Howard Hughes was able to afford the luxury of madness, like a man who not only thinks he is Napoleon but hires an army to prove it.
Never feel self-pity, the most destructive emotion there is. How awful to be caught up in the terrible squirrel cage of self.
Do not weep; do not wax indignant. Understand.
What children take from us, they give?We become people who feel more deeply, question more deeply, hurt more deeply, and love more deeply.
If a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich.
We make a living by what we get, we make a life by what we give.
To err is human, but to really foul things up requires a computer.
Sometimes when you innovate, you make mistakes. It is best to admit them quickly, and get on with improving your other innovations.
Things are only impossible until they're not.
Do it now. It is not safe to leave a generous feeling to the cooling influences of the world.
Never rely on the glory of the morning nor the smiles of your mother-in-law.
The gambling known as business looks with austere disfavor upon the business known as gambling.
The release of atomic energy has not created a new problem. It has merely made more urgent the necessity of solving an existing one.
A neurosis is a secret that you don't know you are keeping.
People everywhere confuse what they read in newspapers with news.
A billion here, a billion there, pretty soon it adds up to real money.
My friend is one... who take me for what I am.
I think people want their illusions and writers are mostly illusion. When you read their words, you read a flattened, incomplete version of the writer.
I ran the wrong kind of business, but I did it with integrity.
Meetings are indispensable when you don't want to do anything.
Absolute faith corrupts as absolutely as absolute power.
I was pushed roughly but dispassionately onto my stomach and something went twice around my wrists and then tightened up as well, feeling like baling wire and biting cruelly.
You never find yourself until you face the truth.
There isn?t much better in this life than finding a way to spend a few hours in conversation with people you respect and love. You have to carve this time out of your life because you aren?t really living without it.
Love truth, and pardon error.
When you make a world tolerable for yourself, you make a world tolerable for others.
There is a great deal of difference between an eager man who wants to read a book and the tired man who wants a book to read.
The louder he talked of his honor, the faster we counted our spoons.
If our early lessons of acceptance were as successful as our early lessons of anger, how much happier we would all be.
Get away from the crowd when you can. Keep yourself to yourself, if only for a few hours daily.
Creative work is play. It is free speculation using materials of one's chosen form.
Could you imagine how horrible things would be if we always told others how we felt? Life would be intolerably bearable.
Sometimes love will pick you up by the short hairs...and jerk the heck out of you.
A lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes.
Whenever people agree with me I always feel I must be wrong.
The first duty of a revolutionary is to get away with it.
All God does is watch us and kill us when we get boring. We must never, ever be boring.
We were in the open concourse where the turnstiles were. It was hardly any better here -- the enclosed space sent the voices around us echoing back in a roar that made my head ring, and the smell and feeling of all those bodies made me feel a claustrophobia I'd never known I was prone to.
Why do writers write? Because it isn't there.
Without the capacity to provide its own information, the mind drifts into randomness.
Having a holiday weekend without a family member felt like putting on a sweater that had an extra arm.
Nobody can be exactly like me. Sometimes even I have trouble doing it.
By prizing heartfulness above faultlessness, we may reap more from our effort because we're more likely to be changed by it.
Man is the only animal that can remain on friendly terms with the victims he intends to eat until he eats them.
The whole dream of democracy is to raise the proletarian to the level of stupidity attained by the bourgeois.
The greatest thing in the world is to know how to belong to oneself.
Most of the basic truths of life sound absurd at first hearing.
Silent gratitude isn't much use to anyone.
The older I grow, the less important the comma becomes. Let the reader catch his own breath.
You're dealing with the demon of external validation. You can't beat external validation. You want to know why? Because it feels sooo good.
You can have it all. You just can't have it all at once.
We have too many high sounding words, and too few actions that correspond with them.
How we treasure (and admire) the people who acknowledge us!
My friends are my estate.
That would be a good thing for them to cut on my tombstone: Wherever she went, including here, it was against her better judgment.
Three o'clock is always too late or too early for anything you want to do.
The trouble with having an open mind, of course, is that people will insist on coming along and trying to put things in it.
Laughing is the sensation of feeling good all over and showing it principally in one spot.
An idealist is one who, on noticing that a rose smells better than a cabbage, concludes that it will also make better soup.
He who will not reason is a bigot; he who cannot is a fool; and he who dares not is a slave.
That would be a good thing for them to cut on my tombstone: Wherever she went, including here, it was against her better judgment.
The moment we begin to fear the opinions of others and hesitate to tell the truth that is in us, and from motives of policy are silent when we should speak, the divine floods of light and life no longer flow into our souls.
Everybody likes to go their own way--to choose their own time and manner of devotion.
You should not live one way in private, another in public.
The release of atomic energy has not created a new problem. It has merely made more urgent the necessity of solving an existing one.
Zoo: An excellent place to study the habits of human beings.
Do not weep; do not wax indignant. Understand.
If there is one thing worse than being an ugly duckling in a house of swans, it's having the swans pretend there's no difference.
Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.
Sometimes the cure for restlessness is rest.
I heard Jolu respond, then felt the thump he was dealt, too.
When you make a world tolerable for yourself, you make a world tolerable for others.
If you refuse to be made straight when you are green, you will not be made straight when you are dry.
Level with your child by being honest. Nobody spots a phony quicker than a child.
They weren't wearing insignia.
What counts is not necessarily the size of the dog in the fight - it's the size of the fight in the dog.
I ran the wrong kind of business, but I did it with integrity.
Health consists of having the same diseases as one's neighbors.
You freeze where you are, time stops, and your heart thunders in your ears.
I am more and more convinced that our happiness or unhappiness depends more on the way we meet the events of life than on the nature of those events themselves.
I was gratified to be able to answer promptly. I said I don't know.
Refuse to be ill. Never tell people you are ill; never own it to yourself. Illness is one of those things which a man should resist on principle.
I was sick of cars driving right past me.
The problem is never how to get new, innovative thoughts into your mind, but how to get old ones out. Every mind is a building filled with archaic furniture. Clean out a corner of your mind and creativity will instantly fill it.
The gambling known as business looks with austere disfavor upon the business known as gambling.
I heard Jolu respond, then felt the thump he was dealt, too.
If my mental map was right, we were heading down to Fisherman's Wharf.
The most erroneous stories are those we think we know best - and therefore never scrutinize or question.
Good taste is the enemy of comedy.
Now is the time for all good men to come to.
His priority did not seem to be to teach them what he knew, but rather to impress upon them that nothing, not even... knowledge, was foolproof.
It is my hope that I can assist you in getting here too.
Liberals are very broadminded: they are always willing to give careful consideration to both sides of the same side.
When you want to believe in something, you also have to believe in everything that's necessary for believing in it.
They are ill discoverers that think there is no land, when they can see nothing but sea.
If you refuse to be made straight when you are green, you will not be made straight when you are dry.
It is nobler to declare oneself wrong than to insist on being right - especially when one is right.
My mother loved children -- she would have given anything if I had been one.
When all is said and done, the weather and love are the two elements about which one can never be sure.
Therefore search and see if there is not some place where you may invest your humanity.
It?s like your batteries get low, and you need to charge them on someone else?s story.
The most remarkable thing about my mother is that for thirty years she served the family nothing but leftovers. The original meal has never been found.
A man is too apt to forget that in this world he cannot have everything. A choice is all that is left him.
Prove all things; hold fast that which is good.
Always seek out the seed of triumph in every adversity.
In America, through pressure of conformity, there is freedom of choice, but nothing to choose from.
The world tolerates conceit from those who are successful, but not from anybody else.
It was enough to make a body ashamed of the human race.
The louder he talked of his honor, the faster we counted our spoons.
Rest is the sweet sauce of labor.
I don't think about risks much. I just do what I want to do. If you gotta go, you gotta go.
It is not enough to succeed. Others must fail.
The world tolerates conceit from those who are successful, but not from anybody else.
As long as you derive inner help and comfort from anything, keep it.
The mellow sweetness of pumpkin pie off a prison spoon is something you will never forget.
Challenge is a dragon with a gift in its mouth?Tame the dragon and the gift is yours.
When we lose one we love, our bitterest tears are called forth by the memory of hours when we loved not enough.
Nothing is so awesomely unfamiliar as the familiar that discloses itself at the end of a journey.
All men are frauds. The only difference between them is that some admit it. I myself deny it.
When I came back to Dublin I was courtmartialed in my absence and sentenced to death in my absence, so I said they could shoot me in my absence.
There is an evil tendency underlying all our technology - the tendency to do what is reasonable even when it isn't any good.
At my lemonade stand I used to give the first glass away free and charge five dollars for the second glass. The refill contained the antidote.
Late to bed and late to wake will keep you long on money and short on mistakes.
It's innocence when it charms us, ignorance when it doesn't.
They weren't wearing insignia.
Laughing is the sensation of feeling good all over and showing it principally in one spot.
Man is only miserable so far as he thinks himself so.
Life is consciousness.
Funny business, a woman's career: the things you drop on the way up the ladder so you can move faster. You forget you'll need them again when you get back to being a woman. It's one career all females have in common, whether we like it or not: being a woman.
If God had wanted us to vote, he would have given us candidates.
Van's sweater was soaked in blood.
The crux... is that the vast majority of the mass of the universe seems to be missing.
The crowd gives the leader new strength.
If my mental map was right, we were heading down to Fisherman's Wharf.
I respect faith, but doubt is what gets you an education.
Democracy is the recurrent suspicion that more than half of the people are right more than half the time.
Against stupidity the gods themselves contend in vain.
I have very strong feelings about how you lead your life. You always look ahead, you never look back.
It is not always the same thing to be a good man and a good citizen.
If the only prayer you ever say in your whole life is "thank you," that would suffice.
The gambling known as business looks with austere disfavor upon the business known as gambling.
Most of the basic truths of life sound absurd at first hearing.
We think in generalities, but we live in detail.
Work saves us from three great evils: boredom, vice and need.
You cannot run away from a weakness; you must sometimes fight it out or perish. And if that be so, why not now, and where you stand?
There ain't no free lunches in this country. And don't go spending your whole life commiserating that you got raw deals. You've got to say, 'I think that if I keep working at this and want it bad enough I can have it.'
We may not imagine how our lives could be more frustrating and complex--but Congress can.
We should be eternally vigilant against attempts to check the expression of opinions that we loathe.
The art of dining well is no slight art, the pleasure not a slight pleasure.
There is always some madness in love. But there is also always some reason in madness.
I ran the wrong kind of business, but I did it with integrity.
Normal is not something to aspire to, it's something to get away from.
He who will not reason is a bigot; he who cannot is a fool; and he who dares not is a slave.
People were still cramming down the stairs, and more were squeezing past the turnstiles and down the escalators onto the platforms, but it was clear to me that this wasn't going to have a happy ending.
I have been through some terrible things in my life, some of which actually happened.
The lesson which life repeats and constantly enforces is 'look under foot.' You are always nearer the divine and the true sources of your power than you think.
Never rely on the glory of the morning nor the smiles of your mother-in-law.
I've grown to realize the joy that comes from little victories is preferable to the fun that comes from ease and the pursuit of pleasure.
If you're trying to take a roomful of people by surprise, it's a lot easier to hit your targets if you don't yell going through the door.
You freeze where you are, time stops, and your heart thunders in your ears.
It's takin' whatever comes your way, the good AND the bad, that give life flavor. It's all the stuff rolled together that makes life worth livin'.
I know that you believe that you understood what you think I said, but I am not sure you realize that what you heard is not what I meant.
Good habits, which bring our lower passions and appetites under automatic control, leave our natures free to explore the larger experiences of life.
Nor do not saw the air too much with your hand, thus, but use all gently. For in the very torrent, tempest, and as I may say, whirlwind of passion, you must acquire and beget a temperance that may give it smoothness.
Someone dragged me by my arms out onto the road, then shoved me, stumbling, down a paved road.
Anger is never without Reason, but seldom with a good One.
A large income is the best recipe for happiness I ever heard of.
Van's sweater was soaked in blood.
Don't worry about the world coming to an end today. It's already tomorrow in Australia.
There is always some madness in love. But there is also always some reason in madness.
Do something every day that you don't want to do; this is the golden rule for acquiring the habit of doing your duty without pain.
We don't know a millionth of one percent about anything.
Winning is important to me, but what brings me real joy is the experience of being fully engaged in whatever I'm doing.
I will love the light for it shows me the way, yet I will endure the darkness for it shows me the stars.
It's never just a game when you're winning.
The freethinking of one age is the common sense of the next.
Before I met my husband, I'd never fallen in love, though I'd stepped in it a few times.
Temptation rarely comes in working hours. It is in their leisure time that men are made or marred.
The happiest is the person who suffers the least pain; the most miserable who enjoys the least pleasure.
Go through your phone book, call people and ask them to drive you to the airport. The ones who will drive you are your true friends. The rest aren't bad people; they're just acquaintances.
Nothing can be so amusingly arrogant as a young man who has just discovered an old idea and thinks it is his own.
Is there life before death?
A hypocrite is a person who--but who isn't?
It is a profitable thing, if one is wise, to seem foolish.
Before we set our hearts too much upon anything, let us examine how happy those are who already possess it.
Most of the basic truths of life sound absurd at first hearing.
Lack of money is no obstacle. Lack of an idea is an obstacle.
Rest is the sweet sauce of labor.
I respect faith, but doubt is what gets you an education.
Ask not what you can do for your country. Ask what's for lunch.
I've grown to realize the joy that comes from little victories is preferable to the fun that comes from ease and the pursuit of pleasure.
O Lord, help me to be pure, but not yet.
Where facts are few, experts are many.
We can be sure that the greatest hope for maintaining equilibrium in the face of any situation rests within ourselves.
Nothing in the world can take the place of Persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. The slogan 'Press On' has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race.
When we ask for advice, we are usually looking for an accomplice.
Good soldiers never pass up a chance to eat or sleep. They never know how much they'll be called on to do before the next chance.
Famous remarks are very seldom quoted correctly.
The most beautiful adventures are not those we go to seek.
For one human being to love another; that is perhaps the most difficult of all our tasks, the ultimate, the last test and proof, the work for which all other work is but preparation.
The crowd gives the leader new strength.
I guess we'd be living in a boring, perfect world if everybody wished everybody else well.
You can't wait for inspiration. You have to go after it with a club.
I'm going to stay in show business until I'm the last one left.
I don't believe in intuition. When you get sudden flashes of perception, it is just the brain working faster than usual. But you've been getting ready to know it for a long time, and when it comes, you feel you've known it always.
Let us so live that when we come to die even the undertaker will be sorry.
Cheese - milk's leap toward immortality.
You could get on a boat there, get away. That fit with the terrorism hypothesis.
You know what's interesting about Washington? It's the kind of place where second-guessing has become second nature.
Before we set our hearts too much upon anything, let us examine how happy those are who already possess it.
Where so many hours have been spent in convincing myself that I am right, is there not some reason to fear I may be wrong?
Censorship, like charity, should begin at home; but, unlike charity, it should end there.
I don't believe in intuition. When you get sudden flashes of perception, it is just the brain working faster than usual. But you've been getting ready to know it for a long time, and when it comes, you feel you've known it always.
I find television very educating. Every time somebody turns on the set, I go into the other room and read a book.
When we are unhurried and wise, we perceive that only great and worthy things have any permanent and absolute existence, that petty fears and petty pleasures are but the shadow of the reality.
Most advances in science come when a person for one reason or another is forced to change fields.
Curiosity killed the cat, but for a while I was a suspect.
The reward of a thing well done is to have done it.
I cannot believe that the inscrutable universe turns on an axis of suffering; surely the strange beauty of the world must somewhere rest on pure joy!
Do not believe that he who seeks to comfort you lives untroubled among the simple and quiet words that sometimes do you good. His life has much difficulty... Were it otherwise he would never have been able to find those words.
Before we set our hearts too much upon anything, let us examine how happy those are who already possess it.
Democracy is the recurrent suspicion that more than half of the people are right more than half the time.
Do not envy a sinner; you don't know what disaster awaits him.
Why do writers write? Because it isn't there.
Summer afternoon - Summer afternoon... the two most beautiful words in the English language.
Each individual woman's body demands to be accepted on its own terms.
We should be eternally vigilant against attempts to check the expression of opinions that we loathe.
I don't believe in intuition. When you get sudden flashes of perception, it is just the brain working faster than usual. But you've been getting ready to know it for a long time, and when it comes, you feel you've known it always.
The advantage of a classical education is that it enables you to despise the wealth that it prevents you from achieving.
I'm moving, but don't worry! Someone once told me we're all on the same planet, so I'll be okay!
Misquotations are the only quotations that are never misquoted.
Take a two-mile walk every morning before breakfast.
Tragedy is when I cut my finger. Comedy is when you walk into an open sewer and die.
I stumbled some, then a hand pushed my head down and I was inside the Hummer.
You must not think me necessarily foolish because I am facetious, nor will I consider you necessarily wise because you are grave.
Starting with getting run down by a drunk burning his way down Valencia -- that were infinitely more likely and immediate than terrorists.
There are several good protections against temptations, but the surest is cowardice.
Electricity is actually made up of extremely tiny particles called electrons, that you cannot see with the naked eye unless you have been drinking.
Sorrow was like the wind. It came in gusts.
What is the use of a house if you haven't got a tolerable planet to put it on?
Smell is a potent wizard that transports you across thousand of miles and all the years you have lived.
Write a wise saying and your name will live forever.
The world tolerates conceit from those who are successful, but not from anybody else.
If you think taking care of yourself is selfish, change your mind. If you don't, you're simply ducking your responsibilities.
What can you say about a society that says that God is dead and Elvis is alive?
You never know how a horse will pull until you hook him up to a heavy load.
Van was screaming something and Jolu was shouting and I looked at them for a second and that was when someone put a coarse.
The average person thinks he isn't.
All men are frauds. The only difference between them is that some admit it. I myself deny it.
History is more or less bunk.
Absolute faith corrupts as absolutely as absolute power.
I find television very educating. Every time somebody turns on the set, I go into the other room and read a book.
Anger at lies lasts forever. Anger at truth can't last.
He who will not reason is a bigot; he who cannot is a fool; and he who dares not is a slave.
He who will not reason is a bigot; he who cannot is a fool; and he who dares not is a slave.
It was enough to make a body ashamed of the human race.
Make a decision, even if it's wrong.
A fine quotation is a diamond on the finger of a man of wit, and a pebble in the hand of a fool.
The art of war is simple enough. Find out where your enemy is. Get at him as soon as you can. Strike him as hard as you can, and keep moving on.
The mellow sweetness of pumpkin pie off a prison spoon is something you will never forget.
Because we don't think about future generations, they will never forget us.
Walking is man's best medicine.
My eyes swam and watered and I literally couldn't breathe through the pain.
The Past is to be respected and acknoledged, but not to be worshiped. It is our future in which we will find our greatness.
I was gratified to be able to answer promptly. I said I don't know.
Be sincere; be brief; be seated.
I never think of the future - it comes soon enough.
Human beings, who are almost unique in having the ability to learn from the experience of others, are also remarkable for their apparent disinclination to do so.
If the only prayer you ever say in your whole life is "thank you," that would suffice.
The only thing that saves us from the bureaucracy is inefficiency. An efficient bureaucracy is the greatest threat to liberty.
It is curious that physical courage should be so common in the world and moral courage so rare.
If you're trying to take a roomful of people by surprise, it's a lot easier to hit your targets if you don't yell going through the door.
The toughest question has always been, "How do you get your ideas?" How do you answer that? It's like asking runners how they run, or singers how they sing. They just do it!
The knowledge of the world is only to be acquired in the world, and not in a closet.
So act that your principle of action might safely be made a law for the whole world.
No matter what I do, no matter how predictable I try to make my life, it will not be any more predictable than the rest of the world. Which is chaotic.
I nearly fell again, but new hands grabbed me from in front and dragged me down a steel floor and then forced me to my knees and locked my hands to something behind me.
Sometimes you can't see yourself clearly until you see yourself through the eyes of others.
I have lost friends, some by death... others through sheer inability to cross the street.
If my mental map was right, we were heading down to Fisherman's Wharf.
We have too many high sounding words, and too few actions that correspond with them.
A hobby a day keeps the doldrums away.
For most men life is a search for the proper manila envelope in which to get themselves filed.
I'm all in favor of keeping dangerous weapons out of the hands of fools. Let's start with typewriters.
Have no fear of perfection - you'll never reach it.
We cannot deny the facts of nature, but we should certainly try to improve on them.
The dead might as well try to speak to the living as the old to the young.
Zoo: An excellent place to study the habits of human beings.
The most erroneous stories are those we think we know best - and therefore never scrutinize or question.
Be careful that victories do not carry the seed of future defeats.
I was gratified to be able to answer promptly. I said I don't know.
Curiosity killed the cat, but for a while I was a suspect.
Exercise ferments the humors, casts them into their proper channels, throws off redundancies, and helps nature in those secret distributions, without which the body cannot subsist in its vigor, nor the soul act with cheerfulness.
God is a comedian playing to an audience too afraid to laugh.
You may be disappointed if you fail, but you are doomed if you don't try.
Could you imagine how horrible things would be if we always told others how we felt? Life would be intolerably bearable.
Over the years your bodies become walking autobiographies, telling friends and strangers alike of the minor and major stresses of your lives.
Doubt 'til thou canst doubt no more...doubt is thought and thought is life. Systems which end doubt are devices for drugging thought.
Our deeds determine us, as much as we determine our deeds.
Why the hell would terrorists kidnap a bunch of high school students?
I stand in awe of my body.
Nothing great in the world has been accomplished without passion.
You know what's interesting about Washington? It's the kind of place where second-guessing has become second nature.
Preserving health by too severe a rule is a worrisome malady.
Never does the human soul appear so strong and noble as when it foregoes revenge and dares to forgive an injury.
I used to think that the brain was the most wonderful organ in my body. Then I realized who was telling me this.
A synonym is a word you use when you can't spell the word you first thought of.
I have the worst memory ever so no matter who comes up to me - they're just, like, 'I can't believe you don't remember me!" I'm like, 'Oh Dad I'm sorry!'
We cannot deny the facts of nature, but we should certainly try to improve on them.
It is fortunate to be of high birth, but it is no less so to be of such character that people do not care to know whether you are or are not.
I never know how much of what I say is true.
Level with your child by being honest. Nobody spots a phony quicker than a child.
The toughest question has always been, "How do you get your ideas?" How do you answer that? It's like asking runners how they run, or singers how they sing. They just do it!
Beware the pull on your heartstrings -- it's often the pursestrings that are actually being reached for.
Maybe the most any of us can expect of ourselves isn't perfection but progress.
Life isn't fair. It's just fairer than death, that's all.
There is a tragic flaw in our precious Constitution, and I don't know what can be done to fix it. This is it: Only nut cases want to be president.
Eat a third and drink a third and leave the remaining third of your stomach empty. Then, when you get angry, there will be sufficient room for your rage.
The crux... is that the vast majority of the mass of the universe seems to be missing.
Someone's boring me. I think it's me.
There are sadistic scientists who hurry to hunt down errors instead of establishing the truth.
Go through your phone book, call people and ask them to drive you to the airport. The ones who will drive you are your true friends. The rest aren't bad people; they're just acquaintances.
The release of atomic energy has not created a new problem. It has merely made more urgent the necessity of solving an existing one.
Never part without loving words to think of during your absence. It may be that you will not meet again in life.
He had learned over the years that poor people did not feel so poor when allowed to give occasionally.
Americans are benevolently ignorant about Canada, while Canadians are malevolently well informed about the United States.
You can go a long way with bad legs and a good head.
When you make a world tolerable for yourself, you make a world tolerable for others.
Everything happens to everybody sooner or later if there is time enough.
If the only prayer you ever say in your whole life is "thank you," that would suffice.
A billion here, a billion there, pretty soon it adds up to real money.
No one goes there nowadays, it's too crowded.
The secret of greatness is simple: do better work than any other man in your field - and keep on doing it.
The brain is a wonderful organ. It starts working the moment you get up in the morning and does not stop until you get into the office.
I nearly fell again, but new hands grabbed me from in front and dragged me down a steel floor and then forced me to my knees and locked my hands to something behind me.
At my lemonade stand I used to give the first glass away free and charge five dollars for the second glass. The refill contained the antidote.
Americans are benevolently ignorant about Canada, while Canadians are malevolently well informed about the United States.
The ornament of a house is the friends who frequent it.
The keenest sorrow is to recognize ourselves as the sole cause of all our adversities.
Write a wise saying and your name will live forever.
For the night was not impartial. No, the night loved some more than others, served some more than others.
Human beings have an inalienable right to invent themselves.
Is there life before death?
We play the hands of cards life gives us. And the worst hands can make us the best players.
Hollywood is a place where they place you under contract instead of under observation.
Never read a book through merely because you have begun it.
The faceless, eyeless armed man above me kept his gun very level.
The coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco.
All God does is watch us and kill us when we get boring. We must never, ever be boring.
College isn't the place to go for ideas.
The moment we begin to fear the opinions of others and hesitate to tell the truth that is in us, and from motives of policy are silent when we should speak, the divine floods of light and life no longer flow into our souls.
Everything happens to everybody sooner or later if there is time enough.
Write down the advice of him who loves you, though you like it not at present.
The freedom of all is essential to my freedom.
The charity that hastens to proclaim its good deeds, ceases to be charity, and is only pride and ostentation.
The two symbols of the Republican Party: an elephant, and a big fat white guy who is threatened by change.
Nothing is as simple as we hope it will be.
For the night was not impartial. No, the night loved some more than others, served some more than others.
Under democracy one party always devotes its chief energies to trying to prove that the other party is unfit to rule - and both commonly succeed, and are right.
A hobby a day keeps the doldrums away.
What more felicity can fall to creature, than to enjoy delight with liberty.
It's very hard to take yourself too seriously when you look at the world from outer space.
All the world's a cage.
If you think taking care of yourself is selfish, change your mind. If you don't, you're simply ducking your responsibilities.
You can't deny laughter. When it comes, it plops down in your favorite chair and stays as long as it wants.
Mediocrity knows nothing higher than itself, but talent instantly recognizes genius.
We've got to get my friend to a hospital --"
I prefer the company of peasants because they have not been educated sufficiently to reason incorrectly.
Vegetarianism is harmless enough, though it is apt to fill a man with wind and self-righteousness.
If we fall, we don't need self-recrimination or blame or anger - we need a reawakening of our intention and a willingness to recommit, to be whole-hearted once again.
Insanity in individuals is something rare - but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule.
Cheese - milk's leap toward immortality.
It is my hope that I can assist you in getting here too.
Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.
If we fall, we don't need self-recrimination or blame or anger - we need a reawakening of our intention and a willingness to recommit, to be whole-hearted once again.
If you would be known, and not know, vegetate in a village; If you would know, and not be known, live in a city.
Go often to the house of thy friend; for weeds soon choke up the unused path.
To be willing to die for an idea is to set a rather high price on conjecture.
If you really do put a small value upon yourself, rest assured that the world will not raise your price.
In America, through pressure of conformity, there is freedom of choice, but nothing to choose from.
Where facts are few, experts are many.
I barely had time to register them before those rifles were pointed at me.
A physicist is an atom's way of knowing about atoms.
Anger at lies lasts forever. Anger at truth can't last.
The trouble with our times is that the future is not what it used to be.
It is a good rule in life never to apologize. The right sort of people do not want apologies, and the wrong sort take a mean advantage of them.
The strongest possible piece of advice I would give any young woman is: Don't screw around, and don't smoke.
Three may keep a secret, if two of them are dead.
Hares can gambol over the body of a dead lion.
I daresay one profits more by the mistakes one makes off one's own bat than by doing the right thing on somebody's else advice.
The trick is to make sure you don't die waiting for prosperity to come.
Up ahead, I saw someone, a middle-aged lady in a hippie dress, falter and fall.
My pessimism extends to the point of even suspecting the sincerity of the pessimists.
Zoo: An excellent place to study the habits of human beings.
Life engenders life. Energy creates energy. It is by spending oneself that one becomes rich.
Men are equal; it is not birth but virtue that makes the difference.
I heard them shouting through the muffling canvas of the bag, and then I was being impersonally hauled to my feet by my wrists, my arms wrenched up behind my back, my shoulders screaming.
Everyone wants to be Cary Grant. Even I want to be Cary Grant.
Sometimes the cure for restlessness is rest.
I nearly fell again, but new hands grabbed me from in front and dragged me down a steel floor and then forced me to my knees and locked my hands to something behind me.
You can't just ask customers what they want and then try to give that to them. By the time you get it built, they'll want something new.
Good breeding consists of concealing how much we think of ourselves and how little we think of the other person.
A writer is a person for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people.
We cannot deny the facts of nature, but we should certainly try to improve on them.
I stand in awe of my body.
The trick is to make sure you don't die waiting for prosperity to come.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it.
It's all right to have butterflies in your stomach. Just get them to fly in formation.
Don't be afraid to take a big step if one is indicated. You can't cross a chasm in two small jumps.
Reality is nothing but a collective hunch.
You may be disappointed if you fail, but you are doomed if you don't try.
The pain of making the necessary sacrifices always hurts more than you think it's going to. I know. It sucks. That being said, doing something seriously creative is one of the most amazing experiences one can have, in this or any other lifetime. If you can pull it off, it's worth it. Even if you don't end up pulling it off, you'll learn many incredible, magical, valuable things. It's NOT doing it when you know you full well you HAD the opportunity- that hurts FAR more than any failure.
Nothing in the world can take the place of Persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. The slogan 'Press On' has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race.
Because we don't think about future generations, they will never forget us.
It's a dangerous business going out your front door.
I've gone into hundreds of fortune-teller's parlors, and have been told thousands of things, but nobody ever told me I was a policewoman getting ready to arrest her.
Be careful that victories do not carry the seed of future defeats.
Under democracy one party always devotes its chief energies to trying to prove that the other party is unfit to rule - and both commonly succeed, and are right.
Typos are very important to all written form. It gives the reader something to look for so they aren't distracted by the total lack of content in your writing.
It is common sense to take a method and try it. If it fails, admit it frankly and try another. But above all, try something.
Talk sense to a fool and he calls you foolish.
Therefore search and see if there is not some place where you may invest your humanity.
Sack over my head and cinched it tight around my windpipe.
Get away from the crowd when you can. Keep yourself to yourself, if only for a few hours daily.
I've grown to realize the joy that comes from little victories is preferable to the fun that comes from ease and the pursuit of pleasure.
A lifetime of happiness! No man alive could bear it: it would be hell on earth.
Reveal not every secret you have to a friend, for how can you tell but that friend may hereafter become an enemy. And bring not all mischief you are able to upon an enemy, for he may one day become your friend.
History teaches us that men and nations behave wisely once they have exhausted all other alternatives.
You cannot be mad at somebody who makes you laugh - it's as simple as that.
Silence is one of the hardest arguments to refute.
I'd never really believed in terrorists before.
My philosophy is that not only are you responsible for your life, but doing the best at this moment puts you in the best place for the next moment.
Innovation has nothing to do with how many R&D dollars you have. When Apple came up with the Mac, IBM was spending at least 100 times more on R&D. It's not about money. It's about the people you have, how you're led, and how much you get it.
Most of the basic truths of life sound absurd at first hearing.
Against stupidity the gods themselves contend in vain.
Some people make headlines while others make history.
It is my hope that I can assist you in getting here too.
The lion and the calf shall lie down together but the calf won't get much sleep.
I used to believe that marriage would diminish me, reduce my options. That you had to be someone less to live with someone else when, of course, you have to be someone more.
Refuse to be ill. Never tell people you are ill; never own it to yourself. Illness is one of those things which a man should resist on principle.
Never fear the want of business. A man who qualifies himself well for his calling, never fails of employment.
Even the best of friends need time apart.
Few people think more than two or three times a year; I have made an international reputation for myself by thinking once or twice a week.
Play: Work that you enjoy doing for nothing.
All programmers are playwrights and all computers are lousy actors.
I'll be more enthusiastic about encouraging thinking outside the box when there's evidence of any thinking going on inside it.
Normal is not something to aspire to, it's something to get away from.
There are admirable potentialities in every human being. Believe in your strength and your youth. Learn to repeat endlessly to yourself, 'It all depends on me.'
They are ill discoverers that think there is no land, when they can see nothing but sea.
A conference is a gathering of important people who singly can do nothing, but together can decide that nothing can be done.
The people who are regarded as moral luminaries are those who forego ordinary pleasures themselves and find compensation in interfering with the pleasures of others.
I'm all in favor of keeping dangerous weapons out of the hands of fools. Let's start with typewriters.
One of the keys to happiness is a bad memory.
You need only reflect that one of the best ways to get yourself a reputation as a dangerous citizen these days is to go about repeating the very phrases which our founding fathers used in the struggle for independence.
I was not a child prodigy, because a child prodigy is a child who knows as much when it is a child as it does when it grows up.
Always be nice to those younger than you, because they are the ones who will be writing about you.
Most advances in science come when a person for one reason or another is forced to change fields.
The summer night is like a perfection of thought.
I have very strong feelings about how you lead your life. You always look ahead, you never look back.
People everywhere confuse what they read in newspapers with news.
No matter what I do, no matter how predictable I try to make my life, it will not be any more predictable than the rest of the world. Which is chaotic.
The knowledge of the world is only to be acquired in the world, and not in a closet.
Never rely on the glory of the morning nor the smiles of your mother-in-law.
Why the hell would terrorists kidnap a bunch of high school students?
A lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes.
Never does the human soul appear so strong and noble as when it foregoes revenge and dares to forgive an injury.
Bear in mind that you should conduct yourself in life as at a feast.
It is curious that physical courage should be so common in the world and moral courage so rare.
The truth does not change according to our ability to stomach it.
Laughter is supposed to be the best medicine, however, it should never be at the expense of someone?s feelings or ignoring truth.
Howard Hughes was able to afford the luxury of madness, like a man who not only thinks he is Napoleon but hires an army to prove it.
For visions come not to polluted eyes.
To achieve great things we must live as though we were never going to die.
Plans are only good intentions unless they immediately degenerate into hard work.
A little government and a little luck are necessary in life, but only a fool trusts either of them.
Van's sweater was soaked in blood.
What can you say about a society that says that God is dead and Elvis is alive?
There is only one thing a philosopher can be relied upon to do, and that is to contradict other philosophers.
I never met anybody who said when they were a kid, "I wanna grow up and be a critic."
The radical of one century is the conservative of the next. The radical invents the views. When he has worn them out the conservative adopts them.
Everybody knows if you are too careful you are so occupied in being careful that you are sure to stumble over something.
If you believe the doctors, nothing is wholesome; if you believe the theologians, nothing is innocent; if you believe the military, nothing is safe.
They are ill discoverers that think there is no land, when they can see nothing but sea.
The great thing about a computer notebook is that no matter how much you stuff into it, it doesn't get bigger or heavier.
Everything has its wonders, even darkness and silence, and I learn whatever state I am in, therin to be content
When they discover the center of the universe, a lot of people will be disappointed to discover they are not it.
The true mystery of the world is the visible, not the invisible.
The cloning of humans is on most of the lists of things to worry about from Science, along with behaviour control, genetic engineering, transplanted heads, computer poetry and the unrestrained growth of plastic flowers.
I am not sincere, even when I say I am not.
You cannot make a man by standing a sheep on its hind legs. But by standing a flock of sheep in that position you can make a crowd of men.
The price one pays for pursuing any profession or calling is an intimate knowledge of its ugly side.
He who boasts of his ancestry is praising the deeds of another.
College isn't the place to go for ideas.
At the mention of the word mace, the guy looked scared and kind of melted back, though the crowd kept him moving forward.
A poem is no place for an idea.
There are two types of people--those who come into a room and say, 'Well, here I am!' and those who come in and say, 'Ah, there you are.'
Science is nothing but developed perception, interpreted intent, common sense rounded out and minutely articulated.
A rumor without a leg to stand on will get around some other way.
Vanessa didn't like it, but I figured a cop wasn't going to stop for a kid waving his hat in the street, not that day. They just might stop if they saw Darryl bleeding there, though. I argued briefly with her and Darryl settled it by lurching to his feet and dragging himself down toward Market Street.
Be careful that victories do not carry the seed of future defeats.
You don't stop laughing because you grow old. You grow old because you stop laughing.
One thing I've learned in all these years is not to make love when you really don't feel it; there's probably nothing worse you can do to yourself than that.
Go through your phone book, call people and ask them to drive you to the airport. The ones who will drive you are your true friends. The rest aren't bad people; they're just acquaintances.
There is surely a piece of divinity in us, something that was before the elements, and owes no homage unto the sun.
They are ill discoverers that think there is no land, when they can see nothing but sea.
In all recorded history there has not been one economist who has had to worry about where the next meal would come from.
My friend is one... who take me for what I am.
The price one pays for pursuing any profession or calling is an intimate knowledge of its ugly side.
Keep cool and you command everybody.
Oh, I don't blame Congress. If I had $600 billion at my disposal, I'd be irresponsible, too.
The trouble with our times is that the future is not what it used to be.
I'm moving, but don't worry! Someone once told me we're all on the same planet, so I'll be okay!
Anything looked at closely becomes wonderful.
That would be a good thing for them to cut on my tombstone: Wherever she went, including here, it was against her better judgment.
You cannot make a man by standing a sheep on its hind legs. But by standing a flock of sheep in that position you can make a crowd of men.
To repeat what others have said, requires education; to challenge it, requires brains.
In America, through pressure of conformity, there is freedom of choice, but nothing to choose from.
In the right light, at the right time, everything is extraordinary.
Newspapermen learn to call a murderer 'an alleged murderer' and the King of England 'the alleged King of England' to avoid libel suits.
I cannot believe that the inscrutable universe turns on an axis of suffering; surely the strange beauty of the world must somewhere rest on pure joy!
Money frees you from doing things you dislike. Since I dislike doing nearly everything, money is handy.
Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away.
Intimacy is what makes a marriage, not a ceremony, not a piece of paper from the state.
The truth is always a compound of two half- truths, and you never reach it, because there is always something more to say.
The reason why worry kills more people than work is that more people worry than work.
Each individual woman's body demands to be accepted on its own terms.
The car slewed to a stop and only then did I notice that it wasn't a cop car, ambulance or fire-engine.
One thing I've learned in all these years is not to make love when you really don't feel it; there's probably nothing worse you can do to yourself than that.
I am not sincere, even when I say I am not.
All the world's a cage.
Write a wise saying and your name will live forever.
I was pushed roughly but dispassionately onto my stomach and something went twice around my wrists and then tightened up as well, feeling like baling wire and biting cruelly.
Illusions are art, for the feeling person, and it is by art that you live, if you do.
It?s like your batteries get low, and you need to charge them on someone else?s story.
It had only one fault. It was kind of lousy.
If your parents never had children, chances are you won't, either.
Terrorists killed a lot fewer people than bathroom falls and accidental electrocutions.
America believes in education: the average professor earns more money in a year than a professional athlete earns in a whole week.
I don't own a cell phone or a pager. I just hang around everyone I know, all the time. If someone wants to get a hold of me, they just say 'Mitch,' and I say 'what?' and turn my head slightly.
The trouble with our times is that the future is not what it used to be.
We are made to persist. That's how we find out who we are.
He attacked everything in life with a mix of extrordinary genius and naive incompetence, and it was often difficult to tell which was which.
They can conquer who believe they can.
I like work: it fascinates me. I can sit and look at it for hours.
Whatever you fear most has no power - it is your fear that has the power.
A mind troubled by doubt cannot focus on the course to victory.
Statistics: The only science that enables different experts using the same figures to draw different conclusions.
It's all right to have butterflies in your stomach. Just get them to fly in formation.
Anger at lies lasts forever. Anger at truth can't last.
An idealist is one who, on noticing that a rose smells better than a cabbage, concludes that it will also make better soup.
Marriage is the only adventure open to the cowardly.
In an industrial society which confuses work and productivity, the necessity of producing has always been an enemy of the desire to create.
I lived what most people call the good life. I was happy, but deep inside I always felt that, with the short amount of time we are given to live and love in this world, we spend too much time loving things instead of people.
Many people weigh the guilt they will feel against the pleasure of the forbidden action they want to take.
It is better to offer no excuse than a bad one.
To lengthen thy life, lessen thy meals.
When we are unhurried and wise, we perceive that only great and worthy things have any permanent and absolute existence, that petty fears and petty pleasures are but the shadow of the reality.
The best thing to give to your enemy is forgiveness; to an opponent, tolerance; to a friend, your heart; to your child, a good example; to a father, deference; to your mother, conduct that will make her proud of you; to yourself, respect; to all men, charity.
Have no fear of perfection - you'll never reach it.
Writing gives you the illusion of control, and then you realize it's just an illusion, that people are going to bring their own stuff into it.
By the time I'd grown up, I naturally supposed that I'd be grown up.
To achieve great things we must live as though we were never going to die.
An honest politician is one who, when he is bought, will stay bought.
If you think you can win, you can win. Faith is necessary to victory.
Our patience will achieve more than our force.
What some people mistake for the high cost of living is really the cost of high living.
By learning to discover and value our ordinariness, we nurture a friendliness toward ourselves and the world that is the essence of a healthy soul.
My friend is one... who take me for what I am.
Memory feeds imagination.
Courage is the art of being the only one who knows you're scared to death.
Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.
The radical of one century is the conservative of the next. The radical invents the views. When he has worn them out the conservative adopts them.
Meetings are indispensable when you don't want to do anything.
Money doesn't always bring happiness. People with ten million dollars are no happier than people with nine million dollars.
The trick is to make sure you don't die waiting for prosperity to come.
There are plenty of good five-cent cigars in the country. The trouble is they cost a quarter. What this country needs is a good five-cent nickel.
Sorrow was like the wind. It came in gusts.
You create your opportunities by asking for them.
Art is science made clear.
If you would be a real seeker after truth, it is necessary that at least once in your life you doubt, as far as possible, all things.
You have to recognize when the right place and the right time fuse and take advantage of that opportunity. There are plenty of opportunities out there. You can't sit back and wait.
Speak properly, and in as few words as you can, but always plainly; for the end of speech is not ostentation, but to be understood.
It's very hard to take yourself too seriously when you look at the world from outer space.
Preserving health by too severe a rule is a worrisome malady.
Whoso would be a man must be a nonconformist.
It is better to wear out than to rust out.
You can tell a lot about a fellow's character by his way of eating jellybeans.
A doctor saves lives -- It's up to people to create lives that are worth saving.
Be more prompt to go to a friend in adversity than in prosperity.
Youth is a wonderful thing. What a crime to waste it on children.
I believe that every now and then it is important to laugh at ourselves and take a lighter approach to our life conditions.
Go through your phone book, call people and ask them to drive you to the airport. The ones who will drive you are your true friends. The rest aren't bad people; they're just acquaintances.
The charity that hastens to proclaim its good deeds, ceases to be charity, and is only pride and ostentation.
Early morning cheerfulness can be extremely obnoxious.
Confidence is the sexiest thing a woman can have. It's much sexier than any body part.
But be, as you have been, my happiness...
For the night was not impartial. No, the night loved some more than others, served some more than others.
To achieve great things we must live as though we were never going to die.
Nothing in the world can take the place of Persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. The slogan 'Press On' has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race.
All great truths begin as blasphemies.
Many people weigh the guilt they will feel against the pleasure of the forbidden action they want to take.
I nearly fell again, but new hands grabbed me from in front and dragged me down a steel floor and then forced me to my knees and locked my hands to something behind me.
It is nobler to declare oneself wrong than to insist on being right - especially when one is right.
Be more prompt to go to a friend in adversity than in prosperity.
Many people weigh the guilt they will feel against the pleasure of the forbidden action they want to take.
Let us so live that when we come to die even the undertaker will be sorry.
It pays to be obvious, especially if you have a reputation for subtlety.
If your daily life seems poor, do not blame it; blame yourself, tell yourself that you are not poet enough to call forth its riches.
Don't be afraid to take a big step if one is indicated. You can't cross a chasm in two small jumps.
People fail forward to success.
The engine died and then the doors swung open.
I like weights. You know where you stand with them. Well, sometimes you're lying under them, trying not to let them crush you, but you see, you KNOW they'd crush you if they could. There's honesty.
The Americans have need of the telephone, but we do not. We have plenty of messenger boys.
Where so many hours have been spent in convincing myself that I am right, is there not some reason to fear I may be wrong?
This is the challenge of writing. You have to be very emotionally engaged in what you?re doing, or it comes out flat. You can?t fake your way through this.
Time is on the side of the oppressed today, it's against the oppressor. Truth is on the side of the oppressed today, it's against the oppressor. You don't need anything else.
A joke's a very serious thing.
If my mental map was right, we were heading down to Fisherman's Wharf.
It's innocence when it charms us, ignorance when it doesn't.
The whole dream of democracy is to raise the proletarian to the level of stupidity attained by the bourgeois.
Bear in mind that you should conduct yourself in life as at a feast.
Sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.
Sometimes when you innovate, you make mistakes. It is best to admit them quickly, and get on with improving your other innovations.
If you want creative workers, give them enough time to play.
Everything happens to everybody sooner or later if there is time enough.
Experience is that marvelous thing that enables you to recognize a mistake when you make it again.
Go through your phone book, call people and ask them to drive you to the airport. The ones who will drive you are your true friends. The rest aren't bad people; they're just acquaintances.
Why the hell would terrorists kidnap a bunch of high school students?
Excess on occasion is exhilarating. It prevents moderation from acquiring the deadening effect of a habit.
There is a great deal of difference between an eager man who wants to read a book and the tired man who wants a book to read.
There is always some madness in love. But there is also always some reason in madness.
Because we don't think about future generations, they will never forget us.
Eat a third and drink a third and leave the remaining third of your stomach empty. Then, when you get angry, there will be sufficient room for your rage.
To be willing to die for an idea is to set a rather high price on conjecture.
It is a profitable thing, if one is wise, to seem foolish.
We can be sure that the greatest hope for maintaining equilibrium in the face of any situation rests within ourselves.
Have no fear of perfection - you'll never reach it.
There is a tragic flaw in our precious Constitution, and I don't know what can be done to fix it. This is it: Only nut cases want to be president.
Choose the life that is most useful, and habit will make it the most agreeable.
The most beautiful adventures are not those we go to seek.
How could you be a Great Man if history brought you no Great Events, or brought you to them at the wrong time, too young, too old?
I like coincidences. They make me wonder about destiny, and whether free will is an illusion or just a matter of perspective. They let me speculate on the idea of some master plan that, from time to time, we're allowed to see out of the corner of our eye.
I am not sincere, even when I say I am not.
You freeze where you are, time stops, and your heart thunders in your ears.
The car slewed to a stop and only then did I notice that it wasn't a cop car, ambulance or fire-engine.
We have really everything in common with America nowadays except, of course, language.
If you scatter thorns, don't go barefoot.
Anger at lies lasts forever. Anger at truth can't last.
The most important thing in communication is to hear what isn't being said.
From the moment I picked up your book until I laid it down, I was convulsed with laughter. Some day I intend reading it.
Make hunger thy sauce, as a medicine for health.
Beware the pull on your heartstrings -- it's often the pursestrings that are actually being reached for.
Always seek out the seed of triumph in every adversity.
It is not enough to succeed. Others must fail.
Keep cool and you command everybody.
Nothing takes the taste out of peanut butter quite like unrequited love.
Paradise is exactly like where you are right now... only much, much better.
If we fall, we don't need self-recrimination or blame or anger - we need a reawakening of our intention and a willingness to recommit, to be whole-hearted once again.
Sometimes when you innovate, you make mistakes. It is best to admit them quickly, and get on with improving your other innovations.
So quick and so fiercely I barely had time to gasp before it was locked on me.
It's all right to have butterflies in your stomach. Just get them to fly in formation.
When we ask for advice, we are usually looking for an accomplice.
Let us so live that when we come to die even the undertaker will be sorry.
The most important thing in communication is to hear what isn't being said.
When the gods wish to punish us, they answer our prayers.
Every moment of one's existence one is growing into more or retreating into less.
The most important thing she'd learned over the years was that there was no way to be a perfect mother and a million ways to be a good one.
Things are only impossible until they're not.
You should not live one way in private, another in public.
The greatest thing in the world is to know how to belong to oneself.
I feel very strongly that change is good because it stirs up the system.
Sooner or later, we've got to work at it, no matter how many other careers we've had or wanted.
It's the opinion of some that crops could be grown on the moon. Which raises the fear that it may not be long before we're paying somebody not to.
If my mental map was right, we were heading down to Fisherman's Wharf.
Famous remarks are very seldom quoted correctly.
Statistics: The only science that enables different experts using the same figures to draw different conclusions.
If you are out to describe the truth, leave elegance to the tailor.
Whenever you have an efficient government you have a dictatorship.
Temptation rarely comes in working hours. It is in their leisure time that men are made or marred.
Happiness lies in the joy of achievement and the thrill of creative effort.
Realize that true happiness lies within you. Waste no time and effort searching for peace and contentment and joy in the world outside. Remember that there is no happiness in having or in getting, but only in giving. Reach out. Share. Smile. Hug. Happiness is a perfume you cannot pour on others without getting a few drops on yourself.
Every moment of one's existence one is growing into more or retreating into less.
As I get older, I've learned to listen to people rather than accuse them of things.
If you really do put a small value upon yourself, rest assured that the world will not raise your price.
The dead might as well try to speak to the living as the old to the young.
Never help a child with a task at which he feels he can succeed.
I don't like composers who think. It gets in the way of their plagiarism.
Nothing takes the taste out of peanut butter quite like unrequited love.
The most remarkable thing about my mother is that for thirty years she served the family nothing but leftovers. The original meal has never been found.
A mind troubled by doubt cannot focus on the course to victory.
The only time to buy these is on a day with no 'y' in it.
He had learned over the years that poor people did not feel so poor when allowed to give occasionally.
There is a great deal of difference between an eager man who wants to read a book and the tired man who wants a book to read.
My home is not a place, it is people.
There is only one thing a philosopher can be relied upon to do, and that is to contradict other philosophers.
Three o'clock is always too late or too early for anything you want to do.
Never make a defense or an apology until you are accused.
The perfect bureaucrat everywhere is the man who manages to make no decisions and escape all responsibility.
Look at all the sentences which seem true and question them.
There is nothing more demoralizing than a small but adequate income.
I believe that all government is evil, and that trying to improve it is largely a waste of time.
Speak properly, and in as few words as you can, but always plainly; for the end of speech is not ostentation, but to be understood.
Never make a defense or an apology until you are accused.
The problem with people who have no vices is that generally you can be pretty sure they're going to have some pretty annoying virtues.
It is a paradoxical but profoundly true and important principle of life that the most likely way to reach a goal is to be aiming not at that goal itself but at some more ambitious goal beyond it.
There is no end to the adventures that we can have if only we seek them with our eyes open.
If our early lessons of acceptance were as successful as our early lessons of anger, how much happier we would all be.
If the only prayer you ever say in your whole life is "thank you," that would suffice.
I kept talking. "Listen -- this is some kind of misunderstanding.
By the time I'd grown up, I naturally supposed that I'd be grown up.
Good habits, which bring our lower passions and appetites under automatic control, leave our natures free to explore the larger experiences of life.
Humor is also a way of saying something serious.
Whenever you have an efficient government you have a dictatorship.
When everyone is against you, it means that you are absolutely wrong-- or absolutely right.
Write down the advice of him who loves you, though you like it not at present.
I would be the most content if my children grew up to be the kind of people who think decorating consists mostly of building enough bookshelves.
Difficulties are meant to rouse, not discourage. The human spirit is to grow strong by conflict.
The first duty of a leader is to make himself be loved without courting love. To be loved without 'playing up' to anyone - even to himself.
Even the fear of death is nothing compared to the fear of not having lived authentically and fully.
The function of science fiction is not always to predict the future but sometimes to prevent it.
I have enjoyed greatly the second blooming... suddenly you find - at the age of 50, say - that a whole new life has opened before you.
I like weights. You know where you stand with them. Well, sometimes you're lying under them, trying not to let them crush you, but you see, you KNOW they'd crush you if they could. There's honesty.
Every moment of one's existence one is growing into more or retreating into less.
There is a great deal of difference between an eager man who wants to read a book and the tired man who wants a book to read.
Seize opportunity by the beard, for it is bald behind.
I despise the pleasure of pleasing people that I despise.
Have you ever observed that we pay much more attention to a wise passage when it is quoted than when we read it in the original author?
Few people think more than two or three times a year; I have made an international reputation for myself by thinking once or twice a week.
You freeze where you are, time stops, and your heart thunders in your ears.
There is no end to the adventures that we can have if only we seek them with our eyes open.
You have to have funny faces and words, you can't just have words. It is a powerful thing, and I think that's why it's hard for people to imagine that women can do that, be that powerful.
You create your opportunities by asking for them.
Paradise is exactly like where you are right now... only much, much better.
In the right light, at the right time, everything is extraordinary.
All love that has not friendship for its base, is like a mansion built upon sand.
Take a two-mile walk every morning before breakfast.
We owe something to extravagance, for thrift and adventure seldom go hand in hand.
I was not a child prodigy, because a child prodigy is a child who knows as much when it is a child as it does when it grows up.
Youth is a wonderful thing. What a crime to waste it on children.
Feet, why do I need them if I have wings to fly?
It pays to be obvious, especially if you have a reputation for subtlety.
Real love is a permanently self-enlarging experience.
For me, it's that I contributed, ... That I'm on this planet doing some good and making people happy. That's to me the most important thing, that my hour of television is positive and upbeat and an antidote for all the negative stuff going on in life.
When you close your doors, and make darkness within, remember never to say that you are alone, for you are not alone; nay, God is within, and your genius is within. And what need have they of light to see what you are doing?
Beginning today, treat everyone you meet as if they were going to be dead by midnight. Extend them all the care, kindness and understanding you can muster. Your life will never be the same again.
I have enjoyed greatly the second blooming... suddenly you find - at the age of 50, say - that a whole new life has opened before you.
I went up the stairs cautiously, not able to use my hands.
A conference is a gathering of important people who singly can do nothing, but together can decide that nothing can be done.
I like an escalator because an escalator can never break, it can only become stairs. There would never be an escalator temporaly out of order sign, only an escalator temporarily stairs. Sorry for the convenience.
Computer Science is no more about computers than astronomy is about telescopes.
Vegetarianism is harmless enough, though it is apt to fill a man with wind and self-righteousness.
The reward of a thing well done is to have done it.
Is love supposed to last throughout all time, or is it like trains changing at random stops. If I loved her, how could I leave her? If I felt that way then, how come I don't feel anything now?
Nothing is so good for an ignorant man as silence; and if he was sensible of this he would not be ignorant.
It pays to be obvious, especially if you have a reputation for subtlety.
People will buy anything that is one to a customer.
Here's to the crazy ones, the misfits, the rebels, the troublemakers, the round pegs in the square holes... the ones who see things differently -- they're not fond of rules... You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them, but the only thing you can't do is ignore them because they change things... they push the human race forward, and while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius, because the ones who are crazy enough to think that they can change the world, are the ones who do.
More bodies were roughly shoved in beside me.
History is more or less bunk.
Worrying about them always struck me as about as useful as worrying about getting hit by lightning.
The mellow sweetness of pumpkin pie off a prison spoon is something you will never forget.
To be nobody but yourself in a world which is doing its best day and night to make you like everybody else means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight and never stop fighting.
Summer afternoon - Summer afternoon... the two most beautiful words in the English language.
Many people weigh the guilt they will feel against the pleasure of the forbidden action they want to take.
Nothing has a stronger influence psychologically on their environment and especially on their children than the unlived life of the parent.
I looked up and saw a bunch of military-looking guys in coveralls, holding big, bulky rifles and wearing hooded gas masks with tinted face-plates.
They say such nice things about people at their funerals that it makes me sad to realize that I'm going to miss mine by just a few days.
I had no idea how much of this was making it through the muffling bag.
I am free of all prejudice. I hate everyone equally.
It is never too late to give up our prejudices.
Our imagination is the only limit to what we can hope to have in the future.
Maybe the most any of us can expect of ourselves isn't perfection but progress.
Silent gratitude isn't much use to anyone.
Write down the advice of him who loves you, though you like it not at present.
It's all right to have butterflies in your stomach. Just get them to fly in formation.
I use an optimistic, positive approach to deal with my symptoms and it came the hard way, before I learned to laugh with myself a little.
An adventure is only an inconvenience rightly considered. An inconvenience is an adventure wrongly considered.
It is better to have loved and lost than never to have lost at all.
You cannot be mad at somebody who makes you laugh - it's as simple as that.
Don't mace him!" I shouted over the din. "You'll get us all too.
There's so much pollution in the air now that if it weren't for our lungs there'd be no place to put it all.
Newspapermen learn to call a murderer 'an alleged murderer' and the King of England 'the alleged King of England' to avoid libel suits.
Deeds, not words shall speak me.
The trick is to make sure you don't die waiting for prosperity to come.
What's another word for Thesaurus?
Lack of money is no obstacle. Lack of an idea is an obstacle.
If a cluttered desk is the sign of a cluttered mind, what is the significance of a clean desk?
You don't have to cook fancy or complicated masterpieces - just good food from fresh ingredients.
There is only one success - to be able to spend your life in your own way.
It was enough to make a body ashamed of the human race.
When we ask for advice, we are usually looking for an accomplice.
If you aren't fired with enthusiasm, you will be fired with enthusiasm.
I gathered we were headed over Nob Hill, and from the angle, it seemed we were taking one of the steeper routes.
Anxiety is the dizziness of freedom.
Someone went upside my head again.
Turbulence is life force. It is opportunity. Let's love turbulence and use it for change.
This is the challenge of writing. You have to be very emotionally engaged in what you?re doing, or it comes out flat. You can?t fake your way through this.
We owe something to extravagance, for thrift and adventure seldom go hand in hand.
A fine quotation is a diamond on the finger of a man of wit, and a pebble in the hand of a fool.
Somebody has to do something, and it's just incredibly pathetic that it has to be us.
I'll be more enthusiastic about encouraging thinking outside the box when there's evidence of any thinking going on inside it.
Oh, I don't blame Congress. If I had $600 billion at my disposal, I'd be irresponsible, too.
I have come to the conclusion that politics are too serious a matter to be left to the politicians.
We may not imagine how our lives could be more frustrating and complex--but Congress can.
An honest politician is one who, when he is bought, will stay bought.
Hearing voices no one else can hear isn't a good sign, even in the wizarding world.
If you are out to describe the truth, leave elegance to the tailor.
Failures are finger posts on the road to achievement.
Think of yourself as an incandescent power, illuminated and perhaps forever talked to by God and his messengers.
Go through your phone book, call people and ask them to drive you to the airport. The ones who will drive you are your true friends. The rest aren't bad people; they're just acquaintances.
We play the hands of cards life gives us. And the worst hands can make us the best players.
Shake off all the fears of servile prejudices, under which weak minds are servilely 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.
The engine died and then the doors swung open.
Wit makes its own welcome, and levels all distinctions. No dignity, no learning, no force of character, can make any stand against good wit.
It is never too late to give up our prejudices.
You don't get anything clean without getting something else dirty.
Patriotism is your conviction that this country is superior to all other countries because you were born in it.
When they discover the center of the universe, a lot of people will be disappointed to discover they are not it.
My friends are my estate.
Nothing is more conducive to peace of mind than not having any opinions at all.
A mind troubled by doubt cannot focus on the course to victory.
The first step to getting the things you want out of life is this: Decide what you want.
The most important thing she'd learned over the years was that there was no way to be a perfect mother and a million ways to be a good one.
Use what you have to run toward your best - that's how I now live my life.
As I get older, I've learned to listen to people rather than accuse them of things.
In the name of God, stop a moment, cease your work, look around you.
When everyone is against you, it means that you are absolutely wrong-- or absolutely right.
For one human being to love another; that is perhaps the most difficult of all our tasks, the ultimate, the last test and proof, the work for which all other work is but preparation.
Whenever you have an efficient government you have a dictatorship.
Things are only impossible until they're not.
Because we don't think about future generations, they will never forget us.
Is there life before death?
Looks are part of business. A businessman should never stand out more than his customers. His mannerisms, his clothes, everything about him... Moderation is the key.
Art is science made clear.
Even the fear of death is nothing compared to the fear of not having lived authentically and fully.
Skiing combines outdoor fun with knocking down trees with your face.
You can't wait for inspiration. You have to go after it with a club.
I have a theory that the truth is never told during the nine-to-five hours.
Treat all disasters as if they were trivialities but never treat a triviality as if it were a disaster.
It's very hard to take yourself too seriously when you look at the world from outer space.
Always be nice to those younger than you, because they are the ones who will be writing about you.
The truth is always a compound of two half- truths, and you never reach it, because there is always something more to say.
I believe that every now and then it is important to laugh at ourselves and take a lighter approach to our life conditions.
You can't just ask customers what they want and then try to give that to them. By the time you get it built, they'll want something new.
My eyes swam and watered and I literally couldn't breathe through the pain.
The first vehicle that screamed past -- an ambulance -- didn't even slow down.
Many people weigh the guilt they will feel against the pleasure of the forbidden action they want to take.
There is no stigma attached to recognizing a bad decision in time to install a better one.
Everybody likes to go their own way--to choose their own time and manner of devotion.
Nothing in the world can take the place of Persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. The slogan 'Press On' has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race.
I must create a system, or be enslaved by another man's.
If your parents never had children, chances are you won't, either.
You should not live one way in private, another in public.
Never be a cynic, even a gentle one. Never help out a sneer, even at the devil.
Creative work is play. It is free speculation using materials of one's chosen form.
Quotation, n: The act of repeating erroneously the words of another.
In America, they want you to accomplish these great feats, to pull off these David Copperfield-type stunts. You want me to be great, but you don't ever want me to say I'm great?
His priority did not seem to be to teach them what he knew, but rather to impress upon them that nothing, not even... knowledge, was foolproof.
He attacked everything in life with a mix of extrordinary genius and naive incompetence, and it was often difficult to tell which was which.
Genius is one per cent inspiration, ninety-nine per cent perspiration.
Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passion, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence.
It is impossible to walk rapidly and be unhappy.
Nothing is as certain as that the vices of leisure are gotten rid of by being busy.
See things as they are and write about them. Don?t waste your creative energy trying to make things up. Even if you are writing fiction, write the things you see and know.
I have enjoyed greatly the second blooming... suddenly you find - at the age of 50, say - that a whole new life has opened before you.
Cheese - milk's leap toward immortality.
The truth does not change according to our ability to stomach it.
This is the challenge of writing. You have to be very emotionally engaged in what you?re doing, or it comes out flat. You can?t fake your way through this.
Therefore search and see if there is not some place where you may invest your humanity.
Winning is important to me, but what brings me real joy is the experience of being fully engaged in whatever I'm doing.
Do not believe that he who seeks to comfort you lives untroubled among the simple and quiet words that sometimes do you good. His life has much difficulty... Were it otherwise he would never have been able to find those words.
As a well-spent day brings happy sleep, so life well used brings happy death.
The lesson which life repeats and constantly enforces is 'look under foot.' You are always nearer the divine and the true sources of your power than you think.
Peace is when time doesn't matter as it passes by.
The strongest principle of growth lies in human choice.