.
- George F. Will, in "Newsweek", 1976
Success and failure are equally disastrous.
- Tennessee Williams
Anyone can hate. It costs to love.
- John Williamson
Only the winners decide what were war crimes.
- Gary Wills, in "New York Times", 1975
Not-really-trying is just as much effort as trying-really-hard.
The only difference ... is that not-really-trying receives no reward.
- A. N. Wilson, "Incline Our Hearts", 1989
If you think nobody cares if you're alive,
try missing a couple of car payments.
- Earl Wilson
The devil made me do it.
- Flip Wilson
You can't expect to hit the jackpot if you don't
put a few nickels in the machine.
- Flip Wilson, 1971
I not only use all the brains that I have, but all that I can borrow.
- Woodrow Wilson
The man who is swimming against the stream knows the strength of it.
- Woodrow Wilson
For I am a Bear of Very Little Brain, and big words Bother me.
- Winnie the Pooh
Friendship is even more important than honey.
- Winnie the Pooh
Nothing is impossible. Some things are just less likely than others.
- Jonathan Winters in "The Twilight Zone"
The limits of my language means the limits of my world.
- Ludwig Wittgenstein
Women have served all these centuries as looking-glasses
possessing the magic and delicious power of reflecting
the figure of man at twice its natural size.
- Virginia Woolf, "A Room of One's Own", 1929
TV is chewing gum for the eyes.
- Frank Lloyd Wright
I believe that in the end the truth will conquer.
- John Wycliffe
Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire.
- William Butler Yeats
You can build a throne out of bayonets,
but you can't sit on it for very long.
- Boris Yeltsin, August 1991
He who is conceived in a cage yearns for the cage.
- Yevgeny Yevtushenko, 1968
If you can spend a perfectly useless afternoon in a perfectly
useless manner, you have learned how to live.
- Lin Yutang
It is better to die on your feet than to live on your knees!
- Emiliano Zapata
Most people wouldn't know music if it came up and bit them on the ass.
- Frank Zappa
One of my favorite philosophical tenets is that people will agree with you
only if they already agree with you. You do not change people's minds.
- Frank Zappa, 1979
Progress might be a circle, rather than a straight line.
- Eberhard Zeidler, in "Contemporary Architects", 1980
