| Wilde |
|
Oscar Wilde
|
Experience is the name everyone gives to their mistakes.
|
|
Oscar Wilde
|
Moderation is a fatal thing. Nothing succeeds like excess.
|
|
Oscar Wilde
|
Life is too important to be taken seriously.
|
|
Oscar Wilde
|
Constancy is the last refuge of the unimaginative.
|
|
Oscar Wilde
|
A true friend stabs you in the front.
|
|
Oscar Wilde
|
What is a cynic? A man who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing.
|
| Woody Allen |
|
Woody Allen
|
More than any other time in history, mankind faces a crossroads. One path
leads to despair and utter hopelessness. The other, to total extinction.
Let us pray we have the wisdom to choose correctly.
|
|
Woody Allen
|
Some guy hit my fender, and I told him, 'Be fruitful and multiply,' but not in those words.
|
|
Woody Allen
|
No matter how cynical you are, it is hard to keep up.
|
|
Woody Allen
|
There are two types of people in this world, good and bad. The good sleep better, but the bad seem to enjoy the waking hours much more.
|
|
Woody Allen
|
I don't believe in the hereafter; but just in case, I'm bringing a change of underwear.
|
|
Woody Allen
|
The lamb may lie down with the lion, but the lamb won't get much sleep.
|
| Mark Twain |
|
Mark Twain
|
Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; truth isn't.
|
|
Mark Twain
|
If you tell the truth, you don't have to remember anything.
|
|
Mark Twain
|
Patriotism is supporting your country all the time and the government when
it deserves it.
|
|
Mark Twain
|
The man who is a pessimist before forty-eight knows too much; if he is an optimist after it, he knows too little.
|
|
Mark Twain
|
There is no distinctly native American criminal class except Congress.
|
|
Mark Twain
|
The coldest winter I ever spent was one summer in San Francisco.
|
|
Mark Twain
|
Noise proves nothing. Often the hen who laid an egg cackles as if she laid an asteroid.
|
|
Mark Twain
|
It is often the case that the man who can't tell a lie thinks he's the best judge of one.
|
|
Mark Twain
|
July 4. Statistics show that we loose more fools on this day than in all the other days of the year put together. This proves, by the number left in stock, that one Fourth of July per year is now inadequate, the country has grown so.
|
|
Mark Twain
|
Behold the fool saith, "Put not all thine eggs in one basket" -- which is but a manner of saying, "Scatter your money and your attention"; but the wise man saith, "Put all your eggs in one basket and --WATCH THAT BASKET."
|
|
Mark Twain
|
When I reflect upon the number of disagreeable people who I know have gone
to a better world, I am moved to lead a different life.
|
|
Mark Twain
|
Suppose you were an idiot. Suppose you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself.
|
| Ben Franklin |
|
Benjamin Franklin
|
Your argument is sound, nothing but sound.
|
|
Benjamin Franklin
|
He that falls in love with himself will have no rivals.
|
|
Benjamin Franklin
|
People who are willing to give up freedom for the sake of short term
security, deserve neither freedom nor security.
|
|
Benjamin Franklin
|
A virtuous heretic shall be saved before a wicked Christian.
|
|
Benjamin Franklin
|
He that lives upon hope will die fasting.
|
|
Benjamin Franklin
|
Diligence is the mother of good luck.
|
|
Benjamin Franklin
|
Plough deep while sluggards sleep and you shall have corn to sell and keep.
|
| Kurt Vonnegut |
|
Kurt Vonnegut
|
Beware of the man who works hard to learn something, learns it, and finds himself no wiser than before.
|
|
Kurt Vonnegut
|
It is never a mistake to say good-bye.
|
|
Kurt Vonnegut
|
Maturity is a bitter disappointment, for which no remedy exists unless laughter can be said to remedy anything.
|
|
Kurt Vonnegut
|
Pay no attention to Caesar. Caesar doesn't have the slightest idea what is really going on.
|
|
Kurt Vonnegut
|
If the questions don't make sense, neither will the answers.
|
|
Kurt Vonnegut
|
Peculiar travel suggestions are dancing lessons from God.
|
|
Kurt Vonnegut
|
I am the victim of a fortunate series of accidents.
|
| Will Rogers |
|
Will Rogers
|
Congress is going to start tinkering with the Ten Commandments just as soon as they find someone in Washington who has read them.
|
|
Will Rogers
|
I don't think you can make a lawyer honest by an act of the legislature. You've got to work on his conscience -- and his lack of conscience is what makes him a lawyer.
|
|
Will Rogers
|
Lead your life so you wouldn't be ashamed to sell the family parrot to the town gossip.
|
|
Will Rogers
|
Missionaries are going to reform the world, whether it wants it or not.
|
|
Will Rogers
|
The crime of taxation isn't the taking of it; it's in the way it's spent.
|
|
Will Rogers
|
If you let women have their way, you will generally get even with them in the end.
|
|
Will Rogers
|
You can't say civilization don't advance, however, for in every war they kill you in a new way.
|
|
Will Rogers
|
This would be a great world to dance in if we didn't have to pay the fiddler.
|
|
Will Rogers
|
One of the evils of democracy is you have to put up with the man you elected.
|
|
Will Rogers
|
In politics practically everything you hear is scandal, and besides, the funny thing is that the things they are whispering ain't half has bad as the things they have been saying right out loud.
|
|
Will Rogers
|
With all our crime and all our immorality ... and about as much contentment and respose as a fresh-caged hyena, we go to tell the whole world: we are the only one with the right idea!
|
|
Will Rogers
|
Congress is so strange ... a man gets up to speak and says nothing...nobody listens ... and then everyone disagrees.
|
|
Will Rogers
|
Always drink upstream from the herd.
|
|
Will Rogers
|
If you find yourself in a hole, stop digging.
|
|
Will Rogers
|
Good judgment comes from experience, and a lot of that comes from bad judgment.
|
|
Will Rogers
|
There are three kinds of men: The ones that learn by reading; the few who learn by observation; the rest who have to pee on the electric fence.
|
|
Will Rogers
|
Let advertisers spend the same amount of money improving their product
that they do on advertising and they wouldn't have to advertise it.
|
|
Will Rogers
|
Even if you are on the right track, you will get run over if you don't move.
|
|
Will Rogers
|
Letting a cat out of the bag is a whole lot easier than putting it back in.
|
|
Will Rogers
|
If you're riding ahead of the herd, take a look back every now and then to make sure it's still there.
|
|
Will Rogers
|
I don't make jokes; I just watch the government and report the facts.
|
|
Will Rogers
|
After eating an entire bull, a mountain lion felt so good he started roaring. He kept it up until a hunter came along and shot him. The moral: When you are full of bull, keep your mouth shut.
|
| Cormac McCarthy |
|
Cormac McCarthy
|
How does the never to be differ from what never was?
|
|
Cormac McCarthy
|
You never know what worse luck your bad luck saved you from.
|
|
Cormac McCarthy
|
I always thought that when I got older God would some how come into my life in some way. He didn't. I don't blame him. If I was him, I'd have the same opinion about me that he does.
|
|
Cormac McCarthy
|
For things at a common destination there is a common path. Not always easy to see see. But there.
|
|
Cormac McCarthy
|
It's not about knowing where you are. It's about thinking you got there without taking anything with you. Your notions about starting over. Or anybody's. You don't start over. That's what it's all about. Every step you make is forever. You can't make it go away.
|
|
Cormac McCarthy
|
My daddy always told me to just do the best you know how and tell the truth. He said there was nothin to set a man's mind at ease like wakin up in the morning and not having to decide who you were. And if you done somethin wrong just stand up and say you done it and say your're sorry and get on with it. Don't haul stuff with you.
|
|
Cormac McCarthy
|
You fix what you can fix and let the rest go. If there aint nothin to be done about it it aint even a problem.
|
|
Cormac McCarthy
|
Every moment in your life is a turning and every one is a choosing. Somewhere you made a choice. All followed to this. The accounting is scrupulous. The shape is drawn. No line can be erased.
|
|
Cormac McCarthy
|
The man who believes that the secrets of the world are forever hidden lives in mystery and fear. Superstition will drag him down. The rain will erode the deeds of his life. But that man who sets himself the task of singling out the thread of order from the tapestry will by the decision alone have taken charge of the world.
|
|
Cormac McCarthy
|
Whatever in creation exists without my knowledge exists without my consent
|
|
Cormac McCarthy
|
If god meant to interfere with the degeneracy of mankind, would he not have done so by now?
|
| Poems |
|
August Swindburne
|
From too much love of living
From hope and fear set free,
We thank with brief thanksgiving,
Whatever gods must be,
That no life lives forever,
That deadmen rise up never,
And that even the weariest river
Winds somewhere safe to sea.
|
|
Steven Crane
|
A little man said to the Universe.
"Sir! I exist."
The Universe replied: "That's fine."
Just don't think it creates any obligation on my part.
|
|
Jack London
|
I'd rather be ashes than dust.
I'd rather my spark should burn out in a brilliant blaze than be stifled by dry rot.
I'd rather be a meteor every atom of me in magnificent glow than a sleepy and permanent planet.
Man's chief purpose is to live, not to exist.
I shall not waste my days trying to prolong them.
I shall use my time.
|
| Songs |
|
Jerry Garcia (Grateful Dead
|
Some folks trust in reason; others trust in might.
I don't trust in nothing; but I know things come out right.
I'll say it once again now so I know you understand:
A man is just a man.
|
|
Jerry Garcia (Grateful Dead
|
Sometimes the lights all shining on me;
Other times I can barely see.
Lately its occurred to me:
What a long, strange trip its been.
|
|
Emily Sailers (Indigo Girls)
|
Darkness has a hunger that's insatiable.
Lightness has a call that's hard to hear.
I wrapped my fear around me like a blanket.
I sailed my ship of safety until I sank it.
I crawled upon your shore.
|
|
John Fogerty
|
Long as I remember, rain been comin' down;
Clouds of mystery fallin', confusion on the ground;
Good men through the ages, trying to find the sun;
And I wonder, still I wonder:
Who will stop the rain?
|
|
Bob Dylan
|
"There must be some way out of here," said the joker to the thief.
"There's too much confusion. I can't get no relief.
"Businessmen, they drink my wine. Plowmen dig my earth.
None of them along the line know what any of it is worth."
|
| Human Nature |
|
Isaac Asimov
|
The saddest aspect of life right now is that science gathers knowledge faster than society gathers wisdom.
|
|
Plato
|
Good people do not need laws to tell them to act responsibly, while bad people will find a way around the laws.
|
|
Anonymous
|
The number of people watching you is directly proportional to the stupidity of your action.
|
|
Anonymous
|
Whoever said money cannot buy happiness, did not know where to shop.
|
|
Darrin Weinberg
|
It matters not whether you win or lose; what matters is whether I win or lose.
|
|
Jean Cockturan
|
We must believe in luck. For how else can we explain the success of those we don't like?
|
|
Franklin P. Jones
|
The trouble with being punctual is that nobody's there to appreciate it.
|
|
Robert Frost
|
The brain is a wonderful organ. It starts working the moment you get up in the morning and does not stop until you get to work.
|
|
Owen Wister
|
When a man ain't got ideas of his own, he ought to be careful who he borrows them from.
|
|
Owen Wister
|
It may be that them whose pleasure brings you into this world owes you a living, but it don't mean the world is responsible.
|
|
Ursula K. LeGuin
|
What sane person could live in this world and not be crazy?
|
|
Confucius
|
If you devote your life to seeking revenge, first dig two graves.
|
|
Gretchen Jackson
|
Grief is the price we pay for love.
|
|
William Least Heat Moon (Bill Trogdon)
|
Without the errors, wrong turns and blind alleys, without the doubling back and misdirection and fumbling and chance discoveries, there was not one bit of joy in walking the labyrinth.
|
|
Carlos Castenada
|
We either make ourselves happy or miserable. The amount of work is the same.
|
|
Louise Erdrich
|
When we are young, the words are scattered all around us. As they are assembled by our experience, so are we, sentence by sentence, until the story takes shape.
|
|
Louise Erdrich
|
We are conjured voiceless out of nothing and must return to an unknowing state. What happens in between is an uncontrolled dance, and what we ask for in love is no more than a momentary chance to get the steps right, to move in harmony until the music stops.
|
|
Louise Erdrich
|
No one gets wise enough to really understand the heart of another, although it is the task of our life to try. We chew the tough skins. We wonder.
|
|
Theodore Seuss Geisel
|
Be who you are and say what you feel because people who mind don't matter and people who matter don't mind.
|
|
Groucho Marx
|
These are my principles. If you don't like them, I have others.
|
|
Richard Russo
|
Sleep is over-rated. Have you ever noticed how it's always recommended to people anybody with half a brain can see need to wake up?
|
|
Jack Benny
|
Age is strictly a case of mind over matter. If you don't mind, it doesn't matter.
|
|
Eric Hoffer
|
You can discover what your enemy fears most by observing the means he uses to frighten you.
|
|
Theodore Roosevelt
|
I care
not what others think of what I do, but I care very much about what I
think of what I do. That is character!
|
|
Wallace Stegner
|
Largeness is a lifelong matter -- sometimes a conscious goal, sometimes not. You enlarge yourself because that is the kind of individual you are. You grow because you are not content not to.
|
|
Jean Kerr
|
If you can keep your head
when all about you are losing theirs, it's just possible you haven't
grasped the situation
|
|
Edmund Burke
|
Nobody made a greater mistake than he who did nothing because he could do
only a little.
|
|
Edmund Burke
|
The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.
|
|
W.C. Fields
|
If at first you don't succeed, try again. Then quit. No use making a damn fool about it.
|
|
Dave Barry
|
You can only be young once. But you can always be immature.
|
|
Oscar Levant
|
There's a fine line between genius and insanity. I have erased this line.
|
|
Anonymous folk wisdom
|
If you don't care where you are, then you ain't lost.
|
|
George Burns
|
Sincerity is everything. If you can fake that, you've got it made.
|
|
Mel Brooks
|
Tragedy is when I cut my finger. Comedy is when you walk into a sewer and die.
|
|
Groucho Marx (possibly Woody Allen)
|
Two women at a resort discussed dinner:
"The food here is lousy," the first noted.
"You're right! And such small portions!!" the second added
|
|
Griffin's Thought
|
When you starve with a tiger, the tiger starves last.
|
| Politics |
|
Jonathan Swift
|
All government without the consent of the governed is the very definition of slavery.
|
|
Desmond Tutu
|
If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor. If an elephant has its foot on the tail of a mouse and you say that you are neutral, the mouse will not appreciate your neutrality.
|
|
Anne Bradstreet
|
Authority without wisdom is like a heavy ax without an edge, fitter to bruise than polish.
|
|
George Orwell
|
In our age, there is no such thing as 'keeping out of politics'. All issues are political issues, and politics itself is a mass of lies, evasions, folly, hatred, and schizophrenia. When the general atmosphere is bad, language must suffer.
|
|
Thomas Jefferson
|
We in America do not have government by the majority. We have government by
the majority who participate.
|
|
Edward R. Murrow
|
We must not confuse dissent with disloyalty.
|
|
Eric Hoffer
|
The less justified a man is in claiming excellence for his own self, the
more ready he is to claim all excellence for his nation, his religion, his
race or his holy cause.
|
|
Eric Hoffer
|
A man is likely to mind his own business when it is
worth minding. When it is not, he takes his mind off his own meaningless
affairs by minding other people's business.
|
|
Pericles
|
Just because you do not take an interest in politics doesn't mean politics
won't take an interest in you.
|
|
John F. Kennedy
|
If we make peaceful revolution impossible, we make violent revolution
inevitable.
|
|
John F. Kennedy
|
Forgive your enemies but never forget their names.
|
|
Theodore Roosevelt
|
To announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or that we
are to stand by the President, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and
servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public.
|
|
Walter Lippman
|
Where all think alike, no one thinks very much.
|
|
Sen. Joe Cannon
|
Sometimes in politics, one must duel with skunks. But no one should be fool enough to allow the skunks to choose the weapons.
|
|
Anonymous
|
Politicians are like diapers. They should be changed frequently and for the same reasons.
|
|
Huey Long
|
It ain't enough to get the breaks. You gotta know how to use 'em.
|
|
Abraham Lincoln
|
Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, give him power.
|
|
Otto von Bismarck
|
The less people know about how sausages and laws are made, the
better they'll sleep at night.
|
|
H.L. Mencken
|
Under democracy one party always devotes its chief energies to trying to prove that the other party is unfit to rule - and both commonly succeed, and are right.
|
|
George Carlin
|
If "con" is the opposite of "pro," then what
is the opposite of progress?
|
|
Dave Barry
|
The most valuable function performed by the federal government is entertainment.
|
|
Hubert Humphrey
|
To err is human, to blame someone else is politics.
|
|
Anonymous folk wisdom
|
I never vote. It only encourages them.
|
|
Martin Luther King
|
Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.
|
|
Harry S. Truman
|
If you can't convince them, confuse them.
|
|
Richard Riordan
|
It's easier to get forgiveness than permission.
|
| History |
|
Louise Erdrich
|
History works itself out in the living.
|
|
David Ben Gurion
|
Anyone who believes you can't change history has never tried to write his memoirs.
|
|
Winston Churchill
|
History will be kind to me for I intend to write it.
|
|
George Bernard Shaw
|
We learn from history that we learn nothing from history.
|
|
Daniel Boorstin
|
Where ruts have not yet been worn, it requires less effort to stay out of them.
|
|
Daniel Boorstin
|
The problem for us is less to discover the way it really is than to see the meaning of the way.
|
|
Norman Cousins
|
History is a vast early warning system.
|
|
William Faulkner
|
The past is never dead. It is not even past.
|
|
A.C. Clarke
|
The future isn't what it used to be.
|
|
James Joyce
|
History is the nightmare from which I am trying to awaken.
|
|
Voltaire
|
History is fables agreed upon.
|
|
George Santayana
|
Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.
|
| Freedom |
|
James Madison
|
If tyranny and oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy.
|
|
Edward R. Murrow
|
We cannot defend freedom abroad by deserting it at home.
|
|
Thomas Jefferson
|
That government is best which governs the least because its people discipline themselves.
|
|
Noam Chomsky
|
If we don't believe in freedom of expression for those we despise, we don't believe in it at all.
|
|
Judge Learned Hand
|
A society in which men recognize no check upon their freedom soon becomes a society where freedom is the possession of only a savage few.
|
| Pessimism |
|
William Arthur Ward
|
The pessimist complains about the wind; the optimist expects it to change;
the realist adjusts the sails.
|
|
George Bernard Shaw
|
Do you know what a pessimist is? A person who thinks everybody is as nasty as himself, and hates them for it.
|
|
James Branch Cabell
|
The optimist proclaims we live in the best of all possible worlds, and the
pessimist fears this is true.
|
|
Laurence J. Peter
|
A pessimist is a man who looks both ways when he's crossing a one way street.
|
|
Communication |
|
Plato
|
Wise men talk because they have something to say; fools, because they have to say something.
|
|
Charles Steinmetz
|
No man becomes a fool until he stops asking questions.
|
|
Abraham Lincoln
|
Better to remain silent and be thought a fool, than to speak and remove all doubt.
|
|
Dame Rebecca West
|
There is no such thing as conversation. It is an illusion. There are only intersecting monologues.
|
|
J.R.R. Tolkien |
|
J.R.R. Tolkien
|
There are somethings it is better to begin than to refuse even though the end may be dark.
|
|
J.R.R. Tolkien
|
Where will wants not, a way opens.
|
|
J.R.R. Tolkien
|
All that is gold does not glitter; not all that wander are lost.
|
|
Gandalf (J.R.R. Tolkien)
|
The burned hand teaches best.
|
|
Gandalf (J.R.R. Tolkien)
|
To crooked eyes, truth may wear a wry face.
|
|
Gandalf (J.R.R. Tolkien)
|
He that breaks a thing to find out what it is has left the path of wisdom.
|
|
Truth |
|
Henry David Thoreau
|
It takes two to speak the truth: one to speak and one to hear.
|
|
Lily Tomlin
|
If truth is beauty, how come no one has their hair done in the library?
|
|
George Orwell
|
During times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act.
|
|
Chief Joseph
|
It doesn't require many words to speak the truth.
|
|
Andre Gide
|
Believe those who are seeking the truth; doubt those who find it.
|
|
Albert Einstein
|
Whoever undertakes to set himself up as a judge of Truth and Knowledge is shipwrecked by the laughter of the gods.
|
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Last updated Tuesday, November 03, 2009
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