Never fear the want of business. A man who qualifies himself well for his calling, never fails of employment.
You don't get anything clean without getting something else dirty.
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 say luck is when an opportunity comes along, and you're prepared for it.
A smiling face is half the meal.
Even if you're on the right track, you'll get run over if you just sit there.
We rocked to a stop still on a downslope.
I write because I'm afraid to say some things out loud.
If you want to be respected, you must respect yourself.
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 aim of life is self-development. To realize one's nature perfectly - that is what each of us is here for.
Those are my principles, and if you don't like them... well, I have others.
Make a decision, even if it's wrong.
You freeze where you are, time stops, and your heart thunders in your ears.
I am not sincere, even when I say I am not.
There is nothing more dreadful than imagination without taste.
I said to myself, I have things in my head that are not like what anyone has taught me - shapes and ideas so near to me - so natural to my way of being and thinking that it hasn't occurred to me to put them down. I decided to start anew, to strip away what I had been taught.
Even if you're on the right track, you'll get run over if you just sit there.
Ask not what you can do for your country. Ask what's for lunch.
A synonym is a word you use when you can't spell the word you first thought of.
Good taste is the enemy of comedy.
Good company and good discourse are the very sinews of virtue.
The first duty of a revolutionary is to get away with it.
For the most part, fear is nothing but an illusion. When you share it with someone else, it tends to disappear.
Who were these clowns?
My head rang like a gong.
It?s like your batteries get low, and you need to charge them on someone else?s story.
An adventure is only an inconvenience rightly considered. An inconvenience is an adventure wrongly considered.
Real love is a permanently self-enlarging experience.
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.
I wanted to flag you down because my friend was bleeding. Someone stabbed him."
Hearing voices no one else can hear isn't a good sign, even in the wizarding world.
What other dungeon is so dark as one's own heart! What jailer so inexorable as one's self!
Human beings have an inalienable right to invent themselves.
You should not live one way in private, another in public.
The people I distrust most are those who want to improve our lives but have only one course of action.
Act as if it were impossible to fail.
Our deeds determine us, as much as we determine our deeds.
We've got to get my friend to a hospital --"
Misquotations are the only quotations that are never misquoted.
Why do writers write? Because it isn't there.
The reason grandparents and grandchildren get along so well is that they have a common enemy.
Money frees you from doing things you dislike. Since I dislike doing nearly everything, money is handy.
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.
When I was a kid my parents moved a lot, but I always found them.
I sent the club a wire stating, PLEASE ACCEPT MY RESIGNATION. I DON'T WANT TO BELONG TO ANY CLUB THAT WILL ACCEPT ME AS A MEMBER.
Never rely on the glory of the morning nor the smiles of your mother-in-law.
As long as you derive inner help and comfort from anything, keep it.
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.
Love truth, and pardon error.
Therefore search and see if there is not some place where you may invest your humanity.
I take it that what all men are really after is some form or perhaps only some formula of peace.
Before you do anything, think. If you do something to try and impress someone, to be loved, accepted or even to get someone's attention, stop and think. So many people are busy trying to create an image, they die in the process.
Why do writers write? Because it isn't there.
The next time a car appeared down Market Street, I stepped right out into the road, waving my arms over my head, shouting.
When we ask for advice, we are usually looking for an accomplice.
In an industrial society which confuses work and productivity, the necessity of producing has always been an enemy of the desire to create.
Rest is the sweet sauce of labor.
Nothing is said that has not been said before.
Late to bed and late to wake will keep you long on money and short on mistakes.
Life is divided into the horrible and the miserable.
They weren't wearing insignia.
There are worse things in life than death. Have you ever spent an evening with an insurance salesman?
Write a wise saying and your name will live forever.
I love my past. I love my present. I'm not ashamed of what I've had, and I'm not sad because I have it no longer.
Never be a cynic, even a gentle one. Never help out a sneer, even at the devil.
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.
Resolve to edge in a little reading every day, if it is but a single sentence. If you gain fifteen minutes a day, it will make itself felt at the end of the year.
Because we don't think about future generations, they will never forget us.
Seize opportunity by the beard, for it is bald behind.
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?
I'm moving, but don't worry! Someone once told me we're all on the same planet, so I'll be okay!
The first duty of a revolutionary is to get away with it.
Be careful that victories do not carry the seed of future defeats.
If you believe the doctors, nothing is wholesome; if you believe the theologians, nothing is innocent; if you believe the military, nothing is safe.
You know what's interesting about Washington? It's the kind of place where second-guessing has become second nature.
We've got to get my friend to a hospital --"
Money doesn't always bring happiness. People with ten million dollars are no happier than people with nine million dollars.
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.
It is not always the same thing to be a good man and a good citizen.
You can only cure retail but you can prevent .
Three may keep a secret, if two of them are dead.
Walking is the best possible exercise. Habituate yourself to walk very far.
Money frees you from doing things you dislike. Since I dislike doing nearly everything, money is handy.
There is no revenge so complete as forgiveness.
A hobby a day keeps the doldrums away.
If my mental map was right, we were heading down to Fisherman's Wharf.
It is your work in life that is the ultimate seduction.
Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.
All movements go too far.
If you want creative workers, give them enough time to play.
All human situations have their inconveniences. We feel those of the present but neither see nor feel those of the future; and hence we often make troublesome changes without amendment, and frequently for the worse.
Facts are the enemy of truth.
There is an evil tendency underlying all our technology - the tendency to do what is reasonable even when it isn't any good.
You create your opportunities by asking for them.
Depend not on fortune, but on conduct.
Skiing combines outdoor fun with knocking down trees with your face.
Everything has its wonders, even darkness and silence, and I learn whatever state I am in, therin to be content
Be careful that victories do not carry the seed of future defeats.
A writer is a person for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people.
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.
It is never too late to give up our prejudices.
I felt the doors open near me, and then saw a confusion of booted feet moving close by.
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.
If a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich.
Good habits, which bring our lower passions and appetites under automatic control, leave our natures free to explore the larger experiences of life.
A few seconds later, I tripped over a steel staircase, bashing my shins.
Youth would be an ideal state if it came a little later in life.
I am not sincere, even when I say I am not.
Jealousy is all the fun you think they had.
Nothing is so good for an ignorant man as silence; and if he was sensible of this he would not be ignorant.
A billion here, a billion there, pretty soon it adds up to real money.
There is an evil tendency underlying all our technology - the tendency to do what is reasonable even when it isn't any good.
Many people weigh the guilt they will feel against the pleasure of the forbidden action they want to take.
There is always some madness in love. But there is also always some reason in madness.
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.
Love is that splendid triggering of human vitality... the supreme activity which nature affords anyone for going out of himself toward someone else.
Life is a great big canvas; throw all the paint on it you can.
Mediocrity knows nothing higher than itself, but talent instantly recognizes genius.
Nothing is so awesomely unfamiliar as the familiar that discloses itself at the end of a journey.
The roses, the lovely notes, the dining and dancing are all welcome and splendid. But when the Godiva is gone, the gift of real love is having someone who'll go the distance with you. Someone who, when the wedding day limo breaks down, is willing to share a seat on the bus.
Intimacy is being seen and known as the person you truly are.
The coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco.
Some people make headlines while others make history.
Preserving health by too severe a rule is a worrisome malady.
If one morning I walked on top of the water across the Potomac River, the headline that afternoon would read "President Can't Swim".
Always seek out the seed of triumph in every adversity.
Listen. Do not have an opinion while you listen because frankly, your opinion doesn?t hold much water outside of Your Universe. Just listen. Listen until their brain has been twisted like a dripping towel and what they have to say is all over the floor.
Sometimes the cure for restlessness is rest.
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.
We don't know a millionth of one percent about anything.
Wit makes its own welcome, and levels all distinctions. No dignity, no learning, no force of character, can make any stand against good wit.
Bear in mind that you should conduct yourself in life as at a feast.
I have been through some terrible things in my life, some of which actually happened.
If you believe the doctors, nothing is wholesome; if you believe the theologians, nothing is innocent; if you believe the military, nothing is safe.
None are so busy as the fool and knave.
Art is either plagiarism or revolution.
Our lives teach us who we are.
God creates men, but they choose each other.
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.
The man who is swimming against the stream knows the strength of it.
There are a terrible lot of lies going around the world, and the worst of it is half of them are true.
Procrastination is the art of keeping up with yesterday.
A good man would prefer to be defeated than to defeat injustice by evil means.
It's the soul's duty to be loyal to its own desires. It must abandon itself to its master passion.
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.
Equal opportunity means everyone will have a fair chance at being incompetent.
I don't generally feel anything until noon; then it's time for my nap.
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.
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.
Everyone wants to be Cary Grant. Even I want to be Cary Grant.
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.
What some people mistake for the high cost of living is really the cost of high living.
Good judgment comes from experience, and experience comes from bad judgment.
Man is the only animal that can remain on friendly terms with the victims he intends to eat until he eats them.
Time is that quality of nature which keeps events from happening all at once. Lately it doesn't seem to be working.
Think of life as a terminal illness, because, if you do, you will live it with joy and passion, as it ought to be lived.
Music with dinner is an insult both to the cook and the violinist.
Depend not on fortune, but on conduct.
You create your opportunities by asking for them.
Prove all things; hold fast that which is good.
The advantage of a classical education is that it enables you to despise the wealth that it prevents you from achieving.
What can you say about a society that says that God is dead and Elvis is alive?
Better by far you should forget and smile than you should remember and be sad.
I love being married. It's so great to find that one special person you want to annoy for the rest of your life.
Newspapermen learn to call a murderer 'an alleged murderer' and the King of England 'the alleged King of England' to avoid libel suits.
The release of atomic energy has not created a new problem. It has merely made more urgent the necessity of solving an existing one.
Our imagination is the only limit to what we can hope to have in the future.
It is curious that physical courage should be so common in the world and moral courage so rare.
I wanted to flag you down because my friend was bleeding. Someone stabbed him."
That you may retain your self-respect, it is better to displease the people by doing what you know is right, than to temporarily please them by doing what you know is wrong.
Love truth, and pardon error.
God is a comedian playing to an audience too afraid to laugh.
Nothing has a stronger influence psychologically on their environment and especially on their children than the unlived life of the parent.
The louder he talked of his honor, the faster we counted our spoons.
The trouble with having an open mind, of course, is that people will insist on coming along and trying to put things in it.
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?
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!'
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.
Turbulence is life force. It is opportunity. Let's love turbulence and use it for change.
There are several good protections against temptations, but the surest is cowardice.
It's not the hours you put in your work that counts, it's the work you put in the hours.
Preserving health by too severe a rule is a worrisome malady.
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.
What some people mistake for the high cost of living is really the cost of high living.
Use what you have to run toward your best - that's how I now live my life.
Look at all the sentences which seem true and question them.
Nothing has a stronger influence psychologically on their environment and especially on their children than the unlived life of the parent.
Truly great madness cannot be achieved without significant intelligence.
Deeds, not words shall speak me.
The meeting of two personalities is like the contact of two chemical substances: if there is any reaction, both are transformed.
It really doesn't matter if the person who hurt you deserves to be forgiven. Forgiveness is a gift you give yourself. You have things to do and you want to move on.
Let me tell you, quite frankly, it took a while and a lot of therapy to get here.
Optimism and hope are our best friends. Let?s reach out and Laugh together at our confounding traits and still, let?s keep in mind that our sympt oms and traits are very real with consequences, never to be underestimated or discounted.
Man is the only animal that can remain on friendly terms with the victims he intends to eat until he eats them.
I felt the doors open near me, and then saw a confusion of booted feet moving close by.
I'm moving, but don't worry! Someone once told me we're all on the same planet, so I'll be okay!
The secret of greatness is simple: do better work than any other man in your field - and keep on doing it.
All God does is watch us and kill us when we get boring. We must never, ever be boring.
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?
All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident.
Good company and good discourse are the very sinews of virtue.
Most folks are about as happy as they make up their minds to be.
Act as if it were impossible to fail.
He who laughs, lasts!
The roses, the lovely notes, the dining and dancing are all welcome and splendid. But when the Godiva is gone, the gift of real love is having someone who'll go the distance with you. Someone who, when the wedding day limo breaks down, is willing to share a seat on the bus.
I like to play blackjack. I'm not addicted to gambling, I'm addicted to sitting in a semi-circle.
Keep cool and you command everybody.
So quick and so fiercely I barely had time to gasp before it was locked on me.
You could get on a boat there, get away. That fit with the terrorism hypothesis.
Have patience awhile; slanders are not long-lived. Truth is the child of time; erelong she shall appear to vindicate thee.
The lion and the calf shall lie down together but the calf won't get much sleep.
As a scientist, I am not sure anymore that life can be reduced to a class struggle, to dialectical materialism, or any set of formulas. Life is spontaneous and it is unpredictable, it is magical. I think that we have struggled so hard with the tangible that we have forgotten the intangible.
We should be eternally vigilant against attempts to check the expression of opinions that we loathe.
Learning to live in the present moment is part of the path of joy.
When you have got an elephant by the hind leg, and he is trying to run away, it's best to let him run.
The most erroneous stories are those we think we know best - and therefore never scrutinize or question.
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.
A few seconds later, I tripped over a steel staircase, bashing my shins.
Zoo: An excellent place to study the habits of human beings.
There is still a difference between something and nothing, but it is purely geometrical and there is nothing behind the geometry.
Even the fear of death is nothing compared to the fear of not having lived authentically and fully.
All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident.
Nothing is said that has not been said before.
My theology, briefly, is that the universe was dictated but not signed.
How we remember, what we remember and why we remember form the most personal map of our individuality.
Flattery is like cologne water, to be smelt of, not swallowed.
Man is only miserable so far as he thinks himself so.
The toughest thing about success is that you've got to keep on being a success. Talent is only a starting point in this business. You've got to keep on working that talent. Someday I'll reach for it and it won't be there.
There is no such thing as an underestimate of average intelligence.
Silence is one of the hardest arguments to refute.
I must create a system, or be enslaved by another man's.
Jealousy is all the fun you think they had.
There is still a difference between something and nothing, but it is purely geometrical and there is nothing behind the geometry.
What children take from us, they give?We become people who feel more deeply, question more deeply, hurt more deeply, and love more deeply.
The more freedom we enjoy, the greater the responsibility we bear, toward others as well as ourselves.
If one morning I walked on top of the water across the Potomac River, the headline that afternoon would read "President Can't Swim".
Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.
An honest politician is one who, when he is bought, will stay bought.
You can tell a lot about a fellow's character by his way of eating jellybeans.
He who boasts of his ancestry is praising the deeds of another.
Our problems are man-made, therefore they may be solved by man. And man can be as big as he wants. No problem of human destiny is beyond human beings.
Americans are benevolently ignorant about Canada, while Canadians are malevolently well informed about the United States.
Sorrow was like the wind. It came in gusts.
That would be a good thing for them to cut on my tombstone: Wherever she went, including here, it was against her better judgment.
What you do speaks so loud that I cannot hear what you say.
It is nobler to declare oneself wrong than to insist on being right - especially when one is right.
The only time to buy these is on a day with no 'y' in it.
The meeting of two personalities is like the contact of two chemical substances: if there is any reaction, both are transformed.
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?
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.
My friend is one... who take me for what I am.
Nothing is as certain as that the vices of leisure are gotten rid of by being busy.
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.
You always pass failure on the way to success.
He who boasts of his ancestry is praising the deeds of another.
Everything happens to everybody sooner or later if there is time enough.
I am not young enough to know everything.
Get away from the crowd when you can. Keep yourself to yourself, if only for a few hours daily.
There is no nonsense so errant that it cannot be made the creed of the vast majority by adequate governmental action.
I phoned my dad to tell him I had stopped smoking. He called me a quitter.
It is not always the same thing to be a good man and a good citizen.
Get pleasure out of life...as much as you can. Nobody ever died from pleasure.
Life is divided into the horrible and the miserable.
Where we have strong emotions, we're liable to fool ourselves.
Optimism and hope are our best friends. Let?s reach out and Laugh together at our confounding traits and still, let?s keep in mind that our sympt oms and traits are very real with consequences, never to be underestimated or discounted.
Everything of importance has been said before by somebody who did not discover it.
We rocked to a stop still on a downslope.
Misquotations are the only quotations that are never misquoted.
Before I met my husband, I'd never fallen in love, though I'd stepped in it a few times.
Newspapermen learn to call a murderer 'an alleged murderer' and the King of England 'the alleged King of England' to avoid libel suits.
Set all things in their own peculiar place, and know that order is the greatest grace.
I'd learned my lesson.
Never rely on the glory of the morning nor the smiles of your mother-in-law.
Lack of money is no obstacle. Lack of an idea is an obstacle.
All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident.
Perhaps, after all, America never has been discovered. I myself would say that it had merely been detected.
It?s like your batteries get low, and you need to charge them on someone else?s story.
The first precept was never to accept a thing as true until I knew it as such without a single doubt.
The trouble with being poor is that it takes up all of your time.
Every day you may make progress. Every step may be fruitful. Yet there will stretch out before you an ever-lengthening, ever-ascending, ever-improving path. You know you will never get to the end of the journey. But this, so far from discouraging, only adds to the joy and glory of the climb.
Because we don't think about future generations, they will never forget us.
Keep on going and the chances are you will stumble on something, perhaps when you are least expecting it. I have never heard of anyone stumbling on something sitting down.
Everybody likes a kidder, but nobody lends him money.
If you think you can win, you can win. Faith is necessary to victory.
Skiing combines outdoor fun with knocking down trees with your face.
But be, as you have been, my happiness...
Play: Work that you enjoy doing for nothing.
The summer night is like a perfection of thought.
Whenever you have an efficient government you have a dictatorship.
Always be nice to those younger than you, because they are the ones who will be writing about you.
I mean, I knew that in the abstract there were terrorists somewhere in the world, but they didn't really represent any risk to me.
I'm moving, but don't worry! Someone once told me we're all on the same planet, so I'll be okay!
Level with your child by being honest. Nobody spots a phony quicker than a child.
My wish is to ride the tempest, tame the waves, kill the sharks. I will not resign myself...
It's very hard to take yourself too seriously when you look at the world from outer space.
Perhaps, after all, America never has been discovered. I myself would say that it had merely been detected.
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.
Things won are done; joy's soul lies in the doing.
Courage is the art of being the only one who knows you're scared to death.
I phoned my dad to tell him I had stopped smoking. He called me a quitter.
It's very hard to take yourself too seriously when you look at the world from outer space.
There are worse things in life than death. Have you ever spent an evening with an insurance salesman?
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 crowd gives the leader new strength.
Silence is one of the hardest arguments to refute.
Nothing contributes so much to tranquilizing the mind as a steady purpose - a point on which the soul may fix its intellectual eye.
Act as if it were impossible to fail.
Use what you have to run toward your best - that's how I now live my life.
Read over your compositions, and wherever you meet with a passage which you think is particularly fine, strike it out.
The advantage of a classical education is that it enables you to despise the wealth that it prevents you from achieving.
Laughing is the sensation of feeling good all over and showing it principally in one spot.
It is never too late to give up our prejudices.
Computer Science is no more about computers than astronomy is about telescopes.
Patriotism is your conviction that this country is superior to all other countries because you were born in it.
The gambling known as business looks with austere disfavor upon the business known as gambling.
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?
A boy can learn a lot from a dog: obedience, loyalty, and the importance of turning around three times before lying down.
What's the earth With all its art, verse, music, worth - Compared with love, found, gained, and kept?
We are able to laugh when we achieve detachment, if only for a moment.
The scornful nostril and the high head gather not the odors that lie on the track of truth.
My grandmother started walking five miles a day when she was sixty. She's ninety-seven now, and we don't know where the hell she is.
A mind troubled by doubt cannot focus on the course to victory.
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!
A little government and a little luck are necessary in life, but only a fool trusts either of them.
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!
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.
Democracy is the recurrent suspicion that more than half of the people are right more than half the time.
Never be a cynic, even a gentle one. Never help out a sneer, even at the devil.
Best wide-angle lens? Two steps backward. Look for the 'ah-ha'.
'Never put off until tomorrow what you can do today.' Under the influence of this pestilent morality, I am forever letting tomorrow's work slop backwards into today's, and doing painfully and nervously today what I could do quickly and easily tomorrow.
The fact that an opinion has been widely held is no evidence whatever that it is not utterly absurd; indeed in view of the silliness of the majority of mankind, a widespread belief is more likely to be foolish than sensible.
The release of atomic energy has not created a new problem. It has merely made more urgent the necessity of solving an existing one.
If men could only know each other, they would neither idolize nor hate.
Curiosity killed the cat, but for a while I was a suspect.
Glory is fleeting, but obscurity is forever.
He who boasts of his ancestry is praising the deeds of another.
If one sticks too rigidly to one's principles, one would hardly see anybody.
It is not enough to aim; you must hit.
I never vote for anyone; I always vote against.
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.
All men are frauds. The only difference between them is that some admit it. I myself deny it.
Never hold discussions with the monkey when the organ grinder is in the room.
We don't get offered crises, they arrive.
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.
It's wonderful what we can do if we're always doing.
Plans are only good intentions unless they immediately degenerate into hard work.
You don't stop laughing because you grow old. You grow old because you stop laughing.
A billion here, a billion there, pretty soon it adds up to real money.
There are no wise few. Every aristocracy that has ever existed has behaved, in all essential points, exactly like a small mob.
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.
A tactical retreat is not a bad response to a surprise assault, you know. First you survive. Then you choose your own ground. Then you counterattack.
Before we set our hearts too much upon anything, let us examine how happy those are who already possess it.
Write down the advice of him who loves you, though you like it not at present.
He's simply got the instinct for being unhappy highly developed.
When they discover the center of the universe, a lot of people will be disappointed to discover they are not it.
Dance is the hidden language of the soul.
After the last of 16 mounting screws has been removed from an access cover, it will be discovered that the wrong access cover has been removed.
When the gods wish to punish us, they answer our prayers.
Use what you have to run toward your best - that's how I now live my life.
Never eat more than you can lift.
Sometimes you can't see yourself clearly until you see yourself through the eyes of others.
Maybe they were terrorists!
He who will not reason is a bigot; he who cannot is a fool; and he who dares not is a slave.
The most important thing in communication is to hear what isn't being said.
It felt like they used a baton or something -- it was harder than anyone had ever hit me in the head before.
They weren't wearing insignia.
My wish is to ride the tempest, tame the waves, kill the sharks. I will not resign myself...
What if this weren't a hypothetical question?
Oh, I don't blame Congress. If I had $600 billion at my disposal, I'd be irresponsible, too.
Good judgment comes from experience, and experience comes from bad judgment.
The more things a man is ashamed of, the more respectable he is.
God is a comedian playing to an audience too afraid to laugh.
If men could only know each other, they would neither idolize nor hate.
Preserving health by too severe a rule is a worrisome malady.
Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some hire public relations officers.
From the moment I picked up your book until I laid it down, I was convulsed with laughter. Some day I intend reading it.
Peace is when time doesn't matter as it passes by.
It's a dangerous business going out your front door.
I'd never really believed in terrorists before.
The dead might as well try to speak to the living as the old to the young.
I like work: it fascinates me. I can sit and look at it for hours.
Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some hire public relations officers.
If my mental map was right, we were heading down to Fisherman's Wharf.
Calamities are of two kinds: misfortunes to ourselves, and good fortune to others.
Your world is made of your memories, and your memories are given to you by your world. The whispering voice of happenstance is always in our ears. 'This is the world. This is the way things are. Look. Pay attention. Remember.'
Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some hire public relations officers.
Life is divided into the horrible and the miserable.
I went up the stairs cautiously, not able to use my hands.
To be able to fill leisure intelligently is the last product of civilization, and at present very few people have reached this level.
We are able to laugh when we achieve detachment, if only for a moment.
Life is divided into the horrible and the miserable.
Insanity in individuals is something rare - but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule.
The lion and the calf shall lie down together but the calf won't get much sleep.
You can go a long way with bad legs and a good head.
In the right light, at the right time, everything is extraordinary.
Is there life before death?
The undertaking of a new action brings new strength.
When they discover the center of the universe, a lot of people will be disappointed to discover they are not it.
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.
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.
Happiness lies in the joy of achievement and the thrill of creative effort.
Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.
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.
I love my past. I love my present. I'm not ashamed of what I've had, and I'm not sad because I have it no longer.
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.
Feeling grateful to or appreciative of someone or something in your life actually attracts more of the things that you appreciate and value into your life.
He who laughs, lasts!
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?
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.
If a dog jumps in your lap, it is because he is fond of you; but if a cat does the same thing, it is because your lap is warmer.
I ran the wrong kind of business, but I did it with integrity.
A neurosis is a secret that you don't know you are keeping.
He had learned over the years that poor people did not feel so poor when allowed to give occasionally.
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.
Liberals are very broadminded: they are always willing to give careful consideration to both sides of the same side.
We think in generalities, but we live in detail.
Books...are like lobster shells, we surround ourselves with 'em, then we grow out of 'em and leave 'em behind, as evidence of our earlier stages of development.
Lawyers spend a great deal of their time shoveling smoke.
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 only thing that saves us from the bureaucracy is inefficiency. An efficient bureaucracy is the greatest threat to liberty.
Over the years your bodies become walking autobiographies, telling friends and strangers alike of the minor and major stresses of your lives.
Having a holiday weekend without a family member felt like putting on a sweater that had an extra arm.
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.
Difficulties are meant to rouse, not discourage. The human spirit is to grow strong by conflict.
Never read a book through merely because you have begun 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.
I am not sincere, even when I say I am not.
Man is distinguished from all other creatures by the faculty of laughter.
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.
A sympathetic Scot summed it all up very neatly in the remark, "You should make a point of trying every experience once, excepting incest and folk dancing."
The great thing about a computer notebook is that no matter how much you stuff into it, it doesn't get bigger or heavier.
The people I distrust most are those who want to improve our lives but have only one course of action.
You must not think me necessarily foolish because I am facetious, nor will I consider you necessarily wise because you are grave.
Anyone who has gumption knows what it is, and anyone who hasn't can never know what it is. So there is no need of defining it.
Lawyers spend a great deal of their time shoveling smoke.
While we have the gift of life, it seems to me that only tragedy is to allow part of us to die - whether it is our spirit, our creativity, or our glorious uniqueness.
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?
Deeds, not words shall speak me.
Thomas Jefferson once said, 'We should never judge a president by his age, only by his works.' And ever since he told me that, I stopped worrying.
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.
In real life, unlike in Shakespeare, the sweetness of the rose depends upon the name it bears. Things are not only what they are. They are, in very important respects, what they seem to be.
There is an evil tendency underlying all our technology - the tendency to do what is reasonable even when it isn't any good.
The Past is to be respected and acknoledged, but not to be worshiped. It is our future in which we will find our greatness.
There are more tears shed over answered prayers than over unanswered prayers.
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.
I didn't even breathe.
Be a good listener. Your ears will never get you in trouble.
Worrying about them always struck me as about as useful as worrying about getting hit by lightning.
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!
God creates men, but they choose each other.
I'd never really believed in terrorists before.
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.
Whenever people agree with me I always feel I must be wrong.
Art is science made clear.
Learn to get in touch with the silence within yourself and know that everything in this life has a purpose.
When you have got an elephant by the hind leg, and he is trying to run away, it's best to let him run.
If you really do put a small value upon yourself, rest assured that the world will not raise your price.
The function of science fiction is not always to predict the future but sometimes to prevent it.
Lack of money is no obstacle. Lack of an idea is an obstacle.
All men are frauds. The only difference between them is that some admit it. I myself deny it.
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.
There is still a difference between something and nothing, but it is purely geometrical and there is nothing behind the geometry.
Some people make headlines while others make history.
Hope is tomorrow's veneer over today's disappointment.
Glory is fleeting, but obscurity is forever.
The people I distrust most are those who want to improve our lives but have only one course of action.
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.
Sack over my head and cinched it tight around my windpipe.
Thomas Jefferson once said, 'We should never judge a president by his age, only by his works.' And ever since he told me that, I stopped worrying.
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?
The aim of life is self-development. To realize one's nature perfectly - that is what each of us is here for.
Our problems are man-made, therefore they may be solved by man. And man can be as big as he wants. No problem of human destiny is beyond human beings.
We rarely think people have good sense unless they agree with us.
Depend not on fortune, but on conduct.
No one gossips about other people's secret virtues.
There is nothing more dreadful than imagination without taste.
That would be a good thing for them to cut on my tombstone: Wherever she went, including here, it was against her better judgment.
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.
I was in total darkness now and I strained my ears to hear what was going on with my friends.
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.
The car slewed to a stop and only then did I notice that it wasn't a cop car, ambulance or fire-engine.
He who labors diligently need never despair; for all things are accomplished by diligence and labor.
Experience is that marvelous thing that enables you to recognize a mistake when you make it again.
I'd never really believed in terrorists before.
O, it is excellent to have a giant's strength; but it is tyrannous to use it like a giant.
When you go into court you are putting your fate into the hands of twelve people who weren't smart enough to get out of jury duty.
Every man, wherever he goes, is encompassed by a cloud of comforting convictions, which move with him like flies on a summer day.
Hares can gambol over the body of a dead lion.
Before you do anything, think. If you do something to try and impress someone, to be loved, accepted or even to get someone's attention, stop and think. So many people are busy trying to create an image, they die in the process.
Newspapermen learn to call a murderer 'an alleged murderer' and the King of England 'the alleged King of England' to avoid libel suits.
That would be a good thing for them to cut on my tombstone: Wherever she went, including here, it was against her better judgment.
I had no idea how much of this was making it through the muffling bag.
Equal opportunity means everyone will have a fair chance at being incompetent.
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.
As a scientist, I am not sure anymore that life can be reduced to a class struggle, to dialectical materialism, or any set of formulas. Life is spontaneous and it is unpredictable, it is magical. I think that we have struggled so hard with the tangible that we have forgotten the intangible.
Everybody likes a kidder, but nobody lends him money.
They weren't wearing insignia.
There is always some madness in love. But there is also always some reason in madness.
If you want to be respected, you must respect yourself.
Go often to the house of thy friend; for weeds soon choke up the unused path.
The happiest is the person who suffers the least pain; the most miserable who enjoys the least pleasure.
The only way to get rid of a temptation is to yield to it.
The discovery of a new dish does more for human happiness than the discovery of a new star.
A rumor without a leg to stand on will get around some other way.
How we remember, what we remember and why we remember form the most personal map of our individuality.
You always pass failure on the way to success.
It was a military-looking Jeep, like an armored Hummer, only it didn't have any military insignia on it.
Every moment of one's existence one is growing into more or retreating into less.
What some people mistake for the high cost of living is really the cost of high living.
Love yourself first and everything else falls into line. You really have to love yourself to get anything done in this world.
Silent gratitude isn't much use to anyone.
The only difference between a rut and a grave... is in their dimensions.
Play: Work that you enjoy doing for nothing.
If God had wanted us to vote, he would have given us candidates.
Be thou the first true merit to befriend, his praise is lost who stays till all commend.
We should every night call ourselves to an account; What infirmity have I mastered today? What passions opposed? What temptation resisted? What virtue acquired? Our vices will abort of themselves if they be brought every day to the shrift.
All programmers are playwrights and all computers are lousy actors.
I don't like composers who think. It gets in the way of their plagiarism.
Money doesn't always bring happiness. People with ten million dollars are no happier than people with nine million dollars.
Before I met my husband, I'd never fallen in love, though I'd stepped in it a few times.
Nothing is so awesomely unfamiliar as the familiar that discloses itself at the end of a journey.
Truth has beauty, power and necessity.
Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.
Make hunger thy sauce, as a medicine for health.
The happiest is the person who suffers the least pain; the most miserable who enjoys the least pleasure.
You never know till you try to reach them how accessible men are; but you must approach each man by the right door.
We succeed only as we identify in life, or in war, or in anything else, a single overriding objective, and make all other considerations bend to that one objective.
All love that has not friendship for its base, is like a mansion built upon sand.
Nothing is as simple as we hope it will be.
There is nothing more dreadful than imagination without taste.
This country has come to feel the same when Congress is in session as when the baby gets hold of a hammer.
We are what we repeatedly do.
Every man, wherever he goes, is encompassed by a cloud of comforting convictions, which move with him like flies on a summer day.
Keep your broken arm inside your sleeve.
He who will not reason is a bigot; he who cannot is a fool; and he who dares not is a slave.
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.
As long as you derive inner help and comfort from anything, keep it.
When a thing ceases to be a subject of controversy, it ceases to be a subject of interest.
A mother is not a person to lean on but a person to make leaning unnecessary.
He who will not reason is a bigot; he who cannot is a fool; and he who dares not is a slave.
Normal is not something to aspire to, it's something to get away from.
Everything has its wonders, even darkness and silence, and I learn whatever state I am in, therin to be content
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.
Winning is important to me, but what brings me real joy is the experience of being fully engaged in whatever I'm doing.
All God does is watch us and kill us when we get boring. We must never, ever be boring.
The truth is always a compound of two half- truths, and you never reach it, because there is always something more to say.
I despise the pleasure of pleasing people that I despise.
Whenever you have an efficient government you have a dictatorship.
I will love the light for it shows me the way, yet I will endure the darkness for it shows me the stars.
History teaches us that men and nations behave wisely once they have exhausted all other alternatives.
To repeat what others have said, requires education; to challenge it, requires brains.
Someone went upside my head again.
I love being married. It's so great to find that one special person you want to annoy for the rest of your life.
The undertaking of a new action brings new strength.
I said to myself, I have things in my head that are not like what anyone has taught me - shapes and ideas so near to me - so natural to my way of being and thinking that it hasn't occurred to me to put them down. I decided to start anew, to strip away what I had been taught.
Every moment of one's existence one is growing into more or retreating into less.
I heard Jolu respond, then felt the thump he was dealt, too.
The male is a domestic animal which, if treated with firmness, can be trained to do most things.
Wisdom is knowing what to do next; virtue is doing it.
Never help a child with a task at which he feels he can succeed.
Get pleasure out of life...as much as you can. Nobody ever died from pleasure.
Some people make headlines while others make history.
A mother is not a person to lean on but a person to make leaning unnecessary.
Hope is tomorrow's veneer over today's disappointment.
Try to put your happiness before anyone else's, because you may never have done so in your entire life, if you really think about it, if you are really honest with yourself.
You can't separate peace from freedom because no one can be at peace unless he has his freedom.
For the most part, fear is nothing but an illusion. When you share it with someone else, it tends to disappear.
I'm moving, but don't worry! Someone once told me we're all on the same planet, so I'll be okay!
Be more prompt to go to a friend in adversity than in prosperity.
What children take from us, they give?We become people who feel more deeply, question more deeply, hurt more deeply, and love more deeply.
Most advances in science come when a person for one reason or another is forced to change fields.
Be a good listener. Your ears will never get you in trouble.
When a thing ceases to be a subject of controversy, it ceases to be a subject of interest.
All animals are equal but some animals are more equal than others.
It is not enough to aim; you must hit.
Happiness is not a station you arrive at, but a manner of traveling.
What is the use of a house if you haven't got a tolerable planet to put it on?
We have really everything in common with America nowadays except, of course, language.
The trouble with our times is that the future is not what it used to be.
Forget injuries, never forget kindnesses.
Wisdom is knowing what to do next; virtue is doing it.
Life is divided into the horrible and the miserable.
Your parents, they give you your life, but then they try to give you their life.
I'm moving, but don't worry! Someone once told me we're all on the same planet, so I'll be okay!
It's never just a game when you're winning.
My wish is to ride the tempest, tame the waves, kill the sharks. I will not resign myself...
Fig Newton: The force required to accelerate a fig 39.37 inches per sec.
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.
Good judgment comes from experience, and experience comes from bad judgment.
Somebody has to do something, and it's just incredibly pathetic that it has to be us.
My theology, briefly, is that the universe was dictated but not signed.
Every moment of one's existence one is growing into more or retreating into less.
Never make a defense or an apology until you are accused.
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.
Art is science made clear.
I'd never looked down the barrel of a gun before, but everything you've heard about the experience is true.
The mellow sweetness of pumpkin pie off a prison spoon is something you will never forget.
There is nothing more dreadful than imagination without taste.
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.
The first vehicle that screamed past -- an ambulance -- didn't even slow down.
When we lose one we love, our bitterest tears are called forth by the memory of hours when we loved not enough.
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!'
A mind troubled by doubt cannot focus on the course to victory.
The reward of a thing well done is to have done it.
I'm struck by the insidious, computer-driven tendency to take things out of the domain of muscular activity and put them into the domain of mental activity. The transfer is not paying off. Sure, muscles are unreliable, but they represent several million years of accumulated finesse.
I feel very strongly that change is good because it stirs up the system.
Seize opportunity by the beard, for it is bald behind.
So little time and so little to do.
Forget injuries, never forget kindnesses.
Humor is always based on a modicum of truth. Have you ever heard a joke about a father-in-law?
Assuming either the Left Wing or the Right Wing gained control of the country, it would probably fly around in circles.
If your parents never had children, chances are you won't, either.
I mean, I knew that in the abstract there were terrorists somewhere in the world, but they didn't really represent any risk to me.
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.
The Americans have need of the telephone, but we do not. We have plenty of messenger boys.
The place of the father in the modern suburban family is a very small one, particularly if he plays golf.
Sometimes you can't see yourself clearly until you see yourself through the eyes of others.
So little time and so little to do.
Hollywood is a place where they place you under contract instead of under observation.
What other dungeon is so dark as one's own heart! What jailer so inexorable as one's self!
Get pleasure out of life...as much as you can. Nobody ever died from pleasure.
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.
As a well-spent day brings happy sleep, so life well used brings happy death.
I am here for a purpose and that purpose is to grow into a mountain, not to shrink to a grain of sand. Henceforth will I apply ALL my efforts to become the highest mountain of all and I will strain my potential until it cries for mercy.
Life is a great big canvas; throw all the paint on it you can.
The supreme irony of life is that hardly anyone gets out of it alive.
We owe something to extravagance, for thrift and adventure seldom go hand in hand.
Feet, why do I need them if I have wings to fly?
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.
Sooner or later, we've got to work at it, no matter how many other careers we've had or wanted.
Listen. Do not have an opinion while you listen because frankly, your opinion doesn?t hold much water outside of Your Universe. Just listen. Listen until their brain has been twisted like a dripping towel and what they have to say is all over the floor.
As long as you derive inner help and comfort from anything, keep it.
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.
Seize opportunity by the beard, for it is bald behind.
Democracy is the recurrent suspicion that more than half of the people are right more than half the time.
Everybody likes a kidder, but nobody lends him money.
Sometimes love will pick you up by the short hairs...and jerk the heck out of you.
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.
Now is the time for all good men to come to.
Why do writers write? Because it isn't there.
If my mental map was right, we were heading down to Fisherman's Wharf.
I'm moving, but don't worry! Someone once told me we're all on the same planet, so I'll be okay!
You should not live one way in private, another in public.
I opened my mouth, then shut it, then, very slowly, I held my hands up in front of me.
Every moment of one's existence one is growing into more or retreating into less.
We think in generalities, but we live in detail.
The great thing about a computer notebook is that no matter how much you stuff into it, it doesn't get bigger or heavier.
Each individual woman's body demands to be accepted on its own terms.
Never make a defense or an apology until you are accused.
You don't stop laughing because you grow old. You grow old because you stop laughing.
Keep on going and the chances are you will stumble on something, perhaps when you are least expecting it. I have never heard of anyone stumbling on something sitting down.
I stand in awe of my body.
We are always in search of the redeeming formula, the crystallizing thought.
Anyone who has gumption knows what it is, and anyone who hasn't can never know what it is. So there is no need of defining it.
Nothing is so awesomely unfamiliar as the familiar that discloses itself at the end of a journey.
We cannot deny the facts of nature, but we should certainly try to improve on them.
With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion.
Facts are the enemy of truth.
Our deeds determine us, as much as we determine our deeds.
Worries go down better with soup than without.
The supreme irony of life is that hardly anyone gets out of it alive.
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.
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.
Your parents, they give you your life, but then they try to give you their life.
Sometimes you can't see yourself clearly until you see yourself through the eyes of others.
Life is consciousness.
Resolve to edge in a little reading every day, if it is but a single sentence. If you gain fifteen minutes a day, it will make itself felt at the end of the year.
The real problem is not whether machines think but whether men do.
Therefore search and see if there is not some place where you may invest your humanity.
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.
The people I distrust most are those who want to improve our lives but have only one course of action.
I opened my mouth, then shut it, then, very slowly, I held my hands up in front of me.
Most of the basic truths of life sound absurd at first hearing.
The real hero is always a hero by mistake; he dreams of being an honest coward like everybody else.
When you encounter difficulties and contradictions, do not try to break them, but bend them with gentleness and time.
The gambling known as business looks with austere disfavor upon the business known as gambling.
America believes in education: the average professor earns more money in a year than a professional athlete earns in a whole week.
The scornful nostril and the high head gather not the odors that lie on the track of truth.
A billion here, a billion there, pretty soon it adds up to real money.
The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new discoveries, is not 'Eureka!' (I found it!) but 'That's funny ...'
Where we have strong emotions, we're liable to fool ourselves.
If our early lessons of acceptance were as successful as our early lessons of anger, how much happier we would all be.
Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some hire public relations officers.
The man who is swimming against the stream knows the strength of it.
The gem cannot be polished without friction, nor man perfected without trials.
There is always more misery among the lower classes than there is humanity in the higher.
They can conquer who believe they can.
Nothing changes your opinion of a friend so surely as success - yours or his.
Starting with getting run down by a drunk burning his way down Valencia -- that were infinitely more likely and immediate than terrorists.
Reality is nothing but a collective hunch.
You never know till you try to reach them how accessible men are; but you must approach each man by the right door.
Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.
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.
People will buy anything that is one to a customer.
Never read a book through merely because you have begun it.
Walking is the best possible exercise. Habituate yourself to walk very far.
Even the best of friends need time apart.
Plans are only good intentions unless they immediately degenerate into hard work.
As a well-spent day brings happy sleep, so life well used brings happy death.
We may not imagine how our lives could be more frustrating and complex--but Congress can.
No one gossips about other people's secret virtues.
I'm going to stay in show business until I'm the last one left.
The summer night is like a perfection of thought.
Even the fear of death is nothing compared to the fear of not having lived authentically and fully.
We thought, because we had power, we had wisdom.
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.
It is better to wear out than to rust out.
I am careful not to confuse excellence with perfection. Excellence, I can reach for; perfection is God's business.
I define comfort as self-acceptance. When we finally learn that self-care begins and ends with ourselves, we no longer demand sustenance and happiness from others.
Life is consciousness.
God is a comedian playing to an audience too afraid to laugh.
I cried out and my own voice was muffled by the hood.
If it weren't for baseball, many kids wouldn't know what a millionaire looked like.
I'm going to stay in show business until I'm the last one left.
It is your work in life that is the ultimate seduction.
Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away.
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.
The creative is the place where no one else has ever been. You have to leave the city of your comfort and go into the wilderness of your intuition. What you'll discover will be wonderful. What you'll discover will be yourself.
No one gossips about other people's secret virtues.
I'm glad I didn't have to fight in any war. I'm glad I didn't have to pick up a gun. I'm glad I didn't get killed or kill somebody. I hope my kids enjoy the same lack of manhood.
Never be a cynic, even a gentle one. Never help out a sneer, even at the devil.
In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.
Sorrow was like the wind. It came in gusts.
You can tell a lot about a fellow's character by his way of eating jellybeans.
When we lose one we love, our bitterest tears are called forth by the memory of hours when we loved not enough.
My theology, briefly, is that the universe was dictated but not signed.
Man is only miserable so far as he thinks himself so.
Misquotations are the only quotations that are never misquoted.
More bodies were roughly shoved in beside me.
All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident.
The dead might as well try to speak to the living as the old to the young.
Photographers do this for a living, every single day -- they point their lenses toward every single corner of our world and somehow make the mundane mesmerizing through their artistic eye. It's all a matter of being aware of your surroundings and realizing that there are some really amazing and interesting things to look at, even if it may just be something so simple as a wall being covered up by paint.
Never part without loving words to think of during your absence. It may be that you will not meet again in life.
Good company and good discourse are the very sinews of virtue.
Music is essentially useless, as life is.
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.
TV is chewing gum for the eyes.
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.
Every moment of one's existence one is growing into more or retreating into less.
Be careful that victories do not carry the seed of future defeats.
The strongest possible piece of advice I would give any young woman is: Don't screw around, and don't smoke.
Never hold discussions with the monkey when the organ grinder is in the room.
It pays to be obvious, especially if you have a reputation for subtlety.
Good company and good discourse are the very sinews of virtue.
It is not enough to do good; one must do it the right way.
Youth would be an ideal state if it came a little later in life.
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.
Deeds, not words shall speak me.
All human situations have their inconveniences. We feel those of the present but neither see nor feel those of the future; and hence we often make troublesome changes without amendment, and frequently for the worse.
In all recorded history there has not been one economist who has had to worry about where the next meal would come from.
History is more or less bunk.
Sorrow was like the wind. It came in gusts.
I define comfort as self-acceptance. When we finally learn that self-care begins and ends with ourselves, we no longer demand sustenance and happiness from others.
Before you do anything, think. If you do something to try and impress someone, to be loved, accepted or even to get someone's attention, stop and think. So many people are busy trying to create an image, they die in the process.
It's the soul's duty to be loyal to its own desires. It must abandon itself to its master passion.
The trouble with having an open mind, of course, is that people will insist on coming along and trying to put things in it.
You've achieved success in your field when you don't know whether what you're doing is work or play.
The only way to get rid of a temptation is to yield to it.
A tactical retreat is not a bad response to a surprise assault, you know. First you survive. Then you choose your own ground. Then you counterattack.
So many of our dreams at first seem impossible, then they seem improbable, and then, when we summon the will, they soon become inevitable.
If you watch a game, it's fun. If you play at it, it's recreation. If you work at it, it's golf.
My friends are my estate.
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.
Before I met my husband, I'd never fallen in love, though I'd stepped in it a few times.
You never find yourself until you face the truth.
The hands behind me gave me another shove.
You never know how a horse will pull until you hook him up to a heavy load.
You don't get anything clean without getting something else dirty.
The strongest possible piece of advice I would give any young woman is: Don't screw around, and don't smoke.
The car skidded to a stop just in front of me, and I jumped back and lost my balance and ended up on the road.
We are always in search of the redeeming formula, the crystallizing thought.
So quick and so fiercely I barely had time to gasp before it was locked on me.
Hope is tomorrow's veneer over today's disappointment.
I have never been especially impressed by the heroics of people who are convinced they are about to change the world. I am more awed by those who struggle to make one small difference after another.
Flattery is like cologne water, to be smelt of, not swallowed.
All love that has not friendship for its base, is like a mansion built upon sand.
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?
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.
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.
We rocked to a stop still on a downslope.
Courage is the art of being the only one who knows you're scared to death.
Ask a deeply religious Christian if he?d rather live next to a bearded Muslim that may or may not be plotting a terror attack, or an atheist that may or may not show him how to set up a wireless network in his house. On the scale of prejudice, atheists don?t seem so bad lately.
An idea is salvation by imagination.
I don't like composers who think. It gets in the way of their plagiarism.
It's a rare person who wants to hear what he doesn't want to hear.
My father hated radio and could not wait for television to be invented so he could hate that too.
I find television very educating. Every time somebody turns on the set, I go into the other room and read a book.
We have really everything in common with America nowadays except, of course, language.
In the name of God, stop a moment, cease your work, look around you.
We learn and grow and are transformed not so much by what we do but by why and how we do it.
Computer Science is no more about computers than astronomy is about telescopes.
Each body has its art...
Who were these clowns?
My home is not a place, it is people.
I'm all in favor of keeping dangerous weapons out of the hands of fools. Let's start with typewriters.
There are always survivors at a massacre. Among the victors, if nowhere else.
Part of being creative is learning how to protect your freedom. That includes freedom from avarice.
Ask a deeply religious Christian if he?d rather live next to a bearded Muslim that may or may not be plotting a terror attack, or an atheist that may or may not show him how to set up a wireless network in his house. On the scale of prejudice, atheists don?t seem so bad lately.
The most erroneous stories are those we think we know best - and therefore never scrutinize or question.
Is there life before death?
My home is not a place, it is people.
The habit of giving only enhances the desire to give.
Don't worry about the world coming to an end today. It's already tomorrow in Australia.
It is easier to exclude harmful passions than to rule them, and to deny them admittance than to control them after they have been admitted.
He who will not reason is a bigot; he who cannot is a fool; and he who dares not is a slave.
Humor is also a way of saying something serious.
There is no revenge so complete as forgiveness.
We make a living by what we get, we make a life by what we give.
All men are frauds. The only difference between them is that some admit it. I myself deny it.
I have always felt that a politician is to be judged by the animosities he excites among his opponents.
In our civilization, and under our republican form of government, intelligence is so highly honored that it is rewarded by exemption from the cares of office.
I stand in awe of my body.
A joke's a very serious thing.
Have patience awhile; slanders are not long-lived. Truth is the child of time; erelong she shall appear to vindicate thee.
In the name of God, stop a moment, cease your work, look around you.
Every moment of one's existence one is growing into more or retreating into less.
Talking with you is sort of the conversational equivalent of an out of body experience.
The most erroneous stories are those we think we know best - and therefore never scrutinize or question.
Everybody knows if you are too careful you are so occupied in being careful that you are sure to stumble over something.
I believe that all government is evil, and that trying to improve it is largely a waste of time.
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?
I am not young enough to know everything.
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.
Be more prompt to go to a friend in adversity than in prosperity.
Income tax returns are the most imaginative fiction being written today.
You can learn as much - or more - from one glance at a private space as you can from hours of exposure to a public face.
My grandmother started walking five miles a day when she was sixty. She's ninety-seven now, and we don't know where the hell she is.
Marriage is the only adventure open to the cowardly.
Sack over my head and cinched it tight around my windpipe.
There is an alchemy in sorrow. It can be transmuted into wisdom, which, if it does not bring joy, can yet bring happiness.
Hope is tomorrow's veneer over today's disappointment.
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.
God is a comedian playing to an audience too afraid to laugh.
Humor is also a way of saying something serious.
Self-importance is our greatest enemy. Think about it - what weakens us is feeling offended by the deeds and misdeeds of our fellowmen. Our self-importance requires that we spend most of our lives offended by someone.
Order is not pressure which is imposed on society from without, but an equilibrium which is set up from within.
Speak when you are angry--and you will make the best speech you'll ever regret.
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 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.
Noble life demands a noble architecture for noble uses of noble men. Lack of culture means what it has always meant: ignoble civilization and therefore imminent downfall.
Optimism and hope are our best friends. Let?s reach out and Laugh together at our confounding traits and still, let?s keep in mind that our sympt oms and traits are very real with consequences, never to be underestimated or discounted.
Make hunger thy sauce, as a medicine for health.
Many people weigh the guilt they will feel against the pleasure of the forbidden action they want to take.
Listen. Do not have an opinion while you listen because frankly, your opinion doesn?t hold much water outside of Your Universe. Just listen. Listen until their brain has been twisted like a dripping towel and what they have to say is all over the floor.
Never let the demands of tomorrow interfere with the pleasures and excitement of today.
Money frees you from doing things you dislike. Since I dislike doing nearly everything, money is handy.
This world is given as the prize for the men in earnest; and that which is true of this world, is truer still of the world to come.
The price one pays for pursuing any profession or calling is an intimate knowledge of its ugly side.
Humor is always based on a modicum of truth. Have you ever heard a joke about a father-in-law?
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.
Never rely on the glory of the morning nor the smiles of your mother-in-law.
An adventure is only an inconvenience rightly considered. An inconvenience is an adventure wrongly considered.
We should every night call ourselves to an account; What infirmity have I mastered today? What passions opposed? What temptation resisted? What virtue acquired? Our vices will abort of themselves if they be brought every day to the shrift.
Never be a cynic, even a gentle one. Never help out a sneer, even at the devil.
There is always some madness in love. But there is also always some reason in madness.
Be courteous to all, but intimate with few; and let those few be well tried before you give them your confidence.
There is no nonsense so errant that it cannot be made the creed of the vast majority by adequate governmental action.
Never esteem anything as of advantage to you that will make you break your word or lose your self-respect.
It's a rare person who wants to hear what he doesn't want to hear.
My home is not a place, it is people.
Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away.
Feeling grateful to or appreciative of someone or something in your life actually attracts more of the things that you appreciate and value into your life.
Man is only miserable so far as he thinks himself so.
The undertaking of a new action brings new strength.
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.
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.
Don't mace him!" I shouted over the din. "You'll get us all too.
The strongest possible piece of advice I would give any young woman is: Don't screw around, and don't smoke.
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 was the kid next door's imaginary friend.
There is surely a piece of divinity in us, something that was before the elements, and owes no homage unto the sun.
Things won are done; joy's soul lies in the doing.
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?