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




K




In the fight between you and the world, back the world.
- Franz Kafka

Failure is only postponed success as long as courage coaches ambition. The habit of persistence is the habit of victory.
- Herbert Kaufman

The best way to predict the future is to invent it.
- Alan Kay

Yesterday's the past, tomorrow's the future, but today is a gift. That's why it's called the present.
- Bil Keane

You do not destroy an idea by killing people; you replace it with a better one.
- Edward Keating

I would sooner fail than not be among the greatest.
- John Keats

College isn't the place to go for ideas.
- Helen Keller

Science may have found a cure for most evils; but it has found no remedy for the worst of them all- the apathy of human beings.
- Helen Keller
I am only one; but still I am one. I cannot do everything, but still I can do something; I will not refuse to do the something I can do.

- Helen Keller

Life is either a daring adventure or nothing. Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in nature.
- Helen Keller

The only place success comes before work is in the dictionary.
- Donald Kendall

Mankind must put an end to war, or war will put an end to mankind.
- John F. Kennedy (1917-1963)

If a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich.
- John F. Kennedy

The full use of your powers along lines of excellence.
- definition of "happiness" by John F. Kennedy (1917-1963)

Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.
- John F. Kennedy

Washington [D.C.] is a city of Southern efficiency and Northern charm.
- John F. Kennedy

Forgive your enemies, but never forget their names.
- John F. Kennedy

We have the power to make this the best generation of mankind in the history of the world - or to make it the last.
- John F. Kennedy

And so, my fellow Americans, ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country.
- John F. Kennedy

Our progress as a nation can be no swifter than our progress in education.
- John F. Kennedy

It's better to be boldly decisive and risk being wrong than to agonize at length and be right too late.
- Marilyn Moats Kennedy

Each time a person stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring, these ripples build a current that can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance.
- Robert F. Kennedy

Only those who dare to fail greatly can ever achieve greatly.
- Robert F. Kennedy

You will never stub your toe standing still. The faster you go, the more chance there is of stubbing your toe, but the more chance you have of getting somewhere.
- Charles Kettering

An inventor fails 999 times, and if he succeeds once, he's in. He treats his failures simply as practice shots.
- Charles Kettering

The only difference between a problem and a solution is that people understand the solution.
- Charles Kettering

People are very open-minded about new things--as long as they're exactly like the old ones.
- Charles Kettering

It's amazing what ordinary people can do if they set out without preconceived notions.
- Charles Kettering

In the long run we are all dead.
- John Maynard Keynes

Politicians are the same all over. They promise to build bridges even when there are no rivers.
- Nikita Khruschev

Call it what you will, incentives are what get people to work harder.
- Nikita Krushchev

We're going to turn this team around 360 degrees.
- Jason Kidd, upon his drafting to the Dallas Mavericks

People demand freedom of speech to make up for the freedom of thought which they avoid.
- Soren Aabye Kierkegaard (1813-1855)

Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.
- Martin Luther King Jr.
The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.
- Martin Luther King Jr

Rarely do we find men who willingly to engage in hard, solid thinking. There is an almost universal quest for easy answers and half-baked solutions. Nothing pains some people more than having to think.
- Martin L. King, Jr.

If a man hasn't discovered something he will die for, he isn't fit to live.
- Martin L. King, Jr.

In the End, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.
- Martin Luther King Jr. (1929-1968)

Fill the unforgiving minute with sixty seconds worth of distance run.
- Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936)

Words are, of course, the most powerful drug used by mankind.
- Rudyard Kipling

University politics are vicious precisely because the stakes are so small.
- Henry Kissinger

The illegal we do immediately. The unconstitutional takes a little longer.
- Henry Kissinger

Television - a medium. So called because it is neither rare nor well-done.
- Ernie Kovacs

Pick battles big enough to matter, small enough to win.
- Jonathan Kozol

Freedom from the desire for an answer is essential to the understanding of a problem.
- J. Krishnamurti

People need religion. It's a vehicle for a moral tradition. A crucial role. Nothing can take its place.
- Irving Kristol

Democracy does not guarantee equality of conditions - it only guarantees equality of opportunity.
- Irving Kristol

You're only as good as the people you hire.
- Ray Kroc

Getting ideas is like shaving: if you don't do it every day, you're a bum.
- Alex Kroll



L




Neither genius, fame, nor love show the greatness of the soul. Only kindness can do that. - Jean Baptiste Henri Lacordaire

Class has a sense of humor. It knows that a good laugh is the best lubricant for oiling the machinery of human relations. Class never makes excuses. It takes its lumps and learns from past mistakes. Class bespeaks an aristocracy unrelated to ancestors or money. Some extremely wealthy people have no class at all, while others who are struggling to make ends meet are loaded with it. Class is real. You can't fake it. Class never tries to build itself up by tearing others down. Class is already up and need not attempt to look better by making others look worse. Everyone is comfortable with the person who has class because he is comfortable with himself. If you have class, you've got it made. If you don't have class, no matter what else you have, it won't make up for it.
- Ann Landers

Your Highness, I have no need of this hypothesis.
- Pierre Laplace (1749-1827), to Napoleon on why his works on celestial mechanics make no mention of God.

We promise according to our hopes, and perform according to our fears.
- La Rochefourauld

Some of the world's greatest feats were accomplished by people not smart enought to know they were impossible.
- Doug Larson

People don't ask for facts in making up their minds. They would rather have one good, soul-satisfying emotion than a dozen facts.
- Robert Keith Leavitt

Physics isn't a religion. If it were, we'd have a much easier time raising money.
- Leon Lederman

It is well that war is so terrible, or we should get too fond of it.
- Robert E. Lee

You must be careful how you walk, and where you go, for there are those following you who will set their feet where yours are set.
- Robert E. Lee

The education of a man is never completed until he dies.
- Robert E. Lee

There is a terrible war coming, and these young men who have never seen war cannot wait for it to happen, but I tell you, I wish that I owned every slave in the South, for I would free them all to avoid this war.
- Robert E. Lee

It is true that liberty is precious - so precious that it must be rationed.
- Nikolai Lenin

The difference between pornography and erotica is lighting.
- Gloria Leonard

Statistics are like a bikini. What they reveal is suggestive, but what they conceal is vital.
- Aaron Levenstein

Lead us not into temptation. Just tell us where it is; we'll find it.
- Sam Levenson

Ask a man which way he is going to vote, and he will probably tell you. Ask him, however, why, and vagueness is all.
- Bernard Levin

The world began without man, and it will complete itself without him.
- Claude Levi-Strauss

If you were going to die soon and had only one phone call you could make, who would you call and what would you say? And why are you waiting?
- Stephen Levine

If you want truly to understand something, try to change it.
- Kurt Lewin

I can write better than anybody who can write faster, and I can write faster than anybody who can write better.
- A. J. Liebling (1904-1963)

If I were two-faced, would I be wearing this one?
- Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865)

Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, give him power.
- Abraham Lincoln

Whenever I hear anyone arguing for slavery, I feel a strong impulse to see it tried on him personally.
- Abraham Lincoln

The Bible is not my book, and Christianity is not my religion. I could never give assent to the long, complicated statements of Christian dogma.
- Abraham Lincoln

My great concern is not whether you have failed, but whether you are content with your failure.
- Abraham Lincoln

Better to remain silent and be thought a fool then to speak out and remove all doubt.
- Abraham Lincoln

Things may come to those who wait, but only the things left by those who hustle.
- Abraham Lincoln

Most people are about as happy as they make up their minds to be.
- Abraham Lincoln

Tact is the ability to describe others as they see themselves.
- Abraham Lincoln

He has the right to criticize who has the heart to help.
- Abraham Lincoln

I destroy my enemy when I make him my friend.
- Abraham Lincoln

He can compress the most words into the smallest idea of any man I know.
- Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865)

You can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time.
- Abraham Lincoln

Good communication is as stimulating as black coffee, and just as hard to sleep after.
- Anne Morrow Lindbergh

Any coward can sit in his home and criticize a pilot for flying into a mountain in a fog. But I would rather, by far, die on a mountainside than in bed. What kind of man would live where there is no daring? And is life so dear that we should blame men for dying in adventure? Is there a better way to die? - Charles Lindbergh Jr.

While one person hesitates because he feels inferior, the other is busy making mistakes and becoming superior.
- Henry C. Link

Where all men think alike, no one thinks very much.
- Walter Lippmann

New opinions are always suspected, and usually opposed, without any other reason but because they are not already common.
- John Locke

I have always thought the actions of men the best interpreters of their thoughts.
- John Locke

The difference between a successful person and others is not a lack of strength , not a lack of knowledge, but rather a lack of will.
- Vince Lombardi

The quality of a person's life is in direct proportion to their commitment to excellence, regardless of their chosen field of endeavor.
- Vince Lombardi

Winning is a habit. Unfortuantely, so is losing.
- Vince Lombardi

Winning is not everything. It's the only thing.
- Vince Lombardi

Being intelligent is not a felony, but most societies evaluate it as at least a misdemeanor.
- Lazarus Long

Great is the art of beginning, but greater is the art of ending.
- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

If you haven't got anything nice to say about anybody, come sit next to me.
- Alice Roosevelt Longworth (1884-1980)

Sex appeal is 50 per cent what you've got, and 50 percent what people think you've got.
- Sophia Loren

The average person thinks he isn't.
- Father Larry Lorenzoni

Everybody wants to go to heaven, but nobody wants to die.
- Joe Louis

Because I am a woman, I must make unusual efforts to succeed. If I fail, no one will say, "She doesn't have what it takes." They will say, "Women don't have what it takes".
- Clare Boothe Luce

Censorship, like charity, should begin at home, but unlike charity, it should end there.
- Clare Boothe Luce

No good deed goes unpunished.
- Clare Boothe Luce

Business more than any other occupation is a continual dealing with the future; it is a continual calculation, an instinctive exercise in foresight.
- Henry R. Luce

There are four things that hold back human progress. Ignorance, stupidity, committees and accountants.
- Charles J.C. Lyall



M




Don't be afraid of opposition. Remember, a kite rises against; not with; the wind.
- Hamilton Mabie

We are not retreating - we are advancing in another direction.
- General Douglas MacArthur (1880-1964)

There is no security on this earth. Only opportunity.
- General Douglas MacArthur

In war there is no substitute for victory.
- General Douglas MacArthur

Nothing is wrong with California that a rise in the ocean level wouldn't cure.
- Ross MacDonald (1915-1983)

Happiness is not so much in having as sharing. We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give.
- Norman MacEwan

It is better to be feared than loved, if you cannot be both.
- Niccolo Machiavelli (1469-1527), "The Prince"

It is much more secure to be feared than to be loved.
- Niccolo Machiavelli

War should be the only study of a prince. He should consider peace only as a breathing time, which give him liesure to contrive and furnish his ability to execute military plans.
- Niccolo Machiavelli

All our knowledge merely helps us to die a more painful death than animals that know nothing.
- Maurice Maeterlinck

It isn't the people you fire who make your life miserable, it's the people you don't.
- Harvey Mackay

You can tell whether a man is clever by his answers. You can tell whether a man is wise by his questions.
- Naguib Mahfouz

Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.
- Nelson Mandela

Beginning today, treat everyone you meet as if they were going to be dead by midnight. Extend to them all the care, kindness, and understanding you can muster, and do it with no thought of any reward. Your life will never be the same again.
- Og Mandino

The ultimate leader is one who is willing to develop people to the point that they surpass him or her in knowledge and ability.
- Fred A. Manske, Jr.

We win half the battle when we make up our minds to take the world as we find it, including the thorns.
- Orison S. Marden

An optimist is a guy that has never had much experience.
-Donald R. Perry Marquis

From the moment I picked your book up until I laid it down I was convulsed with laughter. Some day I intend reading it.
- Groucho Marx (1895-1977)

From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs.
- Karl Marx

Religion... is the opium of the masses.
- Karl Marx

Love is only the dirty trick played on us to achieve continuation of the species.
- W. Somerset Maugham

A man must be big enough to admit his mistakes, smart enough to profit from them, and strong enough to correct them.
- John C. Maxwell

A good leader is a person who takes a little more than his share of the blame and a little less than his share of the credit.
- John C. Maxwell

Good executives never put off until tomorrow what they can get someone else to do today.
- John C. Maxwell

A big man is one who makes us feel bigger when we are with him.
- John C. Maxwell

People buy into the leader before they buy into the vision.
- John C. Maxwell

Learn to say no to the good so you can say yes to the best.
- John C. Maxwell

Leadership is influence.
- John C. Maxwell

The relationship between commitment and doubt is by no means an antagonistic one.
- Rollo May

Commitment is healthiest when it not without doubt but in spite of doubt.
- Rollo May

Always question. Always analyze. But in the end, suspend judgment until you've been there. Live it to learn it.

- Mark McClinchie

The Lord's Prayer is 66 words, the Gettysburg Address is 286 words, and there are 1,322 words in the Declaration of Independence. Yet, government regulations on the sale of cabbage total 26,911 words.
- David McIntosh

Yes, risk-taking is inherently failure-prone. Otherwise, it would be called sure-thing taking.
- Tim McMahon

Every society honors its live conformists and its dead troublemakers.
- Mignon McLaughlin

Don't be so humble - you are not that great.
- Golda Meir (1898-1978) to a visiting diplomat

The cynics are right nine times out of ten.
- Henry Louis Mencken (1880-1956)

Bachelors know more about women than married men do. If they didn't, they'd be married too.
- H. L. Mencken

If, after I depart this vale, you ever remember me and have thought to please my ghost, forgive some sinner and wink your eye at some homely girl.
- H. L. Mencken

A politician is an animal which can sit on a fence and yet keep both ears to the ground.
- H. L. Mencken

Love is the triumph of imagination over intelligence.
- H. L. Mencken

No one ever went broke underestimating the taste of the American public.
- H. L. Mencken

Time is the great legalizer, even in the field of morals.
- H. L. Mencken

The older I grow the more I distrust the familiar doctrine that age brings wisdom.
- H. L. Mencken

Conscience is the inner voice that warns us that someone might be looking.
- H. L. Mencken

Criticism is prejudice made plausible.
- Henry Louis Mencken (1880-1956)

Grove giveth and Gates taketh away.
- Bob Metcalfe (inventor of Ethernet) on the trend of hardware speedups not being able to keep up with software demands

Lord, grant that I may always desire more than I can accomplish.
- Michelangelo

Character consists of what you do on the third and fourth tries.
- James A. Michener

Continental people have sex-lives; the English have hot-water bottles.
- George Mikes

The disappearance of a sense of responsibility is the most far-reaching consequence of submission to authority.
- Stanley Milgram

The road to success is always under construction.
- Jim Miller

A good listener is not only popular everywhere, but after a while he gets to know something.
- Wilson Mizner (1876-1933)

When you take stuff from one writer it's plagiarism; but when you take it from many writers, it's research.
- Wilson Mizner

Gambling: The sure way of getting nothing for something.
- Wilson Mizner

The greatest motivational act one person can do for another is to listen.
- Roy E. Moody

To know one thing, you must know the opposite.
- Henry Moore

Obstacles are those frightful things you see when you take your eyes off the goal.
- Hannah More

You have not converted a man because you have silenced him.
- John Morley

Any party which takes credit for the rain must not be surprised if its opponents blame it for the drought.
- Dwight Morrow

It's so easy to laugh. It's so easy to hate. It takes strength to be gentle and kind.
- Stephen Morrissey

Somehow liberals have been unable to acquire from birth what conservatives seem to be endowed with at birth: namely, a healthy skepticism of the powers of government to do good.
- Daniel Moynihan

The issue of race could benefit from a period of benign neglect.
- Daniel Moynihan

Freedom is being able to live with the consequences of your decisions.
- James X. Mullen

A little inaccuracy sometimes saves a ton of explanation.
- H. H. Munro (Saki) (1870-1916)

Anyone who isn't confused really doesn't understand the situation.
- Edward R. Murrow

The big majority of Americans, who are comparatively well off, have developed an ability to have enclaves of people living in the greatest misery without almost noticing them.
- Gunnar Myrdal



N




I start with the premise that the function of leadership is to produce more leaders, not more followers.
- Ralph Nader

Ten people who speak make more noise than ten thousand who are silent.
- Napoleon

In politics stupidity is not a handicap.
- Napoleon

If you wish to be a success in the world, promise everything, deliver nothing.
- Napoleon

A man will fight harder for his interests than for his rights.
- Napoleon

History is the version of past events that people have decided to agree upon.
- Napoleon

Marriage is the alliance of two people, one of whom never remembers birthdays and the other who never forgets.
- Ogden Nash

The genius of you Americans is that you never make clear-cut stupid moves, only complicated stupid moves which make us wonder at the possibility that there may be something to them which we are missing.
- Gamel Nasser

Bad officials are elected by good citizens who do not vote.
- George Jean Nathan

Of those who say nothing, few are silent.
- Thomas Neill

England expects every man to do his duty.
- Lord Nelson

Nobody believes the official spokesman... but everybody trusts an unidentified source.
- Ron Nesen

Anyone who considers arithmetical methods of producing random digits is, of course, in a state of sin.
- John von Neumann (1903-1957)

Lack of will power has caused more failure than lack of intelligence or ability.
- Flower A. Newhouse

We are living in a world today where lemonade is made from artificial flavors and furniture polish is made from real lemons...
- Alfred E. Newman

God, give us grace to accept with serenity the things that cannot be changed, courage to change the things which should be changed, and the wisdom to distinguish the one from the other.
- Reinhold Niebuhr

Plato was a bore.
- Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900)

If you gaze long into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you.
- Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900)

One should die proudly when it is no longer possible to live proudly.
- Friedrich Nietzsche

What does not destroy me, makes me strong.
- Friedrich Nietzsche

Is not life a hundred times too short for us to bore ourselves?
- Friedrich Nietzsche

On the mountains of truth you can never climb in vain: either you will reach a point higher up today, or you will be training your powers so that you will be able to climb higher tomorrow.
- Friedrich Nietzsche

The doer alone learneth.
- Friedrich Nietzsche

A ship is always referred to as "she" because it costs so much to keep one in paint and powder.
- Chester Nimitz

Greetings, I am pleased to see that we are different. May we together become greater than the sum of both of us.
- Leonard Nimoy

How can I lose to such an idiot?
- A shout from chessmaster Aaron Nimzovich (1886-1935)

I would have made a good Pope.
- Richard M. Nixon (1913-1994)

Politics would be a helluva good business if it weren't for the goddamned people.
- Richard Nixon

Voters quickly forget what a man says.
- Richard Nixon

When the president does it, that's means it is not illegal.
- Richard Nixon

If I have a thousand ideas and only one turns out to be good, I am satisfied.
- Alfred Nobel

Laws were made to be broken.
- Christopher North



O




Everywhere I go I'm asked if I think the university stifles writers. My opinion is that they don't stifle enough of them.
- Flannery O'Connor (1925-1964)

There's many a bestseller that could have been prevented by a good teacher.
- Flannery O'Connor (1925-1964)

Remember the two benefits of failure. First, if you do fail, you learn what doesn't work; and second, the failure gives you the opportunity to try a new approach.
- Roger von Oech

There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home.
- Ken Olson, president, chairman and founder of Digital Equipment Corp., 1977

The secret of success is to know something nobody else knows.
- Aristotle Onassis (1906-1975)

If women didn't exist, all the money in the world would have no meaning.
- Aristotle Onassis (1906-1975)

The optimist thinks that this is the best of all possible worlds, and the pessimist knows it.
- J. Robert Oppenheimer

I am become death, shatterer of worlds.
- Robert J. Oppenheimer (1904-1967) (citing from the Bhagavadgita, after witnessing the world's first nuclear explosion)

Every day I get up and look through the Forbes list of the richest people in America. If I'm not there, I go to work.
- Robert Orben

Illegal aliens have always been a problem in the United States. Ask any Indian.
- Robert Orben

The preamble to the Constitution states: We, the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquillity, provide for the common defence, promote the general welfare... It doesn't say guarantee the general welfare. And it certainly doesn't say give welfare benefits to all the people in the country who aren't doing so well even if the reason they aren't doing so well is because they're sitting on their butts in front of the TV.
- P. J. O'Rourke

There are a number of mechanical devices which increase sexual arousal, particularly in women. Chief among these is the Mercedes-Benz 380SL convertible.
- P. J. O'Rourke

Making fun of born-again Christians is like hunting dairy cows with a high powered rifle and scope.
- P. J. O'Rourke

A little Government and a little luck are necessary in life; but only a fool trusts either of them.
- P. J. O'Rourke

Always read stuff that will make you look good if you die in the middle of it.
- P. J. O'Rourke

On the whole human beings want to be good, but not too good and not quite all the time.
- George Orwell

Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past.
- George Orwell

When we walk to the edge of all the light we have and take the step into the darkness of the unknown, we must believe that one of two things will happen. There will be something solid for us to stand on or we will be taught to fly.
-Frank Outlaw

Watch your thoughts; they become words. Watch your words; they become actions. Watch your actions; they become habits. Watch your habits; they become character. Watch your character; it becomes your destiny.
-Patrick Overton

To be loved, be lovable.
- Ovid



P




Character is much easier kept than recovered.
- Thomas Paine

Wise men make proverbs, but fools repeat them.
- Samuel Palmer (1805-80)

If all the girls attending the Yale prom were laid end to end, I wouldn't be at all surprised.
- Dorothy Parket

The chief product of an automated society is a widespread and deepening sense of boredom.
- Cyril Parkinson

The cure for boredom is curiosity. There is no cure for curiosity.
- Ellen Parr

It is the fight alone that pleases us, not the victory.
- Blaise Pascal

If all men knew what others say of them, there would not be four friends in the world.
- Blaise Pascal

Let me tell you the secret that has led me to my goal: my strength lies solely in my tenacity.
- Louis Pasteur

I have one great fear in my heart, that one day when they (the whites of South Africa) have turned to loving, they will find we (the blacks) are turned to hating.
- Alan Paton

What broke in a man when he could bring himself to kill another?
- Alan Paton

Who knows for what we live, struggle and die?... Wise men write many books, in words too hard to understand. But this, the purpose of our lives, the end of all our struggle, is beyond all human wisdom.
- Alan Paton

To give up the task of reforming society is to give up one's responsibility as a free man.
- Alan Paton

The object of war is not to die for your country but to make the other bastard die for his.
- General George S. Patton (1885-1945)

If a man does his best, what else is there?
- General George S. Patton (1885-1945)

Watch what people are cynical about, and one can often discover what they lack.
- General George S. Patton

Never tell the people how to do things. Tell them what to do and they will surprise you with their integrity.
- General George S. Patton

Do your damnedest in an ostentatious manner all the time.
- General George S. Patton

Success is how high you bounce when you hit bottom.
- General George S. Patton

Lead me, follow me, or get out of my way.
- General George S. Patton

Courage is fear holding on a minute longer.
- General George S. Patton

A pint of sweat, saves a gallon of blood.
- General George S. Patton (1885-1945)

Where self-interest is suppressed, it is replaced by a burdensome system of bureaucratic control that dries up the wellspring of initiative and creativity.
- Pope John Paul II

The truth is not always the same as the majority decision.
- Pope John Paul II

The best way to have a good idea is to have lots of ideas.
- Linus Pauling

The grim fact is that we prepare for war like percocious giants and peace like retarded pygmies.
- Lester Pearson

Luck is when preparation meets opportunity.
- Neil Peart

One of the secrets of life is to make stepping stones out of stumbling blocks.
- Jack Penn

I will have no man work for me who has not the capacity to become a partner.
- J.C. Penney

Public office is the last refuge of a scoundrel.
- Boies Penrose

Learning is what most adults will do for a living in the 21st century.
- Perelman

After you've done a thing the same way for two years, look it over carefully. After five years, look at it with suspicion. And after ten years, throw it away and start all over.
- Alfred Edward Perlman

If you see a snake, just kill it. Don't appoint a committee on snakes.
- H. Ross Perot

Eagles don't flock - you have to find them one at a time.
- H. Ross Perot

An economist is an expert who will know tomorrow why the things he predicted yesterday didn't happen today.
- Laurence J. Peter

Education is a method whereby one acquires a higher grade of prejudices.
- Laurance Peter

Originality is the fine art of remembering what you hear but forgetting where you heard it.
- Laurance Peter

In a hierarchy every employee tends to rise to his level of incompetence.
- Laurance Peter

Democracy is a process by which the people are free to choose the man who will get the blame.
- Laurance Peter

Life is pretty simple: You do some stuff. Most fails. Some works. You do more of what works. If it works big, others quickly copy it. Then you do something else. The trick is the doing something else.
- Thomas Peters

The simple act of paying positive attention to people has a great deal to do with productivity.
- Thomas Peters

Difference of religion breeds more quarrels than difference of politics.
- Wendell Phillips

Give me a museum and I'll fill it.
- Pablo Picasso (1881-1973)

I am always doing that which I can not do, in order that I may learn how to do it.
- Pablo Picasso

Sometimes democracy must be bathed in blood.
- Augusto Pinochet

The measure of a man is what he does with power.
- Pittacus

Attention to health is life’s greatest hindrance.
- Plato (427-347 B.C.)

Necessity is the mother of invention.
- Plato

Life must be lived as play.
- Plato

The harder you work, the luckier you get.
- Gary Player

Cinema should make you forget you are sitting in a theater.
- Roman Polanski

Under capitalism man exploits man; under socialism the reverse is true.
- Polish proverb

One lives in the hope of becoming a memory.
- Antonio Porchia

There are no secrets to success. It is the result of preparation, hard work, and learning from failure.
- Colin Powell

I don't know anything about music. In my line you don't have to.
- Elvis Presley (1935-1977)

They talk most who have the least to say.
- Mathew Prior

A city is a large community where people are lonesome together.
- Herbert Prochnow

Power always has to be kept in check; power exercised in secret, especially under the cloak of national security, is doubly dangerous.
- William Proxmire



Q




If we don't succeed, we run the risk of failure.
- J. Danforth Quayle

Happy campers you have been, happy campers you are, and happy campers you will always be.
- J. Danforth Quayle

I was recently on a tour of Latin America, and the only regret I have was that I didn't study Latin harder in school so I could converse with those people.
- J. Danforth Quayle



R




I wanted a perfect ending. Now I've learned, the hard way, that some poems don't rhyme, and some stories don't have a clear beginning, middle, and end. Life is about not knowing, having to change, taking the moment and making the best of it, without knowing what's going to happen next. Delicious Ambiguity.
- Gilda Radner

America's abundance was not created by public sacrifices to the common good, but by the productive genius of free men who pursued their own personal interests and the making of their own private fortunes.
- Ayn Rand

The idea that 'the public interest' supersedes private interests and rights can have but one meaning: that the interests and rights of some individuals take precedence over the interests and rights of others.
- Ayn Rand

A nuclear power plant is infinently safer than eating, because 300 people choke to death on food every year.
- Dixy Lee Ray

The whole point of getting things done is knowing what to leave undone.
- Lady Reading

Government's view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it.
- Ronald Reagan

You can tell a lot about a fellow's character by the way he eats jelly beans.
- Ronald Reagan

Politics is not a bad profession. If you succeed there are many rewards, if you disgrace yourself you can always write a book.
- Ronald Reagan

Government is like a baby. An alimentary canal with a big appetite at one end and no sense of responsibility at the other.
- Ronald Reagan

I favor the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and it must be enforced at gunpoint if necessary.
- Ronald Reagan

I would have voted against the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
- Ronald Reagan

How do you tell a communist? Well, it's someone who reads Marx and Lenin. And how do you tell an anti-Communist? It's someone who understands Marx and Lenin.
- Ronald Reagan

No arsenal or no weapon in the arsenals of the world is so formidable as the will and moral courage of free men and women.
- Ronald Reagan

Love is like an hourglass, with the heart filling up as the brain empties.
- Jules Renard

People who cannot recognize a palpable absurdity are very much in the way of civilization.
- Agnes Repplier

The scientists split the atom; now the atom is splitting us.
- Quentin Reynolds

When it comes to the future, there are three kinds of people: those who let it happen, those who make it happen, and those who wonder what happened.
- John M. Richardson, Jr.

Live the questions.
- Rilke

Luck is the residue of design.
- Branch Rickey

The streets are safe in Philadelphia, it's only the people who make them unsafe.
- Frank Rizzo

Hemingway was a jerk.
- Harold Robbins

Anyone who doesn't make mistakes isn't trying hard enough.
- Wess Roberts

If it takes a lot of words to say what you have in mind, give it more thought.
- Dennis Roch

If you want to succeed you should strike out on new paths rather than travel the worn paths of accepted success.
- John D. Rockefeller, Jr.

I choose a block of marble and chop off whatever I don't need.
- Francois-Auguste Rodin (1840-1917), when asked how he managed to make his remarkable statues

When you are in a state of nonacceptance, it's difficult to learn. A clenched fist cannot receive a gift, and a clenched psyche grasped tightly against the reality of what must not be accepted cannot easily receive a lesson.
- John Roger

I'm not a member of any organized political party, I'm a Democrat!
- Will Rogers (1879-1935)

If Stupidity got us into this mess, then why can't it get us out?
- Will Rogers

Diplomats are just as essential to starting a war as soldiers are for finishing it.... You take diplomacy out of war, and the thing would fall flat in a week.
- Will Rogers

We can't all be heroes because someone has to sit on the curb and clap as they go by.
- Will Rogers

Everything is funny as long as it is happening to someone else.
- Will Rogers

I don't make jokes. I just watch the government and report the facts.
- Will Rogers

Never let yesterday use up too much of today.
- Will Rogers

No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.
- Eleanor Roosevelt

The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.
- Franklin D. Roosevelt

Put two or three men in positions of conflicting authority. This will force them to work at loggerheads, allowing you to be the ultimate arbiter.
- Franklin D. Roosevelt

A man who has never gone to school may steal from a freight car, but if he has a university education he may steal the whole railroad.
- Franklin D. Roosevelt

Take a method and try it. If it fails, admit it frankly, and try another. But by all means, try something.
- Franklin D. Roosevelt

It is not the critic who counts, nor the person who points out how the strong person stumbled or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the person who is actually in the arena; whose face is actually marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes short again and again, who knows great enthusiasm and great devotions, whose life is spent in a worthy cause; who, at best, knows in the end the triumph of high achievement and at worst, if failure wins out, it at least wins with greatness, so that this person's place shall never be with those timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.
- Theodore Roosevelt

The best executive is the one who has sense enough to pick good men to do what he wants done, and self-restraint enough to keep from meddling with them while they do it.
- Theodore Roosevelt

The most important single ingredient in the formula of success is knowing how to get along with people.
- Theodore Roosevelt

The only man who never makes a mistake is the man who never does anything.
- Theodore Roosevelt

To educate a man in mind and not in morals is to educate a menace to society.
- Theodore Roosevelt

Mr. Wagner has beautiful moments but bad quarters of an hour.
- Gioacchino Rossini (1792-1868)

People who know little are usually great talkers, while men who know much say little.
- Jean Jacques Rousseau

You will find it a very good practice always to verify your references, sir.
- Martin Routh

A husband is what is left of the lover after the nerve has been extracted.
- Helen Rowland (1876-1950)

Acceptance of dissent is the fundamental requirement of a free society.
- Richard Royster

Most people would sooner die than think; in fact, they do so.
- Bertrand Russell (1872-1970)

One of the symptoms of an approaching nervous breakdown is the belief that one's work is terribly important.
- Bertrand Russell

The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, but wiser people so full of doubts.
- Bertrand Russel

To be without some of the things you want is an indispensable part of happiness.
- Bertrand Russell

The hardest thing in life to learn is which bridge to cross and which to burn.
- David Russell

You can outdistance that which is running after you, but not what is running inside you.
- Rwandan proverb



S




A dress makes no sense unless it inspires men to want to take it off you.
- Francois Sagan

A designer knows he has achieved perfection not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.
- Antoine de Saint-Exupery

There is only one happiness in life, to love and be loved.
- George Sand

Sanity is a madness put to good uses.
- George Santayana (1863-1952)

A man's feet should be planted in his country, but his eyes should survey the world.
- George Santayana

Three o'clock is always too late or too early for anything you want to do.
- Jean-Paul Sartre (1905-1980)

Everything has been figured out, except how to live.
- Jean-Paul Sartre (1905-1980)

Hell is other people.
- Jean-Paul Sartre (1905-1980)

When the rich make war it's the poor that die.
- Jean-Paul Sartre

Being defeated is often a temporary condition. Giving up is what makes it permanent. -- Marilyn vos Savant
- Robert H. Schuller

Again and again, the impossible problem is solved when we see that the problem is only a tough decision waiting to be made.
- Robert H. Schuller

Most people who succeed n the face of seemingly impossible conditions are people who simply don't know how to quit.
- Robert H. Schuller

Yes, you can be a dreamer and a doer too, if you will remove one word from your vocabulary: impossible.
- Robert H. Schuller

Anyone can count the seeds in an apple, but only God can count the number of apples in a seed.
- Robert H. Schuller

Ideals are like stars: you will not succeed in touching them with your hands, but like the seafaring man on the desert of waters, you choose them as your guides, and following them till you reach your destiny.
- Carl Schurz

I consider my ability to arouse enthusiasm among men the greatest asset I possess. The way to develop the best that is in a man is by appreciation and encouragement.
- Charles Schwab

A man can succeed at almost anything for which he has unlimited enthusiasm.
- Charles Schwab

Leadership is a potent combination of strategy and character. But if you must be without one, be without the strategy.
- General H. Norman Schwarzkopf

The truth of the matter is that you always know the right thing to do. The hard part is doing it.
- General H. Norman Schwarzkopf

I don't know what your destiny will be, but one thing I do know: the only ones among you who will be really happy are those who have sought and found how to serve.
- Albert Schweitzer

Example is not the main thing in influencing others; it's the only thing.
- Albert Schweitzer

Education is when you read the fine print. Experience is what you get if you don't
- Pete Seeger

The breakfast of champions is not cereal, it's the opposition.
- Nick Seitz

You can't hit a home run unless you step up to the plate. You can't catch fish unless you put your line in the water.
- Kathy Seligman

You can't reach your goals if you don't try.
- Kathy Seligman

It is not because things are difficult that we do not dare; it is because we do not dare that they are difficult.
- Seneca

Love all. Trust a few. Do wrong to none.
- William Shakespeare

This above all: to thine own self be true.
- William Shakespeare

No legacy is so rich as honesty.
- William Shakespeare

Brevity is the soul of wit.
- William Shakespeare

There is no sincerer love than the love of food.
- George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950)

There are some experiences in life which should not be demanded twice from any man, and one of them is listening to the Brahms Requiem.
- George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950)

The longer I live the more I see that I am never wrong about anything, and that all the pains that I have so humbly taken to verify my notions have only wasted my time.
- George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950)

Do not do unto others as you would they should do unto you. Their tastes may not be the same.
- George Bernard Shaw

Democracy substitutes election by the incompetent many for appointment by the corrupt few.
- George Bernard Shaw

Patriotism is your conviction that this country is superior to all others because you were born in it.
- George Bernard Shaw

He who can, does. He who cannot, teaches.
- George Bernard Shaw

If you have an apple and I have an apple and we exchange these apples then you and I will still each have one apple. But if you have an idea and I have an idea and we exchange these ideas, then each of us will have two ideas.
- George Bernard Shaw

Reasonable people adapt themselves to the world. Unreasonable people attempt to adapt the world to themselves. All progress, therefore, depends on unreasonable people.
- George Bernard Shaw

Success does not consist in never making mistakes but in never making the same one a second time.
- George Bernard Shaw

The power of accurate observation is commonly called cynicism by those who have not got it.
- George Bernard Shaw

Liberty means responsibility. That is why most men dread it.
- George Bernard Shaw

It is dangerous to be sincere unless you are also stupid.
- George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950)

Assassination is the extreme form of censorship.
- George Bernard Shaw

Some men see things as they are and say why? I dream things that never were and say "Why not?"
- George Bernard Shaw

When there is an original sound in the world, it makes a hundred echoes.
- John Shedd

There is only one principle of war and that's this. Hit the other fellow, as quickly as you can, as hard as you can, where it hurts him most, when he ain't lookin'.
- Sir William Slim

Look at everthing as though you were seeing it either for the first or last time. Then your time on earth will be filled with glory.
- Betty Smith

Leaders get out in front and stay there by raising the standards by which they judge themselves - and by which they are willing to be judged.
- Fredrick Smith

In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice. But, in practice, there is.
- Jan L.A. van de Snepscheut

My advice to you is get married: if you find a good wife you'll be happy; if not, you'll become a philosopher.
- Socrates (470-399 B.C.)

If you are never scared or embarrassed or hurt, it means you never take any chances.
- Julia Sorel

Tomorrow is often the busiest time of the year.
- Spanish Proverb

A single death is a tragedy, a million deaths is a statistic.
- Joseph Stalin

Logic is in the eye of the logician.
- Gloria Steinem

The President has kept all of the promises he intended to keep.
- Clinton aide George Stephanopolous speaking on Larry King Live

In America, anybody can be president. That's one of the risks you take.
- Adlai Stevenson (1900-1965)

Man does not live by words alone, despite the fact that sometimes he has to eat them.
- Adlai Stevenson

The time to stop a revolution is at the beginning, not the end.
- Adlai Stevenson

There can be no justice so long as rules are absolute.
- Patrick Stewart

There is little difference in people, but that little difference makes a big difference. The little difference is attitude. The big difference is whether it is positive or negative.
- W. Clement Stone

It is better to be quotable than to be honest.
- Tom Stoppard.

No dictator, no invader, can hold an imprisoned population by force of arms forever. There is no greater power in the universe than the need for freedom. Against that power, governments and tyrants and armies cannot stand. The Centauri learned this lesson once. We will teach it to them again. Though it take a thousand years, we will be free. People spend too much time finding other people to blame, too much energy finding excuses for not being what they are capable of being, and not enough energy putting themselves on the line, growing out of the past, and getting on with their lives.
- J. Michael Straczynski

Too many pieces of music finish too long after the end.
- Igor Stravinsky (1882-1971)

Do not follow where the path may lead. Go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.
- Muriel Strode

To sit alone with my conscience will be judgment enough for me.
- Charles William Stubbs

When you can't have what you want, it's time to start wanting what you have.
- Kathleen A. Sutton

There is nothing in this world constant but inconstancy.
- Swift

People who soar are those who refuse to sit back, sigh and wish things would change. They neither complain of their lot nor passively dream of some distant ship coming in. Rather, they visualize in their minds that they are not quitters; they will not allow life's circumstances to push them down and hold them under.
- Charles Swindoll

The remarkable thing we have is a choice every day regarding the attitude we will embrace for that day. We cannot change our past... We cannot change the fact that people will act in a certain way. We cannot change the inevitable. The only thing we can do is play on the one string we have, and that is our attitude.
- Charles Swindoll

I cannot even imagine where I would be today were it not for that handful of friends who have given me a heart full of joy. Let's face it, friends make life a lot more fun.
- Charles Swindoll

It is amazing how much people can get done if they do not worry about who gets the credit.
- Sandra Swinney

Practice is the best of all instructors.
- Publilius Syrus

It is a bad plan that admits of no modification.
- Publilius Syrus

Discovery is seeing what everybody else has seen, and thinking what nobody else has thought.
- Albert Szent-Gyorgi



T




Victory goes to the player who makes the next-to-last mistake.
- Chessmaster Savielly Grigorievitch Tartakower (1887-1956)

The mistakes are all waiting to be made.
- Chessmaster Savielly Grigorievitch Tartakower on the game's opening position

The hunger for love is much more difficult to remove than the hunger for bread.
- Mother Teresa

If you judge poeple, you have no time to love them.
- Mother Teresa

Standing in the middle of the road is very dangerous; you get knocked down by traffic from both sides.
- Margaret Thatcher

Being in power is like being a lady. If you have to tell people you are, you aren't.
- Margaret Thatcher

Nobody in football should be called a genius. A genius is a guy like Norman Einstein.
- Joe Theismann

Government cannot make us equal; it can only recognize, respect, and protect us as equal before the law.
- Clarence Thomas

I don't believe in quotas. America was founded on a philosophy of individual rights, not group rights.
- Clarence Thomas

The man who goes alone can start today; but he who travels with another must wait till that other is ready.
- Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862)

Distrust any enterprise that requires new clothes.
- Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862)

Men have become the tools of their tools.
- Henry David Thoreau

That government is best which governs least.
- Henry David Thoreau

It is better to ask some of the questions than to know all the answers.
- James Thurber

Democracy and socialism have nothing in common but one word, equality. But notice the difference: while democracy seeks equality in liberty, socialism seeks equality in restraint and servitude.
- Alexis De Tocqueville

Nietzsche was stupid and abnormal.
- Leo Tolstoy (1828-1910)

If love is the answer, could you rephrase the question?
- Lily Tomlin

The trouble with the rat-race is that even if you win, you're still a rat.
- Lily Tomlin

Assassins!
- Arturo Toscanini (1867-1957) to his orchestra

Nothing makes us so lonely as our secrets.
- Paul Tournier

When you get right down to it, one of the most important tasks of a leader is to eliminate his people's excuse for failure.
- Robert Townsend

I studied the lives of great men and famous women, and I found that the men and women who got to the top were those who did the jobs they had in hand, with everything they had of energy and enthusiasm.
- Harry S. Truman

I have found the best way to give advice to your children is to find out what they want and then advise them to do it.
- Harry S. Truman

It's a recession when your neighbor loses his job; it's a depression when you lose your own.
- Harry S. Truman

If you can't convince them, confuse them.
- Harry S Truman

It is amazing what you can accomplish if you do not care who gets the credit.
- Harry S Truman

Whenever you have an efficient government you have a dictatorship.
- Harry S Truman

No matter how far you have gone on the wrong road, turn back.
- Turkish proverb

I like thinking big. If you're going to be thinking anything, you might as well think big.
- Donald Trump

Words divide us, actions unite us.
- Slogan of the Tupamaros

The greatest of all faults is to be conscious of none. Recognizing our limitations and imperfections is the first requisite of progress. Those who believe they have arrived believe they have nowhere to go. Some not only have closed their minds to new truth, but they sit on the lid.
- Dale Turner

A succesful man is one who makes more money than his wife can spend. A succesful woman is one who can find such a man.
- Lana Turner

Well-timed silence hath more eloquence than speech.
- Martin Fraquhar Tupper

I have never let my schooling interfere with my education.
- Mark Twain (1835-1910)

Few things are harder to put up with than a good example.
- Mark Twain

When I was a boy of 14 my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be twenty-one, I was astonished at how much the old man had learnt in seven years.
- Mark Twain

Denial ain't just a river in Egypt.
- Mark Twain

Always acknowledge a fault. This will throw those in authority off their guard and give you an opportunity to commit more.
- Mark Twain

Wagner's music is better than it sounds.
- Mark Twain

The man who does not read good books has no advantage over the man who cannot read them.
- Mark Twain (1835-1910)

It's not the size of the dog in the fight, it's the size of the fight in the dog.
- Mark Twain

Reader, suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself.
- Mark Twain

Don't go around saying the world owes you a living. The world owes you nothing. It was here first.
- Mark Twain

It is good sportsmanship to not pick up lost golf balls while they are still rolling.
- Mark Twain

Let us be thankful for the fools. But for them the rest of us could not succeed.
- Mark Twain

Clothes make the man. Naked people have little or no influence on society.
- Mark Twain

I did not attend his funeral; but I wrote a nice letter saying I approved of it.
- Mark Twain

Loyalty to petrified opinion never yet broke a chain or freed a human soul.
- Mark Twain

Get your facts first, and then you can distort them as much as you please.
- Mark Twain

The human race has one really effective weapon, and that is laughter.
- Mark Twain

Always do right. This will gratify some people and astonish the rest.
- Mark Twain

To succeed in life, you need two things: ignorance and confidence.
- Mark Twain

Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear--not absence of fear.
- Mark Twain

I was gratified to be able to answer promptly. I said I don't know.
- Mark Twain

There is no distinctly American criminal class, except Congress.
- Mark Twain

Truth is our most valuable commodity - let us economize.
- Mark Twain

Go to Heaven for the climate, Hell for the company.
- Mark Twain

Don't let school interfere with your education.
- Mark Twain

Golf is a good walk spoiled.
- Mark Twain

Of the delights of this world, man cares most for sexual intercourse, yet he has left it out of his heaven.
- Mark Twain

The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated.
- Mark Twain

Man is the only animal that blushes - or needs to.
- Mark Twain

There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.
- Mark Twain

A scholar who cherishes the love of comfort is not fit to be deemed a scholar.
- Lao Tzu (570?-490? BC)

Invincibility lies in the defense; the possibility of victory in the attack. One defends when his strength is inadequate; he attacks when it is abundant.
- Sun Tzu

.War is a matter of vital importance to the state; the province of life or death; the road to survival or ruin. It's manditory that it be studied thouoghly.
- Sun Tzu

Opportunities multiply as they are seized.
- Sun Tzu



U




Good politics are often inextricably intertwined.
- Morris Udall

Perfectionism is the enemy of creation, as extreme self-solicitude is the enemy of well-being.
- John Updike

Excuses are like assholes, everyone has one, and they all stink.
- US Marine Proverb

It is always easier to ask forgiveness than permission.
- US Marine Proverb



V




It is better to be high-spirited even though one makes more mistakes, than to be narrow-minded and all to prudent.
- Vincent van Gogh

Do not quench your inspiration and your imagination; do not become the slave of your model.
- Vincent van Gogh

A poem is never finished, only abandoned.
- Paul Valery (1871-1945)

The Vice Presidency is sort of like the last cookie on the plate. Everybody insists he won't take it, but somebody always does.
- Bill Vaughan

It is not enough to succeed. Others must fail.
- Gore Vidal

A narcissist is someone better looking than you are.
- Gore Vidal

I never miss a chance to have sex or appear on television.
- Gore Vidal

Don't let it end like this. Tell them I said something.
- last words of Pancho Villa (1877-1923)

Now, now my good man, this is no time for making enemies.
- Voltaire (1694-1778) on his deathbed in response to a priest asking that he renounce Satan.

Anything that is too stupid to be spoken is sung.
- Voltaire (1694-1778)

It is not enough to conquer; one must learn to seduce.
- Voltaire

Doubt is uncomfortable, certainty is ridiculous.
- Voltaire