Quotes From Famous and Not So Famous People
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
G
Getting divorced just because you don't love a man is almost as silly as getting married just because you do.
- Zsa Zsa Gabor
Wealth is not without its advantages, and the case to the contrary, although it has often been made, has never proved widely persuasive.
- John Kenneth Galbraith/ Gabraith
In any great organization it is far, far safer to be wrong with the majority than to be right alone.
- John Kenneth Galbraith/ Gabraith
Nothing is so admirable in politics as a short memory.
- John Kenneth Galbraith/ Gabraith
Politics is not the art of the possible. It consists in choosing between the disastrous and the unpalatable.
- John Kenneth Galbraith/ Gabraith
The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness.
- John Kenneth Galbraith/ Gabraith
One of the greatest pieces of economic wisdom is to know what you do not know.
- John Kenneth Galbraith/ Gabraith
I'll moider da bum.
- Heavyweight boxer Tony Galento, when asked what he thought of William Shakespeare
I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use.
- Galileo Galilei
There are two kinds of people, those who do the work and those who take the credit. Try to be in the first group; there is less competition there.
- Indira Gandhi
640K ought to be enough for anybody.
- Bill Gates in 1981
The Warren Commission thought they had an open-and-shut case. Three bullets, one assassin. But two unpredictable things happened that day that made it virtually impossible. One, the eight-millimeter home movie taken by Abraham Zapruder while standing by the grassy knoll. Two, the third wounded man, James Tague, who was knicked by a fragment, standing near the triple underpass. The time frame, five point six seconds, determined by the Zapruder film, left no possibility of a fourth shot. So the shot or fragment that left a superficial wound on Tague's cheek had to come from the three shots fired from the sixth floor depository. That leaves just two bullets. And we know one of them was the fatal head shot that killed Kennedy. So now a single bullet remains. A single bullet now has to account for the remaining seven wounds in Kennedy and Connelly. But rather than admit to a conspiracy or investigate further, the Warren Commission chose to endorse the theory put forth by an ambitious junior counselor, Arlen Spector, one of the grossest lies ever forced on the American people. We've come to know it as the "Magic Bullet Theory." This single-bullet explanation is the foundation of the Warren Commission's claim of a lone assassin. Once you conclude the magic bullet could not create all seven of those wounds, you'd have to conclude that there was a fourth shot and a second rifle. And if there was a second rifleman, then by definition, there had to be a conspiracy.
- Jim Garrison
The graveyards are full of indispensable men.
- General Charles de Gaulle (1890-1970)
What do you take me for, an idiot?
- General Charles de Gaulle (1890-1970), when a journalist asked him if he was happy
Ask her to wait a moment - I am almost done.
- Carl Friedrich Gauss (1777-1855), while working, when informed that his wife is dying
A country can be judged by the quality of its proverbs.
- German Proverb
Crazy people who are productive are geniuses. Crazy people who are rich are eccentric. Crazy people who are neither productive nor rich are just plain crazy. Geniuses and crazy people are both out in the middle of a deep ocean; geniuses swim, crazy people drown. Most of us are sitting safely on the shore. Take a chance and get your feet wet.
- Michael J. Gelb
Brain researchers estimate that your unconscious data base outweighs the conscious on an order exceeding ten million to one. This data base is the source of you hidden, natural genius. In other words, a part of you is much smarter than you are. The wise people regularly consult that smarter part.
- Michael J. Gelb
Over-seriousness is a warning sign for mediocrity and bureaucratic thinking. People who are seriously committed to mastery and high performance are secure enough to lighten up.
- Michael J. Gelb
Champions know that success is inevitable; that there is no such thing as failure, only feedback. They know that the best way to forecast the future is to create it.
- Michael J. Gelb
Life is a continuous exercise in creative problem solving.
- Michael J. Gelb
Confusion is the welcome mat at the door of creativity.
- Michael J. Gelb
A champion views resistance as a gift of energy.
- Michael J. Gelb
Don't be afraid to take a big step. You can't cross a chasm in two small jumps.
- David Lloyd George
If you can count your money you don't have a billion dollars.
- J. Paul Getty
There are people in the world so hungry that God cannot appear to them except in the form of bread.
- Mahatma/ Mohandas Ghandi (1869-1948)
I think it would be a good idea.
- Mahatma/ Mohandas Ghandi (1869-1948), when asked what he thought of Western civilization
Freedom is not worth having if it does not connote freedom to err. It passes my comprehension how human beings, be they ever so experienced and able, can delight in depriving other human beings of that precious right.
- Mahatma/ Mohandas Gandhi
Anger and intolerance are the enemies of correct understanding.
- Mahatma/ Mohandas Gandhi
One does not discover new lands without consenting to lose sight of the shore for a very long time.
- André Gide
Believe those who are seeking the truth; doubt those who find it.
- André Gide
Real poverty is less a state of income than a state of mind.
- George Gilder
The secret of success is sincerity. Once you can fake that you've got it made.
- Jean Giraudoux
One of the true tests of leadership is the ability to recognize a problem before it becomes an emergency.
- Arnold Glasow
The fewer the facts, the stronger the opinion.
- Arnold Glasow
Expecting something for nothing is the most popular form of hope.
- Arnold Glasow
Even if you're on the right track, you'll get run over if you just sit there.
- Arthur Godfrey
Good teaching is one-fourth preparation and three-fourths theater.
- Gail Godwin
A life without love, without the presence of the beloved, is nothing but a mere magic-latern show. We draw out slide after slide, swiftly tiring of each, and pushing it back to make haste for the next.
- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Whatever you do, or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius and power and magic in it.
- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
When ideas fail, words come in very handy.
- Goethe (1749-1832)
We are not abandoning our convictions, our philosophy or traditions, nor do we urge anyone to abandon theirs.
- Mikhail Gorbachov
The genius of the American system is that through freedom we have created extraordinary results from plain ordinary people.
- Senator Phil Gramm
No one ever achieved greatness by playing it safe.
- Harry Gray
A successful man is one who can lay a firm foundation with the bricks that others throw at him.
- Sidney Greenberg
Heresy is another word for freedom of thought.
- Graham Greene
Class is how you treat people who can do nothing for you.
- Geof Greenleaf
A man is measured by the size of things that anger him.
- Geof Greenleaf
Good leaders must first become good servants.
- Robert Greenleaf
A society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade they know they shall never sit in.
- Greek Proverb
You miss 100 percent of the shots you never take.
- Wayne Gretzky
When authorities warn you of the sinfulness of sex, there is an important lesson to be learned. Do not have sex with the authorities.
- Matt Groening
Figures won't lie, but liars will figure.
- Charles H. Grosvenor
Silence is argument carried out by other means.
- Ernesto"Che"Guevara (1928-1967)
You can pretend to be serious; you can't pretend to be witty.
- Sacha Guitry (1885-1957)
The little I know, I owe to my ignorance.
- Sacha Guitry
When a man steals your wife, there is no better revenge than to let him keep her.
- Sacha Guitry
H
This book fills a much-needed gap.
- Moses Hadas (1900-1966) in a review
I have read your book and much like it.
- Moses Hadas (1900-1966)
Thank you for sending me a copy of your book - I'll waste no time reading it.
- Moses Hadas (1900-1966)
You can't put the toothpaste back in the tube.
- H.R. Haldeman
There is something that is much more scarce, something rarer than ability. It is the ability to recognizeability.
- Robert Half
Men give me credit for some genius. All the genius I have lies in this; when I have a subject in hand, I study it profoundly. Day and night it is before me. My mind becomes pervaded with it. Then the effort that I have made is what people are pleased to call the fruit of genius. It is the fruit of labor and thought.
- Alexander Hamilton
Those who stand for nothing fall for anything.
- Alexander Hamilton
War will cease when men refuse to fight.
- Fridtjof Hansen
Don't do drugs because if you do drugs you'll go to prison, and drugs are really expensive in prison.
- John Hardwick
What is a committee? A group of the unwilling, picked from the unfit, to do the unnecessary.
- Richard Harkness
When I hear somebody sigh, Life is hard, I am always tempted to ask, Compared to what?
- Sydney Harris
Nobody can be so amusingly arrogant as a young man who has just discovered an old idea and thinks it is his own.
- Sydney Harris
The nice thing about egotists is that they don't talk about other people.
- Lucille S. Harper
In times like these, it is helpful to remember that there have always been times like these.
- Paul Harvey
If you don't make mistakes, you aren't really trying.
- Coleman Hawking
There is all the difference in the world between treating people equally and attempting to make them equal. While the first is the condition of a free society, the second means as DeTocqueville describes it, a new form of servitude.
- F.A. Hayek
We must face the fact that the preservation of individual freedom is incompatible with a full satisfaction of our views of distributive justice.
- F.A. Hayek
Prosperity is a great teacher; adversity a greater.
- William Hazlitt
Opinions founded on prejudice are always sustained with the greatest violence.
- Hebrew Proverb
I'm not going to get into the ring with Tolstoy.
- Ernest Hemingway (1899-1961)
Never mistake motion for action.
- Ernest Hemingway (1899-1961)
Nothing is more common than unfulfilled potential
- Howard Hendricks
Plain women know more about men than beautiful ones do. But beautiful women don't need to know about men. It's the men who have to know about beautiful women.
- Katherine Hepburn
We are most nearly ourselves when we achieve the seriousness of the child at play.
- Heraclitus
There is nothing permanent except change.
- Heraclitus
Love and a cough cannot be hid.
- George Herbert
Manuscript: something submitted in haste and returned at leisure
- Oliver Herford (1863-1935)
Great deeds are usually wrought at great risks.
- Herodotus
The brighter you are, the more you have to learn.
- Don Herold
If you don't ask why this? often enough, somebody will ask why you?
- Tom Hirshfield
I heard someone tried the monkeys-on-typewriters bit trying for the plays of W. Shakespeare, but all they got was the collected works of Francis Bacon.
- Bill Hirst
Drama is life with the dull bits cut out.
- Alfred Hitchcock
The victor will never be asked if he told the truth.
- Adolf Hitler
What luck for the rulers that men do not think.
- Adolf Hitler
Strength lies not in defense but in attack.
- Adolf Hitler
Success is the sole earthly judge of right and wrong.
- Adolf Hitler
The very first esential for success is a prepetually constant and regular employment of violence.
- Adolf Hitler
The great masses of the people... will more easily fall victims to a big lie than to a small one.
- Adolf Hitler
When you're away, I'm restless, lonely, wretched, bored, dejected; only here's the rub, my darling dear, I feel the same when you're near.
- Samuel Hoffenstein
You can discover what your enemy fears most by observing the means he uses to frighten you.
- Eric Hoffer
We are told that talent creates its own opportunities. But it sometimes seems that intense desire creates not only its own opportunities, but its own talents.
- Eric Hoffer
The first duty of a revolutionary is to get away with it.
- Abbie Hoffman
Hell is paved with good samaritans.
- William M. Holden
There is no exercise better for the heart than reaching down and lifting people up.
- John Andrew Holmes
Man's mind, once stretched by a new idea, never regains its original dimension.
- Oliver Wendell Holmes
The right to swing my fist ends where the other man's nose begins.
- Oliver Wendell Holmes (1841-1935)
Ability is what you're capable of doing. Motivation determines what you do. Attitude determines how well you do it.
- Lou Holtz
Justice is incidental to law and order.
- J. Edgar Hoover
You manage things; you lead people.
- Admiral Grace Murray Hopper, USN
Genius may have its limitations, but stupidity is not thus handicapped.
- Elbert Hubbard
The greatest mistake you can make is to be continually fearing you will make one.
- Elbert Hubbard
He has achieved success who has worked well, laughed often, and loved much.
- Elbert Hubbard
To avoid criticism, do nothing, say nothing, be nothing.
- Elbert Hubbard
Boys will be boys, and so will a lot of middle-aged men.
- Kin Hubbard
When a fellow says it ain't the money but the principle of the thing, it's the money.
- Kin Hubbard
Now and then an innocent man is sent to the legislature.
- Kin Hubbard
He who opens a school door, closes a prison.
- Victor Hugo
There is a country in Europe where multiple-choice tests are illegal.
- Sigfried Hulzer
The right to be heard does not automatically include the right to be taken seriously.
- Hubert H. Humphrey
Behind every successful man stand a surprised mother-in-law.
- Hubert H. Humphrey
The death of democracy is not likely to be an assassination from ambush. It will be a slow extinction from apathy, indifference, and undernourishment.
- Robert Hutchins
Maybe this world is another planet's Hell.
- Aldous Huxley
Experience is not what happens to you. It is what you do with what happens to you.
- Aldous Huxley
There is only one corner of the universe you can be certain of improving, and that's your own self.
- Aldous Huxley
Most human beings have an almost infinite capacity for taking things for granted.
- Aldous Huxley
I
You can have brilliant ideas, but if you can't get them across, your ideas won't get you anywhere.
- Lee Iacocca
A community is like a ship; everyone ought to be prepared to take the helm.
- Henrik Ibsen
The strongest man in the world is he who stands alone.
- Henrik Ibsen
Few rich men own their own property. The property owns them.
- Robert G. Ingersoll
J
Take time to deliberate; but when the time for action arrives, stop thinking and go in.
- Andrew Jackson
One man with courage makes a majority. v
- Andrew Jackson
The will to win is worthless if you don't get paid for it.
- Reggie Jackson
It is only when they go wrong that machines remind you how powerful they are.
- Clive James
A great many people think they are thinking when they are merely rearranging their prejudices.
- William James
The deepest principle in human nature is the craving to be appreciated.
- William James
Acceptance of what has happened is the first step to overcoming the consequences of any misfortune.
- William James
The art of becoming wise is the art of knowing what to overlook.
- William James
When you have completed 95% of your journey you are halfway there.
- Japanese Proverb
I wish it were possible to obtain a single amendment to our Constitution. I would be willing to depend on that alone for the reduction of the administration of our government; I mean an additional article taking from the Federal Government the power of borrowing. I now deny their power of making paper money or anything else a legal tender. I know that to pay all proper expenses within the year would, in case of war, be hard on us. But not so hard as ten wars instead of one. For wars could be reduced in that proportion; besides that the State governments would be free to lend their credit in borrowing quotas.
- Thomas Jefferson
I place economy among the first and important virtues, and public debt as the greatest of dangers. To preserve our independence, we must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt. We must make our choice between economy and liberty, or profusion and servitude. If we can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of caring for them, they will be happy.
- Thomas Jefferson
Shake off all the fears of servile prejudices, under which weak minds are servility crouched. Fix reason firmly in her seat, and call on her tribunal for every fact, every opinion. Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason than that of blindfolded fear.
- Thomas Jefferson
A wise and frugal government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, which shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. This is the sum of good government, and this is necessary to close the circle of our felicity.
- Thomas Jefferson
I never submitted the whole system of my opinions to the creed of any party of men whatever, in religion, in philosophy, in politics or in anything else, where I was capable of thinking for myself. Such an addiction is the last degradation of a free and moral agent. If I could not go to Heaven but with a party, I would not go there at all.
- Thomas Jefferson
We hold these truths to be sacred and undeniable; that all men are created equal and independent, that from that equal creation they derive rights inherent and inalienable, among which are the preservation of life, and liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
- Thomas Jefferson
Above all things I hope the education of the common people will be attended to, convinced that on their good sense we may rely with the most security for the preservation of a due degree of liberty.
- Thomas Jefferson
If the children are untaught, their ignorance and vices will in future life cost us much dearer in their consequences than it would have done in their correction by a good education.
- Thomas Jefferson
I sincerely believe... that the principle of spending money to be paid by posterity under the name of funding is but swindling futurity on a large scale.
- Thomas Jefferson
It is incumbent on every generation to pay its own debts as it goes. A principle which if acted on would save one-half the wars of the world.
- Thomas Jefferson
I think we have more machinery of government than is necessary, to many parasites living on the labor of the industrious.
- Thomas Jefferson
Nothing gives one person so much advantage over another as to remain always cool and unruffled under all circumstances.
- Thomas Jefferson
A little rebellion now and then is a good thing, and as necessary in the political world as storms in the physical.
- Thomas Jefferson
The man who reads nothing at all is better educated than the man who reads nothing but newspapers.
- Thomas Jefferson
The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions that I wish it to be always kept alive.
- Thomas Jefferson
That government is best which governs the least, because its people discipline themselves.
- Thomas Jefferson
When angry, count to ten before you speak. If very angry, a hundred.
- Thomas Jefferson
Only aim to do your duty, and mankind will give you credit where you fail.
- Thomas Jefferson
Honesty is the first chapter in the book of wisdom.
- Thomas Jefferson
Be polite to all, but intimate with few.
- Thomas Jefferson
I cannot live without books.
- Thomas Jefferson
I am a great believer in luck, and I find that the harder I work, the more I seem to have.
- Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826)
In every country and every age, the priest had been hostile to Liberty.
- Thomas Jefferson
It is always the best policy to tell the truth, unless, of course, you are an exceptionally good liar.
- Jerome K. Jerome
Men are like wine - some turn to vinegar, but the best improve with age.
- Pope John XXIII
Nothing will ever be attempted if all possible objections must first be overcome.
- Samuel Johnson
Patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel.
- Samuel Johnson
The quickest and shortest way to crush whatever laurels you have won is for you to rest on them.
- Donald P. Jones
Friends may come and go, but enemies accumulate.
- Thomas Jones
The man who gets the most satisfactory results is not always the man with the most brilliant single mind, but rather the man who can best coordinate the brains and talents of his associates.
- W. Alton Jones
Take your life in your own hands and what happens? A terrible thing: no one to blame.
- Erica Jong
Advice is what we ask for when we already know the answer but wish we didn't.
- Erica Jong
Don't do today what you can put off till tomorrow
- Joakim Jonsson
Show me a sane man and I will cure him for you.
- Carl Gustav Jung (1875-1961)
An ounce of emotion is equal to a ton of facts.
- John Junor
Why don't you write books people can read?
- Nora Joyce to her husband James (1882-1941)