Words of Wisdom
Many a man has been convicted of
crimes that occurred only in his wife's mind.
There's nothing more dangerous than
an idea if it's the only one you have. Chinese
Fortune Cookie
So let me get this straight, you want
to lie to the computer but you want it to tell you the truth in return.
Don't
wrestle with the pig. You'll both get dirty but the pig will enjoy it.
At the
touch of love everyone becomes a poet. Plato
"It's
not a sin to keep your thoughts to yourself."
George Shoop, Esq.
For God so
loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth
in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.
John 3:16
"Facts
are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclination, or the
dictates of our passions, they cannot alter the state of facts and
evidence." John Adams
"Character
is like a tree and reputation like a shadow. The shadow is what we think of it;
the tree is the real thing." Lincoln
Bart Starr tells the
story of the new head coach, Vince Lombardi, addressing the Green Bay Packers who had won only one of
their 12 games the year before. "He open
the session by thanking the Packers for allowing him to be their coach,"
Starr says. "That tells you something about the man. Then he quickly
turns to us and said, 'Gentlemen, we are going to relentlessly chase
perfection, knowing full well we will not catch it, because nothing is
perfect. But we are going to relentlessly chase it, because in the
process we will catch excellence.' He came right up on us, within a foot
of us in the front row, and then he said, 'I am not remotely interested in just
being good.'"
Starr, then 25 years
old, had just three years earlier been drafted out of the University of Alabama in the 17th round. After
hearing Vince Lombardi speak for the first time, he felt a surge of confidence
and optimism.
"We took a
break," Starr says, "and I ran downstairs and called my wife in
Alabama, where we were living at the time, and all I said to here was, 'Honey,
we're going to begin to win.' I mean, it was that obvious. This was
the kind of leader we had."
I heard Bart Starr tell this story when he visited Reading some years ago
"As you slide down the banister of life, may all the
splinters be pointed in the right direction."
Admiral Henry G. Chiles, Jr.
“For I have learned the truth: There are greater
pursuits than self-seeking. Glory is not a conceit. It is not a decoration for
valor. It is not a prize for being the most clever,
the strongest, or the boldest. Glory belongs to the act of being constant to
something greater than yourself. No misfortune, no
injury, no humiliation can destroy it. This is the faith that my commanders
affirmed, that my brothers-in-arms encouraged my allegiance to. It was the
faith I had unknowingly embraced at the Naval Academy. It was my father’s and
grandfather’s faith. A filthy, crippled, broken man, all I had left of my dignity
was the faith of my fathers. It was enough.”
—John
McCain in Faith of my Fathers
|
“The public cannot be too curious concerning the characters of
public men.”
—Samuel Adams
|
"Can the liberties of a nation be secure, when we have
removed the conviction that these liberties are the gift of God?" —Thomas Jefferson
We sleep soundly in our beds because rough men stand ready in
the night to visit violence on those who would do us harm
Winston Churchill
For true love? Send real roses preserved in 24kt
gold. Lane’s
fortune cookie
"A gun in your hand is better than a cop on the phone"
The world belongs to the enthusiast who keeps his cool.
Chinese fortune cookie
Nothing in the world is difficult if one sets his mind to it.
Chinese fortune cookie
There is no rose without a thorn.
Chinese fortune cookie
"No one has to change. Survival is
optional."
Edwards
Deming
Sic transit Gloria mundi ("Thus passes the
glory of the world," but is more commonly interpreted as "Fame is
fleeting.")
The joyfulness of a man prolongeth his day
Chinese fortune cookie
More flies have been won with honey than with vinegar
Gertrude Miller (my grandmother)
You wouldn't worry so much what people think of you if you
knew how seldom they do.
Gertrude Miller (my grandmother)
Better an empty house, than a poor tenant.
Gertrude Miller (my grandmother)
It's better to burp and bear the shame, than swallow the burp
and bear the pain,
Gertrude Miller (my grandmother)
It's better to burp and taste it than fart and waste it.
Larry the Cable Guy
"We should never despair, our Situation before has been unpromising
and has changed for the better, so I trust, it will again. If new difficulties
arise, we must only put forth new Exertions and proportion our Efforts to the
exigency of the times." George Washington
Chance favors those in motion.
Chinese fortune cookie
Those who dance are considered insane
by those who can't hear the music. -George
Carlin
The only good thing to come out of
religion was the music. -George Carlin
Courage is simple. You run toward the gun fire not away
from it.
Agent Jethro Gibbs - NCIS TV Show
Do not be afraid, for I have ransomed
you.
I have
called you by name; you are mine.
When you
go through deep waters and great trouble, I will be with you.
When you go through rivers of difficulty,
you will not drown!
When you walk through the fire of
oppression you will not be burned up;
the flames will not consume you.
Isaiah 43:1-2
Opportunity knocks softly - Temptation kick the door down
We do our best and most constructive thinking when alone for
it’s only in silence that God speaks to us.
Waite Phillips
“All hockey players are bilingual.
They know English and profanity.”
- Gordie Howe
"No man in the wrong can stand up against a
fellow that's in the right and keeps on a-comin."
Captain
"Bill" McDonald - Texas Ranger
There is a time to
take counsel of your fears, and there is a time to never listen to any fear.
George Smith Patton
You need to
overcome the tug of people against you as you reach for high goals.
George Smith Patton
A good plan violently
executed now is better than a perfect plan executed next week.
George Smith Patton
If we take the
generally accepted definition of bravery as a quality which knows no fear, I
have never seen a brave man. All men are frightened. The more intelligent they
are, the more they are frightened.
George Smith Patton
All very
successful commanders are prima donnas and must be so treated.
George Smith Patton
Take calculated
risks. That is quite different from being rash.
George Smith Patton
Always do everything
you ask of those you command.
George Smith Patton
Battle is an
orgy of disorder.
George Smith Patton
Do your
damnedest in an ostentatious manner all the time.
George Smith Patton
Battle is the
most magnificent competition in which a human being can indulge. It brings out
all that is best; it removes all that is base. All men are afraid in battle.
The coward is the one who lets his fear overcome his sense of duty. Duty is the
essence of manhood.
George Smith Patton
Better to fight
for something than live for nothing.
George Smith Patton
Courage is fear
holding on a minute longer.
George Smith Patton
Don't tell
people how to do things, tell them what to do and let them surprise you with
their results.
George Smith Patton
I do not fear
failure. I only fear the "slowing up" of the engine inside of me
which is pounding, saying, "Keep going, someone must be on top, why not
you?"
George Smith Patton
The leader must
be an actor. But with him as with his bewigged counterpart he is unconvincing
unless he lives his part.
George Smith Patton
I don't measure
a man's success by how high he climbs but how high he bounces when he hits
bottom.
George Smith Patton
Accept the
challenges so that you can feel the exhilaration of victory.
George Smith Patton
If a man does
his best, what else is there?
George Smith Patton
Americans love
to fight. All real Americans love the sting of battle.
George Smith Patton
If you tell
people where to go, but not how to get there, you'll be amazed at the results.
George Smith Patton
Never tell
people how to do things. Tell them what to do and they will surprise you with
their ingenuity.
George Smith Patton
It is foolish
and wrong to mourn the men who died. Rather we should thank God that such men
lived.
George Smith Patton
No bastard ever
won a war by dying for his country. He won it by making the other poor dumb
bastard die for his country.
George Smith Patton
Americans play
to win at all times. I wouldn't give a hoot and hell for a man who lost and
laughed. That's why Americans have never lost nor ever lose a war.
George Smith Patton
Nobody ever
defended anything successfully, there is only attack and attack and attack some
more.
George Smith Patton
Prepare for the
unknown by studying how others in the past have coped with the unforeseeable
and the unpredictable.
George Smith Patton
If everyone is
thinking alike, then somebody isn't thinking.
George Smith Patton
Success is how
high you bounce when you hit bottom.
George Smith Patton
The object of war
is not to die for your country but to make the other bastard die for his.
George Smith Patton
We herd sheep,
we drive cattle, we lead people. Lead me, follow me, or get out of my way.
George Smith Patton
The test of
success is not what you do when you are on top. Success is how high you bounce
when you hit bottom.
George Smith Patton
A piece of
spaghetti or a military unit can only be led from the front end.
George Smith Patton
If a man has
done his best, what else is there?
George Smith Patton
A pint of sweat,
saves a gallon of blood.
George Smith Patton
The time to take
counsel of your fears is before you make an important battle decision. That's
the time to listen to every fear you can imagine! When you have collected all
the facts and fears and made your decision, turn off all your fears and go
ahead!
George Smith Patton
Untutored
courage is useless in the face of educated bullets.
George Smith Patton
Wars may be
fought with weapons, but they are won by men. It is the spirit of men who follow
and of the man who leads that gains the victory.
George Smith Patton
There is only
one sort of discipline, perfect discipline.
George Smith Patton
Watch what
people are cynical about, and one can often discover what they lack.
George Smith Patton
"Hoka Hey!’ - "It is a
good day to die."
Battle cry of the Lakota warriors
When
in England at a fairly large conference, Colin Powell was asked by the
Archbishop of Canterbury if our plans for Iraq were just an example of empire
building' by George Bush. He answered by saying, 'Over the years, the
United States has sent many of its fine young men and women into great peril to
fight for freedom beyond our borders. The only amount of land we have
ever asked for in return is enough to bury those that did not return."
You could have heard a pin drop.
Then there was a conference in France where a number of international engineers
were taking part, including French and American. During a break one of
the French engineers came back into the room saying 'Have you heard the latest
dumb stunt Bush has done? He has sent an aircraft carrier to Indonesia to
help the tsunami victims. What does he intended to do, bomb them?'
A Boeing engineer stood up and replied quietly: 'Our carriers have three
hospitals on board that can treat several hundred people; they are nuclear
powered and can supply emergency electrical power to shore facilities; they
have three cafeterias with the capacity to feed 3,000 people three meals a day,
they can produce several thousand gallons of fresh water from sea water each
day, and they carry half a dozen helicopters for use in transporting victims
and injured to and from their flight deck..... We have eleven such ships
now in place or on the way; how many does France have?'
You could have heard a pin drop.
A U.S. Navy Admiral was attending a naval conference that included Admirals
from the U.S., English, Canadian, Australian and French Navies. At a
cocktail reception, he found himself standing with a large group of Officers
that included personnel from most of those countries. Everyone was
chatting away in English as they sipped their d rinks but a French admiral
suddenly complained that, 'whereas Europeans learn many languages, Americans
learn only English.'
He then asked, 'Why is it that we
always have to speak English in these conferences rather than speaking
French?' Without hesitating, the American Admiral replied 'Maybe it's
because the Brits, Canadians, Aussies and Americans arranged it so you wouldn't
have to speak German.'
You could have heard a pin drop.
A group of Americans, retired teachers, recently went to France on a
tour. Robert Whiting, an elderly gentleman of 83, arrived in Paris by
plane. At French Customs, he took a few minutes to locate his passport in
his carry on.
"You have been to France
before, monsieur?" the customs officer asked sarcastically. Mr.
Whiting admitted that he had been to France previously.
"Then you should know enough to
have your passport ready."
The American said, "The last
time I was here, I didn't have to show it."
"Impossible. Americans
always have to show your passports on arrival in France!"
The American senior gave the
Frenchman a long hard look. Then he quietly explained. "Well, when I
came ashore at Omaha Beach on D-Day in '44 to help liberate this country, I
couldn't find any damn Frenchmen to show it to."
You could have heard a pin drop
Never,
NEVER take advice from your enemy.
"You got to be careful. If you don’t know where you’re
going, because you might not get there"
Yogi Berra
"We must all hang together, or assuredly we shall all
hang separately."
-- Benjamin Franklin (at the signing of the
Declaration of Independence, 4 July 1776)
"Age is a question of mind over matter. If you
don't mind, it doesn't matter." Satchel Paige
"Where there is no vision, the people perish." Proverbs 29:18
"Success is a lousy teacher. It seduces people
into thinking they can't lose."
Bill
Gates
"When all is said and done, more is said than
done." Lou Holtz
"If you want to know something, don't ask the monkey, go
to the organ grinder." Lou Holtz
"Live your life so that you will have no regrets.
Make sure that you do whatever it takes so that you never have to say if only I
had worked a little harder - done a little more I could have reached my
dreams."
Ross Tucker at the 2008 Hawk Mountain Council Eagle Scout Recognition
dinner
"I had more fun criticizing than praising."
William F. Buckley, Jr.
Life is short. Eat desert first.
"Business is a dog-eat-dog world and government is just
the opposite."
Michael Bloomberg
"We pick politicians by how they look on TV and Miss
America on where she stands on the issues. Isn't that a little
backwards?"
Jay Leno
"If your ship doesn't come, swim out to it."
Jonathan Winters
"Religion and good morals are the only solid foundation
of public liberty and happiness."
-- Samuel Adams (letter to John Trumbull, 16 October
1778)
Opportunity knocks softly - Temptation kicks the door down.
Graffiti
Success in life requires that you be:
(1) Be self motivated
(2) Be goal directed
(3) Be a "The glass is half full" type of person
Diann Roffe, 1994 Olympic Gold Metal winner in the Women's Super Giant Slalom
at the February 14, 2008 West Reading/Wyomissing
Rotary Club Meeting
|
“The public cannot be too curious concerning
the characters of public men.”
—Samuel Adams
|
"The person who has never made an enemy will never make
a friend."
Sister Fidelma
“Lie down with dogs and you get fleas”
"Be Who You Are and Say What You Feel Because Those Who Mind
Don't Matter and Those Who Matter Don't Mind.”
Dr. Seuss
Enjoy life! It is better to be happy than be wise.
Chinese fortune cookie
"Let him that would move the world, first move himself.
"
Socrates
"Enjoy yourself -- it's later than you think. "
Socrates
"By
all means marry. If you get a good wife you will become happy, and if you get a
bad one you will become a philosopher. "
Socrates
"If
all misfortunes were laid in one common heap whence everyone must take an equal
portion, most people would be contented to take their own and depart."
Socrates
“The right
way to begin is to pay attention to the young, and make them just as good as
possible”
Socrates
"Sometimes the good you do doesn't do you any good."
Fred Thompson as DA Arthur Branch in Law and Order
Honi soit Qui mal y pense [Shame to him who evil thinks]
Inscription of the Order of the Garter
"Small
things amuse small minds"
Gertrude Miller (my grandmother)
"More
flies have been won with honey than with vinegar"
Gertrude Miller (my grandmother)
Veritas vos Liberabit.
John 8:32 (also the motto of the Johns Hopkins
University)
"Keep
your friends close, but your enemies closer"
- - Michael Coreleone The Godfather
"Never let anyone outside of the
family know what you're thinking again."
The Godfather
The beginning of all understanding is
innocence
Chinese fortune cookie
Don't fret. All your friends will be
able to zig when you zag.
Chinese fortune cookie
"Among all the honors, among all
the postings, promotions, medals, that have been awarded me, the one in which I
take most pride is to be able to say - I am a Marine."
Gen John A Lejeune, USMC
Check your “to do” list. Make sure the person putting items on there
is authorized to do so.
Good deeds will not go unpunished!
It’s a smart man who knows his
father.
Love is the triumph of imagination over intelligence.
H. L. Mencken (1880-1956)
More harm has been done to mankind in
the name of religion than in any other cause.
H. L. Mencken (1880-1956)
To be an agent for change you have to…
•
Believe in the need for
change
•
Create discontent
•
Have a vision for the
future
•
Understand where we
are. Given an understanding of where we
are and a vision of the future, you then have to develop activities that
eliminate the difference.
•
Understand that people
are going to be upset with you because you are making changes
•
Must be committed to
the goal.
Charlie
Kopicz - Performance Advocates
•
Leadership is doing the
right thing.
•
Management is doing
things right.
•
What is measured is
managed.
•
What is rewarded is
repeated.
Charlie
Kopicz - Performance Advocates
Don’t expect what you don’t inspect
No man matures past twelve.
Facts are your friends.
Success comes before work only in the
dictionary.
The only difference ‘twixt man and
boy is the cost of the toy.
Ogden
Nash (1902-1971)
"We
make a living by what we get; we make a life by what we give"
Winston
Churchill
"It is
better to ask forgiveness than permission."
Daley's Law
"It
is not what you do but what gets done.
"It
is our choices, Harry, that show what we truly are, far more than our
abilities."
Professor Dumbledore to Harry Potter - Harry
Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
"I refuse to
join any club that that would me as a member"
Groucho Marx
"No
man goes before his time - unless the boss leaves early"
Groucho Marx
"When
you're up to your ass in alligators, it's tough to remember that you came into
the swamp to drain it."
Poster given to me by Donald Dahl - 1978
"A banker is
a fellow who lends you his umbrella when the sun is shining, but wants it back
the minute it begins to rain."
~Mark Twain~
|
I made three
mistakes:
|
|
|
[1] I didn't
choose rich parents.
|
|
|
[2] I married
for some reason other than money
|
|
|
[3] I failed to
buy a winning lottery ticket
|
"Think you can or think you can't. Either way you're
right."
Henry Ford
"Forecasts
are either lucky or lousy"
Oliver Wright or George Plossel (I can't remember which)
"All models
are wrong; some are useful."
Albert Einstein
"Doing
something over and over again and expecting difference results is the
definition of insanity."
Albert Einstein
GREAT
TRUTHS THAT LITTLE CHILDREN HAVE LEARNED:
1) No matter how hard you try, you can't baptize cats.
2) When your Mom is mad at your Dad, don't let her brush your hair.
3) If your sister hits you, don't hit her back. They always catch
the second person.
4) Never ask your 3-year old brother to hold a tomato.
5) You can't trust dogs to watch your food.
6) Don't sneeze when someone is cutting your hair.
7) Never hold a Dust-Buster and a cat at the same time.
8) You can't hide a piece of broccoli in a glass of milk.
9) Don't wear polka-dot underwear under white shorts.
10) The best place to be when you're sad is Grandpa's lap.
From Cousin Sandy Funk
GREAT
TRUTHS THAT ADULTS HAVE LEARNED:
1) Raising teenagers is like nailing Jell-O to a tree.
2) Wrinkles don't hurt.
3) Families are like fudge...mostly sweet, with a few nuts.
4) Today's mighty oak is just yesterday's nut that held its ground.
5) Laughing is good exercise. It's like jogging on the inside.
6) Middle age is when you choose your cereal for the fiber, not the
toy.
From Cousin Sandy Funk
GREAT
TRUTHS ABOUT GROWING OLD
1) Growing old is mandatory; Growing up is optional.
2) Forget the health food. I need all the preservatives I can get.
3) When you fall down, you wonder what else you can do while you're
down there.
4) You're getting old when you get the same sensation from a
rocking chair that you once got from a roller coaster.
5) It’s frustrating when you know all the answers but nobody
bothers to ask you the questions.
6) Time may be a great healer, but it's a lousy beautician.
7) Wisdom comes with age, but sometimes age comes alone.
From Cousin Sandy Funk
THE
FOUR STAGES OF LIFE:
1) You believe in Santa Claus.
2) You don't believe in Santa Claus.
3) You are Santa Claus.
4) You look like Santa Claus.
From Cousin Sandy Funk
SUCCESS:
At age 4 success is not peeing in your pants.
At age 12 success is having friends.
At age 16 success is having a drivers license.
At age 35 success is having money.
At age 50 success is having money.
At age 70 success is having a drivers license.
At age 75 success is having friends.
At age 80 success is not peeing in your pants.
From Cousin Sandy Funk
Life may not have turned out to be the party we had hoped for, but while we're
here we may as well dance.
If
you haven't got it in your head, you won't be able to do it with your legs.
Coach Karl Taylor - Reading Royals Head Coach
In
a perfect world...........Elvis would still be alive and all the imposters
would be dead.
In
order for someone to insult us, we must first grant them the power to do
so. That's why "political correctness" is such a crock.
Calling
an illegal alien an "undocumented immigrant" is like calling a drug
dealer an "unlicensed pharmacist"
Unknown
Don't
forget to take time to smell the flowers. Watch out for the bees.
John Unitas
Talk's
cheap. Let's go play.
John Unitas
Pass
when they think you're going to run. Run when they think you're going to
pass.
John Unitas
"With
all due respect, this is not my first time at the rodeo."
President George Bush being badgered by a reporter at a October
2007 News Conference
"It's
tough to make predictions, especially about the future."
Yogi Berra
Be
patient: In time, even an egg will walk.
Chinese Fortune Cookie
|
“Men will always be mad, and those who think they can cure them
are the maddest of all.”
—Voltaire
“All propaganda is lies—even when it is telling the truth.”
—George Orwell
“It is only the warlike power of a civilized people that can give peace to
the world.”
—Theodore
Roosevelt
“The secret of life is honesty and fair dealing. If you can fake that, you’ve
got it made.”
—Groucho Marx
|
"Every
morning in Africa, a gazelle wakes up. It knows it must run faster than the
fastest lion or it will be killed...every morning a lion wakes up. It knows it
must outrun the slowest gazelle or it will starve to death. It doesn't matter
whether you are a lion or a gazelle...when the sun comes up, you'd better be
running."
If you want a
rainbow, you gotta put up with the rain.
Borrow money from
pessimists - they don't expect it back.
|
“Throughout our history, America has been protected by patriots
who cherished liberty and made great sacrifices to advance the cause of
freedom. The brave members of the United States Armed Forces have answered
the call to serve our Nation, ready to give all for their country. On
Veterans Day, we honor these extraordinary Americans for their service and
sacrifice, and we pay tribute to the legacy of freedom and peace that they
have given our great Nation.”
—President
George W. Bush, 2007 Veterans Day Proclamation
|
“There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity
under heaven: a time to be born and a time to die, a time to plant and a time
to uproot, a time to kill and a time to heal.”
Ecclesiastes
3:1-3—
“Life is a gift from
God,” says Roger
Helle. “What we do
with it can be our gift to God.”
|
“Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life
for his friends.”
John 15:13
|
“Our obligations to our country never cease but with our lives.”
—John Adams
"Little
bits of satisfaction are expensive."
Mort Rosenberg
"Old
Man Can't is dead. I helped bury him."
Myers Anderson - Justice Clarence Thomas'
grandfather
"Those
who expect to reap the blessings of freedom, must, like men, undergo the
fatigues of supporting it."
—Thomas Paine
When
you're up to your ass in alligators, it's difficult to remember that you came
into the swamp to drain it.
It's
better to ask for forgiveness than to ask for permission.
Daley's Law
"How
would you like a job where, every time you make a mistake, a big red light goes
on and 18,000 people boo?"
- Former NHL goaltender Jacques Plante
"You
never know the power of words when you speak to young people, which is why I
enjoy being involved with them."
Denzel Washington in Reader's Digest
"Dogs
don't bark at parked cars."
Lynne Cheney
"Never
say never"
Ronald Reagan
"It's
amazing what you can accomplish if you don't care who gets the credit."
Ronald Reagan
"And malt does more than Milton can To justify
God's ways to man."
—A. E. Housman
"It has been my experience that
folks who have no vices have very few virtues."
—Abraham Lincoln
"It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to
entertain a thought without accepting it."
—Aristotle
"
Genius without education is like silver in the
mine."
—Benjamin Franklin
"Beer is proof that God loves us
and wants us to be happy."
—Benjamin Franklin
"Books are the quietest and most
constant of friends; they are the most accessible and wisest of counsellors,
and the most patient of teachers."
—Charles W. Eliot
"There is no mistaking a real book when one meets
it. It is like falling in love."
—Christopher Morley
"He only employs his passion who
can make no use of his reason."
—Cicero
"Neither can embellishments of language be found without
arrangement and expression of thoughts, nor can thoughts be made to shine
without the light of language."
—Cicero
"I can win an argument on any topic, against any
opponent. People know this, and steer clear of me at parties. Often, as a sign
of their great respect, they don't even invite me."
—Dave Barry
"What I look forward to is
continued immaturity followed by death."
—Dave Barry
"You can only be young once. But you can always
be immature."
—Dave Barry
"Electricity is actually made up
of extremely tiny particles called electrons, that you cannot see with the
naked eye unless you have been drinking."
—Dave Barry
"Without question, the greatest invention in the
history of mankind is beer. Oh, I grant you that the wheel was also a fine
invention, but the wheel does not go nearly as well with pizza."
—Dave Barry
"Not all chemicals are bad.
Without chemicals such as hydrogen and oxygen, for example, there would be no
way to make water, a vital ingredient in beer."
—Dave Barry
"If God had intended us to drink beer, He would
have given us stomachs."
—David Daye
"Literature is mostly about
having sex and not much about having children. Life is the other way
around."
—David Lodge (1935-). The British Museum Is Falling Down, 4, 1965 (from
Random House Webster's Quotationary)
"Fermentation may have been a greater discovery
than fire."
—David Rains Wallace
"If you drink, don't drive.
Don't even putt."
—Dean Martin
"You're not drunk if you can lie on the floor
without holding on."
—Dean Martin
"Prohibition makes you want to
cry into your beer and denies you the beer to cry into." —Don Marquis
"Bacchus hath drowned more men
than Neptune." —Dr. Thomas Fuller
"Don't join the book burners. Don't think you're
going to conceal faults by concealing evidence that they ever existed. Don't be
afraid to go in your library and read every book." —Dwight D. Eisenhower
"The problem with people who
have no vices is that generally you can be pretty sure they're going to have
some pretty annoying virtues." —Elizabeth
Taylor
"Always do sober what you said you'd do drunk.
That will teach you to keep your mouth shut." —Ernest
Hemingway
"An intelligent man is sometimes
forced to be drunk to spend time with his fools." —Ernest
Hemingway
"Your very silence shows you agree." —Euripides
"Leave no stone unturned." —Euripides
"I'm all in favor of keeping
dangerous weapons out of the hands of fools. Let's start with
typewriters." —Frank Lloyd Wright
"I feel sorry for people who don't drink. When
they wake up in the morning, that's as good as they're going to feel all day.
" —Frank Sinatra
"A good novel tells us the truth
about its hero; but a bad novel tells us the truth about its author." —G. K. Chesterton
"A room without books is like a body without a
soul." —G. K. Chesterton
"Always live your life with your
biography in mind." —Gareth van Meer,
"Special Topics In Calamity Physics" by Marisha Pessl
"I often quote myself. It adds spice to my
conversation." —George Bernard Shaw
"Reading made Don Quixote a
gentleman. Believing what he read made him mad." —George
Bernard Shaw
"There are no secrets better kept than the
secrets that everybody guesses." —George
Bernard Shaw
"All great truths begin as blasphemies."
—George Bernard Shaw
"Honesty may be the best policy, but it's
important to remember that apparently, by elimination, dishonesty is the
second-best policy." —George Carlin
"Think of how stupid the average
person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that." —George Carlin
"I drink to make other people interesting." —George Jean Nathan
"I find television very
educating. Every time somebody turns on the set, I go into the other room and
read a book."
—Groucho Marx
"Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend.
Inside of a dog it's too dark to read." —Groucho
Marx
"A child of five would
understand this. Send someone to fetch a child of five." —Groucho Marx
"Age is not a particularly interesting subject. Anyone
can get old. All you have to do is live long enough." —Groucho Marx
"From the moment I picked up
your book until I laid it down, I was convulsed with laughter. Some day I
intend reading it."
—Groucho Marx
"I could dance with you until the cows come home.
On second thought I'd rather dance with the cows until you come home."
—Groucho Marx
"I sent the club a wire stating: Please accept my
resignation. I don't want to belong to any club that will accept me as a
member."
—Groucho Marx
"After all, all he did was string together a lot
of old, well-known quotations." —H. L. Mencken
"How vain it is to sit down to write when you
have not stood up to live." —Henry David
Thoreau
"That man is the richest whose pleasures are the
cheapest." —Henry David Thoreau
"I went to the woods because I wished to live
deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not
learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had
not lived." —Henry David Thoreau
"The love of learning, the sequestered nooks, And
all the sweet serenity of books..." —Henry
Wadsworth Longfellow
"Where is human nature so weak as in the
bookstore?" —Henry Ward Beecher
"It is better to hide ignorance, but it is hard
to do this when we relax over wine." —Heraclitus
"Misquotation is, in fact, the pride and
privilege of the learned. A widely- read man never quotes accurately, for the rather
obvious reason that he has read too widely." —Hesketh
Pearson
"Misquotations are the only quotations that are
never misquoted." —Hesketh Pearson
"The wine urges me on, the bewitching wine, which
sets even a wise man to singing and to laughing gently and rouses him up to
dance and brings forth words which were better unspoken." —Homer
"The problem with the world is that everyone is a
few drinks behind." —Humphrey Bogart
"Happiness is good health and a bad memory."
—Ingrid Bergman
"If more of us valued food and cheer and song
above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world." —J.
R. R. Tolkien
"I cordially dislike allegory in all its
manifestations, and always have done since I grew old and wary enough to detect
its
presence."
—J. R. R. Tolkien
"I don't know half of you half as well as I
should like; and I like less than half of you half as well as you
deserve."
—J. R. R. Tolkien
"All that is gold does not glitter; not all those
that wander are lost." —J. R. R. Tolkien
"'I wish life was not so short,' he thought.
'Languages take such a time, and so do all the things one wants to know
about.'"
—J. R. R. Tolkien
"Never judge a book by its movie." —J. W. Eagan
"Two and two the mathematician continues to make
four, in spite of the whine of the amateur for three, or the the cry of the
critic for five." —James McNeill Whistler
"Three o'clock is always too late or too early
for anything you want to do." —Jean-Paul
Sartre
"A bookstore is one of the only pieces of
evidence we have that people are still thinking." —Jerry
Seinfeld
"I can't understand why people are frightened of new
ideas. I'm frightened of the old ones." —John
Cage
"No soldier can fight unless he is properly fed
on beef and beer." —John Churchill, First Duke
of Marlborough
"Ideas are like rabbits. You get a couple and
learn how to handle them, and pretty soon you have a dozen." —John Steinbeck
"Oh for a book and a shady nook..." —John Wilson
"Life itself is a quotation." —Jorge Luis Borges
"Give me a woman who loves beer and I will
conquer the world." —Kaiser Wilhelm
"He who knows does not speak. He who speaks does
not know." —Lao-tzu
"To know that you do not know is the best. To
pretend to know when you do not know is a disease." —Lao-tzu
"Man invented language to satisfy his deep need
to complain." —Lily Tomlin
"The man who doesn't read good books has no
advantage over the man who can't read them." —Mark
Twain
"Be careful about reading health books. You may
die of a misprint." —Mark Twain
"Education: that which reveals to the wise, and
conceals from the stupid, the vast limits of their knowledge." —Mark Twain
"Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities.
Truth isn't." —Mark Twain
"Get your facts first, and then you can distort
them as much as you please." —Mark Twain
"I don't give a damn for a man that can only
spell a word one way." —Mark Twain
"I have never let my schooling interfere with my
education." —Mark Twain
"I was gratified to be able to answer promptly. I
said I don't know." —Mark Twain
"In religion and politics, people's beliefs and
convictions are in almost every case gotten at second hand, and without
examination."
—Mark Twain
"It is better to keep your mouth closed and let
people think you are a fool than to open it and remove all doubt." —Mark Twain
"It usually takes more than three weeks to
prepare a good impromptu speech." —Mark Twain
"Most people are bothered by those passages of
Scripture they do not understand, but the passages that bother me are those I
do understand." —Mark Twain
"The difference between the right word and the
almost right 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 right word may be effective, but no word was
ever as effective as a rightly timed pause." —Mark
Twain
"Under certain circumstances, profanity provides
a relief denied even to prayer." —Mark Twain
"Water, taken in moderation, cannot hurt
anybody." —Mark Twain
"When in doubt, tell the truth." —Mark Twain
"Whenever you find that you are on the side of
the majority, it is time to reform." —Mark
Twain
"It is by the goodness of God that in our country
we have those three unspeakably precious things: freedom of speech, freedom of
conscience, and the prudence never to practice either of them." —Mark Twain
"A classic is something that everybody wants to
have read and nobody wants to read." —Mark
Twain
"What a good thing Adam had. When he said a good
thing he knew nobody had said it before." —Mark
Twain
"I love quotations because it is a joy to find
thoughts one might have, beautifully expressed with much authority by someone
recognized wiser than oneself." —Marlene
Dietrich
"The trouble with jogging is that the ice falls
out of your glass." —Martin Mull
"Now we sit through Shakespeare in order to
recognize the quotations." —Orson Welles
"There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral
book. Books are well written or badly written." —Oscar
Wilde
"At twilight, nature is not without loveliness,
though perhaps its chief use is to illustrate quotations from the poets." —Oscar Wilde
"Every portrait that is painted with feeling is a
portrait of the artist, not of the sitter." —Oscar
Wilde
"I am not young enough to know everything." —Oscar Wilde
"Whenever people agree with me I always feel I
must be wrong." —Oscar Wilde
"Work is the curse of the drinking classes."
—Oscar Wilde
"My own business always bores me to death; I
prefer other people's." —Oscar Wilde
"We are all in the gutter, but some of us are
looking at the stars." —Oscar Wilde
"But what is the difference between literature
and journalism? ...Journalism is unreadable and literature is not read. That is
all." —Oscar Wilde
"It is only an auctioneer who can equally and
impartially admire all schools of art." —Oscar
Wilde
"The public is wonderfully tolerant. It forgives
everything except genius." —Oscar Wilde
"The truth is rarely pure and never simple."
—Oscar Wilde
"Always read stuff that will make you look good
if you die in the middle of it." —P. J.
O'Rourke
"Ignorance, the root and the stem of every
evil." —Plato
"The price good men pay for indifference to
public affairs is to be ruled by evil men." —Plato
"Wise men talk because they have something to
say; fools, because they have to say something." —Plato
"He was a wise man who invented beer." —Plato
"It were not best that we should all think alike;
it is differences of opinions that makes horse races."
—Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar
"In the highest civilization, the book is still
the highest delight. He who has once known its satisfactions is provided with a
resource against calamity." —Ralph Waldo
Emerson
"Colleges hate geniuses, just as convents hate
saints." —Ralph Waldo Emerson
"I hate quotations. Tell me what you know." —Ralph Waldo Emerson
"Next to the originator of a good sentence is the
first quoter of it." —Ralph Waldo Emerson
"The greatest minds are capable of the greatest
vices as well as of the greatest virtues." —Rene
Descartes
"Drawing on my fine command of the English
language, I said nothing. " —Robert Benchley
"The sum of the matter is, the people drink
because they wish to drink." —Rudolph Brand
"A book is a version of the world. If you do not
like it, ignore it; or offer your own version in return." —Salman Rushdie
"No one has a finer command of language than the
person who keeps his mouth shut." —Sam Rayburn
"I don't think anyone should write their
autobiography until after they're dead." —Samuel
Goldwyn
"I don't want any yes-men around me. I want
everybody to tell me the truth even if it costs them their jobs." —Samuel Goldwyn
"Let's have some new cliches." —Samuel Goldwyn
"Classical quotation is the parole of literary
men all over the world." —Samuel Johnson
"Reading is sometimes an ingenious device for
avoiding thought." —Sir Arthur Helps
"Read not to contradict and confute...nor to find
talk and discourse, but to weigh and consider." —Sir
Francis Bacon
"No one has ever had an idea in a dress
suit." —Sir Frederick G. Banting
"Broadly speaking, the short words are the best,
and the old words best of all." —Sir Winston
Churchill
"From now on, ending a sentence with a
preposition is something up with which I will not put." —Sir Winston Churchill
"It is a good thing for an uneducated man to read
books of quotations." —Sir Winston Churchill
"He has all the virtues I dislike and none of the
vices I admire." —Sir Winston Churchill
"By all means marry; if you get a good wife,
you'll be happy. If you get a bad one, you'll become a philosopher."
—Socrates
"I am not an Athenian or a Greek, but a citizen
of the world."
—Socrates
"The unexamined life is not worth living."
—Socrates
"Enlighten the people, generally, and tyranny and
oppressions of body and mind will vanish like spirits at the dawn of day."
—Thomas Jefferson
"I cannot live without books." —Thomas Jefferson
"The man who reads nothing at all is better educated
than the man who reads nothing but newspapers."
—Thomas Jefferson
"I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences
attending too much liberty than to those attending too small a degree of
it."
—Thomas Jefferson
"If an idea's worth having once, it's worth
having twice." —Tom Stoppard
"It is better to be quotable than to be
honest." —Tom Stoppard
"I'd rather have a bottle in front of me, than a
frontal lobotomy."
—Tom Waits
"I aimed at the public's heart, and by accident I
hit it in the stomach."
— Upton Sinclair
"A witty saying proves nothing."
—Voltaire
"Anything too stupid to be said is sung."
—Voltaire
"Judge of a man by his questions rather than by
his answers."
—Voltaire
"Prejudice is opinion without judgment."
—Voltaire
"The secret of being boring is to say
everything."
—Voltaire
"You despise books; you whose lives are absorbed
in the vanities of ambition, the pursuit of pleasure or indolence; but remember
that all the known world, excepting only savage nations, is governed by
books."
—Voltaire
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend
to the death your right to say it."
—Voltaire
"Think for yourselves and let others enjoy the
privilege to do so too."
—Voltaire
"I always keep a supply of stimulant handy in
case I see a snake--which I also keep handy."
—W. C. Fields
"Reminds me of my safari in Africa. Somebody
forgot the corkscrew and for several days we had to live on nothing but food
and
water."
—W. C. Fields
"Some books are undeservedly forgotten; none are
undeservedly remembered."
—W. H. Auden
"A woman drove me to drink and I didn't even have
the decency to thank her."
—W. C. Fields
"What contemptible scoundrel has stolen the cork
to my lunch?” —
W. C. Fields
"Everybody has to believe in something...I
believe I'll have another drink."
—W. C. Fields
"Be thankful we're not getting all the government
we're paying for."
—Will Rogers
"There's no trick to being a humorist when you
have the whole government working for you."
—Will Rogers
"Think like a wise man but communicate in the
language of the people."
—William Butler Yeats
"My words fly up, my thoughts remain below: Words
without thoughts never to heaven go."
—William Shakespeare
"Knowing I lov'd my books, he furnish'd me From
mine own library with volumes that I prize above my dukedom."
—William Shakespeare
"It was as if I'd found a way to live as a song
or a film or a book."
—Win Duncan, "Confessions of a Memory Eater"
by Pagan Kennedy
"Always remember that I have taken more out of
alcohol than alcohol has taken out of me."
—Winston Churchill
"Make sure that the beer - four pints a week -
goes to the troops under fire before any of the parties in the rear get a
drop."
—Winston Churchill to his Secretary of War, 1944
"His lack of education is more than compensated
for by his keenly developed moral bankruptcy."
—Woody Allen
"I don't want to achieve immortality through my work...
I want to achieve it through not dying."
—Woody Allen
"It seemed the world was divided into good and
bad people. The good ones slept better... while the bad ones seemed to enjoy
the waking hours much more."
—Woody Allen
"You can live to be a hundred if you give up all
the things that make you want to live to be a hundred."
—Woody Allen
"When the
facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?"
Lord Keynes
"More flies
have been won with honey than with vinegar."
Gertrude Miller (My grandmother)
Our new Constitution is now established, and has an appearance that
promises permanency; but in this world nothing can be said to be certain,
except death and taxes.
-- Benjamin Franklin
(letter to Jean-Baptiste Leroy, 13 November 1789)
We could learn a lot from crayons. Some are
sharp, some are pretty and some are dull. Some have weird names, and all are
different colors, but they all have to live in the same box.
"You never get a day off, when you're retired."
Lou Holtz
<>