Max Beerbohm

“I have known no man of genius who had not to pay, in some affliction or defect either physical or spiritual, for what the gods had given him”. –Max Beerbohm

Allen Ginsberg

“You assume we are all sexually stable; while on the other hand, as I have become acquainted with people, I find that they are all perverted sinners, one way or another, that the whole society is corrupt and rotten and repressed and unconscious that it exhibits repression in various forms of social sadism”. –Allen Ginsberg

J.D. Salinger

“The religious life, and all the agony that goes with it, is just something God sics on people who have the gall to accuse Him of having created an ugly world”. –J.D. Salinger

Franklin D. Roosevelt

“I just have a hunch that Stalin is not that kind of man. Harry says he’s not and that he doesn’t want anything except security for his own country, and I think that if I give him everything I possibly can and ask for nothing in return, noblesse oblige, he won’t try to annex anything and will work with me for a world of democracy and peace”. –Franklin D. Roosevelt

Harry Houdini

“I knew, as everyone knows, that the easiest way to attract a crowd is to let it be known that at a given time and a given place some one is going to attempt something that in the event of failure will mean sudden death”. –Harry Houdini

Virgil

“Time bears away all things, even our minds”. –Virgil

William Hazlitt

“When a thing ceases to be a subject of controversy, it ceases to be a subject of interest”. –William Hazlitt

Kristen Nygaard

“The world language is English as spoken by foreigners”. –Kristen Nygaard

Ogden Nash

“Senator Smoot is an institute Not to be bribed with pelf; He guards our homes from erotic tomes By reading them all himself”. –Ogden Nash

Polykarp Kusch

“Science shows us truth and beauty and fills each day with a fresh wonder of the exquisite order which governs the world”. –Polykarp Kusch

Tupac Shakur

“America is the biggest gang in the world”. –Tupac Shakur

Leonid Brezhnev

“As you know, I am not a writer but a Party functionary. But like every Communist, I consider myself to have been mobilized by Party propaganda and deem it my duty to actively participate in the work of our press”. –Leonid Brezhnev

James Dean

“Dream as if you’ll live forever. Live as if you’ll die today”. –James Dean

Simon Wiesenthal

“There is no freedom without justice”. –Simon Wiesenthal

Charles Darwin

“In the struggle for survival, the fittest win out at the expense of their rivals because they succeed in adapting themselves best to their environment”. –Charles Darwin

Shunryu Suzuki

“In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities, in the expert’s mind there are few”. –Shunryu Suzuki

Soren Kierkegaard

“People demand freedom of speech as a compensation for the freedom of thought which they seldom use”. –Soren Kierkegaard

Richard Pryor

“I went through every phone book in Africa, and I didn’t find one god damned Pryor!”

Thelonious Monk

“Trying to explain music is like trying to dance architecture”. –Thelonious Monk

Edward R. Murrow

“All I can hope to teach my son is to tell the truth and fear no man”. –Edward R. Murrow

Polybius

“When a state after having passed with safety through many and great dangers arrives at the higher degree of power, and possesses an entire and undisputed sovereignty, it is manifest that the long continuance of prosperity must give birth to costly and luxurious manners…” –Polybius

Fyodor Dostoyevsky

“Man, so long as he remains free, has no more constant and agonizing anxiety than find as quickly as possible someone to worship”. –Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Medgar Evers

“You can kill a man, but you can’t kill an idea”. –Medgar Evers

Jim Morrison

“It hurts to set you free, but you’ll never follow me”. –Jim Morrison

Carl Jung

“Our blight is ideologies — they are the long-expected Antichrist!” –Carl Jung

Albert Einstein

“I am enough of an artist to draw freely upon my imagination. Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world”. –Albert Einstein

Washington Irving

“Little minds are tamed and subdued by misfortune; but great minds rise above them”. –Washington Irving

Denis Diderot

“From fanaticism to barbarism is only one step”. –Denis Diderot

Benjamin Disraeli

“Consider Ireland. You have a starving population, an absentee aristocracy, and an alien Church, and in addition the weakest executive in the world. That is the Irish Question”. –Benjamin Disraeli

Steve Allen

“Ours is a government of checks and balances. The Mafia and crooked businessmen make out checks, and the politicians and other compromised officials improve their bank balances”. –Steve Allen

William Penn

“Let the people think they govern and they will be governed”. –William Penn

Al Capone

“You can get much farther with a kind word and a gun, than you can with a kind word alone”. –Al Capone

Janis Joplin

“Don’t compromise yourself. You are all you’ve got”. –Janis Joplin

Eugene Ionesco

“I believe that what separates us all from one another is simply society itself, or, if you like, politics. This is what raises barriers between men, this is what creates misunderstandings”. –Eugene Ionesco

Henrik Ibsen

“The great task of our time is to blow up all existing institutions — to destroy”. –Henrik Ibsen

Diogenes

“The mob is the mother of tyrants”. –Diogenes

Sri Aurobindo

“All fanaticism is false, because it is a contradiction of the very nature of God and of Truth. Truth cannot be shut up in a single book, Bible or Veda or Koran, or in a single religion”. –Sri Aurobindo

William Morris

“I pondered all these things, and how men fight and lose the battle, and the thing that they fought for comes about in spite of their defeat, and when it comes turns out not to be what they meant, and other men have to fight for what they meant under another name”. –William Morris

Auguste Comte

“The dead governs the living”. –Auguste Comte

Vladimir Lenin

“The best way to destroy the capitalist system is to debauch the currency”. –Vladimir Lenin

Aleksandr Pushkin

“Two fixed ideas can no more exist together in the moral world than two bodies can occupy one and the same place in the physical world”. –Aleksandr Pushkin

Kurt Vonnegut

“Scientific truth was going to make us so happy and comfortable. What actually happened when I was twenty-one was that we dropped scientific truth on Hiroshima”. –Kurt Vonnegut

Christopher Reeve

“So many of our dreams at first seem impossible, then they seem improbable, and then, when we summon the will, they soon become inevitable”. –Christopher Reeve

Harry S. Truman

“The Jews, I find are very, very selfish. They care not how many Estonians, Latvians, Finns, Poles, Yugoslavs, or Greeks get murdered or mistreated as DP as long as the Jews get special treatment. Yet when they have power, physical, financial or political, neither Hitler nor Stalin has anything on them for cruelty or mistreatment to the underdog. Put an underdog on top and it makes no difference whether his name is Russian, Jewish, Negro, Management, Labor, Mormon, Baptist; he goes haywire. I’ve found very, very few who remember their past condition when prosperity comes”. –Harry S. Truman

William Bligh

“There is a degree of wretchedness and want among the lower class of people which is not anywhere so common as among the Spanish and Portuguese settlements”. –William Bligh

Mitch Hedberg

“I don’t have a girlfriend. But I do know a woman who’d be mad at me for saying that”. –Mitch Hedberg

Bob Marley

“Well, the biggest man that you ever did see was – was just a baby”. –Bob Marley

Nancy Mitford

“Surely a King who loves pleasure is less dangerous than one who loves glory?” –Nancy Mitford

Eugene Debs

“It is better to vote for what you want and not get it than to vote for what you don’t want and get it”. –Eugene Debs

Genghis Khan

“It is not sufficient that I succeed — all others must fail”. –Genghis Khan

Fiorello La Guardia

“It makes no difference if I burn my bridges behind me — I never retreat”. –Fiorello LaGuardia

Claude Debussy

“Works of art make rules; rules do not make works of art”. –Claude Debussy

Jim Valvano

“How do you go from where you are to where you want to be? …I think you have to have an enthusiasm for life. You have to have a dream, a goal. And you have to be willing to work for it”. –Jim Valvano

John Vanbrugh

“A slighted woman knows no bounds”. –John Vanbrugh

Voltaire

“The ancient Romans built their greatest masterpieces of architecture for wild beasts to fight in”. –Voltaire

Spiro Agnew

“A spirit of national masochism prevails, encouraged by an effete corps of impudent snobs who characterize themselves as intellectuals”. –Spiro Agnew

Redd Foxx

“Health nuts are going to feel stupid someday, lying in hospitals dying of nothing”. –Redd Foxx

Erich Ludendorff

“By appointing Hitler Chancellor of the Reich, you have handed over our sacred German Fatherland to one of the greatest demagogues of all time. I prophesy to you this evil man will plunge our Reich into the abyss and will inflict immeasurable woe on our nation. Future generations will curse you in your grave for this action”. –Erich Ludendorff

Michael Crichton

“We are all assumed, these days, to reside at one extreme of the opinion spectrum, or another. We are pro-abortion or anti-abortion. We are free traders or protectionists. We are pro-private sector or pro-big government. We are feminists or chauvinists. But in the real world, few of us holds these extreme views. There is instead a spectrum of opinion”. –Michael Crichton

Jerome

“Do not let your deeds belie your words, lest when you speak in church someone may say to himself, ‘Why do you not practice what you preach?'”. –Jerome

Wilhelm von Humboldt

“The government is best which makes itself unnecessary”. –Wilhelm von Humboldt

David Grayson

“Looking back, I have this to regret; that too often when I loved, I did not say so”. –David Grayson

Ralph Ellison

“Had the price of looking been blindness, I would have looked”. –Ralph Ellison

Ivan Pavlov

“Don’t become a mere recorder of facts, but try to penetrate the mystery of their origin”. –Ivan Pavlov

Orson Welles

“The ideal American-type is perfectly expressed by the Protestant, individualist, anti-conformist, and this is the type that is in the process of disappearing. In reality, there are few left”. –Orson Welles

T.E. Lawrence

“All men dream: but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses  of their minds wake in the day to find that it was vanity: but the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act their dreams with open eyes, to make it possible. This I did”. –T.E. Lawrence

Robert Frost

“Forgive, O Lord, my little jokes on Thee; And I’ll forgive Thy great big one on me”. –Robert Frost

Arthur Schopenhauer

“Talent hits a target no one else can hit; Genius hits a target no one else can see”. –Arthur Schopenhauer

James Otis

“It is a clear truth that those who every day barter away other men’s liberty will soon care little for their own”. –James Otis

Errico Malatesta

“We anarchists do not want to emancipate the people; we want the people to emancipate themselves”. –Errico Malatesta

William Petty

“That some are poorer than others, ever was and ever will be: And that many are naturally querulous and envious, is an Evil as old as the World”. –William Petty

Randall Jarrell

“In the United States, there one feels free… Except from the Americans — but every pearl has its oyster”. –Randall Jarrell

Henny Youngman

“A doctor gave a man six months to live. The man couldn’t pay his bill, so he gave him another six months”. –Henny Youngman

Ken Kesey

“He who marches out of line hears another drum”. –Ken Kesey

Benito Mussolini

“Race! It is a feeling, not a reality… Nothing will ever make me believe that biologically pure races can be shown to exist today. Amusingly enough, not one of those who have proclaimed the ‘nobility’ of the Teutonic race was himself a Teuton. Gobineau was a Frenchman, Houston Chamberlain, an Englishman; Woltmann, a Jew; Lapouge, another Frenchman”. –Benito Mussolini

Bela Lugosi

“People, chained by monotony, afraid to think, clinging to certainties; they live like ants”. –Bela Lugosi

Barbara Tuchman

“Every successful revolution puts on in time the robes of the tyrant it has deposed”. –Barbara Tuchman

Simon Cameron

“An honest politician is one who, when is bought, will stay bought”. –Simon Cameron

Bruno Walter

“Napoleon is dead — but Beethoven lives”. –Bruno Walter

Moshe Dayan

“Our American friends offer us money, arms, and advice. We take the money, we take the arms, and we decline the advice”. –Moshe Dayan

John Arbuthnot

“All political parties die at last of swallowing their own lies”. –John Arbuthnot

Thomas Malthus

“The power of population is indefinitely greater than the power in the earth to produce subsistence for man”. –Thomas Malthus

Democritus

“By desiring little, a poor man makes himself rich”. –Democritus

Douglas MacArthur

“I am concerned for the security of our great Nation; not so much because of any threat from without, but because of the insidious forces working from within”. –Douglas MacArthur

Fred Astaire

“The hardest job kids face today is learning good manners without seeing any”. –Fred Astaire

Pope John Paul II

“An excuse is worse and more terrible than a lie, for an excuse is a lie guarded”. –Pope John Paul II

Francis Bacon

“Prosperity doth best discover vice, but adversity doth best discover truth”. –Francis Bacon

Edwin Land

“Don’t undertake a project unless it is manifestly important and nearly impossible”. –Edwin Land

Nathalie Sarraute

“It’s the duty of all novelists, all painters, all musicians, all people who try to make art move: to look for something they feel authentically, without paying attention to styles”. –Nathalie Sarraute

Irving Berlin

“The toughest thing about success is that you’ve got to keep on being a success”. –Irving Berlin

Charles de Gaulle

“Since a politician never believes what he says, he is quite surprised to be taken at his word”. –Charles de Gaulle

Marlon Brando

“I don’t think its in the nature of any man to be monogamous. Men are propelled by genetically ordained impulses over which they have no control to distribute their seed”. –Marlon Brando

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel

“An idea is always a generalization, and generalization is a property of thinking. To generalize means to think”. –Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel

Harry Caray

“Booze, broads, and bullshit; if you’ve got all that, what else do you need?” –Harry Caray

Dwight D. Eisenhower

“Soldiers, Sailors, and Airmen of the Allied Expeditionary Force! You are about to embark upon the Great Crusade, toward which we have striven these many months. The eyes of the world are upon you. The hopes and prayers of liberty-loving people everywhere march with you. In company with our brave Allies and brothers-in-arms on other Fronts, you will bring about the destruction of the German war machine, the elimination of Nazi tyranny over the oppressed peoples of Europe, and security for ourselves in a free world”. –Dwight D. Eisenhower

Benjamin Jowett

“Doubt comes in at the window when inquiry is denied at the door”. –Benjamin Jowett

Miguel de Cervantes

“In order to obtain the impossible, one must attempt the absurd”. –Miguel de Cervantes

Alexis Carrel

“Everyone makes a greater effort to hurt other people than to help himself”. –Alexis Carrel

Karl Kraus

“War: first, one hopes to win; then one expects the enemy to lose; then, one is satisfied that he too is suffering; in the end, one is surprised that everyone has lost”. –Karl Kraus

Red Skelton

“Our principles are the springs of our actions. Our actions, the springs of our happiness or misery. Too much care, therefore, cannot be taken in forming our principles”. –Red Skelton

Claudius

“No one is more miserable than the person who wills everything and can do nothing”. –Claudius

Virginia Woolf

“Once you begin to take yourself seriously as a leader or as a follower, as a modern or as a conservative, then you become a self-conscious, biting, and scratching little animal whose work is not of the slightest value or importance to anybody”. –Virginia Woolf

M.C. Escher

“We adore chaos because we love to produce order”. –M.C. Escher

Saddam Hussein

“The most important thing about marriage is that the man must not let the woman feel downtrodden simply because she is a woman and he is a man”. –Saddam Hussein

Walter Raleigh

“Whosoever, in writing modern history, shall follow truth too near the heels, it may happily strike out his teeth”. –Walter Raleigh

Pierre Beaumarchais

“Drinking when not thirsty and making love all the time, madam, is all that distinguishes us from other animals”. –Pierre Beaumarchais

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

“The clock of communism has stopped striking, but its concrete building has not yet come crashing down. For that reason, instead of freeing ourselves, we must try to save ourselves from being crushed by its rubble”. –Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

Cornelius Vanderbilt

“You have undertaken to cheat me. I won’t sue you, for law is too slow. I’ll ruin you”. –Cornelius Vanderbilt

Graham Greene

“A petty reason, perhaps, why novelists more and more try to keep a distance from journalists is that novelists are trying to write the truth and journalists are trying to write fiction”. –Graham Greene

Max Euwe

“Strategy requires thought, tactics require observation”. –Max Euwe

Robert Graves

“Nobody is familiar with his own profile, and it comes as a shock when one sees it in a portrait, that one really looks like that to people standing beside one”. –Robert Graves

Simon Bolivar

“A state too expensive in itself, or by virtue of its dependencies, ultimately falls into decay; its free government is transformed into tyranny; it disregards the principles which it should preserve, and finally degenerates into despotism”. –Simon Bolivar

Georges Bizet

“As a musician I tell you that if you were to suppress adultery, fanaticism, crime, evil, the supernatural, there would no longer be the means for writing one note”. –Georges Bizet

Hans Christian Andersen

“Death walks faster than the wind and never returns what he has taken”. –Hans Christian Andersen

Friedrich Engels

“Everything must justify its existence before the judgement of Reason, or give up existence”. –Friedrich Engels

John Steinbeck

“You know how advice is. You only want it if it agrees with what you wanted to do anyway”. –John Steinbeck

King Faisal I

“We Arabs, especially the educated among us, look with the deepest sympathy on the Zionist movement… We will wish the Jews a most hearty welcome home”. –King Faisal I

Booker T. Washington

“I am afraid that there is a certain class of race-problem solvers who don’t want the patient to get well, because as long as the disease holds out they have not only an easy means of making a living, but also an easy medium through which to make themselves prominent before the public”. –Booker T. Washington

Franz Kafka

“In the struggle between yourself and the world, back the world”. –Franz Kafka

Corneliu Codreanu

“The first and fiercest punishment ought to fall first on the traitor, second on the enemy”. –Corneliu Codreanu

Stanislaw Leszczynski

“Have the courage to face a difficulty lest it kick you harder than you bargain for”. –Stanislaw Leszczynski

Walter Kaufmann

“The great artist is the man who most obviously succeeds in turning his pains to advantage, in letting suffering deepen his understanding and sensibility, in growing through his pains”. –Walter Kaufmann

Jack Paar

“I have never seen a bad television program, because I refuse to. God gave me a mind, and a wrist that turns things off”. –Jack Paar

Hank Williams

“No matter how I struggle and strive, I’ll never get out of this world alive”. –Hank Williams

Earl Warren

“Many people consider the things government does for them to be social progress, but they regard the things government does for others as socialism”. –Earl Warren

Arthur C. Clarke

“Science can destroy religion by ignoring it as well as by disproving its tenets. No one ever demonstrated, so far as I am aware, the non-existence of Zeus or Thor — but they have few followers now”. –Arthur C. Clarke

Wernher von Braun

“Science does not have a moral dimension. It is like a knife. If you give it to a surgeon or a murderer, each will use it differently”. –Wernher von Braun

H.G. Wells

“A time will come when a politician who has willfully made war and promoted international dissension will be as sure of the dock and much surer of the noose than a private homicide. It is not reasonable that those who gamble with men’s lives should not stake their own”. –H.G. Wells

Salvador Dali

“Any kind of organization for the goodwill of the people is impossible. It is necessary for the contrary. Young people need plenty of difficulties to achieve something, you know? If you receive a little money for this, a little money for that, everything becomes mediocre, and collapses ig-no-min-i-ously”. –Salvador Dali

Luc de Clapiers

“To execute great things, one should live as though one would never die”. –Luc de Clapiers

J. Paul Getty

“In times of rapid change, experience could be your worst enemy”. –J. Paul Getty

Basil of Caesarea

“Many a man curses the rain that falls upon his head, and knows not that it brings abundance to drive away the hunger”. –Basil of Caesarea

Francis Galton

“One of the effects of civilization is to diminish the rigor of the application of the law of natural selection. It preserves weakly lives that would have perished in barbarous lands”. –Francis Galton

Georges Duhamel

“It is always brave to say what everyone thinks”. –Georges Duhamel

Peter Sellers

“Some forms of reality are so horrible we refuse to face them, unless we are trapped into it by comedy. To label any subject unsuitable for comedy is to admit defeat”. –Peter Sellers

Skanderbeg

“I have not brought freedom to you, I found it here among you”. –Skanderbeg

Adlai Stevenson

“Every age needs men who will redeem the time by living with a vision of the things that are to be”. –Adlai Stevenson

John Lennon

“I think we’re being run by maniacs for maniacal ends, and I think I’m liable to be put away as insane for expressing that. That’s what’s insane about it”. –John Lennon

Margaret Sanger

“The most merciful thing that a family does to one of its infant members is to kill it”. –Margaret Sanger

Ulysses S. Grant

“If men make war in slavish obedience to rules, they will fail”. –Ulysses S. Grant

Giuseppe Mazzini

“So long as you are ready to die for humanity, the life of your country is immortal”. –Giuseppe Mazzini

Klaus Kinski

“One should judge a man mainly from his depravities. Virtues can be faked. Depravities are real”. –Klaus Kinski

Aphra Behn

“There is no sinner like a young saint”. –Aphra Behn

Christopher Columbus

“Riches don’t make a man rich, they only make him busier”. –Christopher Columbus

John Milton

“None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license”. –John Milton

Edward Heath

“A diplomat is a man who thinks twice before he says nothing”. –Edward Heath

Aristotle

“Both oligarch and tyrant mistrust the people, and therefore deprive them of their arms”. –Aristotle

F. Scott Fitzgerald

“Either you think — or else others have to think for you, and take power from you, pervert and discipline your natural tastes, civilize and sterilize you”. –F. Scott Fitzgerald

Edward Thorndike

“Amongst the minds of animals that of man leads; not as a demigod from another planet, but as a king from the same race”. –Edward Thorndike

Satchel Paige

“Don’t pray when it rains if you don’t pray when the sun shines”. –Satchel Paige

Charles Kingsley

“Science frees us in many ways… from the bodily terror which the savage feels. But she replaces that, in the minds of many, by a moral terror which is far more overwhelming”. –Charles Kingsley

Morarji Desai

“I do not say that one who is vegetarian is full of compassion, and one who is not is otherwise. We sometimes find people, who are vegetarians, are very bad people”. –Morarji Desai

Ansel Adams

“It is horrifying that we have to fight our own government to save the environment”. –Ansel Adams

Hoyt Axton

“You know I smoked a lot of grass, And I popped a couple pills, But I never touched nothing that could break my will”. –Hoyt Axton

James A. Michener

“If you reject the food, ignore the customs, fear the religion, and avoid the people, you might better stay home”. –James A. Michener

Hermann Göring

“We will go down in history either as the world’s greatest statesmen or its worst villains”. –Hermann Göring

George Orwell

“Between them, these two books sum up our present predicament. Capitalism leads to dole queues, the scramble for markets, and war. Collectivism leads to concentration camps, leader worship, and war”. –George Orwell

Jawaharlal Nehru

“It is the habit of every aggressor nation to claim that it is acting on the defensive”. –Jawaharlal Nehru

Bernard Malamud

“If you ever forget you’re a Jew, a Gentile will remind you”. –Bernard Malamud

Meister Eckhart

“The price of inaction is far greater than the cost of making a mistake”. –Meister Eckhart

Lenny Bruce

“If Jesus had been killed 20 years ago, Catholic school children would be wearing little electric chairs around their necks instead of crosses”. –Lenny Bruce

Maximilien Robespierre

“To punish the oppressors of humanity is clemency; to forgive them is cruelty”. –Maximilien Robespierre

Marco Polo

“If you put together all the Christians in the world, with their Emperors and their Kings; the whole of the Christians — and throw in the Saracens to boot — they would not have such power, or be able to do so much as this Kublai, who is Lord of all the Tartars in the world”. –Marco Polo

Leon Trotsky

“A means can be justified only by its end, but the end in its turn needs to be justified”. –Leon Trotsky

Jefferson Davis

“Neither current events nor history show that the majority rule, or ever did rule”. –Jefferson Davis

Sid Vicious

“I’ll probably die by the time I reach 25, but I’ll have lived the way I wanted to”. –Sid Vicious

Pablo Picasso

“It’s not what the artist does that counts, but what he is”. — Pablo Picasso

John J. Pershing

“A competent leader can get efficient service from poor troops, while on the contrary an incapable leader can demoralize the best of troops”. –John J. Pershing

G.K. Chesterton

“Impartiality is a pompous name for indifference, which is an elegant name for ignorance”. –G.K. Chesterton

Leo Ryan

“Neither Republicans nor Democrats have begun to spell out in substantive fashion the means by which we can control population growth, environmental problems, and the conservation of our natural resources”. –Leo Ryan

William Cowper

“Regions Cæsar never knew Thy posterity shall sway; Where his eagles never flew, None invincible as they”. –William Cowper

Miles Davis

“If somebody told me I only had an hour to live, I’d spend it choking a white man. I’d do it nice and slow”. –Miles Davis

Nicolaus Copernicus

“For I am not so enamored of my own opinions that I disregard what others may think of them”. –Nicolaus Copernicus

Oscar Wilde

“A thing is not necessarily true because a man dies for it”. –Oscar Wilde

Albert Meltzer

“Optimism is inevitably the last hope of the defeated”. –Albert Meltzer

Rita Hayworth

“Increasingly, stars are recruited from the ranks of professional models, with the result that today’s starlets are better dressed and better groomed than ever before, though it is doubtful if they are better actresses”. –Rita Hayworth

Ryokan

“The winds give me Enough fallen leaves To make a fire”. –Ryokan

Austin O’Malley

“The worst misfortune that can happen to an ordinary man is to have an extraordinary father”. –Austin O’Malley

Albert Schweitzer

“The African is my brother — but he is my younger brother by several centuries”. –Albert Schweitzer

L. Ron Hubbard

“You don’t get rich writing science fiction. If you want to get rich, you start a religion”. –L. Ron Hubbard

Nikita Khrushchev

“My arms are up to the elbows in blood. That is the most terrible thing that lies in my soul”. –Nikita Khrushchev

Ian Fleming

“Men want a woman whom they can turn on and off like a light switch”. –Ian Fleming

Bruce Lee

“Use only that which works, and take it from any place you can find it”. –Bruce Lee

Grandma Moses

“Life is what we make it, always has been, always will be”. –Grandma Moses

Elihu Root

“Honest people, mistakenly believing in the justice of their cause, are led to support injustice”. –Elihu Root

Lewis Hine

“While photographs may not lie, liars may photograph”. –Lewis Hine

Yitzhak Rabin

“You don’t make peace with friends. You make it with very unsavory enemies”. –Yitzhak Rabin

James Cagney

“If the American family has seemed in danger of disintegration, I believe and hope it will survive, and I think America will return to old values”. –James Cagney

John Wanamaker

“People who cannot find time for recreation are obliged sooner or later to find time for illness”. –John Wanamaker

Rumi

“If you dig a pit for others to fall into, you will fall into it yourself”. –Rumi

Holbrook Jackson

“Patience has its limits; take it too far and it’s cowardice”. –Holbrook Jackson

Neville Chamberlain

“No doubt the Jews aren’t a lovable people; I don’t care about them myself; but that is not sufficient to explain the Pogrom”. –Neville Chamberlain

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

“Which is the best government? That which teaches us to govern ourselves”. –Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Calvin Coolidge

“I favor the policy of economy, not because I wish to save money, but because I wish to save people. The men and women of this country who toil are the ones who bear the cost of the Government. Every dollar that we carelessly waste means that their life will be so much the more meager”. –Calvin Coolidge

Michelangelo

“If people knew how hard I had to work to gain my mastery, it would not seem so wonderful at all”. –Michelangelo

Hedy Lamarr

“Its funny about men and women. Men pay in cash to get them and pay in cash to get rid of them. Women pay emotionally coming and going. Neither has it easy”. –Hedy Lamarr

Antonio Gaudi

“Men may be divided into two types: men of words and men of action. The first speaks; the latter act. I am of the second type. I lack the means to express myself adequately”. –Antonio Gaudi

Ernest Renan

“To be free in an age like ours, one must be in a position of authority. That in itself would be enough to make me ambitious”. –Ernest Renan

Oliver Goldsmith

“For he who fights and runs away, May live to fight another day; But he who is in battle slain, Can never rise and fight again”. –Oliver Goldsmith

John Holmes

“Friends will get you killed”. –John Holmes

Zhuangzi

“During our dreams we do not know we are dreaming. We may even dream of interpreting a dream. Only on waking do we know it was a dream. Only after the great awakening will we realize that this is the great dream”. –Zhuangzi

Georgy Zhukov

“The mere existence of atomic weapons implies the possibility of their use”. –Georgy Zhukov

Paul Brown

“When you win, say nothing. When you lose, say less”. –Paul Brown

Salvatore Quasimodo

“War, I have always said, forces men to change their standards, regardless of whether their country has won or lost”. –Salvatore Quasimodo

David Brinkley

“Numerous politicians have seized absolute power and muzzled the press. Never in history has the press seized absolute power and muzzled the politicians”. –David Brinkley

Edgar Cayce

“The Lord marks the fall of the smallest sparrow. He knows how so many in authority treat the infirm, and the aged. Look at the Napoleons, Cæsars, and the like. Rather than casting themselves in God’s image, they made Gods of themselves, and were destroyed”. –Edgar Cayce

Paul Tillich

“He who risks and fails can be forgiven. He who never risks and never fails is a failure in his whole being”. –Paul Tillich

Edsger Dijkstra

“Perfecting oneself is as much unlearning as it is learning”. –Edsger Dijkstra

Ammon Hennacy

“Oh, judge, your damn laws: the good people don’t need them and the bad people don’t follow them, so what good are they?” –Ammon Hennacy

Rogers Hornsby

“Any ballplayer that don’t sign autographs for little kids ain’t an American, he’s a communist”. –Rogers Hornsby

Stephen Ambrose

“Like their predecessors, the Presidents of today just throw up their hands”. –Stephen Ambrose

Cesar Chavez

“In some cases, non-violence requires more militancy than violence”. –Cesar Chavez

Golda Meir

“Peace will come when the Arabs love their children more than they hate us”. –Golda Meir

Buddy Hackett

“I’ve had a few arguments with people, but I never carry a grudge. You know why? While you’re carrying a grudge, they’re out dancing”. –Buddy Hackett

Robert Moog

“One always has to remember these days where the garbage pail is, because it’s so easy to make sounds, and put sounds together into something that appears to be music, but it’s just as hard as it always was to make good music”. –Robert Moog

Marquis de Lafayette

“When the government violates the people’s rights, insurrection is, for the people and for each portion of the people, the most sacred of the rights and the most indispensable of duties”. –Marquis de Lafayette

Charlton Heston

“Political correctness is tyranny with manners”. –Charlton Heston

Varro

“No sick man’s monstrous dream can be so wild that some philosopher won’t say it’s true”. –Varro

Charles Olson

“When will the government cease being a nuisance to everybody?” –Charles Olson

Aneurin Bevan

“Soon, if we are not prudent, millions of people will be watching each other starve to death through expensive television sets”. –Aneurin Bevan

Lord Mountbatten

“My father was afraid of his father, I was afraid of my father, and I don’t see why my children shouldn’t be afraid of me”. –Lord Mountbatten

Emile Durkheim

“It is too great comfort which turns a man against himself. Life is most readily renounced at the time and among the classes where it is least harsh”. –Emile Durkheim

Ahmed Yassin

“We did not fight the Americans or the Europeans. We fight only the Israeli enemy that took our homes and homeland”. –Ahmed Yassin

Timothy Leary

“Women who seek to be equal with men lack ambition”. –Timothy Leary

Humphrey Bogart

“Things are never so bad they can’t be made worse”. –Humphrey Bogart

Alexander Pope

“Histories are more full of Examples of the Fidelity of dogs than of Friends”. –Alexander Pope

Vincent van Gogh

“There are things which we feel to be good and true, though in the cold light of reason and calculation, many things remain incomprehensible and dark”. –Vincent van Gogh

Leo Tolstoy

“The more is given, the less the people will work for themselves, and the less they work, the more their poverty will increase”. –Leo Tolstoy

Edward Coke

“Fraud and deceit abound in these days more than in former times”. –Edward Coke

Curtis LeMay

“There are no innocent civilians. It is their government, and you are fighting a people. You are not trying to fight an armed force anymore, so it doesn’t bother me so much to be killing the so-called innocent bystanders”. –Curtis LeMay

William James

“Habit is thus the enormous fly-wheel of society, its most precious conservative agent. It alone is what keeps us all within the bounds of ordinance, and saves the children of fortune from the envious uprisings of the poor”. –William James

Gustave Flaubert

“To be stupid, selfish, and have good health are three requirements for happiness, though if stupidity is lacking, all is lost”. –Gustave Flaubert

Hunter S. Thompson

“I’ve always considered writing the most hateful kind of work. I suspect it’s a bit like fucking — which is fun only for amateurs. Old whores don’t do much giggling”. –Hunter S. Thompson

Camilo Jose Cela

“There are two kinds of man: the ones who make history, and the ones who endure it”. –Camilo Jose Cela

Franz Liszt

“What is our life but a series of preludes to that unknown song of which death sounds the first solemn note?” –Franz Liszt

Adam Smith

“Money, says the proverb, makes money. When you have a little, it is often easier to get more. The great difficulty is to get that little”. –Adam Smith

Frederico Fellini

“It’s easier to be faithful to a restaurant than it is to a woman”. –Frederico Fellini

Enver Pasha

“The Ottoman Empire should be cleaned up of the Armenians and the Lebanese. We have destroyed the former by sword, we shall destroy the latter through starvation”. –Enver Pasha

Niels Bohr

“Every valuable human being must be a radical and a rebel; for what he must aim at is to make things better than they are”. –Niels Bohr

Zulfikar Ali Bhutto

“Tin-pot dictators have ravaged Asia, Latin America, and Africa. In the aftermath, they have done more to promote communism than the works of Marx and Engels, Lenin, and Mao. They are the worst tyrants of the post-colonial period. They have destroyed time-honored institutions and treated their people like animals”. –Zulfikar Ali Bhutto

Alec Issigonis

“An expert is someone who tells you why you can’t do something”. –Alec Issigonis

Peter Tosh

“Everybody wants to go to heaven, but nobody wants to die”. –Peter Tosh

Nat King Cole

“I can’t bear to see myself, even in movies. The feeling is complex. I can’t stand the sight of myself”. –Nat King Cole

Bette Davis

“When a man gives his opinion, he’s a man. When a woman gives her opinion, she’s a bitch”. –Bette Davis

Duke of Wellington

“Next to a battle lost, the greatest misery is a battle gained”. –Duke of Wellington

Karl Marx

“Democracy is the road to socialism”. –Karl Marx

Æschylus

“I have learned to hate all traitors, and there is no disease I spit on more than treachery”. –Æschylus

John Barrymore

“A man is not old until regrets take the place of dreams”. –John Barrymore

Ralph Waldo Emerson

“The imitator dooms himself to hopeless mediocrity”. –Ralph Waldo Emerson

Peter Kropotkin

“America is just the country that shows how all the written guarantees in the world for freedom are no protection against tyranny and oppression of the worst kind. There the politician has come to be looked upon as the very scum of society”. –Peter Kropotkin

John Pearson

“Death is nothing else but a change of a short and temporary for an unalterable and eternal condition”. –John Pearson

W.E.B. Du Bois

“It is a peculiar sensation, this double-consciousness, this sense of always looking at one’s self through the eyes of others, of measuring one’s soul by the tape of a world that looks on in amused contempt and pity”. –W.E.B. Du Bois

Giacomo Casanova

“As to the deceit perpetrated upon women, let it pass, for, when love is in the way, men and women, as a general rule, dupe each other”. –Giacomo Casanova

Rube Goldberg

“I’ve met all kinds of people, oh, God, presidents and everybody else, and, I’m not too impressed with celebrity, with names now”. –Rube Goldberg

Norman Mailer

“I find now that women have achieved some power and recognition they are quite the equal of men in every stupidity and vice and misjudgment that we’ve exercised throughout history”. –Norman Mailer

Rudyard Kipling

“Now this is the Law of the Jungle – as old and as true as the sky; And the Wolf that shall keep it may prosper, but the Wolf that shall break it must die”. –Rudyard Kipling

Subhas Chandra Bose

“Reality is, after all, too big for our frail understanding to fully comprehend. Nevertheless, we have to build our life on the theory which contains the maximum truth. We cannot sit still because we cannot, or do not, know the Absolute Truth”. –Subhas Chandra Bose

Hector Berlioz

“Time is a great teacher, but unfortunately it kills all its pupils”. –Hector Berlioz

Joseph Goebbels

“Our starting point is not the individual. We do not subscribe to the view that one should feed the hungry, give drink to the thirsty, or cloth the naked. Our objectives are different; we must have a healthy people in order to prevail in the world”. –Joseph Goebbels

Vernon Howard

“You are not responsible for anyone who stubbornly chooses to ruin his own life”. –Vernon Howard

Mikhail Bakunin

“When the people are being beaten with a stick, they are not much happier if it is called ‘the People’s Stick'”. –Mikhail Bakunin

Khalil Gibran

“To understand the heart and mind of a person, look not at what he has already achieved, but what he aspires to”. –Khalil Gibran

Ernest Rutherford

“A theory you can’t explain to a bartender is probably no damn good”. –Ernest Rutherford

James E. Casey

“The basic principle which I believe has contributed more than any other to the building of our business as it is today, is the ownership of our company by the people employed in it”. –James E. Casey

Paul Newman

“If you’re playing a poker game, and you look around the table and can’t tell who the sucker is, it’s you”. –Paul Newman

Jose Rizal

“The tyranny of some is only possible through the cowardice of others”. –Jose Rizal

Walter Scott

“For he that does good, having the unlimited power to do evil, deserves praise not only for the good which he performs, but for the evil which he forbears”. –Walter Scott

Marcus Aurelius

“Do every act in life as if it was your last”. –Marcus Aurelius

Ruhollah Khomeini

“We do not worship Iran, we worship Allah. For patriotism is another name for paganism. I say let this land burn. I say let this land go up in smoke, provided Islam emerges triumphant in the rest of the world”. –Ruhollah Khomeini

John Keats

“Nothing ever becomes real till it is experienced – Even a proverb is no proverb to you till your Life has illustrated it”. — John Keats

Barry Goldwater

“I would remind you that extremism in defense of liberty is no vice! And let me remind you also that moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue!” –Barry Goldwater

John Wayne

“Life is tough, but it’s tougher when you’re stupid”. –John Wayne

Igor Stravinsky

“One has a nose. The nose scents and it chooses. An artist is simply a kind of pig snouting truffles”. –Igor Stravinsky

Matsuo Basho

“Seek not the paths of the ancients; Seek that which the ancients sought”. –Matsuo Basho

Bobby Fischer

“I would rather be free in my mind, and be locked up in a prison cell, than to be a coward and not be able to say what I want”. –Bobby Fischer

Knute Rockne

“Show me a good and gracious loser and I’ll show you a failure”. –Knute Rockne

Daniel Webster

“Justice, sir, is the great interest of man on Earth. It is the ligament which holds civilized beings and civilized nations together”. –Daniel Webster

Niccolo Machiavelli

“It ought be remembered that there is nothing more difficult to take in hand, more perilous to conduct, or more uncertain in its success, than to take the lead in the introduction of a new order of things”. –Niccolo Machiavelli

Aleister Crowley

“The pious pretense that evil does not exist only makes it vague, enormous, and menacing. Its overshadowing formlessness obsesses the mind. The way to beat an enemy is to define him clearly, to analyze and measure him. Once an idea is intelligently grasped, it ceases to threaten the mind with the terrors of the unknown”. –Aleister Crowley

Ferdinand Foch

“The will to conquer is the first condition of victory”. –Ferdinand Foch

Isaac Asimov

“To surrender to ignorance and call it God has always been premature, and it remains premature today”. –Isaac Asimov

Max Planck

“A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it”. –Max Planck

Roger Maris

“It’s like the obituaries; when you die they finally give you good reviews”. –Roger Maris

Peace Pilgrim

“Anything you cannot relinquish, when it has outlived its usefulness, possesses you, and in this materialistic age a great many of us are possessed by our possessions”. –Peace Pilgrim

Eric Hoffer

“A dissenting minority feels free only when it can impose its will on the majority: what it abominates most is the dissent of the majority”. –Eric Hoffer

Thomas More

“Ask a woman’s advice, and whatever she advises, do the very reverse and you’re sure to be wise”. –Thomas More

Miguel de Unamuno

“Suffering is the substance of life, and the root of personality; for it is only suffering that makes us persons”. –Miguel de Unamuno

Lucille Ball

“I’d rather regret the things I’ve done than regret the things I haven’t done”. –Lucille Ball

Ivan Illich

“The compulsion to do good is an innate American trait. Only North Americans seem to believe they always should, may, and actually can choose somebody with whom to share their blessings. Ultimately, this attitude leads to bombing people into the acceptance of gifts”. –Ivan Illich

Lord Byron

“A celebrity is one who is known to many persons he is glad he doesn’t know”. –Lord Byron

William S. Burroughs

“How I hate those who are dedicated to producing conformity”. –William S. Burroughs

Martin Luther King

“Like anybody, I would like to live a long life. Longevity has its place, but I’m not concerned about that now. I just want to do God’s Will, and He’s allowed me to go up to the mountain, and I’ve looked over, and I’ve seen the Promised Land. I may not get there with you, but I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the Promised Land”. –Martin Luther King

Heinz Guderian

“There are no desperate situations, only desperate people”. –Heinz Guderian

Charles Kettering

“If you want to kill any idea in the world, get a committee working on it”. –Charles Kettering