CraftBook Mechanisms - Books

A man's feet should be planted in his country, but his eyes should survey the world.
Wine makes a man more pleased with himself; I do not say that it makes him more pleasing to others.
You can fool too many of the people too much of the time.
Some people have so much respect for their superiors they have none left for themselves.
When the water reaches the upper level, follow the rats.
Never face facts; if you do, you'll never get up in the morning.
I don't have an English accent because this is what English sounds like when spoken properly.
Things won are done; joy's soul lies in the doing.
Journalism is just a gun. It's only got one bullet in it, but if you aim right, that's all you need. Aim it right and you can blow a kneecap off the world.
We do not believe if we do not live and work according to our belief.
Living apart and at peace with myself, I came to realize more vividly the meaning of the doctrine of acceptance. To refrain from giving advice, to refrain from meddling in the affairs of others, to refrain, even though the motives be the highest, from tampering with another's way of life - so simple, yet so difficult for an active spirit. Hands off!
Pray that your loneliness may spur you into finding something to live for, great enough to die for.
A little nonsense now and then, is relished by the wisest men.
Everyone is entitled to be stupid, but some abuse the privilege.
Music is essentially useless, as life is.
We are at the very beginning of time for the human race. It is not unreasonable that we grapple with problems. But there are tens of thousands of years in the future. Our responsibility is to do what we can, learn what we can, improve the solutions, and pass them on.
An inventor is simply a fellow who doesn't take his education too seriously.
Man is a clever animal who behaves like an imbecile.
Our heroes are those... who... act above and beyond the call of duty and in so doing give definition to patriotism and elevate all of us.... America is the land of the free because we are the home of the brave.
We will discover the nature of our particular genius when we stop trying to conform to our own or to other peoples' models, learn to be ourselves, and allow our natural channel to open.
To be positive: To be mistaken at the top of one's voice.
The only way most people recognize their limits is by trespassing on them.
The best minds are not in government. If any were, business would hire them away.
What you do speaks so loud that I cannot hear what you say.
If the automobile had followed the same development cycle as the computer, a Rolls-Royce would today cost $100, get a million miles per gallon, and explode once a year, killing everyone inside.
It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his job depends on not understanding it.
People fail forward to success.
My Father taught me how to be a man – and not by instilling in me a sense of machismo or an agenda of dominance. He taught me that a real man doesn’t take, he gives; he doesn’t use force, he uses logic; doesn’t play the role of trouble-maker, but rather, trouble-shooter; and most importantly, a real man is defined by what’s in his heart, not his pants.
Space isn't remote at all. It's only an hour's drive away if your car could go straight upwards.
Spare no expense to save money on this one.
A weapon is a device for making your enemy change his mind.
Man is born a predestined idealist, for he is born to act. To act is to affirm the worth of an end, and to persist in affirming the worth of an end is to make an ideal.
The more I give myself permission to live in the moment and enjoy it without feeling guilty or judgmental about any other time, the better I feel about the quality of my work.
We're actors - we're the opposite of people.
Never put off until tomorrow what you can do the day after tomorrow.
Those who believe in telekinetics, raise my hand
Know how to ask. There is nothing more difficult for some people, nor for others, easier.
In certain kinds of writing, particularly in art criticism and literary criticism, it is normal to come across long passages which are almost completely lacking in meaning.
Friends, in my experience, are like ladies' fashions. They come and go with the seasons, and are rarely of such stout stuff as bears repeated wearing.
Whenever you are asked if you can do a job, tell 'em, 'Certainly I can!' Then get busy and find out how to do it.
Good people are good because they've come to wisdom through failure.
A quotation, like a pun, should come unsought, and then be welcomed only for some propriety of felicity justifying the intrusion.
You miss 100 percent of the shots you never take.
The path to our destination is not always a straight one. We go down the wrong road, we get lost, we turn back. Maybe it doesn't matter which road we embark on. Maybe what matters is that we embark.
The courage to be is the courage to accept oneself, in spite of being unacceptable.
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.
...happiness gives us the energy which is the basis of health.
Life is not so important as the duties of life.
Just in terms of allocation of time resources, religion is not very efficient. There's a lot more I could be doing on a Sunday morning.
You give my regards to St. Peter, or whoever has his job, but in Hell.
In this life we get only those things for which we hunt, for which we strive, and for which we are willing to sacrifice.
Live among men as if God beheld you; speak to God as if men were listening.
First love is a kind of vaccination which saves a man from catching the complaint a second time.
Politicians are the same all over. They promise to build a bridge even where there is no river.
When everyone is against you, it means that you are absolutely wrong-- or absolutely right.
Man is a credulous animal, and must believe something; in the absence of good grounds for belief, he will be satisfied with bad ones.
I think we ought always to entertain our opinions with some measure of doubt. I shouldn't wish people dogmatically to believe any philosophy, not even mine.
The multitude of books is making us ignorant.
A strong positive mental attitude will create more miracles than any wonder drug.
Most powerful is he who has himself in his own power.
Make the best use of what is in your power, and take the rest as it happens.
Every journalist has a novel in him, which is an excellent place for it.
Nothing inspires forgiveness quite like revenge.
The more you find out about the world, the more opportunities there are to laugh at it.
A good listener is not only popular everywhere, but after a while he gets to know something.
If writers stopped writing about what happened to them, then there would be a lot of empty pages.
Man is the only animal that laughs and weeps, for he is the only animal that is struck with the difference between what things are and what they ought to be.
The difference between the right word and the almost right word is the difference between lightning and a lightning bug.
I was brought up to believe that how I saw myself was more important than how others saw me.
Those who believe in telekinetics, raise my hand
The moral virtues, then, are produced in us neither by nature nor against nature. Nature, indeed, prepares in us the ground for their reception, but their complete formation is the product of habit.
I need no warrant for being, and no word of sanction upon my being. I am the warrant and the sanction.
Fear not those who argue but those who dodge.
Speak the truth, but leave immediately after.
Genius hath electric power which earth can never tame.
There's folks 'ud stand on their heads and then say the fault was i' their boots.
There is an applause superior to that of the multitudes: one's own.
Give what you have. To someone, it may be better than you dare to think.
Conquer thyself, till thou has done this, thou art but a slave; for it is almost as well to be subjected to another's appetite as to thine own.
There is nothing like returning to a place that remains unchanged to find the ways in which you yourself have altered.
People who say you're just as old as you feel are all wrong, fortunately.
I believe in God, only I spell it Nature.
Do not accustom yourself to use big words for little matters.
I enjoy being a highly overpaid actor.
Man is equally incapable of seeing the nothingness from which he emerges and the infinity in which he is engulfed.
Cats are smarter than dogs. You can't get eight cats to pull a sled through snow.
One can always be kind to people about whom one cares nothing.
When the conduct of men is designed to be influenced, persuasion, kind unassuming persuasion, should ever be adopted. It is an old and true maxim that 'a drop of honey catches more flies than a gallon of gall.' So with men. If you would win a man to your cause, first convince him that you are his sincere friend. Therein is a drop of honey that catches his heart, which, say what he will, is the great highroad to his reason, and which, once gained, you will find but little trouble in convincing him of the justice of your cause, if indeed that cause is really a good one.
I don't want to achieve immortality through my work... I want to achieve it through not dying.
The sweat of hard work is not to be displayed. It is much more graceful to appear favored by the gods.
Never express yourself more clearly than you are able to think.
A conservative is a man who sits and thinks, mostly sits.
Never be afraid to laugh at yourself, after all, you could be missing out on the joke of the century.
Politics is not a bad profession. If you succeed there are many rewards, if you disgrace yourself you can always write a book.
When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong.
Part of the secret of success in life is to eat what you like and let the food fight it out inside.
As men, we are all equal in the presence of death.
Sometimes it's good to contrast what you like with something else. It makes you appreciate it even more.
I believe in getting into hot water; it keeps you clean.
Whenever I hear anyone arguing for slavery, I feel a strong impulse to see it tried on him personally.
Let us hope that we are all preceded in this world by a love story.
There's a fine line between fishing and just standing on the shore like an idiot.
At times one remains faithful to a cause only because its opponents do not cease to be insipid.
I've been trying for some time to develop a lifestyle that doesn't require my presence.
Subdue your appetites, my dears, and you've conquered human nature.
Even the wisest counsel is useless when it is unheeded.
All the President is, is a glorified public relations man who spends his time flattering, kissing and kicking people to get them to do what they are supposed to do anyway.
To err is human, but to really foul things up requires a computer.
Admit that your own private Mount Everest exists. That is half the battle.
Be not ashamed of thy virtues; honor's a good brooch to wear in a man's hat at all times.
In great affairs men show themselves as they wish to be seen; in small things they show themselves as they are.
The sweet and the sour: this is what makes great art.
Remember that as a teenager you are at the last stage of your life when you will be happy to hear that the phone is for you.
Be wary of the man who urges an action in which he himself incurs no risk.
Stay centered by accepting whatever you are doing. This is the ultimate.
So we went to Atari and said, 'Hey, we've got this amazing thing, even built with some of your parts, and what do you think about funding us? Or we'll give it to you. We just want to do it. Pay our salary, we'll come work for you.' And they said, 'No.' So then we went to Hewlett-Packard, and they said, 'Hey, we don't need you. You haven't got through college yet.'
If we can connect in some tiny way with a human that doesn't agree with us, then maybe we won't blow up the planet.
To accomplish great things, we must dream as well as act.
No matter how cynical you get, it is impossible to keep up.
To see what is right, and not to do it, is want of courage or of principle.
No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.
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.
I cannot pretend to feel impartial about colours. I rejoice with the brilliant ones and am genuinely sorry for the poor browns.
The fact that a believer is happier than a skeptic is no more to the point than the fact that a drunken man is happier than a sober one.
I have a new philosophy. I'm only going to dread one day at a time.
When you have a number of disagreeable duties to perform, always do the most disagreeable first.
The power of hiding ourselves from one another is mercifully given, for men are wild beasts, and would devour one another but for this protection.
The worst thing of all is standing by when folks are doing something wrong.
One person with a belief is equal to a force of 99 who have only interests.
If the English language made any sense, a catastrophe would be an apostrophe with fur.
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.
The Constitution gives every American the inalienable right to make a damn fool of himself.
Give me the splendid silent sun with all his beams full-dazzling.
Generosity is giving more than you can, and pride is taking less than you need.
I seek constantly to improve my manners and graces, for they are the sugar to which all are attracted.
A man is not idle because he is absorbed in thought. There is a visible labor and there is an invisible labor.
The greatest discovery of my generation is that a human being can alter his life by altering his attitudes of mind.
I can forgive Alfred Nobel for having invented dynamite, but only a fiend in human form could have invented the Nobel Prize.
Imagination is the beginning of creation. You imagine what you desire, you will what you imagine and at last you create what you will.
There is no abstract art. You must always start with something. Afterward you can remove all traces of reality.
He who asks is a fool for five minutes, but he who does not ask remains a fool forever.
What music is more enchanting than the voices of young people, when you can't hear what they say?
What you don't see with your eyes, don't invent with your mouth.
Count not him among your friends who will retail your privacies to the world.
I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work.
When you are right you cannot be too radical; when you are wrong, you cannot be too conservative.
If you believe everything you read, better not read.
Wisdom is what's left after we've run out of personal opinions.
I am an old man, but in many senses a very young man. And this is what I want you to be, young, young all your life.
I always like a good math solution to any love problem.
To gain that which is worth having, it may be necessary to lose everything else.
Wit makes its own welcome, and levels all distinctions. No dignity, no learning, no force of character, can make any stand against good wit.
Time cools, time clarifies; no mood can be maintained quite unaltered through the course of hours.
Know the true value of time; snatch, seize, and enjoy every moment of it. No idleness; no laziness; no procrastination; never put off till tomorrow what you can do today.
By constant self-discipline and self-control you can develop greatness of character.
I know not, sir, whether Bacon wrote the works of Shakespeare, but if he did not it seems to me that he missed the opportunity of his life.
I dream, therefore I become.
We have all a better guide in ourselves, if we would attend to it, than any other person can be.
He who promises more than he is able to perform, is false to himself; and he who does not perform what he has promised, is a traitor to his friend.
Some people will never learn anything because they understand everything too soon.
A taste for irony has kept more hearts from breaking than a sense of humor, for it takes irony to appreciate the joke which is on oneself.
In summer, the song sings itself.
Good judgment comes from experience, and experience comes from bad judgment.
Put even the plainest woman into a beautiful dress and unconsciously she will try to live up to it.
On the plus side, death is one of the few things that can be done just as easily lying down.
Accident, n.: A condition in which presence of mind is good, but absence of body is better.
Keep cool and you command everybody.
He that respects himself is safe from others. He wears a coat of mail that none can pierce.
I think of a hero as someone who understands the degree of responsibility that comes with his freedom.
Art enables us to find ourselves and lose ourselves at the same time.
Men are afraid to rock the boat in which they hope to drift safely through life's currents, when, actually, the boat is stuck on a sandbar. They would be better off to rock the boat and try to shake it loose.
The secret of a good life is to have the right loyalties and hold them in the right scale of values.
I merely took the energy it takes to pout and wrote some blues.
See, that's all you're thinking about, is winning. You're confirming your sense of self- worth through outward reward instead of through inner appreciation.
We allow our ignorance to prevail upon us and make us think we can survive alone, alone in patches, alone in groups, alone in races, even alone in genders.
It's just a ride and we can change it any time we want. It's only a choice. No effort, no work, no job, no savings and money, a choice, right now, between fear and love. The eyes of fear want you to put bigger locks on your door, buy guns, close yourself off. The eyes of love instead see all of us as one.
Do not wait for the last judgment. It takes place every day.
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.
The least I can do is speak out for those who cannot speak for themselves.
Even the fear of death is nothing compared to the fear of not having lived authentically and fully.
An honest politician is one who, when he is bought, will stay bought.
Life is a fatal complaint, and an eminently contagious one.
Trying to determine what is going on in the world by reading newspapers is like trying to tell the time by watching the second hand of a clock.
Sometimes people do things that hurt and it's not because they mean to. They just do. It doesn't necessarily have anything to do with you, but you end up hurt because of it.
If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them.
It is a great ability to be able to conceal one's ability.
Acting is the most minor of gifts and not a very high-class way to earn a living. After all, Shirley Temple could do it at the age of four.
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 wonder what it means when your grandson is more crotchety than you are.
A specification that will not fit on one page of 8.5x11 inch paper cannot be understood.
Cynicism is not realistic and tough. It's unrealistic and kind of cowardly because it means you don't have to try.
It was enough to make a body ashamed of the human race.
Sometimes the facts in my head get bored and decide to take a walk in my mouth. Frequently this is a bad thing.
If you observe a really happy man, you will find... that he is happy in the course of living life twenty-four crowded hours each day.
Unless man is committed to the belief that all mankind are his brothers, then he labors in vain and hypocritically in the vineyards of equality.
It had only been my repeated experience that when you said to life calmly and firmly... 'I trust you; do what you must,' life had an uncanny way of responding to your need.
The number of guests at dinner should not be less than the number of the Graces nor exceed that of the Muses, i.e., it should begin with three and stop at nine.
Time sneaks up on you like a windshield on a bug.
Among those whom I like or admire, I can find no common denominator, but among those whom I love, I can: all of them make me laugh.
Never let the fear of failure be an excuse for not trying. Society tells us that to fail is the most terrible thing in the world, but I know it isn't. Failure is part of what makes us human.
The aim of life is self-development. To realize one's nature perfectly - that is what each of us is here for.
Well done is better than well said.
I have witnessed the softening of the hardest of hearts by a simple smile.
There is no old age. There is, as there always was, just you.
Learn to get in touch with the silence within yourself and know that everything in this life has a purpose.
To see what is right and not to do it is want of courage.
The architect should strive continually to simplify; the ensemble of the rooms should then be carefully considered that comfort and utility may go hand in hand with beauty.
I have often wished I had time to cultivate modesty... But I am too busy thinking about myself.
People who ask our advice almost never take it. Yet we should never refuse to give it, upon request, for it often helps us to see our own way more clearly.
I wonder what it means when your grandson is more crotchety than you are.
I've always tried to go a step past wherever people expected me to end up.
Things could always be worse; for instance, you could be ugly and work in the Post Office.
There can be no happiness if the things we believe in are different from the things we do.
Discouragement is simply the despair of wounded self-love.
It is only possible to live happily ever after on a day-to-day basis.
You don't have to suffer to be a poet; adolescence is enough suffering for anyone.
A government that robs Peter to pay Paul can always depend on the support of Paul.
Is life worth living? Aye, with the best of us, Heights of us, depths of us -  Life is the test of us!
After an access cover has been secured by 16 hold-down screws, it will be discovered that the gasket has been omitted.
Marvelous Truth, confront us at every turn, in every guise.
You cannot simultaneously prevent and prepare for war.
Never marry but for love; but see that thou lovest what is lovely.
Humility is the embarrassment you feel when you tell people how wonderful you are.
Reality continues to ruin my life.
Live as brave men; and if fortune is adverse, front its blows with brave hearts.
I keep the subject of my inquiry constantly before me, and wait till the first dawning opens gradually, by little and little, into a full and clear light.
I'm convinced that about half of what separates the successful entrepreneurs from the non-successful ones is pure perseverance.
There are people who think that everything one does with a serious face is sensible.
Don't reserve your best behavior for special occasions. You can't have two sets of manners, two social codes - one for those you admire and want to impress, another for those whom you consider unimportant. You must be the same to all people.
Wagner's music is better than it sounds.
Of all the self-fulfilling prophecies in our culture, the assumption that aging means decline and poor health is probably the deadliest.
Silence is one of the hardest arguments to refute.
Happiness is that state of consciousness which proceeds from the achievement of one's values.
Another unsettling element in modern art is that common symptom of immaturity, the dread of doing what has been done before.
Man is his own star and the soul that can render an honest and perfect man commands all light, all influence, all fate.
Every sweet has its sour; every evil its good.
You never know how a horse will pull until you hook him up to a heavy load.
Parents were invented to make children happy by giving them something to ignore.
Power consists in one's capacity to link his will with the purpose of others, to lead by reason and a gift of cooperation.
I'm convinced there's a small room in the attic of the Foreign Office where future diplomats are taught to stammer.
Anyone who takes himself too seriously always runs the risk of looking ridiculous; anyone who can consistently laugh at himself does not.
The world is round; it has no point.
God must become an activity in our consciousness.
I can't criticize what I don't understand. If you want to call this art, you've got the benefit of all my doubts.
Getting ahead in a difficult profession requires avid faith in yourself. That is why some people with mediocre talent, but with great inner drive, go much further than people with vastly superior talent.
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.
True humor is fun - it does not put down, kid, or mock. It makes people feel wonderful, not separate, different, and cut off. True humor has beneath it the understanding that we are all in this together.
The secret of happiness is to make others believe they are the cause of it.
It's always difficult to make conversation with a drunk, and there's no denying it, the sober are at a disadvantage with him.
Doing a thing well is often a waste of time.
Nothing inspires forgiveness quite like revenge.
If we couldn't laugh, we would all go insane.
I started concentrating so hard on my vision that I lost sight.
Success is meaningless if you can't sleep at night because of harsh things said, petty secrets sharpened against hard and stony regret, just waiting to be plunged into the soft underbelly of a 'friendship.'
God doesn't require us to succeed; he only requires that you try.
The love of truth lies at the root of much humor.
Sure I'm for helping the elderly. I'm going to be old myself some day.
Every man is the builder of a temple called his body.
Sentimentality is the emotional promiscuity of those who have no sentiment.
We cannot control the evil tongues of others; but a good life enables us to disregard them.
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.
Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one's courage.
I loathe the expression "What makes him tick." It is the American mind, looking for simple and singular solution, that uses the foolish expression. A person not only ticks, he also chimes and strikes the hour, falls and breaks and has to be put together again, and sometimes stops like an electric clock in a thunderstorm.
A family is a unit composed not only of children but of men, women, an occasional animal, and the common cold.
There is but one temple in the universe and that is the body of man.
When Solomon said there was a time and a place for everything he had not encountered the problem of parking his automobile.
Good-bye. I am leaving because I am bored.
One of the joys we have in being human is in exercising our freedom to choose and to take each case as it comes to us. We are not robots who are forced into behaviors by their programming. We see things; we think about things; and we choose our course of action or beliefs appropriately. And as long as that remains true of us, we will live every day of our lives on one slippery slope or another. There is no reason to fear this.
I do not regret one professional enemy I have made. Any actor who doesn't dare to make an enemy should get out of the business.
We have, I fear, confused power with greatness.
The whole problem can be stated quite simply by asking, 'Is there a meaning to music?' My answer would be, 'Yes.' And 'Can you state in so many words what the meaning is?' My answer to that would be, 'No.'
The Argument from Intimidation is a confession of intellectual impotence.
Remember that nobody will ever get ahead of you as long as he is kicking you in the seat of the pants.
It is certainly desirable to be well descended, but the glory belongs to our ancestors.
Since we cannot know all that there is to be known about anything, we ought to know a little about everything.
It was such a lovely day I thought it a pity to get up.
So this is how liberty dies. With thunderous applause.
He was a genius - that is to say, a man who does superlatively and without obvious effort something that most people cannot do by the uttermost exertion of their abilities.
The actual tragedies of life bear no relation to one's preconceived ideas. In the event, one is always bewildered by their simplicity, their grandeur of design, and by that element of the bizzare which seems inherent in them.
If something anticipated arrives too late it finds us numb, wrung out from waiting, and we feel - nothing at all. The best things arrive on time.
Every time we say, "Let there be!" in any form, something happens.
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.
There are several good protections against temptations, but the surest is cowardice.
Don't think there are no crocodiles because the water is calm.
When we die, no one remembers us for what we weighed. Our weight isn't etched into our headstones.
You do not need to leave your room. Remain sitting at your table and listen. Do not even listen, simply wait, be quiet, still and solitary. The world will freely offer itself to you to be unmasked, it has no choice, it will roll in ecstasy at your feet.
I believe that [everyone] is the keeper of a dream - and by tuning into one another's secret hopes, we can become better friends, better partners, better parents, and better lovers.
Never get angry. Never make a threat. Reason with people.
Personality can open doors, but only character can keep them open.
Aspiring to a small business that does what it does very well is a noble pursuit.
Nothing can be so amusingly arrogant as a young man who has just discovered an old idea and thinks it is his own.
One can always be kind to people about whom one cares nothing.
Hollywood is a place where people from Iowa mistake each other for stars.
A gift, with a kind countenance, is a double present.
An author spends months writing a book, and maybe puts his heart's blood into it, and then it lies about unread till the reader has nothing else in the world to do.
We seem to believe it is possible to ward off death by following rules of good grooming.
Never try to tell everything you know. It may take too short a time.
You give my regards to St. Peter, or whoever has his job, but in Hell.
Of one thing I am certain, the body is not the measure of healing - peace is the measure.
Life isn't fair. It's just fairer than death, that's all.
A hundred objective measurements didn't sum the worth of a garden; only the delight of its users did that. Only the use made it mean something.
To lengthen thy life, lessen thy meals.
A schedule defends from chaos and whim.
This above all: to thine own self be true; And it must follow, as the night the day; Thou canst not then be false to any man.
The absence of alternatives clears the mind marvelously.
We Americans live in a nation where the medical-care system is second to none in the world, unless you count maybe 25 or 30 little scuzzball countries like Scotland that we could vaporize in seconds if we felt like it.
Ambition often puts men upon doing the meanest offices; so climbing is performed in the same posture with creeping.
Critics search for ages for the wrong word, which, to give them credit, they eventually find.
Energy is eternal delight.
It's not foresight or hindsight we need. We need sight, plain and simple. We need to see what is right in front of us.
Don't go around saying the world owes you a living. The world owes you nothing. It was here first.
When I walk into my kitchen today, I am not alone. Whether we know it or not, none of us is. We bring fathers and mothers and kitchen tables, and every meal we have ever eaten. Food is never just food. It's also a way of getting at something else: who we are, who we have been, and who we want to be.
Don't discuss yourself, for you are bound to lose; if you belittle yourself, you are believed; if you praise yourself, you are disbelieved.
Anything you could ever want or be you already have and are.
May I forget what ought to be forgotten; and recall, unfailing, all that ought to be recalled, each kindly thing, forgetting what might sting.
No good deed goes unpunished.
Oh, what a tangled web we weave when first we practice to believe.
You can only cure retail but you can prevent wholesale.
Laziness is nothing more than the habit of resting before you get tired.
Nothing is too small to know, and nothing is too big to attempt.
Failure will never overtake me if my determination to succeed is strong enough.
Education is a method whereby one acquires a higher grade of prejudices.
If you refuse to be made straight when you are green, you will not be made straight when you are dry.
If all economists were laid end to end, they would not reach a conclusion.
Machines take me by surprise with great frequency.
People want economy and they will pay any price to get it.
I like an escalator because an escalator can never break, it can only become stairs. There would never be an escalator temporarily out of order sign, only an escalator temporarily stairs. Sorry for the convenience.
Therefore search and see if there is not some place where you may invest your humanity.
Put duties aside at least an hour before bed and perform soothing, quiet activities that will help you relax.
Diluting your product to make it more 'commercial' will just make people like it less.
Between two evils, I always pick the one I never tried before.
I have found that if you love life, life will love you back.
A house that does not have one worn, comfy chair in it is soulless.
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.
Interestingly, according to modern astronomers, space is finite. This is a very comforting thought-- particularly for people who can never remember where they have left things.
I went into a McDonald's yesterday and said, 'I'd like some fries.' The girl at the counter said, 'Would you like some fries with that?'
Sometimes people carry to such perfection the mask they have assumed that in due course they actually become the person they seem.
She was conscious that the things she did were the things she had always wanted to do.
The important thing is this: To be able at any moment to sacrifice what we are for what we could become.
I would rather be right and die than be wrong and kill.
Nothing is permanent in this wicked world - not even our troubles.
I would visualize things coming to me. It would just make me feel better. Visualization works if you work hard. That's the thing. You can't just visualize and go eat a sandwich.
The modern rule is that every woman should be her own chaperon.
Men who are unhappy, like men who sleep badly, are always proud of the fact.
The only time people dislike gossip is when you gossip about them.
I have not lost my mind - it's backed up on disk somewhere.
Anger makes you smaller, while forgiveness forces you to grow beyond what you were.
For to be free is not merely to cast off one's chains, but to live in a way that respects and enhances the freedom of others.
In the depth of winter, I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible summer.
She wanted something to happen - something, anything: she did not know what.
The future is here. It's just not widely distributed yet.
Advice is what we ask for when we already know the answer but wish we didn't.
A classic is something that everybody wants to have read and nobody wants to read.
If you hate a person, you hate something in him that is part of yourself. What isn't part of ourselves doesn't disturb us.
I'm a great believer in luck, and I find the harder I work the more I have of it.
It's amazing that the amount of news that happens in the world every day always just exactly fits the newspaper.
People who say you're just as old as you feel are all wrong, fortunately.
Never believe anything until it has been officially denied.
Men show their characters in nothing more clearly than in what they think laughable.
If you aspire to the highest place, it is no disgrace to stop at the second, or even the third, place.
It's kind of fun to do the impossible.
Nostalgia isn't what it used to be.
Change, when it comes, cracks everything open.
I'm not a real movie star. I've still got the same wife I started out with twenty-eight years ago.
Artificial Intelligence is no match for natural stupidity.
Death is only going to happen to you once; I don't want to miss it.
Everything is funny as long as it is happening to Somebody Else.
Historically, the claim of consensus has been the first refuge of scoundrels; it is a way to avoid debate by claiming that the matter is already settled.
Democracy substitutes election by the incompetent many for appointment by the corrupt few.
Here's a tip to avoid death by celebrity: First off, get a life. They can't touch you if you're out doing something interesting.
There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book. Books are well written or badly written.
You see, wire telegraph is a kind of a very, very long cat. You pull his tail in New York and his head is meowing in Los Angeles. Do you understand this? And radio operates exactly the same way: you send signals here, they receive them there. The only difference is that there is no cat.
Examine what is said, not him who speaks.
When you strike at a king, you must kill him.
True friends are those who really know you but love you anyway.
You're supposed to trust friends. You have no reason to be his friend? That is part of the pleasure of friendship: trusting without absolute evidence and then being rewarded for that trust.
Even the fear of death is nothing compared to the fear of not having lived authentically and fully.
We seem to believe it is possible to ward off death by following rules of good grooming.
There are no whole truths; all truths are half- truths. It is trying to treat them as whole truths that plays the devil.
It is a sadness of growing older that we lose our ardent appreciation of what is new and different and difficult.
If you stay in Beverly Hills too long you become a Mercedes.
The human brain is unique in that it is the only container of which it can be said that the more you put into it, the more it will hold.
I like a woman with a head on her shoulders. I hate necks.
Lack of money is no obstacle. Lack of an idea is an obstacle.
What's the difference between a boyfriend and a husband? About 30 pounds.
When I read a book I seem to read it with my eyes only, but now and then I come across a passage, perhaps only a phrase, which has a meaning for me, and it becomes part of me.
When I walk into my kitchen today, I am not alone. Whether we know it or not, none of us is. We bring fathers and mothers and kitchen tables, and every meal we have ever eaten. Food is never just food. It's also a way of getting at something else: who we are, who we have been, and who we want to be.
There are some men who lift the age they inhabit, till all men walk on higher ground in that lifetime.
You better live your best and act your best and think your best today, for today is the sure preparation for tomorrow and all the other tomorrows that follow.
Wheresoever you go, go with all your heart.
Every hero becomes a bore at last.
[Sleep is] the golden chain that ties health and our bodies together.
Life is an adventure in forgiveness.
Life is something that everyone should try at least once.
The gem cannot be polished without friction, nor man perfected without trials.
Everyone has a right to a university degree in America, even if it's in Hamburger Technology.
The covers of this book are too far apart.
Waste no more time talking about great souls and how they should be. Become one yourself!
After one look at this planet any visitor from outer space would say "I want to see the manager."
A fashion is nothing but an induced epidemic.
Part of being sane, is being a little bit crazy.
Never be afraid to laugh at yourself, after all, you could be missing out on the joke of the century.
Never express yourself more clearly than you are able to think.
Do not employ handsome servants.
I am here and you will know that I am the best and will hear me.
Know most of the rooms of thy native country before thou goest over the threshold thereof.
Never esteem anything as of advantage to you that will make you break your word or lose your self-respect.
I wish people who have trouble communicating would just shut up.
Do not condemn the judgement of another because it differs from your own. You may both be wrong.
A writer is a writer not because she writes well and easily, because she has amazing talent, because everything she does is golden. In my view, a writer is a writer because even when there is no hope, even when nothing you do shows any sign of promise, you keep writing anyway.
No matter how much you disagree with your kin, if you are a thoroughbred you will not discuss their shortcomings with the neighbors.
The difference between the right word and the almost right word is the difference between lightning and a lightning bug.
The idea of an election is much more interesting to me than the election itself...The act of voting is in itself the defining moment.
Woe be to him that reads but one book.
I celebrate myself, and sing myself.
[Spring is] a true reconstructionist.
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.
We learn by example and by direct experience because there are real limits to the adequacy of verbal instruction.
Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want and deserve to get it good and hard.
Existence is random. Has no pattern save what we imagine after staring at it for too long. No meaning save what we choose to impose.
I don't give a damn for a man that can only spell a word one way.
A pound of pluck is worth a ton of luck.
Conquer thyself, till thou has done this, thou art but a slave; for it is almost as well to be subjected to another's appetite as to thine own.
No matter how old you are, there's always something good to look forward to.
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.
To resist the frigidity of old age one must combine the body, the mind and the heart - and to keep them in parallel vigor one must exercise, study and love.
Dreaming permits each and every one of us to be quietly and safely insane every night of our lives.
To follow, without halt, one aim: There's the secret of success.
Open your mouth and purse cautiously, and your stock of wealth and reputation shall, at least in repute, be great.
It's never just a game when you're winning.
And so faith is closing your eyes and following the breath of your soul down to the bottom of life, where existence and nonexistence have merged into irrelevance. All that matters is the little part you play in the vast drama.
Is life worth living? Aye, with the best of us, Heights of us, depths of us -  Life is the test of us!
Wonder is what sets us apart from other life forms. No other species wonders about the meaning of existence or the complexity of the universe or themselves.
A committee can make a decision that is dumber than any of its members.
The universal brotherhood of man is our most precious possession, what there is of it.
When you are eight years old, nothing is any of your business.
The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong.
What is an epigram? A dwarfish whole, its body brevity, and wit its soul.
If you can find a path with no obstacles, it probably doesn't lead anywhere.
Well-timed silence hath more eloquence than speech.
The person who makes a success of living is the one who see his goal steadily and aims for it unswervingly. That is dedication.
There are no such things as applied sciences, only applications of science.
You can't be angry with God and not believe in him at the same time.
The person who knows one thing and does it better than anyone else, even if it only be the art of raising lentils, receives the crown he merits. If he raises all his energy to that end, he is a benefactor of mankind and its rewarded as such.
Whoever ceases to be a student has never been a student.
Laughing at our mistakes can lengthen our own life. Laughing at someone else's can shorten it.
Whenever people agree with me I always feel I must be wrong.
If you don't find it in the index, look very carefully through the entire catalogue.
When you are in any contest you should work as if there were - to the very last minute - a chance to lose it.
Whenever you find that you are on the side of the majority, it is time to reform.
Raise your sail one foot and you get ten feet of wind.
The United States is a nation of laws: badly written and randomly enforced.
Some people have so much respect for their superiors they have none left for themselves.
We cannot really love anybody with whom we never laugh.
When you hire people that are smarter than you are, you prove you are smarter than they are.
Concern for someone else was a good remedy for taking the mind off one's own troubles.
Sometimes the joys of our youth do not translate to joys in adulthood and it’s hard to release them.
To succeed in the world it is not enough to be stupid, you must also be well-mannered.
People will buy anything that is one to a customer.
It is one of man's curious idiosyncrasies to create difficulties for the pleasure of resolving them.
Lawyers spend a great deal of their time shoveling smoke.
No trumpets sound when the important decisions of our life are made. Destiny is made known silently.
Fallacies do not cease to be fallacies because they become fashions.
Our patience will achieve more than our force.
If the facts don't fit the theory, change the facts.
They are ill discoverers that think there is no land, when they can see nothing but sea.
Seize opportunity by the beard, for it is bald behind.
Men live in a fantasy world. I know this because I am one, and I actually receive my mail there.
No man is an Island, intire of itselfe; every man is a peece of the Continent, a part of the maine...
What greater thing is there for two human souls than to feel that they are joined... to strengthen each other... to be one with each other in silent unspeakable memories.
Any man whose errors take ten years to correct is quite a man.
A preoccupation with the future not only prevents us from seeing the present as it is but often prompts us to rearrange the past.
If I had my life to live over... I'd dare to make more mistakes next time.
I tore myself away from the safe comfort of certainties through my love for the truth; and truth rewarded me.
Chess is as elaborate a waste of human intelligence as you can find outside an advertising agency.
A friend is someone who will help you move. A real friend is someone who will help you move a body.
The only difference between a rut and a grave... is in their dimensions.
If I only had a little humility, I'd be perfect.
I don't think anyone should write their autobiography until after they're dead.
Are you going to come quietly, or do I have to use earplugs?
The passions are the seeds of vices as well as of virtues, from which either may spring, accordingly as they are nurtured. Unhappy they who have never been taught the art to govern them!
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.
No matter how nice the company one might be with, however, it is never pleasant to have a rifle pointed at one's back.
Everybody knows if you are too careful you are so occupied in being careful that you are sure to stumble over something.
Most people have seen worse things in private than they pretend to be shocked at in public.
Men are like steel. When they lose their temper, they lose their worth.
Force is all-conquering, but its victories are short-lived.
There are two main strategies we can adopt to improve the quality of life. The first is to try making external conditions match our goals. The second is to change how we experience external conditions to make them fit our goals better.
A poem is no place for an idea.
If you think you can do a thing or think you can't do a thing, you're right.
The wisest mind has something yet to learn.
Quarrel not at all. No man resolved to make the most of himself can spare time for personal contention.
Doubting God's existence is okay and perfectly acceptable within Christianity as long as the person doubting remains obedient and committed to the Christian path.
Failures are finger posts on the road to achievement.
The greatest minds are capable of the greatest vices as well as of the greatest virtues.
The good life, as I conceive it, is a happy life. I do not mean that if you are good you will be happy - I mean that if you are happy you will be good.
The only really good place to buy lumber is at a store where the lumber has already been cut and attached together in the form of furniture, finished, and put inside boxes.
Cocaine is God's way of saying that you're making too much money.
The highest result of education is tolerance.
Money can't buy friends, but it can get you a better class of enemy.
It is well to remember that the entire universe, with one trifling exception, is composed of others.
A true man never frets about his place in the world, but just slides into it by the gravitation of his nature, and swings there as easily as a star.
When you reach for the stars you may not quite get one, but you won't come up with a handful of mud either.
[Spring is] when life's alive in everything.
I can remember when the air was clean and sex was dirty.
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.
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.
Remember, Ginger Rogers did everything Fred Astaire did, but backwards and in high heels.
The camera doesn't make a bit of difference. All of them can record what you are seeing. But, you have to SEE.
I have long been of the opinion that if work were such a splendid thing the rich would have kept more of it for themselves.
A vacuum is a hell of a lot better than some of the stuff that nature replaces it with.
The only people who find what they are looking for in life are the fault finders.
When you feel in your gut what you are and then dynamically pursue it - don't back down and don't give up - then you're going to mystify a lot of folks.
He who every morning plans the transaction of the day and follows out that plan, carries a thread that will guide him through the maze of the most busy life. But where no plan is laid, where the disposal of time is surrendered merely to the chance of incidence, chaos will soon reign.
Avoid having your ego so close to your position that when your position falls, your ego goes with it.
It is often merely for an excuse that we say things are impossible.
To be stupid, selfish, and have good health are three requirements for happiness, though if stupidity is lacking, all is lost.
There are a terrible lot of lies going around the world, and the worst of it is half of them are true.
Fear not that thy life shall come to an end, but rather fear that it shall never have a beginning.
Why do strong arms fatigue themselves with frivolous dumbbells? To dig a vineyard is worthier exercise for men.
Defining and analyzing humor is a pastime of humorless people.
I try to avoid looking backward and keep looking upward.
Life is just one damned thing after another.
When you hire people that are smarter than you are, you prove you are smarter than they are.
Setting a good example for children takes all the fun out of middle age.
It is better to know some of the questions than all of the answers.
If I had my life to live over... I'd dare to make more mistakes next time.
Bacchus hath drowned more men than Neptune.
Against logic there is no armor like ignorance.
Fig Newton: The force required to accelerate a fig 39.37 inches per sec.
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.
One of the indictments of civilizations is that happiness and intelligence are so rarely found in the same person.
Last night I dreamed I ate a ten-pound marshmallow, and when I woke up the pillow was gone.
Only exceptionally rational men can afford to be absurd.
The great aim of education is not knowledge but action.
Why do writers write? Because it isn't there.
Before you begin a thing, remind yourself that difficulties and delays quite impossible to foresee are ahead. If you could see them clearly, naturally you could do a great deal to get rid of them but you can't. You can only see one thing clearly and that is your goal. Form a mental vision of that and cling to it through thick and thin.
Nostalgia isn't what it used to be.
History, despite its wrenching pain, cannot be unlived, however, if faced with courage, need not be lived again.
I felt like poisoning a monk.
Time is the coin of your life. It is the only coin you have, and only you can determine how it will be spent. Be careful lest you let other people spend it for you.
The Argument from Intimidation is a confession of intellectual impotence.
Winning may not be everything, but losing has little to recommend it.
We judge ourselves by what we feel capable of doing, while others judge us by what we have already done.
It seemed the world was divided into good and bad people. The good ones slept better... while the bad ones seemed to enjoy the waking hours much more.
The most radical revolutionary will become a conservative the day after the revolution.
The only thing I like about rich people is their money.
What you don't see with your eyes, don't invent with your mouth.
You can't build a reputation on what you are going to do.
A fashion is nothing but an induced epidemic.
Always laugh when you can. It is cheap medicine.
Accomplishing the impossible means only that the boss will add it to your regular duties.
A cucumber should be well-sliced, dressed with pepper and vinegar, and then thrown out.
You can't change what you've done, so you might as well just take pride in it.
Get all the fools on your side and you can be elected to anything.
Privacy and security are those things you give up when you show the world what makes you extraordinary.
Someday I want to be rich. Some people get so rich they lose all respect for humanity. That's how rich I want to be.
It is better to suffer wrong than to do it, and happier to be sometimes cheated than not to trust.
When you are not practicing, remember, someone somewhere is practicing, and when you meet him he will win.
Because we don't think about future generations, they will never forget us.
I've never known any trouble that an hour's reading didn't assuage.
In the future everyone will be famous for fifteen minutes.
To be one's self, and unafraid whether right or wrong, is more admirable than the easy cowardice of surrender to conformity.
We may go to the moon, but that's not very far. The greatest distance we have to cover still lies within us.
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.
Keep your fears to yourself, but share your courage with others.
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.
My mother loved children -- she would have given anything if I had been one.
It's asking a great deal that things should appeal to your reason as well as your sense of the aesthetic.
There is no such thing as an underestimate of average intelligence.
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.
Take the diplomacy out of war and the thing would fall flat in a week.
There is no wisdom without love.
Ultimately, the only power to which man should aspire is that which he exercises over himself.
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.
Where is there dignity unless there is honesty?
Yesterday is not ours to recover, but tomorrow is ours to win or to lose.
To sit in the shade on a fine day, and look upon verdure is the most perfect refreshment.
You are built not to shrink down to less but to blossom into more.
Society, my dear, is like salt water, good to swim in but hard to swallow.
Our imagination is the only limit to what we can hope to have in the future.
My wish is to ride the tempest, tame the waves, kill the sharks. I will not resign myself...
For the sense of smell, almost more than any other, has the power to recall memories and it is a pity that you use it so little.
I used to think that the brain was the most wonderful organ in my body. Then I realized who was telling me this.
The future is uncertain... but this uncertainty is at the very heart of human creativity.
Living is having ups and downs and sharing them with friends.
Water, taken in moderation, cannot hurt anybody.
In taking revenge, a man is but even with his enemy; but in passing it over, he is superior.
When your work speaks for itself, don't interrupt.
Is fuel efficiency really what we need most desperately? I say that what we really need is a car that can be shot when it breaks down.
Always and never are two words you should always remember never to use.
The whole problem can be stated quite simply by asking, 'Is there a meaning to music?' My answer would be, 'Yes.' And 'Can you state in so many words what the meaning is?' My answer to that would be, 'No.'
Cherish each hour of this day for it can never return.
If you believe everything you read, better not read.
As long as we respond predictably to what feels good and what feels bad, it is easy for others to exploit our preferences for their own ends.
To the well-organized mind, death is but the next great adventure.
May I never miss a sunset or a rainbow because I am looking down.
McCabe's Law: Nobody _has_ to do _anything_.
If you pick up a starving dog and make him prosperous, he will not bite you. This is the principal difference between a dog and a man.
Education is a progressive discovery of our own ignorance.
Strive for excellence, not perfection.
The man who has nothing to boast of but his illustrious ancestry is like the potato - the best part under ground.
Every one of us gets through the tough times because somebody is there, standing in the gap to close it for us.
Special-interest publications should realize that if they are attracting enough advertising and readers to make a profit, the interest is not so special.
Every man is guilty of all the good he didn't do.
Her virtue was that she said what she thought, her vice that what she thought didn't amount to much.
The most savage controversies are those about matters as to which there is no good evidence either way.
When you're eighteen your emotions are violent, but they're not durable.
He is indebted to his memory for his jests and to his imagination for his facts.
Go confidently in the direction of your dreams! Live the life you've imagined. As you simplify your life, the laws of the universe will be simpler.
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!'
Courage is doing what you're afraid to do. There can be no courage unless you're scared.
We must accept that this creative pulse within us is God's creative pulse itself.
Most turkeys taste better the day after; my mother's tasted better the day before.
What's the point of havin' a rapier wit if I can't use it to stab people?
I am an atheist, myself. A simple faith, but a great comfort to me, in these last days.
Flowers never emit so sweet and strong a fragrance as before a storm. When a storm approaches thee, be as fragrant as a sweet-smelling flower.
I find nothing more depressing than optimism.
Be civil to all; sociable to many; familiar with few; friend to one; enemy to none.
Health nuts are going to feel stupid someday, lying in hospitals dying of nothing.
He who builds a better mousetrap these days runs into material shortages, patent-infringement suits, work stoppages, collusive bidding, discount discrimination--and taxes."
A torn jacket is soon mended; but hard words bruise the heart of a child.
It is a fine thing to establish one's own religion in one's heart, not to be dependent on tradition and second-hand ideals. Life will seem to you, later, not a lesser, but a greater thing.
I am at two with nature.
Be gentle with the young.
I know nothing about sex because I was always married.
It's the good girls who keep diaries; the bad girls never have the time.
You couldn't be that good and not know it, somewhere in your secret heart, however much you'd been abused into affecting public humility.
Life is a fatal complaint, and an eminently contagious one.
It is better to die on your feet than live on your knees.
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I-- I took the one less traveled by,  And that has made all the difference.
People who are 'ready' give off a different vibe than people who aren't. Animals can smell fear; maybe that's it. The minute you become ready is the the minute you stop dreaming. Suddenly it's no longer about 'becoming'. Suddenly it's about 'doing'.
I never vote for anyone; I always vote against.
The only rules comedy can tolerate are those of taste, and the only limitations those of libel.
It is better to know some of the questions than all of the answers.
It is one of man's curious idiosyncrasies to create difficulties for the pleasure of resolving them.
Clothes make the man. Naked people have little or no influence on society.
A good name, like good will, is got by many actions and lost by one.
There's always somebody who is paid too much, and taxed too little - and it's always somebody else.
You have to allow a certain amount of time in which you are doing nothing in order to have things occur to you, to let your mind think.
In religion and politics, people's beliefs and convictions are in almost every case gotten at second hand, and without examination.
How beautiful maleness is, if it finds its right expression.
In the end, everything is a gag.
There is only one success - to be able to spend your life in your own way.
If a cluttered desk is the sign of a cluttered mind, what is the significance of a clean desk?
One's first step in wisdom is to question everything - and one's last is to come to terms with everything.
There is nothing new under the sun but there are lots of old things we don't know.
To pretend, I actually do the thing: I have therefore only pretended to pretend.
Food is the most primitive form of comfort.
Works of imagination should be written in very plain language; the more purely imaginative they are the more necessary it is to be plain.
Put even the plainest woman into a beautiful dress and unconsciously she will try to live up to it.
Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.
Why do you have to be a nonconformist like everybody else?
Before you agree to do anything that might add even the smallest amount of stress to your life, ask yourself: What is my truest intention? Give yourself time to let a yes resound within you. When it's right, I guarantee that your entire body will feel it.
I'm just trying to make a smudge on the collective unconscious.
You live and learn. At any rate, you live.
This country has come to feel the same when Congress is in session as when the baby gets hold of a hammer.
Do not fear to be eccentric in opinion, for every opinion now accepted was once eccentric.
The customer doesn't expect everything will go right all the time; the big test is what you do when things go wrong.
Be wise with speed . A fool at forty is a fool indeed.
If I had to live my life again, I'd make the same mistakes, only sooner.
Neurotics build castles in the air, psychotics live in them. My mother cleans them.
If you can't have faith in what is held up to you for faith, you must find things to believe in yourself, for a life without faith in something is too narrow a space to live.
The meek shall inherit the earth? Well... I don't think so. If by meek you mean friendly and introverted, okay maybe, but if by meek you mean unwilling to take a chance, then never. If I was a betting man and I had to wager on who I thought would inherit the earth, my money would be on the curious.
If you're not scared or angry at the thought of a human brain being controlled remotely, then it could be this prototype of mine is finally starting to work.
Be modest! It is the kind of pride least likely to offend.
If you are pained by external things, it is not they that disturb you, but your own judgment of them. And it is in your power to wipe out that judgment now.
To have doubted one's own first principles is the mark of a civilized man.
My mother drew a distinction between achievement and success. She said that 'achievement is the knowledge that you have studied and worked hard and done the best that is in you. Success is being praised by others, and that's nice, too, but not as important or satisfying. Always aim for achievement and forget about success.'
It is not advisable, James, to venture unsolicited opinions. You should spare yourself the embarrassing discovery of their exact value to your listener.
If only God would give me some clear sign! Like making a large deposit in my name in a Swiss bank.
Your most unhappy customers are your greatest source of learning.
Even if you do learn to speak correct English, whom are you going to speak it to?
Make sure to be in with your equals if you're going to fall out with your superiors.
Many books require no thought from those who read them, and for a very simple reason; they made no such demand upon those who wrote them.
Sometimes I get the feeling the whole world is against me, but deep down I know that's not true. Some smaller countries are neutral.
When a quiet man is moved to passion, it seems the very earth will shake.
Don't throw away the old bucket until you know whether the new one holds water.
Stoop and you'll be stepped on; stand tall and you'll be shot at.
Ideals are like stars: you will not succeed in touching them with your hands, but like the seafaring man on the ocean desert of waters, you choose them as your guides, and following them, you reach your destiny.
One doesn't have a sense of humor. It has you.
Some for renown, on scraps of learning dote, And think they grow immortal as they quote.
Men are wise in proportion, not to their experience, but to their capacity for experience.
A successful marriage is an edifice that must be rebuilt every day.
Ignorant men don't know what good they hold in their hands until they've flung it away.
I hate music, especially when it's played.
Never let the fear of failure be an excuse for not trying. Society tells us that to fail is the most terrible thing in the world, but I know it isn't. Failure is part of what makes us human.
Usually, terrible things that are done with the excuse that progress requires them are not really progress at all, but just terrible things.
Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some hire public relations officers.
Take the diplomacy out of war and the thing would fall flat in a week.
A lifetime of happiness! No man alive could bear it: it would be hell on earth.
America's greatest strength, and its greatest weakness, is our belief in second chances, our belief that we can always start over, that things can be made better.
If you tell the truth you don't have to remember anything.
Facing it, always facing it, that's the way to get through. Face it.
Education is a method whereby one acquires a higher grade of prejudices.
The true meaning of religion is thus not simply morality, but morality touched by emotion.
If the truth doesn't save us, what does that say about us?
Maybe it's easier to like someone else's life, and live vicariously through it, than take some responsiblity to change our lives into lives we might like.
Happiness is always a by-product. It is probably a matter of temperament, and for anything I know it may be glandular. But it is not something that can be demanded from life, and if you are not happy you had better stop worrying about it and see what treasures you can pluck from your own brand of unhappiness.
If you wish success in life, make perseverance your bosom friend, experience your wise counselor, caution your elder brother and hope your guardian genius.
Part of being creative is learning how to protect your freedom. That includes freedom from avarice.
...the safest course is to do nothing against one's conscience. With this secret, we can enjoy life and have no fear from death.
No trumpets sound when the important decisions of our life are made. Destiny is made known silently.
The supreme irony of life is that hardly anyone gets out of it alive.
The case has, in some respects, been not entirely devoid of interest.
The camera doesn't make a bit of difference. All of them can record what you are seeing. But, you have to SEE.
Can I ever know you Or you know me?
Cheese - milk's leap toward immortality.
If a man insisted always on being serious, and never allowed himself a bit of fun and relaxation, he would go mad or become unstable without knowing it.
Enjoyment is not a goal, it is a feeling that accompanies important ongoing activity.
Nothing takes the taste out of peanut butter quite like unrequited love.
I hear and I forget. I see and I remember. I do and I understand.
Never fight an inanimate object.
This is pretty much what journals are all about, at least to me. I knew as I wrote them that even though they provided an excellent place for brain (and heart, and psyche) dump, they were mainly a map of me.
You can pretend to be serious; you can't pretend to be witty.
Each painting has its own way of evolving...When the painting is finished, the subject reaveals itself.
Some people are born on third base and go through life thinking they hit a triple.
Be bold and mighty powers will come to your aid.
The greatest danger to our future is apathy.
Some mornings it just doesn't seem worth it to gnaw through the leather straps.
You've achieved success in your field when you don't know whether what you're doing is work or play.
One man that has a mind and knows it can always beat ten men who haven't and don't.
A raise is like a martini: it elevates the spirit, but only temporarily.
I think the world is run by 'C' students.
You get fifteen democrats in a room, and you get twenty opinions.
I don't hire anybody who's not brighter than I am. If they're not brighter than I am, I don't need them.
A sense of duty is useful in work, but offensive in personal relations. People wish to be liked, not be endured with patient resignation.
Hindsight is always twenty-twenty.
People don't have to like or support you, so you always have to say thank you.
To sit in the shade on a fine day, and look upon verdure is the most perfect refreshment.
Age to me means nothing. I can't get old; I'm working. I was old when I was twenty-one and out of work. As long as you're working, you stay young. When I'm in front of an audience, all that love and vitality sweeps over me and I forget my age.
Faith is taking the first step, even when you don't see the whole staircase.
A house that does not have one worn, comfy chair in it is soulless.
You can't love anyone until you understand that you can't love everyone.
The most important scientific revolutions all include, as their only common feature, the dethronement of human arrogance from one pedestal after another of previous convictions about our centrality in the cosmos.
Nobody will ever win the Battle of the Sexes. There's just too much fraternizing with the enemy.
You know, I think that if parents would spend less time worrying about what their kids watch on TV and more time worrying about what's going on in their kids' lives, this world would be a much better place.
Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from a religious conviction.
Life is a risk.
If at first you don't succeed, failure may be your style.
There was a definite process by which one made people into friends, and it involved talking to them and listening to them for hours at a time.
Integrity combined with faithfulness is a powerful force and worthy of great respect.
Only fools are positive.
To the soul, there is hardly anything more healing than friendship.
I have learned to use the word 'impossible' with the greatest caution.
Be entirely tolerant or not at all; follow the good path or the evil one. To stand at the crossroads requires more strength than you possess.
Cherish each hour of this day for it can never return.
[Television is] the triumph of machine over people.
Order is not pressure which is imposed on society from without, but an equilibrium which is set up from within.
In all large corporations, there is a pervasive fear that someone, somewhere is having fun with a computer on company time. Networks help alleviate that fear.
He had heard people speak contemptuously of money: he wondered if they had ever tried to do without it.
Moments of kindness and reconciliation are worth having, even if the parting has to come sooner or later.
All things are difficult before they are easy.
I'm kind of jealous of the life I'm supposedly leading.
The nice thing about standards is that there are so many of them to choose from.
A person can learn a lot from a dog, even a loopy one like ours. Marley taught me about living each day with unbridled exuberance and joy, about seizing the moment and following your heart. He taught me to appreciate the simple things - a walk in the woods, a fresh snowfall, a nap in a shaft of winter sunlight. And as he grew old and achy, he taught me about optimism in the face of adversity. Mostly, he taught me about friendship and selflessness and, above all else, unwavering loyalty.
You don't have to suffer to be a poet; adolescence is enough suffering for anyone.
Indeed, history is nothing more than a tableau of crimes and misfortunes.
A friend is someone who will help you move. A real friend is someone who will help you move a body.
Dost thou love life? Then do not squander time, for that's the stuff life is made of.
I'm kind of jealous of the life I'm supposedly leading.
The conventional view serves to protect us from the painful job of thinking.
Hollywood is a place where people from Iowa mistake each other for stars.
Too many people think only of their own profit. But business opportunity seldom knocks on the door of self-centered people. No customer ever goes to a store merely to please the storekeeper.
We hold in our hands, the most precious gift of all: Freedom. The freedom to express our art. Our love. The freedom to be who we want to be. We are not going to give that freedom away and no one shall take it from us!
The family is the country of the heart.
Eating everything you want is not that much fun. When you live a life with no boundaries, there’s less joy. If you can eat anything you want to, what’s the fun in eating anything you want to?
It's not the will to win that matters...everyone has that. It's the will to prepare to win that matters.
Only I can change my life. No one can do it for me.
Complaining is good for you as long as you're not complaining to the person you're complaining about.
Life is far too important a thing ever to talk seriously about.
Never explain--your friends do not need it and your enemies will not believe you anyway.
Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.
It was a creed written into the founding documents that declared the destiny of a nation. Yes we can. It was whispered by slaves and abolitionists as they blazed a trail towards freedom through the darkest of nights. Yes we can. It was sung by immigrants as they struck out from distant shores and pioneers who pushed westward against an unforgiving wilderness. Yes we can.
A book of quotations . . . can never be complete.
The man who lets himself be bored is even more contemptible than the bore.
It was never what I wanted to buy that held my heart's hope. It was what I wanted to be.
I grew up in Europe, where the history comes from.
Sometimes a slow gradual approach does more good than a large gesture.
The trouble with having an open mind, of course, is that people will insist on coming along and trying to put things in it.
The first step to getting the things you want out of life is this: Decide what you want.
The best way is not to fight it, just go. Don't be trying all the time to fix things. What you run from only stays with you longer. When you fight something, you only make it stronger.
No one is useless in this world who lightens the burdens of another.
Her own mother lived the latter years of her life in the horrible suspicion that electricity was dripping invisibly all over the house.
The future is an opaque mirror. Anyone who tries to look into it sees nothing but the dim outlines of an old and worried face.
My toughest fight was with my first wife.
Health is not valued till sickness comes.
Natural ability without education has more often attained to glory and virtue than education without natural ability.
For the most part, fear is nothing but an illusion. When you share it with someone else, it tends to disappear.
Love thy neighbour as yourself, but choose your neighbourhood.
Life is a foreign language; all men mispronounce it.
[Spring is] when life's alive in everything.
I don’t think anyone can DO anything that would make him worthy of love. Love is a gift and cannot be earned. It can only be given.
My parents only had one argument in forty-five years. It lasted forty-three years.
We are most alive when we're in love.
Never... ever suggest they don't have to pay you. What they pay for, they'll value. What they get for free, they'll take for granted, and then demand as a right. Hold them up for all the market will bear.
Eccentricity is not, as dull people would have us believe, a form of madness. It is often a kind of innocent pride, and the man of genius and the aristocrat are frequently regarded as eccentrics because genius and aristocrat are entirely unafraid of and uninfluenced by the opinions and vagaries of the crowd.
The second half of a man's life is made up of nothing but the habits he has acquired during the first half.
Beware of the man who works hard to learn something, learns it, and finds himself no wiser than before... He is full of murderous resentment of people who are ignorant without having come by their ignorance the hard way.
Politics is supposed to be the second oldest profession. I have come to realize that it bears a very close resemblance to the first.
The evil of the world is made possible by nothing but the sanction you give it.
Not merely an absence of noise, Real Silence begins when a reasonable being withdraws from the noise in order to find peace and order in his inner sanctuary.
I believe in equality for everyone, except reporters and photographers.
If the facts don't fit the theory, change the facts.
Fear does not have any special power unless you empower it by submitting to it.
Be modest! It is the kind of pride least likely to offend.
The secret of all power is - save your force. If you want high pressure you must choke off waste.
I don't deserve this award, but I have arthritis and I don't deserve that either.
The great thing about television is that if something important happens anywhere in the world, day or night, you can always change the channel.
Put more trust in nobility of character than in an oath.
The universe will reward you for taking risks on its behalf.
Let us have a care not to disclose our hearts to those who shut up theirs against us.
The heart has its reasons which reason knows nothing of.
If you would not step into the harlot's house, do not go by the harlot's door.
There comes a point in life when you realize everything you know about yourself, it's all just conditioning. It's the rare man who truly know who he is.
To achieve the impossible dream, try going to sleep.
Our great democracies still tend to think that a stupid man is more likely to be honest than a clever man.
If you have great talents, industry will improve them; if you have but moderate abilities, industry will supply their deficiency.
Follow the grain in your own wood.
Enough organization, enough lists and we think we can control the uncontrollable.
A hypocrite is a person who--but who isn't?
Paradise is exactly like where you are right now... only much, much better.
Understand that the right to choose your own path is a sacred privilege. Use it. Dwell in possiblity.
Every time you don't follow your inner guidance, you feel a loss of energy, loss of power, a sense of spiritual deadness.
We all have a few failures under our belt. It's what makes us ready for the successes.
Love can be sordid only if you work at it.
Our bodies communicate to us clearly and specifically, if we are willing to listen to them.
Often we can achieve an even better result when we stumble yet are willing to start over, when we don't give up after a mistake, when something doesn't come easily but we throw ourselves into trying, when we're not afraid to appear less than perfectly polished.
Cherish all your happy moments: they make a fine cushion for old age.
We have, I fear, confused power with greatness.
Quotation, n: The act of repeating erroneously the words of another.
When I see somebody 'suffering for their art', it%uFFFDs usually a case of them not knowing where that red line is, not knowing where the sovereignty lies.
One cannot fix one's eyes on the commonest natural production without finding food for a rambling fancy.
Any woman who thinks the way to a man's heart is through his stomach is aiming about 10 inches too high.
Inanimate objects are classified scientifically into three major categories - those that don't work, those that break down and those that get lost.
You can't love anyone until you understand that you can't love everyone.
You can discover more about a person in an hour of play than in a year of conversation.
People are fond of spouting out the old clich%uFFFD about how Van Gogh never sold a painting in his lifetime. Somehow his example serves to justify to us, decades later, that there is somehow merit in utter failure. Perhaps, but the man did commit suicide.
If you aren't fired with enthusiasm, you will be fired with enthusiasm.
When she stopped conforming to the conventional picture of femininity she finally began to enjoy being a woman.
The only difference between a rut and a grave... is in their dimensions.
Avoid having your ego so close to your position that when your position falls, your ego goes with it.
This is patently absurd; but whoever wishes to become a philosopher must learn not to be frightened by absurdities.
If you live long enough, the venerability factor creeps in; first, you get accused of things you never did, and later, credited for virtues you never had.
Do pleasant things yourself, but unpleasant things through others.
Choose the life that is most useful, and habit will make it the most agreeable.
Fortune can, for her pleasure, fools advance,  And toss them on the wheels of Chance.
A good man would prefer to be defeated than to defeat injustice by evil means.
The enemy is anybody who's going to get you killed, no matter which side he's on.
To err is dysfunctional, to forgive co-dependent.
I appreciate people who are civil, whether they mean it or not. I think: Be civil. Do not cherish your opinion over my feelings. There's a vanity to candor that isn't really worth it. Be kind.
He who praises you for what you lack wishes to take from you what you have.
The best and safest thing is to keep a balance in your life, acknowledge the great powers around us and in us. If you can do that, and live that way, you are really a wise man.
Some men are born mediocre, some men achieve mediocrity, and some men have mediocrity thrust upon them.
I'm going to a special place when I die, but I want to make sure my life is special while I'm here.
We think in generalities, but we live in detail.
The Romans would never have found time to conquer the world if they had been obliged first to learn Latin.
The greatest mistake you can make in life is to be continually fearing you will make one.
Acquaintance, n.: A person whom we know well enough to borrow from, but not well enough to lend to.
Martyrdom... is the only way in which a man can become famous without ability.
Every nation ridicules other nations, and all are right.
...happiness gives us the energy which is the basis of health.
Most advances in science come when a person for one reason or another is forced to change fields.
It’s such a part of me, I assume Everyone can see it.
The outcome of any serious research can only be to make two questions grow where only one grew before.
They say that God is everywhere, and yet we always think of Him as somewhat of a recluse.
Maybe this world is another planet's hell.
I'd heard it all the time, 'Live in the moment.' But if I did that, I'd weigh more than a dump truck. Losing weight wasn't about the moment at all; it was about having faith in the future. It was about knowing there would be another meal in a few hours.
I'm worried that the universe will soon need replacing. It's not holding a charge.
An epigram often flashes light into regions where reason shines but dimly.
You have no control over what the other guy does. You only have control over what you do.
No one goes there nowadays, it's too crowded.
It is not bigotry to be certain we are right; but it is bigotry to be unable to imagine how we might possibly have gone wrong.
Be neither too remote nor too familiar.
A witty saying proves nothing.
We do on stage things that are supposed to happen off. Which is a kind of integrity, if you look on every exit as being an entrance somewhere else.
It is easier to live through someone else than to become complete yourself.
I show up. I listen. I try to laugh.
No one forgives with more grace and love than a child.
Learning to live in the present moment is part of the path of joy.
Parents are never as bad as kids think they are.
Anonymity is the truest expression of altruism.
I don't have a girlfriend. But I do know a woman who'd be mad at me for saying that.
Men live in a fantasy world. I know this because I am one, and I actually receive my mail there.
Never try to tell everything you know. It may take too short a time.
Because he has never forgiven himself any fault, he can forgive no one else's.
Everything in the world may be endured except continued prosperity.
The key to non-anxious sermon-writing is that it’s not about me. It’s about the congregation. I honor the fact that the listeners bring more to the sermon than I do. I remind myself of the hundreds of times someone says, 'I loved how you said…' and then tell me things that they heard that were nowhere in my text and that I never said. But they heard what they needed to hear.
I have no pretensions whatever to that kind of elegance which consists in tormenting a respectable man.
Although golf was originally restricted to wealthy, overweight Protestants, today it's open to anybody who owns hideous clothing.
If your head is wax, don't walk in the sun.
For all their strength, men were sometimes like little children.
Never have children, only grandchildren.
Success only hurts the first time.
Sleep after toil, port after stormy seas, ease after war, death after life does greatly please.
I believe that [everyone] is the keeper of a dream - and by tuning into one another's secret hopes, we can become better friends, better partners, better parents, and better lovers.
Democracy is a device that ensures we shall be governed no better than we deserve.
If pregnancy were a book, they would cut the last two chapters.
Take hold lightly; let go lightly. This is one of the great secrets of felicity in love.
All that counts in life is intention.
I truly feel that there are as many ways of loving as there are people in the world and as there are days in the life of those people.
Defer not till tomorrow to be wise, tomorrow's sun to thee may never rise.
The victory of success is half won when one gains the habit of setting goals and achieving them. Even the most tedious chore will become endurable as you parade through each day convinced that every task, no matter how menial or boring, brings you closer to fulfilling your dreams.
Be civil to all; sociable to many; familiar with few; friend to one; enemy to none.
Underpromise; overdeliver.
The man who says he is willing to meet you halfway is usually a poor judge of distance.
Science is organized knowledge. Wisdom is organized life.
To imagine the unimaginable is the highest use of the imagination.
Content thyself to be obscurely good. When vice prevails, and impious men bear sway, the post of honor is a private station.
I was so naive as a kid I used to sneak behind the barn and do nothing.
Humor is always based on a modicum of truth. Have you ever heard a joke about a father-in-law?
Your first appearance, he said to me, is the gauge by which you will be measured; try to manage that you may go beyond yourself in after times, but beware of ever doing less.
It is better to look ahead and prepare than to look back and regret.
The ancestor of every action is a thought.
It is very difficult to live among people you love and hold back from offering them advice.
We are an impossibility in an impossible universe.
A torn jacket is soon mended; but hard words bruise the heart of a child.
Science is organized knowledge. Wisdom is organized life.
Our heroes are those... who... act above and beyond the call of duty and in so doing give definition to patriotism and elevate all of us.... America is the land of the free because we are the home of the brave.
Television is more interesting than people. If it were not, we would have people standing in the corners of our rooms.
This is patently absurd; but whoever wishes to become a philosopher must learn not to be frightened by absurdities.
I simply cannot understand the passion that some people have for making themselves thoroughly uncomfortable and then boasting about it afterwards.
Success isn't permanent, and failure isn't fatal.
Now we sit through Shakespeare in order to recognize the quotations.
'So you think *I'm* the murderer? What do I have to do to convince you that I'm not, be the next victim?' 'Well, that would be a start.'
Speak the truth, but leave immediately after.
Person to person, moment to moment, as we love, we change the world.
A harbor, even if it is a little harbor, is a good thing... It takes something from the world, and has something to give in return.
Don't think of retiring from the world until the world will be sorry that you retire. I hate a fellow whom pride or cowardice or laziness drives into a corner, and who does nothing when he is there but sit and growl. Let him come out as I do, and bark.
Smoking is one of the leading causes of statistics.
Too many have dispensed with generosity in order to practice charity.
Exercise alone provides psychological and physical benefits. However, if you also adopt a strategy that engages your mind while you exercise, you can get a whole host of psychological benefits fairly quickly.
The real power behind whatever success I have now was something I found within myself - something that's in all of us, I think, a little piece of God just waiting to be discovered.
If hunger makes you irritable, better eat and be pleasant.
There's new energy to harness, new jobs to be created, new schools to build, and threats to meet, alliances to repair. The road ahead will be long. Our climb will be steep. We may not get there in one year or even in one term. But, America, I have never been more hopeful than I am tonight that we will get there. I promise you, we as a people will get there. There will be setbacks and false starts. There are many who won't agree with every decision or policy I make as president. And we know the government can't solve every problem. But I will always be honest with you about the challenges we face. I will listen to you, especially when we disagree. And, above all, I will ask you to join in the work of remaking this nation, the only way it's been done in America for 221 years — block by block, brick by brick, calloused hand by calloused hand.
A mother is not a person to lean on but a person to make leaning unnecessary.
If you live long enough, the venerability factor creeps in; first, you get accused of things you never did, and later, credited for virtues you never had.
Mortal lovers must not try to remain at the first step; for lasting passion is the dream of a harlot and from it we wake in despair.
No degree of dullness can safeguard a work against the determination of critics to find it fascinating.
The world is not yet exhaused; let me see something tomorrow which I never saw before.
There's folks 'ud stand on their heads and then say the fault was i' their boots.
Good people are good because they've come to wisdom through failure.
He that falls in love with himself will have no rivals.
Many men can make a fortune but very few can build a family.
There are an awful lot of scientists today who believe that before very long we shall have unraveled all the secrets of the universe. There will be no puzzles anymore. To me it'd be really, really tragic because I think one of the most exciting things is this feeling of mystery, feeling of awe, the feeling of looking at a little live thing and being amazed by it and how its emerged through these hundreds of years of evolution and there it is and it is perfect and why.
No one means all he says, and yet very few say all they mean, for words are slippery and thought is viscous.
It's very hard to take yourself too seriously when you look at the world from outer space.
It is often merely for an excuse that we say things are impossible.
It is not enough to have a good mind. The main thing is to use it well.
There is no mistaking a real book when one meets it. It is like falling in love.
If you would be known, and not know, vegetate in a village; If you would know, and not be known, live in a city.
It is the wretchedness of being rich that you have to live with rich people.
Pay no attention to what the critics say... Remember, a statue has never been set up in honor of a critic!
As an adolescent I aspired to lasting fame, I craved factual certainty, and I thirsted for a meaningful vision of human life - so I became a scientist. This is like becoming an archbishop so you can meet girls.
Besides the noble art of getting things done, there is a nobler art of leaving things undone. The wisdom of life consists in the elimination of nonessentials.
For all their strength, men were sometimes like little children.
Some for renown, on scraps of learning dote, And think they grow immortal as they quote.
Last night I dreamed I ate a ten-pound marshmallow, and when I woke up the pillow was gone.
Perhaps better we not obscure the idea that happiness and misery, kindness and greed, and good works and bad deeds are within the capacities of us all, not merely a select few.
Money can't buy friends, but it can get you a better class of enemy.
A tough lesson in life that one has to learn is that not everybody wishes you well.
The beginning of knowledge is the discovery of something we do not understand.
Nothing in the world is permanent, and we're foolish when we ask anything to last, but surely we're still more foolish not to take delight in it while we have it. If change is of the essence of existence one would have thought it only sensible to make it the premise of our philosophy.
There is not any memory with less satisfaction than the memory of some temptation we resisted.
Tragedy is when I cut my finger. Comedy is when you walk into an open sewer and die.
You don’t get to pick your own nickname. They’ve gotta give you one. It’s like we’re all tryin’ to make pets out of each other and we’re not comfortable unless we get to name ‘em.
Respect a man, he will do the more.
We must be willing to get rid of the life we've planned, so as to have the life that is waiting for us.
If man does find the solution for world peace it will be the most revolutionary reversal of his record we have ever known.
The Army has carried the American ... ideal to its logical conclusion. Not only do they prohibit discrimination on the grounds of race, creed and color, but also on ability.
A person can learn a lot from a dog, even a loopy one like ours. Marley taught me about living each day with unbridled exuberance and joy, about seizing the moment and following your heart. He taught me to appreciate the simple things - a walk in the woods, a fresh snowfall, a nap in a shaft of winter sunlight. And as he grew old and achy, he taught me about optimism in the face of adversity. Mostly, he taught me about friendship and selflessness and, above all else, unwavering loyalty.
It is by acts and not by ideas that people live.
Antonym, n.: The opposite of the word you're trying to think of.
Mathematics, rightly viewed, possesses not only truth, but supreme beauty - a beauty cold and austere, like that of sculpture.
I have no faith in human perfectability. I think that human exertion will have no appreciable effect upon humanity. Man is now only more active - not more happy - nor more wise, than he was 6000 years ago.
Facts are the enemy of truth.
The fact that man knows right from wrong proves his intellectual superiority to other creatures; but the fact that he can do wrong proves his moral inferiority to any creature that cannot.
You learn a lot about people when you play games with them.
If all the girls who attended the Yale prom were laid end to end, I wouldn't be a bit surprised.
Technology is a way of organizing the universe so that man doesn't have to experience it.
Don't take life too seriously. You'll never get out of it alive.
I finally figured out the only reason to be alive is to enjoy it.
The purpose of life is to fight maturity.
If absolute power corrupts absolutely, does absolute powerlessness make you pure?
There are more fools in the world than there are people.
It's innocence when it charms us, ignorance when it doesn't.
Let us so live that when we come to die even the undertaker will be sorry.
Man is the Only Animal that Blushes. Or needs to.
In your clothes avoid too much gaudiness; do not value yourself upon an embroidered gown; and remember that a reasonable word, or an obliging look, will gain you more respect than all your fine trappings.
One's first book, kiss, home run, is always the best.
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.
Cleanliness and order are not matters of instinct; they are matters of education, and like most great things, you must cultivate a taste for them.
You must first have a lot of patience to learn to have patience.
Statistics: The only science that enables different experts using the same figures to draw different conclusions.
The great thing about human language is that it prevents us from sticking to the matter at hand.
The nice thing about being a celebrity is that when you bore people, they think it's their fault.
The longer I live the more beautiful life becomes.
Praise the bridge that carried you over.
Not to be absolutely certain is, I think, one of the essential things in rationality.
The trouble with America is that there are far too many wide-open spaces surrounded by teeth.
The height of cleverness is to be able to conceal it.
The incognito of lower class employment is an effective cloak for any dagger one might wish to hide.
I never think of the future - it comes soon enough.
Do not think of knocking out another person's brains because he differs in opinion from you. It would be as rational to knock yourself on the head because you differ from yourself ten years ago.
I seek constantly to improve my manners and graces, for they are the sugar to which all are attracted.
Truth is the only safe ground to stand upon.
Rejoice not at thine enemy's fall - but don't rush to pick him up either.
Today you can go to a gas station and find the cash register open and the toilets locked. They must think toilet paper is worth more than money.
I have never taken any exercise except sleeping and resting.
It is by acts and not by ideas that people live.
A neurosis is a secret that you don't know you are keeping.
Dreams come true. Without that possibility, nature would not incite us to have them.
Make up your mind to act decidedly and take the consequences. No good is ever done in this world by hesitation.
If you would convince a man that he does wrong, do right. But do not care to convince him. Men will believe what they see. Let them see.
When it is not necessary to make a decision, it is necessary not to make a decision.
Even the fear of death is nothing compared to the fear of not having lived authentically and fully.
The reward of one duty is the power to fulfill another.
That which we persist in doing becomes easier, not that the task itself has become easier, but that our ability to perform it has improved.
People say to me so often, 'Jane how can you be so peaceful when everywhere around you people want books signed, people are asking these questions and yet you seem peaceful,' and I always answer that it is the peace of the forest that I carry inside.
In all affairs it's a healthy thing now and then to hang a question mark on the things you have long taken for granted.
Asking a working writer what he thinks about critics is like asking a lamppost how it feels about dogs.
I once read cooking is something you do for your family. But when you’re alone you sometimes have to treat yourself like family. And now that my apartment’s redolent with the smell of food it feels more like a home than a box where I hang my hat.
I've always followed my father's advice: he told me, first to always keep my word and, second, to never insult anybody unintentionally. If I insult you, you can be goddamn sure I intend to. And, third, he told me not to go around looking for trouble.
Those who flee temptation generally leave a forwarding address.
Partying is such sweet sorrow.
A runners creed: I will win; if I cannot win, I shall be second; if I cannot be second, I shall be third; if I cannot place at all, I shall still do my best.
It's very hard to take yourself too seriously when you look at the world from outer space.
I think that somehow, we learn who we really are and then live with that decision.
The ultimate result of shielding men from the effects of folly is to fill the world with fools.
Because you are in control of your life. Don't ever forget that. You are what you are because of the conscious and subconscious choices you have made.
...in order that a man may be happy, it is necessary that he should not only be capable of his work, but a good judge of his work.
A conservative is a man with two perfectly good legs who, however, has never learned to walk forward.
Indecision may or may not be my problem.
When a thought is too weak to be expressed simply, it should be rejected.
Artificial Intelligence is no match for natural stupidity.
I have learned to love that which is meant to harm me, so that I can stand in the way of those who are less strong. I can take the bullets for those who aren't able to.
There is a coherent plan in the universe, though I don't know what it's a plan for.
An affirmation is a strong, positive statement that something is already so.
The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new discoveries, is not 'Eureka!' (I found it!) but 'That's funny ...'
It's so much easier to write a resume than to craft a spirit.
Acting is the most minor of gifts and not a very high-class way to earn a living. After all, Shirley Temple could do it at the age of four.
Intimate relationships cannot substitute for a life plan. But to have any meaning or viability at all, a life plan must include intimate relationships.
Make your life a mission - not an intermission.
If one morning I walked on top of the water across the Potomac River, the headline that afternoon would read "President Can't Swim".
There are too many people, and too few human beings.
The more things a man is ashamed of, the more respectable he is.
A university is what a college becomes when the faculty loses interest in students.
People are more violently opposed to fur than leather because it's safer to harass rich women than motorcycle gangs.
Competition is a painful thing, but it produces great results.
We are rich only through what we give, and poor only through what we refuse.
The universal brotherhood of man is our most precious possession.
You are built not to shrink down to less but to blossom into more.
Appreciation is a wonderful thing: It makes what is excellent in others belong to us as well.
Though it sounds absurd, it is true to say I felt younger at sixty than I felt at twenty.
Nobody can give you freedom. Nobody can give you equality or justice or anything. If you're a man, you take it.
In matters of style, swim with the current; in matters of principle, stand like a rock.
Live neither in the past nor in the future, but let each day's work absorb your entire energies, and satisfy your widest ambition.
If you pick up a starving dog and make him prosperous, he will not bite you. This is the principal difference between a dog and a man.
I can't understand it. I can't even understand the people who can understand it.
I'm not going to quit. Why should I quit? This country is worth fighting for.
Arguments are to be avoided; they are always vulgar and often convincing.
The human heart is a strange vessel. Love and hatred can exist side by side.
I like work: it fascinates me. I can sit and look at it for hours.
Creative work is play. It is free speculation using materials of one's chosen form.
A well-informed mind is the best security against the contagion of folly and of vice. The vacant mind is ever on the watch for relief, and ready to plunge into error, to escape from the languor of idleness.
Let not thy will roar, when thy power can but whisper.
In the name of God, stop a moment, cease your work, look around you.
The future is much like the present, only longer.
Every sweet has its sour; every evil its good.
Illegal aliens have always been a problem in the United States. Ask any Indian.
Never face facts; if you do, you'll never get up in the morning.
You create your opportunities by asking for them.
Girls are always running through my mind. They don't dare walk.
There is nothing sadder in this world than the waste of human potential. The purpose of evolution is to raise us out of the mud, not have us grovelling in it.
A perpetual holiday is a good working definition of hell.
You must learn to face the fact, always, that you choose to do what you do, and that everything you do affects not only you but others.
Pleasure is a by-product of doing something that is worth doing. Therefore, do not seek pleasure as such. Pleasure comes of seeking something else, and comes by the way.
Trouble is part of your life, and if you don't share it, you don't give the person who loves you a chance to love you enough.
Our envy of others devours us most of all.
The reason there is so little crime in Germany is that it's against the law.
When you don't share your problems, you resent hearing the problems of other people.
It does not seem to be true that work necessarily needs to be unpleasant. It may always have to be hard, or at least harder than doing nothing at all. But there is ample evidence that work can be enjoyable, and that indeed, it is often the most enjoyable part of life.
Say what you will about the Ten Commandments, you must always come back to the pleasant fact that there are only ten of them.
Man is the only animal whose desires increase as they are fed; the only animal that is never satisfied.
Age does not protect you from love. But love, to some extent, protects you from age.
Sport is imposing order on what was chaos.
The biggest thing [Frida] brought into my life was this peacefulness. I still get passionate about things, but my passion is not so scattered and it's not needy. It's a lot more powerful because it comes with this groundedness and peacefulness. That it's about the process, not about the results.
The way we distinguish ourselves is by showing our individuality.
There are two modes of establishing our reputation: to be praised by honest men, and to be abused by rogues. It is best, however, to secure the former, because it will invariably be accompanied by the latter.
California is a fine place to live--if you happen to be an orange.
Don't let us make imaginary evils, when you know we have so many real ones to encounter.
When a quiet man is moved to passion, it seems the very earth will shake.
There shall be eternal summer in the grateful heart.
If we couldn't laugh, we would all go insane.
Never regret. If it's good, it's wonderful. If it's bad, it's experience.
The mint makes it first, it is up to you to make it last.
It's a poor sort of memory that only works backward.
Act as if it were impossible to fail.
Man is born to live, not to prepare for life.
You can't have a light without a dark to stick it in.
It only takes 20 years for a liberal to become a conservative without changing a single idea.
Any clod can have the facts, but having opinions is an art.
It is useless to attempt to reason a man out of a thing he was never reasoned into.
I don't know anything about music. In my line you don't have to.
I have only one superstition. I touch all the bases when I hit a home run.
Do not do unto others as you would that they should do unto you. Their tastes may not be the same.
Lying increases the creative faculties, expands the ego, and lessens the frictions of social contacts.
We think in generalities, but we live in detail.
Time is a cruel thief to rob us of our former selves. We lose as much to life as we do to death.
There is only one success - to be able to spend your life in your own way.
Accustom yourself continually to make many acts of love, for they enkindle and melt the soul.
I once wanted to become an atheist, but I gave up - they have no holidays.
Nothing in life is to be feared, it is only to be understood. Now is the time to understand more, so that we may fear less.
Set up as an ideal the facing of reality as honestly and as cheerfully as possible.
I appreciate people who are civil, whether they mean it or not. I think: Be civil. Do not cherish your opinion over my feelings. There's a vanity to candor that isn't really worth it. Be kind.
Outings are so much more fun when we can savor them through the children's eyes.
Fashion is a form of ugliness so intolerable that we have to alter it every six months.
The only man who is really free is the one who can turn down an invitation to dinner without giving an excuse.
Freedom of the press is limited to those who own one.
In the end, everything is a gag.
America's one of the finest countries anyone ever stole.
Let us make one point, that we meet each other with a smile, when it is difficult to smile. Smile at each other, make time for each other in your family.
Dude, marriage is the 'get out of loneliness free' card in the Monopoly game of life.
Computer games don't affect kids, I mean if Pac Man affected us as kids, we'd all be running around in darkened rooms, munching pills and listening to repetitive music.
A vigorous five-mile walk will do more good for an unhappy but otherwise healthy adult than all the medicine and psychology in the world.
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.
He's simply got the instinct for being unhappy highly developed.
What counts is not necessarily the size of the dog in the fight - it's the size of the fight in the dog.
As if a woman ever loved a man for his virtue.
It is in the knowledge of the genuine conditions of our lives that we must draw our strength to live and our reasons for living.
The time to pray is not when we are in a tight spot but just as soon as we get out of it.
The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources.
Editor: a person employed by a newspaper, whose business it is to separate the wheat from the chaff, and to see that the chaff is printed.
The shoe that fits one person pinches another; there is no recipe for living that suits all cases.
We didn't think much in the air corps of a fellow who wangled a cushy job out of his C.O. by buttering him up. It was hard for me to believe that God thought much of a man who tried to wangle salvation by fulsome flattery. I should have thought the worship most pleasing to him was to do your best according to your lights.
Passion is the quickest to develop, and the quickest to fade. Intimacy develops more slowly, and commitment more gradually still.
One cannot find peace in work or in pleasure, in the world or in a convent, but only in one's soul.
That is what learning is. You suddenly understand something you've understood all your life, but in a new way.
I am at two with nature.
Anybody can sympathise with the sufferings of a friend, but it requires a very fine nature to sympathise with a friend's success.
With the gift of listening comes the gift of healing.
The moment a little boy is concerned with which is a jay and which is a sparrow, he can no longer see the birds or hear them sing.
If you are out to describe the truth, leave elegance to the tailor.
All human beings should try to learn before they die what they are running from, and to, and why.
We live in an age when pizza gets to your home before the police.
Everyone is a genius at least once a year. The real geniuses simply have their bright ideas closer together.
Who is wise? He that learns from every One. Who is powerful? He that governs his Passions. Who is rich? He that is content. Who is that? Nobody.
What other dungeon is so dark as one's own heart! What jailer so inexorable as one's self!
The nice thing about standards is that there are so many of them to choose from.
Hard work never killed anybody, but why take a chance?
A successful individual typically sets his next goal somewhat but not too much above his last achievement. In this way he steadily raises his level of aspiration.
Preach not to others what they should eat, but eat as becomes you, and be silent.
Time has a wonderful way of showing us what really matters.
That's just the way things go. We meet people, get to know them and then they get up and leave us behind.
Television – a medium. So called because it is neither rare nor well done.
It takes too much energy to be against something unless it's really important.
I have come to believe that the whole world is an enigma, a harmless enigma that is made terrible by our own mad attempt to interpret it as though it had an underlying truth.
In order to be irreplaceable one must always be different.
Physicists like to think that all you have to do is say, these are the conditions, now what happens next?
Doubting God's existence is okay and perfectly acceptable within Christianity as long as the person doubting remains obedient and committed to the Christian path.
One of the indictments of civilizations is that happiness and intelligence are so rarely found in the same person.
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.
To have doubted one's own first principles is the mark of a civilized man.
An author spends months writing a book, and maybe puts his heart's blood into it, and then it lies about unread till the reader has nothing else in the world to do.
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.
Until you've lost your reputation, you never realize what a burden it was.
What we do for ourselves dies with us. What we do for others and the world remains and is immortal.
Hope is necessary in every condition.
What luck for rulers that men do not think.
A man travels the world over in search of what he needs and returns home to find it.
Part of being sane, is being a little bit crazy.
How little a thing can make us happy when we feel that we have earned it.
Man is asked to make of himself what he is supposed to become to fulfill his destiny.
It is how people respond to stress that determines whether they will profit from misfortune or be miserable.
I get up every morning determined to both change the world and have one hell of a good time. Sometimes this makes planning my day difficult.
I like an escalator because an escalator can never break, it can only become stairs. There would never be an escalator temporarily out of order sign, only an escalator temporarily stairs. Sorry for the convenience.
A loud voice cannot compete with a clear voice, even if it's a whisper.
War is not its own end, except in some catastrophic slide into absolute damnation. It's peace that's wanted. Some better peace than the one you started with.
The town where I grew up has a zip code of E-I-E-I-O.
I have learned that to be with those I like is enough.
I never teach my pupils. I only attempt to provide the conditions in which they can learn.
Reality continues to ruin my life.
Under all speech that is good for anything there lies a silence that is better. Silence is deep as Eternity; speech is shallow as Time.
Everybody hates me because I'm so universally liked.
The greatest conflicts are not between two people but between one person and himself.
Women who seek to be equal with men lack ambition.
Insist on yourself; never imitate... Every great man is unique.
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.
A man who thinks he has a higher purpose can do terrible things, even to those he professes to love.
Well, if crime fighters fight crime and fire fighters fight fire, what do freedom fighters fight? They never mention that part to us, do they?
The true meaning of religion is thus not simply morality, but morality touched by emotion.
Because I have loved life, I shall have no sorrow to die.
We live in an age when unnecessary things are our only necessities.
I am going to concentrate on what's important in life. I'm going to strive everyday to be a kind and generous and loving person. I'm going to keep death right here, so that anytime I even think about getting angry at you or anybody else, I'll see death and I'll remember.
Each body has its art...
My passions were all gathered together like fingers that made a fist. Drive is considered aggression today; I knew it then as purpose.
It is never too late to give up our prejudices.
There's only so much you can do, but if somebody doesn't give you a chance there is nothing you can do.
My whole career can be summed up with 'Ignorance is bliss.' When you do not know better, you do not really worry about failing.
Literature is news that stays news.
Listening, not imitation, may be the sincerest form of flattery.
If you bow at all, bow low.
Respect a man, he will do the more.
Above all things, never be afraid. The enemy who forces you to retreat is himself afraid of you at that very moment.
The universe is not hostile, nor yet is it friendly. It is simply indifferent.
Advertising is a valuable economic factor because it is the cheapest way of selling goods, particularly if the goods are worthless.
Any ordinary favor we do for someone or any compassionate reaching out may seem to be going nowhere at first, but may be planting a seed we can't see right now. Sometimes we need to just do the best we can and then trust in an unfolding we can't design or ordain.
If you are distressed by anything external, the pain is not due to the thing itself, but to your estimate of it; and this you have the power to revoke at any moment.
When a friend is in trouble, don't annoy him by asking if there is any thing you can do. Think up something appropriate and do it.
The only thing worse than a man you can't control is a man you can.
Treat all disasters as if they were trivialities but never treat a triviality as if it were a disaster.
Hitch your wagon to a star.
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.
Take calculated risks. That is quite different from being rash.
Life is a great big canvas; throw all the paint on it you can.
My method is to take the utmost trouble to find the right thing to say, and then to say it with the utmost levity.
Who begins too much accomplishes little.
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.
It's sad when our daddies die. Makes us one less person inside.
It is impossible to enjoy idling thoroughly unless one has plenty of work to do.
Art is science made clear.
It's not enough to create magic. You have to create a price for magic, too. You have to create rules.
There is no greater joy nor greater reward than to make a fundamental difference in someone's life.
Sometimes when you look in his eyes you get the feeling that someone else is driving.
An intelligence test sometimes shows a man how smart he would have been not to have taken it.
Every time you don't follow your inner guidance, you feel a loss of energy, loss of power, a sense of spiritual deadness.
The bird of paradise alights only upon the hand that does not grasp.
The ancient Greek definition of happiness was the full use of your powers along lines of excellence.
They always talk who never think.
Anyone who goes to a psychiatrist ought to have his head examined.
It is by acts and not by ideas that people live.
Newspapermen learn to call a murderer 'an alleged murderer' and the King of England 'the alleged King of England' to avoid libel suits.
Silence propagates itself, and the longer talk has been suspended, the more difficult it is to find anything to say.
For to be free is not merely to cast off one's chains, but to live in a way that respects and enhances the freedom of others.
We are most alive when we're in love.
Really listening and suspending one's own judgment is necessary in order to understand other people on their own terms... This is a process that requires trust and builds trust.
As I was walking up the stair  I met a man who wasn't there.  He wasn't there again today.  I wish, I wish he'd stay away.
Genuine goodness is threatening to those at the opposite end of the moral spectrum.
Seek ye first the good things of the mind, and the rest will either be supplied or its loss will not be felt.
I cannot call to mind a single instance where I have ever been irreverent, except toward the things which were sacred to other people.
If your parents never had children, chances are you won't, either.
Imagination is more important than knowledge...
If nobody spoke unless he had something to say, the human race would very soon lose the use of speech.
A simple enough pleasure, surely, to have breakfast alone with one's husband, but how seldom married people in the midst of life achieve it.
The direct use of force is such a poor solution to any problem, it is generally employed only by small children and large nations.
Blaze with the fire that is never extinguished.
More often than not, a hero’s most epic battle is the one you never see; it’s the battle that goes on within him or herself.
Physicists like to think that all you have to do is say, these are the conditions, now what happens next?
Use what you have to run toward your best - that's how I now live my life.
It is a sign of a creeping inner death when we no longer can praise the living.
Critics search for ages for the wrong word, which, to give them credit, they eventually find.
Each person has an ideal, a hope, a dream which represents the soul. We must give to it the warmth of love, the light of understanding and the essence of encouragement.
Life is something that happens when you can't get to sleep.
The beginning is always today.
When a thing is done, it's done. Don't look back. Look forward to your next objective.
He can make me love something just by showing me the energy with which he loves it.
Girls are always running through my mind. They don't dare walk.
Man's main task in life is to give birth to himself, to become what he potentially is.
Love doesn't just sit there, like a stone; it has to be made, like bread, remade all the time, made new.
Americans are benevolently ignorant about Canada, while Canadians are malevolently well informed about the United States.
There are many who dare not kill themselves for fear of what the neighbors will say.
Plans are only good intentions unless they immediately degenerate into hard work.
Let the fear of danger be a spur to prevent it; he that fears not, gives advantage to the danger.
Life is full of obstacle illusions.
There's an old saying about those who forget history. I don't remember it, but it's good.
When we die, no one remembers us for what we weighed. Our weight isn't etched into our headstones.
We are continually faced with a series of great opportunities brilliantly disguised as insoluble problems.
It is hard to fight an enemy who has outposts in your head.
To avoid criticism do nothing, say nothing, be nothing.
Always do right. This will gratify some people and astonish the rest.
A technical objection is the first refuge of a scoundrel.
Good manners are just a way of showing other people that we have respect for them.
Know, first, who you are; and then adorn yourself accordingly.
On my income tax 1040 it says 'Check this box if you are blind.' I wanted to put a check mark about three inches away.
If your success is not on your own terms, if it looks good to the world but does not feel good in your heart, it is not success at all.
Every man is the builder of a temple called his body.
To find fulfillment...don't exist with life - embrace it.
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.
Don't ever confuse the two, your life and your work. That's what I have to say. The second is only a part of the first.
If you tell the truth you don't have to remember anything.
I have learned that to be with those I like is enough.
Tact is the knack of making a point without making an enemy.
Be careful that victories do not carry the seed of future defeats.
There is no trade or employment but the young man following it may become a hero.
It is true that I was born in Iowa, but I can't speak for my twin sister.
There are no wise few. Every aristocracy that has ever existed has behaved, in all essential points, exactly like a small mob.
To say the least, a town life makes one more tolerant and liberal in one's judgement of others.
Try to love someone who you want to hate, because they are just like you, somewhere inside, in a way you may never expect, in a way that resounds so deeply within you that you cannot believe it.
Sometimes the cure for restlessness is rest.
The trouble with having an open mind, of course, is that people will insist on coming along and trying to put things in it.
Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself.
Remember, that if thou marry for beauty, thou bindest thyself all thy life for that which perchance will neither last nor please thee one year; and when thou hast it, it will be to thee of no price at all; for the desire dieth when it is attained, and the affection perisheth when it is satisfied.
A person's abilities are tested best when defending rather than attacking.
The power of hiding ourselves from one another is mercifully given, for men are wild beasts, and would devour one another but for this protection.
When your work speaks for itself, don't interrupt.
A bank is a place that will lend you money if you can prove that you don't need it.
I can't listen to that much Wagner. I start getting the urge to conquer Poland.
Life does not cease to be funny when people die any more than it ceases to be serious when people laugh.
Being in politics is like being a football coach. You have to be smart enough to understand the game, and dumb enough to think it's important.
One's real life is often the life that one does not lead.
I write entirely to find out what I'm thinking, what I'm looking at, what I see and what it means. What I want and what I fear.
There's something almost perfect in the ugly duckling syndrome. Because a sensitivity is tattooed on a part of you no one else can see but can somehow guess is there.
When everyone is somebody, then no one's anybody.
Who you are moment to moment is just a story.
Happiness is always a by-product. It is probably a matter of temperament, and for anything I know it may be glandular. But it is not something that can be demanded from life, and if you are not happy you had better stop worrying about it and see what treasures you can pluck from your own brand of unhappiness.
It's just a ride and we can change it any time we want. It's only a choice. No effort, no work, no job, no savings and money, a choice, right now, between fear and love. The eyes of fear want you to put bigger locks on your door, buy guns, close yourself off. The eyes of love instead see all of us as one.
Understand that the right to choose your own path is a sacred privilege. Use it. Dwell in possiblity.
If you think you can win, you can win. Faith is necessary to victory.
Anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job.
The great thing about getting older is that you don't lose all the other ages you've been.
It's wonderful what we can do if we're always doing.
The golden moments in the stream of life rush past us and we see nothing but sand; the angels come to visit us, and we only know them when they are gone.
Americans are benevolently ignorant about Canada, while Canadians are malevolently well informed about the United States.
[M]aybe the most any of us can expect of ourselves isn't perfection but progress.
There are only two kinds of scholars; those who love ideas and those who hate them.
Never think that you're not good enough yourself. A man should never think that. People will take you very much at your own reckoning.
When we are angry or depressed in our creativity, we have misplaced our power. We have allowed someone else to determine our worth, and then we are angry at being undervalued.
As I get older, I've learned to listen to people rather than accuse them of things.
When I was a kid my parents moved a lot, but I always found them.
Fidelity to commitment in the face of doubts and fears is a very spiritual thing.
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.
Maybe our mistakes are what make our fate. Without them, what would shape our lives? Perhaps, if we never veered off course, we wouldn't fall in love or have babies or be who we are.
Who begins too much accomplishes little.
With every experience, you alone are painting your own canvas, thought by thought, choice by choice.
I am not young enough to know everything.
Life is far too important a thing ever to talk seriously about.
There are two kinds of men who never amount to much: those who cannot do what they are told and those who can do nothing else.
Only if we understand can we care. Only if we care will we help. Only if we help shall they be saved.
Part of being a Master is learning how to sing in nobody else's voice but your own.
There is no doubt that the first requirement for a composer is to be dead.
If you believe everything you read, better not read.
Reading this book is like waiting for the first shoe to drop.
The golden rule is that there are no golden rules.
There are only two kinds of scholars; those who love ideas and those who hate them.
The more you find out about the world, the more opportunities there are to laugh at it.
Everybody tells jokes, but we still need comedians.
In battling evil, excess is good; for he who is moderate in announcing the truth is presenting half-truth. He conceals the other half out of fear of the people's wrath.
Before I got married I had six theories about bringing up children; now I have six children and no theories.
Any community's arm of force - military, police, security - needs people in it who can do necessary evil, and yet not be made evil by it. To do only the necessary and no more. To constantly question the assumptions, to stop the slide into atrocity.
Let us make a special effort to stop communicating with each other, so we can have some conversation.
The human race is faced with a cruel choice: work or daytime television.
You can only be young once. But you can always be immature.
Everyone's a hero in their own way, in their own not that heroic way.
Of all afflictions, the worst is self-contempt.
Millions of words are written annually purporting to tell how to beat the races, whereas the best possible advice on the subject is found in the three monosyllables: 'Do not try.'
Sometimes when you innovate, you make mistakes. It is best to admit them quickly, and get on with improving your other innovations.
You sort of start thinking anything's possible if you've got enough nerve.
A stupid man's report of what a clever man says can never be accurate, because he unconsciously translates what he hears into something he can understand.
Everything is funny as long as it is happening to Somebody Else.
The whole point of being alive is to evolve into the complete person you were intended to be.
The older I grow, the less important the comma becomes. Let the reader catch his own breath.
You will do foolish things, but do them with enthusiasm.
Where is there dignity unless there is honesty?
It is very strange that the years teach us patience - that the shorter our time, the greater our capacity for waiting.
Some weasel took the cork out of my lunch.
I don't care what it is, when it has an LCD screen, it makes it better.
The truth is rarely pure and never simple.
There is a lot more to life than just struggling to make money.
A musicologist is a man who can read music but can't hear it.
Once the game is over, the King and the pawn go back in the same box.
My wife's jealousy is getting ridiculous. The other day she looked at my calendar and wanted to know who May was.
The highest reward for man's toil is not what he gets for it, but what he becomes by it.
If you tell the truth you don't have to remember anything.
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.
I don't mind what Congress does, as long as they don't do it in the streets and frighten the horses.
Nothing inspires forgiveness quite like revenge.
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.
Instant gratification takes too long.
Treat your friends as you do your pictures, and place them in their best light.
Glory is fleeting, but obscurity is forever.
An expert is a person who has made all the mistakes that can be made in a very narrow field.
How do you tell a communist? Well, it's someone who reads Marx and Lenin. And how do you tell an anti-Communist? It's someone who understands Marx and Lenin.
All God does is watch us and kill us when we get boring. We must never, ever be boring.
Passion is seldom the end of any story, for it cannot long endure if it is not soon supplemented with true affection and mutual respect.
The trouble with the rat race is that even if you win, you're still a rat.
One cannot find peace in work or in pleasure, in the world or in a convent, but only in one's soul.
The average person thinks he isn't.
If the wind will not serve, take to the oars.
I despise the pleasure of pleasing people that I despise.
Say all you have to say in the fewest possible words, or your reader will be sure to skip them; and in the plainest possible words or he will certainly misunderstand them.
May your walls know joy; May every room hold laughter and every window open to great possibility.
Whenever it is in any way possible, every boy and girl should choose as his life work some occupation which he should like to do anyhow, even if he did not need the money.
Remove every barrier you can to fandom. A fan will be an evangelist for your work.
Aristotle maintained that women have fewer teeth than men; although he was twice married, it never occurred to him to verify this statement by examining his wives' mouths.
Anarchism is founded on the observation that since few men are wise enough to rule themselves, even fewer are wise enough to rule others.
If I make a record I love, then somebody will like it. Maybe not everybody, but that won't matter.
I can't complain, but sometimes I still do.
We can lick gravity, but sometimes the paperwork is overwhelming.
Drive-in banks were established so most of the cars today could see their real owners.
One of the joys we have in being human is in exercising our freedom to choose and to take each case as it comes to us. We are not robots who are forced into behaviors by their programming. We see things; we think about things; and we choose our course of action or beliefs appropriately. And as long as that remains true of us, we will live every day of our lives on one slippery slope or another. There is no reason to fear this.
The future is here. It's just not widely distributed yet.
Some days you're a bug, some days you're a windshield.
We think having faith means being convinced God exists in the same way we are convinced a chair exists. People who cannot be completely convinced of God’s existence think faith is impossible for them. Not so. People who doubt can have great faith because faith is something you do, not something you think. In fact, the greater your doubt the more heroic your faith.
Government is too big and too important to be left to the politicians.
A country can be judged by the quality of its proverbs.
We've always been here and we'll always be here. We are a specific arrangement of particles and this instant is infinite. Did we luck out, or didn't we? The odds against this sentence having ever being typed, much less the odds against you reading it were inconceivable. Smile, because the fact that you're able to is almost impossible to comprehend.
The hardest thing to learn in life is which bridge to cross and which to burn.
Every time you suppress some part of yourself or allow others to play you small, you are in essence ignoring the owner's manual your creator gave you and destroying your design.
Eccentricity is not, as dull people would have us believe, a form of madness. It is often a kind of innocent pride, and the man of genius and the aristocrat are frequently regarded as eccentrics because genius and aristocrat are entirely unafraid of and uninfluenced by the opinions and vagaries of the crowd.
The reward of a thing well done is to have done it.
Hindsight is always twenty-twenty.
Live in such a way that you would not be ashamed to sell your parrot to the town gossip.
It's not what you want in this life, it's what you get that you have to do with.
The minute you settle for less than you deserve, you get even less than you settled for.
Comedy is simply a funny way of being serious.
Old age is the most unexpected of things that can happen to a man.
Those who believe in telekinetics, raise my hand
To be willing to die for an idea is to set a rather high price on conjecture.
I love being a writer. What I can't stand is the paperwork.
I say luck is when an opportunity comes along, and you're prepared for it.
It is better to be quotable than to be honest.
Nothing in life is to be feared, it is only to be understood. Now is the time to understand more, so that we may fear less.
Do not smoke without asking permission or sit so near (as in a train) that the smoke might annoy.
I'm tired of all this nonsense about beauty being only skin-deep. That's deep enough. What do you want, an adorable pancreas?
Many a small thing has been made large by the right kind of advertising.
Men who are unhappy, like men who sleep badly, are always proud of the fact.
In mathematics you don't understand things. You just get used to them.
What's the use of worrying? It never was worthwhile.
Be wise with speed . A fool at forty is a fool indeed.
Everything happens to everybody sooner or later if there is time enough.
There's only one way to have a happy marriage and as soon as I learn what it is I'll get married again.
Publishers are just middlemen. That's all. If artists could remember that more often, they'd save themselves a lot of aggrevation.
The trouble with fighting for human freedom is that one spends most of one's time defending scoundrels. For it is against scoundrels that oppressive laws are first aimed, and oppression must be stopped at the beginning if it is to be stopped at all.
What music is more enchanting than the voices of young people, when you can't hear what they say?
Let us take things as we find them: let us not attempt to distort them into what they are not. We cannot make facts. All our wishing cannot change them. We must use them.
Maturity is only a short break in adolescence.
When she stopped conforming to the conventional picture of femininity she finally began to enjoy being a woman.
The mellow sweetness of pumpkin pie off a prison spoon is something you will never forget.
I feel very strongly that change is good because it stirs up the system.
The safest way to double your money is to fold it over and put it in your pocket.
Life loves to be taken by the lapel and told, 'I'm with you kid. Let's go.'
Learn to see in another's calamity the ills which you should avoid.
The reason there is so little crime in Germany is that it's against the law.
God give me strength to face a fact though it slay me.
Oil prices have fallen lately. We include this news for the benefit of gas stations, which otherwise wouldn't learn of it for six months.
We act as though comfort and luxury were the chief requirements of life, when all that we need to make us happy is something to be enthusiastic about.
The remarkable thing about Shakespeare is that he really is very good, in spite of all the people who say he is very good.
I am not young enough to know everything.
The men the American public admire most extravagantly are the most daring liars; the men they detest most violently are those who try to tell them the truth.
Man invented language to satisfy his deep need to complain.
When I am abroad, I always make it a rule never to criticize or attack the government of my own country. I make up for lost time when I come home.
Democracy is a device that ensures we shall be governed no better than we deserve.
The only true happiness comes from squandering ourselves for a purpose.
There is always some madness in love. But there is also always some reason in madness.
Traffic signals in New York are just rough guidelines.
Victory attained by violence is tantamount to a defeat, for it is momentary.
The time to stop talking is when the other person nods his head affirmatively but says nothing.
If you wish success in life, make perseverance your bosom friend, experience your wise counselor, caution your elder brother and hope your guardian genius.
When a person can no longer laugh at himself, it is time for others to laugh at him.
With a stop light, green means 'go' and yellow means 'slow down'. With a banana, however, it is quite the opposite. Yellow means 'go', green means 'whoa, slow down', and red means 'where the heck did you get that banana?'
If you can find something everyone agrees on, it's wrong.
If we have learned one thing from the history of invention and discovery, it is that, in the long run - and often in the short one - the most daring prophecies seem laughably conservative.
You're never too old to become younger.
I owe my success to having listened respectfully to the very best advice, and then going away and doing the exact opposite.
Comedy is nothing more than tragedy deferred.
There is always more misery among the lower classes than there is humanity in the higher.
To have that sense of one's intrinsic worth... is potentially to have everything...
When a friend is in trouble, don't annoy him by asking if there is any thing you can do. Think up something appropriate and do it.
Die? I should say not, dear fellow. No Barrymore would allow such a conventional thing to happen to him.
Always acknowledge a fault. This will throw those in authority off their guard and give you an opportunity to commit more.
My bounce-around life had taught me that dreams were dangerous things - they look solid in your mind, but you just try to reach for them. It's like gathering clouds.
Anxiety is the dizziness of freedom.
If all the year were playing holidays; To sport would be as tedious as to work.
To believe is to know you believe, and to know you believe is not to believe.
Statistician: A man who believes figures don't lie, but admits that under analysis some of them won't stand up either.
Guard well within yourself that treasure, kindness. Know how to give without hesitation, how to lose without regret, how to acquire without meanness.
A committee can make a decision that is dumber than any of its members.
You've got to take the bitter with the sour.
Health food makes me sick.
There are no whole truths; all truths are half- truths. It is trying to treat them as whole truths that plays the devil.
In politics you must always keep running with the pack. The moment that you falter and they sense that you are injured, the rest will turn on you like wolves.
That would be a good thing for them to cut on my tombstone: Wherever she went, including here, it was against her better judgment.
There is no pleasure in having nothing to do; the fun is in having lots to do and not doing it.
Nothing ever goes away.
In times like these, it helps to recall that there have always been times like these.
While the fates permit, live happily; life speeds on with hurried step, and with winged days the wheel of the headlong year is turned.
Suppose you were an idiot and suppose you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself.
If the facts don't fit the theory, change the facts.
We would accomplish many more things if we did not think of them as impossible.
If at first you don't succeed, failure may be your style.
When you are eight years old, nothing is any of your business.
Sometimes love will pick you up by the short hairs...and jerk the heck out of you.
I don't want any yes-men around me. I want everybody to tell me the truth even if it costs them their jobs.
It is only an auctioneer who can equally and impartially admire all schools of art.
The excellence of a gift lies in its appropriateness rather than in its value.
The reward of one duty is the power to fulfill another.
When buying and selling are controlled by legislation, the first things to be bought and sold are legislators.
Your life story would not make a good book. Don't even try.
I have been thinking that I would make a proposition to my Republican friends... that if they will stop telling lies about the Democrats, we will stop telling the truth about them.
The reason there are two senators for each state is so that one can be the designated driver.
Education is a state-controlled manufactory of echoes.
When I am abroad, I always make it a rule never to criticize or attack the government of my own country. I make up for lost time when I come home.
Don't let it end like this. Tell them I said something.
Don't think there are no crocodiles because the water is calm.
It's not true that life is one damn thing after another; it is one damn thing over and over.
The computer is a moron.
A lie told often enough becomes the truth.
This is the best kind of voyeurism, hearing joy from your neighbors.
You Europeans know nothing about America. Because we amass large fortunes you think we care for nothing but money. We are nothing for it; the moment we have it we spend it, sometimes well, sometimes ill, but we spend it. Money is nothing to us; it's merely the symbol of success. We are the greatest idealists in the world; I happen to think that we've set our ideal on the wrong objects; I happen to think that the greatest ideal man can set before himself is self-perfection.
I believe that professional wrestling is clean and everything else in the world is fixed.
The physician can bury his mistakes, but the architect can only advise his client to plant vines - so they should go as far as possible from home to build their first buildings.
Soar, eat ether, see what has never been seen; depart, be lost, but climb.
Complain to one who can help you.
The worst moment for the atheist is when he is really thankful and has nobody to thank.
Never tell anyone that you're writing a book, going on a diet, exercising, taking a course, or quitting smoking. They'll encourage you to death.
To get something done, a committee should consist of no more than three men, two of whom are absent.
The Romans would never have found time to conquer the world if they had been obliged first to learn Latin.
Always do right. This will gratify some people and astonish the rest.
I've always thought that a big laugh is a really loud noise from the soul saying, "Ain't that the truth."
Create a definite plan for carrying out your desire and begin at once, whether you are ready or not, to put this plan into action.
Everything that is really great and inspiring is created by the individual who can labor in freedom.
If you don't know where you are going, any road will take you there.
Never give advice unless asked.
There are times when parenthood seems nothing but feeding the mouth that bites you.
The world is not yet exhaused; let me see something tomorrow which I never saw before.
I don't mind what Congress does, as long as they don't do it in the streets and frighten the horses.
Cats are intended to teach us that not everything in nature has a function.
Such is the irresistible nature of truth that all it asks, and all it wants, is the liberty of appearing.
We judge ourselves by what we feel capable of doing, while others judge us by what we have already done.
Hearing voices no one else can hear isn't a good sign, even in the wizarding world.
Turn the world over on its side and everything loose will land in Los Angeles.
Acceptance is not submission; it is acknowledgment of the facts of a situation. Then deciding what you're going to do about it.
The words 'I am...' are potent words; be careful what you hitch them to. The thing you're claiming has a way of reaching back and claiming you.
He talked with more claret than clarity.
If you explore beneath shyness or party chit-chat, you can sometimes turn a dull exchange into an intriguing one. I've found this to be particularly true in the case of professors or intellectuals, who are full of fascinating information, but need encouragement before they'll divulge it.
To have that sense of one's intrinsic worth... is potentially to have everything...
The government's view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it.
A kleptomaniac is a person who helps himself because he can't help himself.
Some people have so much respect for their superiors they have none left for themselves.
My wife and I were happy for twenty years. Then we met.
I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work.
Bite off more than you can chew, then chew it. Plan more than you can do, then do it.
I never did give them hell. I just told the truth, and they thought it was hell.
It's just a ride and we can change it any time we want. It's only a choice. No effort, no work, no job, no savings and money, a choice, right now, between fear and love. The eyes of fear want you to put bigger locks on your door, buy guns, close yourself off. The eyes of love instead see all of us as one.
There is but one temple in the universe and that is the body of man.
Today's scientists have substituted mathematics for experiments, and they wander off through equation after equation, and eventually build a structure which has no relation to reality.
You can only perceive real beauty in a person as they get older.
I pack my trunk, embrace my friends, embark on the sea, and at last wake up in Naples, and there beside me is the Stern Fact, the Sad Self, unrelenting, identical, that I fled from.
If they give you ruled paper, write the other way.
Most of you have been where I am tonight. The crash site of unrequited love. You ask yourself, How did I get here? What was it about? Was it her smile? Was it the way she crossed her legs, the turn of her ankle, the poignant vulnerability of her slender wrists? What are these elusive and ephemeral things that ignite passion in the human heart? That's an age-old question. It's perfect food for thought on a bright midsummer's night.
I never dared to be radical when young For fear it would make me conservative when old.
War is a beastly business, it is true, but one proof we are human is our ability to learn, even from it, how better to exist.
Our heroes are people and people are flawed. Don't let that taint the thing you love.
We make a living by what we get, we make a life by what we give.
Food is an important part of a balanced diet.
I bought a cactus. A week later it died. And I got depressed, because I thought, Damn. I am less nurturing than a desert.
The future is much like the present, only longer.
You cannot slander human nature; it is worse than words can paint it.
Obviously crime pays, or there'd be no crime.
Thanks to TV and for the convenience of TV, you can only be one of two kinds of human beings, either a liberal or a conservative.
Traditions are the guideposts driven deep in our subconscious minds. The most powerful ones are those we can't even describe, aren't even aware of.
Chase after truth like hell and you'll free yourself, even though you never touch its coat-tails.
Military intelligence is a contradiction in terms.
In the business world, the rearview mirror is always clearer than the windshield.
You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you can not fool all of the people all of the time.
You don't have to die in order to make a living.
I cannot and will not cut my conscience to fit this year's fashions.
I know not, sir, whether Bacon wrote the works of Shakespeare, but if he did not it seems to me that he missed the opportunity of his life.
The only thing I was fit for was to be a writer, and this notion rested solely on my suspicion that I would never be fit for real work, and that writing didn't require any.
There are three rules for writing the novel. Unfortunately, no one knows what they are.
To have doubted one's own first principles is the mark of a civilized man.
I can think of nothing less pleasurable than a life devoted to pleasure.
My heart, which is so full to overflowing, has often been solaced and refreshed by music when sick and weary.
'Whom are you?' he asked, for he had attended business college.
I have learned not to worry about love; but to honor its coming with all my heart.
Biography lends to death a new terror.
I have very strong feelings about how you lead your life. You always look ahead, you never look back.
My definition of an expert in any field is a person who knows enough about what's really going on to be scared.
Speak when you are angry--and you will make the best speech you'll ever regret.
How my achievements mock me!
An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile, hoping it will eat him last.
We live in a time of transition, an uneasy era which is likely to endure for the rest of this century. During the period we may be tempted to abandon some of the time-honored principles and commitments which have been proven during the difficult times of past generations. We must never yield to this temptation. Our American values are not luxuries, but necessities - not the salt in our bread, but the bread itself.
Friends may come and go, but enemies accumulate.
Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is I don't know which half.
Experience is a good teacher, but she send in terrific bills.
A country can be judged by the quality of its proverbs.
Silence is more musical than any song.
When Alexander the Great visited Diogenes and asked whether he could do anything for the famed teacher, Diogenes replied: 'Only stand out of my light.' Perhaps some day we shall know how to heighten creativity. Until then, one of the best things we can do for creative men and women is to stand out of their light.
I once said cynically of a politician, 'He'll doublecross that bridge when he comes to it.'
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.
I feel about airplanes the way I feel about diets. It seems to me they are wonderful things for other people to go on.
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.
We cannot control the evil tongues of others; but a good life enables us to disregard them.
One man's folly is another man's wife.
Perhaps better we not obscure the idea that happiness and misery, kindness and greed, and good works and bad deeds are within the capacities of us all, not merely a select few.
Good teaching is one-fourth preparation and three-fourths theater.
The habit of giving only enhances the desire to give.
Look wise, say nothing, and grunt. Speech was given to conceal thought.
The sad truth is that excellence makes people nervous.
There is always so much talk about the sins of the fathers, but it is the sins of the mothers that are the most difficult to avoid repeating.
If the English language made any sense, a catastrophe would be an apostrophe with fur.
There's new energy to harness, new jobs to be created, new schools to build, and threats to meet, alliances to repair. The road ahead will be long. Our climb will be steep. We may not get there in one year or even in one term. But, America, I have never been more hopeful than I am tonight that we will get there. I promise you, we as a people will get there. There will be setbacks and false starts. There are many who won't agree with every decision or policy I make as president. And we know the government can't solve every problem. But I will always be honest with you about the challenges we face. I will listen to you, especially when we disagree. And, above all, I will ask you to join in the work of remaking this nation, the only way it's been done in America for 221 years — block by block, brick by brick, calloused hand by calloused hand.
It is the wretchedness of being rich that you have to live with rich people.
I never guess. It is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data. Insensibly one begins to twist facts to suit theories, instead of theories to suit facts.
The great thing about democracy is that it gives every voter a chance to do something stupid.
Now I know what a statesman is; he's a dead politician. We need more statesmen.
I must take issue with the term 'a mere child,' for it has been my invariable experience that the company of a mere child is infinitely preferable to that of a mere adult.
Talking much about oneself can also be a means to conceal oneself.
The great thing about television is that if something important happens anywhere in the world, day or night, you can always change the channel.
Management is nothing more than motivating other people.
By desiring little, a poor man makes himself rich.
Today is the day in which to express your noblest qualities of mind and heart, to do at least one worthy thing which you have long postponed.
I've grown certain that the root of all fear is that we've been forced to deny who we are.
Don't accept rides from strange men, and remember that all men are strange.
I'm never going to be famous. My name will never be writ large on the roster of Those Who Do Things. I don't do any thing. Not one single thing. I used to bite my nails, but I don't even do that any more.
Aristotle maintained that women have fewer teeth than men; although he was twice married, it never occurred to him to verify this statement by examining his wives' mouths.
I am so beautiful, sometimes people weep when they see me. And it has nothing to do with what I look like really, it is just that I gave myself the power to say that I am beautiful, and if I could do that, maybe there is hope for them too. And the great divide between the beautiful and the ugly will cease to be. Because we are all what we choose.
[Water is] the only drink for a wise man.
I guess sometimes you have to lie to find the truth.
The creator of the universe works in mysterious ways. But he uses a base ten counting system and likes round numbers.
What if this weren't a hypothetical question?
I don't know half of you half as well as I should like; and I like less than half of you half as well as you deserve.
The direct use of force is such a poor solution to any problem, it is generally employed only by small children and large nations.
He had learned over the years that poor people did not feel so poor when allowed to give occasionally.
I want freedom for the full expression of my personality.
Illusion is the first of all pleasures.
Genius is of no country.
There it was, hidden in alphabetical order.
In every American there is an air of incorrigible innocence, which seems to conceal a diabolical cunning.
He who builds a better mousetrap these days runs into material shortages, patent-infringement suits, work stoppages, collusive bidding, discount discrimination--and taxes."
Truth is the only safe ground to stand on.
To be alone is to be different, to be different is to be alone.
Nothing can be so amusingly arrogant as a young man who has just discovered an old idea and thinks it is his own.
Knowledge is of two kinds. We know a subject ourselves, or we know where we can find information on it.
We know what happens to people who stay in the middle of the road. They get run over.
Reading well is one of the great pleasures that solitude can afford you.
If you are a dog and your owner suggests that you wear a sweater, suggest that he wear a tail.
Every individual matters. Every individual has a role to play. Every individual makes a difference.
There are several good protections against temptations, but the surest is cowardice.
I enjoy being a highly overpaid actor.
Humility is no substitute for a good personality.
What a beautiful, sunny morning. It makes you happy to be alive, doesn't it? We can't let the sun outshine us! We have to beam, too!
Curiosity killed the cat, but for a while I was a suspect.
Whatever you are, be a good one.
When you have got an elephant by the hind leg, and he is trying to run away, it's best to let him run.
Sometimes the laughter in mothering is the recognition of the ironies and absurdities. Sometime, though, it's just pure, unthinking delight.
A good man would prefer to be defeated than to defeat injustice by evil means.
Thought is only a flash between two long nights, but this flash is everything.
So if it seems that some of what I'll have to say in the pages to come doesn't reflect the mellowing of age, that's only because I've never found that life and memories respond to time the way that tobacco does.
Count Hermann Keyserling once said truly that the greatest American superstition was belief in facts.
Until you walk a mile in another man's moccasins you can't imagine the smell.
Innovation distinguishes between a leader and a follower.
An opinion should be the result of thought, not a substitute for it.
Every man is the architect of his own fortune.
We lie the loudest when we lie to ourselves.
Many people despise wealth, but few know how to give it away.
Education is a state-controlled manufactory of echoes.
The only thing I like about rich people is their money.
All great truths begin as blasphemies.
He who hesitates is not only lost, but miles from the next exit.
For the night was not impartial. No, the night loved some more than others, served some more than others.
Don't bother just to be better than your contemporaries or predecessors. Try to be better than yourself.
Good judgement comes from experience. Experience comes from bad judgement.
Careful. We don't want to learn from this.
An effective way to deal with predators is to taste terrible.
Music has charms to soothe the savage breast  To soften rocks, or bend a knotted oak.
You are built not to shrink down to less but to blossom into more.
You can talk about anything if you go about it the right way, which is never malicious.
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.
One's dignity may be assaulted, vandalized and cruelly mocked, but cannot be taken away unless it is surrendered.
One of the best rules in conversation is, never to say a thing which any of the company can reasonably wish had been left unsaid.
Television enables you to be entertained in your home by people you wouldn't have in your home.
Everywhere is walking distance if you have the time.
Some days you're a bug, some days you're a windshield.
A true man never frets about his place in the world, but just slides into it by the gravitation of his nature, and swings there as easily as a star.
It is not a bad idea to get in the habit of writing down one's thoughts. It saves one having to bother anyone else with them.
One cannot find peace in work or in pleasure, in the world or in a convent, but only in one's soul.
Man's main task is to give birth to himself.
[S]he refused to be bored chiefly because she wasn’t boring.
I guess sometimes you have to lie to find the truth.
Any great truth can -- and eventually will -- be expressed as a cliche -- a cliche is a sure and certain way to dilute an idea. For instance, my grandmother used to say, 'The black cat is always the last one off the fence.' I have no idea what she meant, but at one time, it was undoubtedly true.
He that climbs the tall tree has won right to the fruit.
I've never known any trouble that an hour's reading didn't assuage.
I was so naive as a kid I used to sneak behind the barn and do nothing.
Turns out if you never lie, there's always someone mad at you.
In the field of observation, chance favors only the prepared mind.
Desire is the most important factor in the success of any athlete.
I'd give my right arm to be ambidextrous.
A handful of patience is worth more than a bushel of brains.
Being in politics is like being a football coach. You have to be smart enough to understand the game, and dumb enough to think it's important.
Life is nothing but a competition to be the criminal rather than the victim.
What music is more enchanting than the voices of young people, when you can't hear what they say?
Each individual woman's body demands to be accepted on its own terms.
Love is the triumph of imagination over intelligence.
This art of resting the mind and the power of dismissing from it all care and worry is probably one of the secrets of energy in our great men.
Joy is prayer - Joy is strength - Joy is love - Joy is a net of love by which you can catch souls.
I write entirely to find out what I'm thinking, what I'm looking at, what I see and what it means. What I want and what I fear.
There is no end to the adventures that we can have if only we seek them with our eyes open.
That man is the richest whose pleasures are the cheapest.
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.
Keep your broken arm inside your sleeve.
If you aspire to the highest place, it is no disgrace to stop at the second, or even the third, place.
Some of the worst mistakes of my life have been haircuts.
Never tell a man you can read him through and through; most people prefer to be thought enigmas.
The secret of eternal youth is arrested development.
He knows all about art, but he doesn't know what he likes.
Humanity is acquiring all the right technology for all the wrong reasons.
Next in importance to freedom and justice is popular education, without which neither freedom nor justice can be permanently maintained.
The universe may have a purpose, but nothing we know suggests that, if so, this purpose has any similarity to ours.
Even if you do learn to speak correct English, whom are you going to speak it to?
Most people are good. They may not be saints, but they are good.
The louder he talked of his honor, the faster we counted our spoons.
Let us make a special effort to stop communicating with each other, so we can have some conversation.
A desk is a dangerous place from which to watch the world.
You do your best work if you do a job that makes you happy.
A good listener is not only popular everywhere, but after a while he gets to know something.
Never give a party if you will be the most interesting person there.
Discovery consists of seeing what everybody has seen and thinking what nobody has thought.
You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you can not fool all of the people all of the time.
Education is what survives when what has been learned has been forgotten.
If an idea's worth having once, it's worth having twice.
Summer afternoon - Summer afternoon... the two most beautiful words in the English language.
Follow the path of the unsafe, independent thinker. Expose your ideas to the dangers of controversy. Speak your mind and fear less the label of 'crackpot' than the stigma of conformity. And on issues that seem important to you, stand up and be counted at any cost.
It's easier to put on slippers than to carpet the whole world.
If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him.
Whatever you fear most has no power - it is your fear that has the power.
Discovery consists of seeing what everybody has seen and thinking what nobody has thought.
If you want your life to be more rewarding, you have to change the way you think.
I have often wished I had time to cultivate modesty... But I am too busy thinking about myself.
Ambition is a poor excuse for not having sense enough to be lazy.
If you have a talent, use it in every which way possible. Don't hoard it. Don't dole it out like a miser. Spend it lavishly like a millionaire intent on going broke.
Inside myself is a place where I live all alone and that's where you renew your springs that never dry up.
Economics is extremely useful as a form of employment for economists.
Nothing travels faster than the speed of light with the possible exception of bad news, which obeys its own special laws.
You begin saving the world by saving one man at a time; all else is grandiose romanticism or politics.
It is a profitable thing, if one is wise, to seem foolish.
All that counts in life is intention.
The nice thing about standards is that there are so many of them to choose from.
Income tax returns are the most imaginative fiction being written today.
Quotation, n: The act of repeating erroneously the words of another.
Traditions are group efforts to keep the unexpected from happening.
Being in politics is like being a football coach. You have to be smart enough to understand the game, and dumb enough to think it's important.
The marvel of all history is the patience with which men and women submit to burdens unnecessarily laid upon them by their governments.
Be sure that it is not you that is mortal, but only your body. For that man whom your outward form reveals is not yourself; the spirit is the true self, not that physical figure which and be pointed out by your finger.
The world is full of people whose notion of a satisfactory future is, in fact, a return to the idealised past.
Only passions, great passions, can elevate the soul to great things.
The penalty for laughing in a courtroom is six months in jail; if it were not for this penalty, the jury would never hear the evidence.
The law is not so much carved in stone as it is written in water, flowing in and out with the tide.
You cannot live a perfect day without doing something for someone who will never be able to repay you.
Only the mediocre are always at their best.
Given a choice between two theories, take the one which is funnier.
If winning isn't everything, why do they keep score?
Feeling gratitude and not expressing it is like wrapping a present and not giving it.
I don't know why we are here, but I'm pretty sure that it is not in order to enjoy ourselves.
The fascination of shooting as a sport depends almost wholly on whether you are at the right or wrong end of the gun.
The second half of a man's life is made up of nothing but the habits he has acquired during the first half.
Play: Work that you enjoy doing for nothing.
It is well to give when asked but it is better to give unasked, through understanding.
We can't all be heroes because somebody has to sit on the curb and clap as they go by.
Man is born a predestined idealist, for he is born to act. To act is to affirm the worth of an end, and to persist in affirming the worth of an end is to make an ideal.
Nobody outside of a baby carriage or a judge's chamber believes in an unprejudiced point of view.
Pick battles big enough to matter, small enough to win.
Politicians are the same all over. They promise to build a bridge even where there is no river.
Retirement at sixty-five is ridiculous. When I was sixty-five I still had pimples.
Paradise is exactly like where you are right now... only much, much better.
Facts are the enemy of truth.
Every decent man is ashamed of the government he lives under.
The difference between the right word and the almost right word is the difference between lightning and a lightning bug.
Aristotle was famous for knowing everything. He taught that the brain exists merely to cool the blood and is not involved in the process of thinking. This is true only of certain persons.
I like an escalator because an escalator can never break, it can only become stairs. There would never be an escalator temporarily out of order sign, only an escalator temporarily stairs. Sorry for the convenience.
There is only one difference between a madman and me. I am not mad.
I got kicked out of ballet class because I pulled a groin muscle. It wasn't mine.
Let's assume that each person has an equal opportunity, not to become equal, but to become different. To realize whatever unique potential of body, mind and spirit he or she possesses.
The moment a little boy is concerned with which is a jay and which is a sparrow, he can no longer see the birds or hear them sing.
If you don't know to the second when a drunk's gonna vomit on you, you don't survive as a strip club bouncer.
I don't think anyone should write their autobiography until after they're dead.
In order for people to be happy, sometimes they have to take risks. It's true these risks can put them in danger of being hurt.
Today you can go to a gas station and find the cash register open and the toilets locked. They must think toilet paper is worth more than money.
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.
Many people would sooner die than think; In fact, they do so.
There is nobody so irritating as somebody with less intelligence and more sense than we have.
In love, one and one are one.
There are so many different ways lives work out, so many stories, and every one of them is precious: full of joy and heartbreak, and a fair amount of situation comedy.
A large income is the best recipe for happiness I ever heard of.
Underneath this flabby exterior is an enormous lack of character.
In terms of being late or not starting at all, then it's never too late.
There shall be eternal summer in the grateful heart.
Whatever you think, be sure it is what you think; whatever you want, be sure that is what you want; whatever you feel, be sure that is what you feel.
It could probably be shown by facts and figures that there is no distinctly American criminal class except Congress.
Memories can be sad, but sometimes they can also save you.
It took me fifteen years to discover that I had no talent for writing, but I couldn't give it up because by that time I was too famous.
Maps encourage boldness. They're like cryptic love letters. They make anything seem possible.
In all large corporations, there is a pervasive fear that someone, somewhere is having fun with a computer on company time. Networks help alleviate that fear.
We try to grab pieces of our lives as they speed past us. Photographs freeze those pieces and help us remember how we were. We don't know these lost people but if you look around, you'll find someone just like them.
Action is at bottom a swinging and flailing of the arms to regain one's balance and keep afloat.
You can't ever be really free if you admire somebody too much.
The greatest challenge to any thinker is stating the problem in a way that will allow a solution.
The average person thinks he isn't.
Beware when the great God lets loose a thinker on this planet.
Riches may enable us to confer favours, but to confer them with propriety and grace requires a something that riches cannot give.
Life is far too important a thing ever to talk seriously about.
You find yourself refreshed by the presence of cheerful people. Why not make an honest effort to confer that pleasure on others? Half the battle is gained if you never allow yourself to say anything gloomy.
Life is like an ever-shifting kaleidoscope - a slight change, and all patterns alter.
The future will be better tomorrow.
If life was fair, Elvis would be alive and all the impersonators would be dead.
The only limit to our realization of tomorrow will be our doubts of today.
Chase after truth like hell and you'll free yourself, even though you never touch its coat-tails.
We are always in search of the redeeming formula, the crystallizing thought.
If you don't know where you are going, any road will take you there.
Rock journalism is people who can't write interviewing people who can't talk for people who can't read.
Good food ends with good talk.
It is better to sleep on things beforehand than lie awake about them afterward.
Do not hire a man who does your work for money, but him who does it for love of it.
At least two-thirds of our miseries spring from human stupidity, human malice and those great motivators and justifiers of malice and stupidity: idealism, dogmatism and proselytizing zeal on behalf of religous or political ideas.
The greatest minds are capable of the greatest vices as well as of the greatest virtues.
If we are to learn to improve the quality of the decisions we make, we need to accept the mysterious nature of our snap judgments.
The architect should strive continually to simplify; the ensemble of the rooms should then be carefully considered that comfort and utility may go hand in hand with beauty.
To succeed in the world it is not enough to be stupid, you must also be well-mannered.
The smaller the mind the greater the conceit.
Never answer a critic, unless he's right.
Please write again soon. Though my own life is filled with activity, letters encourage momentary escape into others lives and I come back to my own with greater contentment.
Fight for your opinions, but do not believe that they contain the whole truth, or the only truth.
It's only after we've lost everything that we're free to do anything.
The time to stop talking is when the other person nods his head affirmatively but says nothing.
Real glory springs from the silent conquest of ourselves.
In a world where there is so much to be done. I felt strongly impressed that there must be something for me to do.
Laughter is an instant vacation.
The most likely way for the world to be destroyed, most experts agree, is by accident. That's where we come in; we're computer professionals. We cause accidents.
I detest life-insurance agents; they always argue that I shall some day die, which is not so.
You get fifteen democrats in a room, and you get twenty opinions.
Elections are won by men and women chiefly because most people vote against somebody rather than for somebody.
Pain makes man think. Thought makes man wise. Wisdom makes life endurable.
One thing you will probably remember well is any time you forgive and forget.
Winter is on my head, but eternal spring is in my heart.
In every aspect of our lives, we are always asking ourselves, How am I of value? What is my worth? Yet I believe that worthiness is our birthright.
You can pray for someone even if you don't think God exists.
A sailor without a destination cannot hope for a favorable wind.
If we can connect in some tiny way with a human that doesn't agree with us, then maybe we won't blow up the planet.
Devotees of grammatical studies have not been distinguished for any very remarkable felicities of expression.
Don't gamble; take all your savings and buy some good stock and hold it till it goes up, then sell it. If it don't go up, don't buy it.
Maybe I wanted to hear it so badly that my ears betrayed my mind in order to secure my heart.
Skill without imagination is craftsmanship and gives us many useful objects such as wickerwork picnic baskets. Imagination without skill gives us modern art.
It doesn't matter if people are interested. It's about you taking your stuff and shouting out into the void.
It's hard to take over the world when you sleep 20 hours a day.
The ultimate result of shielding men from the effects of folly is to fill the world with fools.
None are so busy as the fool and knave.
I believe that all government is evil, and that trying to improve it is largely a waste of time.
I do not know which makes a man more conservative—to know nothing but the present, or nothing but the past.
Skiing consists of wearing $3,000 worth of clothes and equipment and driving 200 miles in the snow in order to stand around at a bar and drink.
The only man who is really free is the one who can turn down an invitation to dinner without giving an excuse.
Most new books are forgotten within a year, especially by those who borrow them.
Oh, come on. If you can't laugh at the walking dead, who can you laugh at?
Forgiveness is the healing of wounds caused by another. You choose to let go of a past wrong and no longer be hurt by it. Forgiveness is a strong move to make, like turning your shoulders sideways to walk quickly on a crowded sidewalk. It's your move.
He knows all about art, but he doesn't know what he likes.
Be still when you have nothing to say; when genuine passion moves you, say what you've got to say, and say it hot.
If a thing isn't worth saying, you sing it.
Making duplicate copies and computer printouts of things no one wanted even one of in the first place is giving America a new sense of purpose.
We make a living by what we get, we make a life by what we give.
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.
You can have anything you want if you want it desperately enough. You must want it with an inner exuberance that erupts through the skin and joins the energy that created the world.
People find life entirely too time-consuming.
If you ever start feeling like you have the goofiest, craziest, most dysfunctional family in the world, all you have to do is go to a state fair. Because five minutes at the fair, you'll be going, 'you know, we're alright. We are dang near royalty.'
Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing ever happened.
Get not your friends by bare compliments, but by giving them sensible tokens of your love.
I think that when you invite people to your home, you invite them to yourself.
Man is only miserable so far as he thinks himself so.
There is always some madness in love. But there is also always some reason in madness.
It is only possible to live happily ever after on a day-to-day basis.
We think having faith means being convinced God exists in the same way we are convinced a chair exists. People who cannot be completely convinced of God’s existence think faith is impossible for them. Not so. People who doubt can have great faith because faith is something you do, not something you think. In fact, the greater your doubt the more heroic your faith.
I was thought to be 'stuck up.' I wasn't. I was just sure of myself. This is and always has been an unforgivable quality to the unsure.
It was a creed written into the founding documents that declared the destiny of a nation. Yes we can. It was whispered by slaves and abolitionists as they blazed a trail towards freedom through the darkest of nights. Yes we can. It was sung by immigrants as they struck out from distant shores and pioneers who pushed westward against an unforgiving wilderness. Yes we can.
It is far more impressive when others discover your good qualities without your help.
I've grown certain that the root of all fear is that we've been forced to deny who we are.
Music with dinner is an insult both to the cook and the violinist.
The rule is perfect: in all matters of opinion our adversaries are insane.
You can't make up anything anymore. The world itself is a satire. All you're doing is recording it.
'Wrong' is one of those concepts that depends on witnesses.
Any fool can make a rule, and any fool will mind it.
Very little is known of the Canadian country since it is rarely visited by anyone but the Queen and illiterate sport fishermen.
Whenever I hear anyone arguing for slavery, I feel a strong impulse to see it tried on him personally.
Whatever you are, be a good one.
You learn more quickly under the guidance of experienced teachers. You waste a lot of time going down blind alleys if you have no one to lead you.
The chief obstacle to the progress of the human race is the human race.
You can make more friends in two months by becoming interested in other people than you can in two years by trying to get other people interested in you.
Purchase not friends by gifts; when thou ceasest to give, such will cease to love.
I don't make jokes. I just watch the government and report the facts.
The most important work you and I will ever do will be within the walls of our own homes.
It is only prudent never to place complete confidence in that by which we have even once been deceived.
The human brain is unique in that it is the only container of which it can be said that the more you put into it, the more it will hold.
Of all afflictions, the worst is self-contempt.
Almost all absurdity of conduct arises from the imitation of those whom we cannot resemble.
The really potent part of love is that it allows you to carry around beliefs about yourself that make you feel special, desirable, precious, innately good. Your lover couldn't have seen [these qualities] in you, even temporarily, if they weren't part of your essential being.
We don't receive wisdom; we must discover it for ourselves after a journey that no one can take for us or spare us.
The safest way to double your money is to fold it over and put it in your pocket.
The desire to take medicine is perhaps the greatest feature which distinguishes man from animals.
Politicians should read science fiction, not westerns and detective stories.
I'm moving, but don't worry! [Someone once] told me we're all on the same planet, so I'll be okay!
I always like a good math solution to any love problem.
Far and away the best prize that life offers is the chance to work hard at work worth doing.
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.
If you do not tell the truth about yourself you cannot tell it about other people.
If you have made mistakes, even serious ones, there is always another chance for you. What we call failure is not the falling down but the staying down.
Be a fountain, not a drain.
So you see, imagination needs moodling - long, inefficient, happy idling, dawdling and puttering.
She wanted something to happen - something, anything: she did not know what.
The only rules comedy can tolerate are those of taste, and the only limitations those of libel.
Time has a wonderful way of showing us what really matters.
Exercise alone provides psychological and physical benefits. However, if you also adopt a strategy that engages your mind while you exercise, you can get a whole host of psychological benefits fairly quickly.
Sometimes the measure of friendship isn't your ability to not harm but your capacity to forgive the things done to you and ask forgiveness for your own mistakes.
If you have any doubts that we live in a society controlled by men, try reading down the index of contributors to a volume of quotations, looking for women's names.
That which has always been accepted by everyone, everywhere, is almost certain to be false.
Personally I'm always ready to learn, although I do not always like being taught.
The shortest verse in the Bible is 'Jesus wept.' The only thing wrong with it is the past tense.
Outer space is no place for a person of breeding.
Acquaintance, n.: A person whom we know well enough to borrow from, but not well enough to lend to.
Abortion is advocated only by persons who have themselves been born.
God creates men, but they choose each other.
The key to non-anxious sermon-writing is that it’s not about me. It’s about the congregation. I honor the fact that the listeners bring more to the sermon than I do. I remind myself of the hundreds of times someone says, 'I loved how you said…' and then tell me things that they heard that were nowhere in my text and that I never said. But they heard what they needed to hear.
Success is liking yourself, liking what you do, and liking how you do it.
We must use time as a tool, not as a crutch.
The wisdom of the wise, and the experience of ages, may be preserved by quotation.
Exercise relieves stress. Nothing relieves exercise.
But in the end one needs more courage to live than to kill himself.
People are more violently opposed to fur than leather because it's safer to harass rich women than motorcycle gangs.
Transported to a surreal landscape, a young girl kills the first woman she meets and then teams up with three complete strangers to kill again.
A perpetual holiday is a good working definition of hell.
Far and away the best prize that life offers is the chance to work hard at work worth doing.
Last night somebody broke into my apartment and replaced everything with exact duplicates... When I pointed it out to my roommate, he said, 'Do I know you?'
Enquire not what boils in another's pot.
Failure is not the only punishment for laziness; there is also the success of others.
The only good is knowledge and the only evil is ignorance.
You learn a lot about people when you play games with them.
When you write things down, they sometimes take you places you hadn't planned.
When I meet a man I ask myself, 'Is this the man I want my children to spend their weekends with?'
In the part of this universe that we know there is great injustice, and often the good suffer, and often the wicked prosper, and one hardly knows which of those is the more annoying.
For a list of all the ways technology has failed to improve the quality of life, please press three.
Insane people are always sure that they are fine. It is only the sane people who are willing to admit that they are crazy.
The secret of joy in work is contained in one word - excellence. To know how to do something well is to enjoy it.
Democracy is a process by which the people are free to choose the man who will get the blame.
Humans are the only animals that have children on purpose with the exception of guppies, who like to eat theirs.
It was enough to make a body ashamed of the human race.
[Spring is] when life's alive in everything.
Vigorous writing is concise.
Man is what he eats.
Communism is like one big phone company.
I used to dread getting older because I thought I would not be able to do all the things I wanted to do, but now that I am older I find that I don't want to do them.
If the fans don't wanna come out to the ballpark, no one can stop 'em.
Perfect as the wing of a bird may be, it will never enable the bird to fly if unsupported by the air. Facts are the air of science. Without them a man of science can never rise.
A successful marriage requires falling in love many times, always with the same person.
Be wiser than other people, if you can, but do not tell them so.
I bought some batteries, but they weren't included.
Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is I don't know which half.
As you journey through life take a minute every now and then to give a thought for the other fellow. He could be plotting something.
We lie the loudest when we lie to ourselves.
Of those who say nothing, few are silent.
The trouble with being punctual is that nobody's there to appreciate it.
A country can be judged by the quality of its proverbs.
I do not know which makes a man more conservative—to know nothing but the present, or nothing but the past.
The optimist proclaims that we live in the best of all possible worlds; and the pessimist fears this is true.
If you want to be free, there is but one way; it is to guarantee an equally full measure of liberty to all your neighbors. There is no other.
Every human being on this earth is born with a tragedy, and it isn't original sin. He's born with the tragedy that he has to grow up. That he has to leave the nest, the security, and go out to do battle. He has to lose everything that is lovely and fight for a new loveliness of his own making, and it's a tragedy. A lot of people don't have the courage to do it.
The deeper sorrow carves into your being the more joy you can contain.
[Memory is] a man's real possession...In nothing else is he rich, in nothing else is he poor.
Be faithful to that which exists nowhere but in yourself - and thus make yourself indispensable.
Regard your good name as the richest jewel you can possibly be possessed of - for credit is like fire; when once you have kindled it you may easily preserve it, but if you once extinguish it, you will find it an arduous task to rekindle it again. The way to gain a good reputation is to endeavor to be what you desire to appear.
We begin to see that the completion of an important project has every right to be dignified by a natural grieving process. Something that required the best of you has ended. You will miss it.
A lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes.
I'm not a vegetarian because I love animals. I'm a vegetarian because I hate plants.
Fervor is the weapon of choice for the impotent.
Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once he grows up.
Ethics are so annoying. I avoid them on principle.
The more you find out about the world, the more opportunities there are to laugh at it.
As long as you derive inner help and comfort from anything, keep it.
Poor is the man whose pleasures depend on the permission of another.
Evil when we are in its power is not felt as evil but as a necessity, or even a duty.
You can tell a lot about a fellow's character by his way of eating jellybeans.
I have a new philosophy. I'm only going to dread one day at a time.
God runs electromagnetics by wave theory on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, and the Devil runs them by quantum theory on Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday.
A committee is a cul-de-sac down which ideas are lured and then quietly strangled.
Among those whom I like or admire, I can find no common denominator, but among those whom I love, I can: all of them make me laugh.
If God had really intended men to fly, he'd make it easier to get to the airport.
My friend is one... who take me for what I am.
The only thing I like about rich people is their money.
Every time we remember to say "thank you," we experience nothing less than heaven on earth.
Say not, when I have leisure I will study; you may not have leisure.
Too much of a good thing is wonderful.
Politics is applesauce.
The time to stop talking is when the other person nods his head affirmatively but says nothing.
Art suffers the moment other people start paying for it. The more you need the money, the more people will tell you what to do. The less control you will have. The more bullshit you will have to swallow. The less joy it will bring. Know this and plan accordingly.
The enthusiasm of a woman's love is even beyond the biographer's.
Humans are the only animals that have children on purpose with the exception of guppies, who like to eat theirs.
Politics is the skilled use of blunt objects.
If I had my life to live over... I'd dare to make more mistakes next time.
To will is to select a goal, determine a course of action that will bring one to that goal, and then hold to that action till the goal is reached. The key is action.
If I knew I was going to live this long, I'd have taken better care of myself.
Remember when life's path is steep to keep your mind even.
Sometimes a slow gradual approach does more good than a large gesture.
One man's folly is another man's wife.
Einstein said God doesn't play dice with the universe, but I don't know--maybe not as a whole, but I think he gets a pretty big kick out of messing in peoples' back yards.
Do not be fooled into believing that because a man is rich he is necessarily smart. There is ample proof to the contrary.
I believe in getting into hot water; it keeps you clean.
One never notices what has been done; one can only see what remains to be done.
If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.
There is no silver bullet and frankly you probably don’t need one. It is far more important to be able to find the right kind of gun, be able to load the gun … and perhaps most importantly, be able to figure out where the werewolf is.
I say luck is when an opportunity comes along, and you're prepared for it.
I'm not afraid of facts, I welcome facts but a congeries of facts is not equivalent to an idea. This is the essential fallacy of the so-called "scientific" mind. People who mistake facts for ideas are incomplete thinkers; they are gossips.
The secret of joy in work is contained in one word - excellence. To know how to do something well is to enjoy it.
Truth is beautiful, without doubt; but so are lies.
The very first law in advertising is to avoid the concrete promise and cultivate the delightfully vague.
All things are difficult before they are easy.
In times like these, it helps to recall that there have always been times like these.
Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.
Acting is merely the art of keeping a large group of people from coughing.
Be not the first by whom the new are tried, Nor yet the last to lay the old aside.
[Medicine is] a collection of uncertain prescriptions the results of which, taken collectively, are more fatal than useful to mankind.
It's only after we've lost everything that we're free to do anything.
There is no difficulty that enough love will not conquer; no disease that enough love will not heal; no door that enough love will not open.
Learning to live in the present moment is part of the path of joy.
Great services are not canceled by one act or by one single error.
Nobody will ever win the Battle of the Sexes. There's just too much fraternizing with the enemy.
The effort to understand the universe is one of the very few things that lifts human life a little above the level of farce, and gives it some of the grace of tragedy.
Oh sleep! It is a gentle thing,  Beloved from pole to pole.
Every person takes the limits of their own field of vision for the limits of the world.
If you do not tell the truth about yourself you cannot tell it about other people.
Lying increases the creative faculties, expands the ego, and lessens the frictions of social contacts.
It is hard to believe that a man is telling the truth when you know that you would lie if you were in his place.
Television enables you to be entertained in your home by people you wouldn't have in your home.
Nobody can give you freedom. Nobody can give you equality or justice or anything. If you're a man, you take it.
I begin to think, that a calm is not desirable in any situation in life....Man was made for action and for bustle too, I believe.
Temptation rarely comes in working hours. It is in their leisure time that men are made or marred.
Good ideas alter the power balance in relationships, that is why good ideas are always initially resisted. Good ideas come with a heavy burden. Which is why so few people have them. So few people can handle it.
He may be mad, but there's method in his madness. There nearly always is method in madness. It's what drives men mad, being methodical.
Make your life a mission - not an intermission.
It's about what YOU are going to do with the short time you have left on this earth.
Suburbia is where the developer bulldozes out the trees, then names the streets after them.
One cannot conceive anything so strange and so implausible that it has not already been said by one philosopher or another.
If I make a record I love, then somebody will like it. Maybe not everybody, but that won't matter.
Death is a friend of ours; and he that is not ready to entertain him is not at home.
If you really want to do something, you do it. You don't save it for a sound bite.
Politics is perhaps the only profession for which no preparation is thought necessary.
I often quote myself. It adds spice to my conversation.
It is a fine thing to establish one's own religion in one's heart, not to be dependent on tradition and second-hand ideals. Life will seem to you, later, not a lesser, but a greater thing.
Ideals are like stars: you will not succeed in touching them with your hands, but like the seafaring man on the ocean desert of waters, you choose them as your guides, and following them, you reach your destiny.
Brass bands are all very well in their place - outdoors and several miles away.
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 you don't know what to do, call the media and at least give the appearance of doing something.
Everyone has a right to a university degree in America, even if it's in Hamburger Technology.
We read frequently if unknowingly, in quest of a mind more original than our own.
Traditions are group efforts to keep the unexpected from happening.
A little sincerity is a dangerous thing, and a great deal of it is absolutely fatal.
An idealist is one who, on noticing that a rose smells better than a cabbage, concludes that it will also make better soup.
Like so many Americans, she was trying to construct a life that made sense from things she found in gift shops.
I do not take a single newspaper, nor read one a month, and I feel myself infinitely the happier for it.
This is my answer to the gap between ideas and action - I will write it out.
I do not want people to be agreeable, as it saves me the trouble of liking them.
Some of the worst mistakes of my life have been haircuts.
There is only one real deprivation, I decided this morning, and that is not to be able to give one's gifts to those one loves most.
The world is full of willing people, some willing to work, the rest willing to let them.
Never try to reason the prejudice out of a man. It was not reasoned into him, and cannot be reasoned out.
Man's main task in life is to give birth to himself, to become what he potentially is.
When a thing ceases to be a subject of controversy, it ceases to be a subject of interest.
If I make a record I love, then somebody will like it. Maybe not everybody, but that won't matter.
I don't have a girlfriend. But I do know a woman who'd be mad at me for saying that.
You cannot go around and keep score. If you keep score on the good things and the bad things, you'll find out that you're a very miserable person. God gave man the ability to forget, which is one of the greatest attributes you have. Because if you remember everything that's happened to you, you generally remember that which is the most unfortunate.
A friend is a second self.
Angels dancing on the head of a pin dissolve into nothingness at the bedside of a dying child.
Some editors are failed writers, but so are most writers.
When you encounter seemingly good advice that contradicts other seemingly good advice, ignore them both.
I've never known any trouble that an hour's reading didn't assuage.
If God had wanted us to vote, he would have given us candidates.
The time you enjoy wasting is not wasted time.
Acceptance is not submission; it is acknowledgment of the facts of a situation. Then deciding what you're going to do about it.
Temptation rarely comes in working hours. It is in their leisure time that men are made or marred.
Human Dignity has gleamed only now and then and here and there, in lonely splendor, throughout the ages, a hope of the better men, never an achievement of the majority.
My one regret in life is that I am not someone else.
If something anticipated arrives too late it finds us numb, wrung out from waiting, and we feel - nothing at all. The best things arrive on time.
It's a poor sort of memory that only works backward.
When you helped somebody, right away you were responsible for that person. And things always followed for which you were never prepared.
There is no silver bullet and frankly you probably don’t need one. It is far more important to be able to find the right kind of gun, be able to load the gun … and perhaps most importantly, be able to figure out where the werewolf is.
Animals are such agreeable friends - they ask no questions, they pass no criticisms.
Read, every day, something no one else is reading. Think, every day, something no one else is thinking. Do, every day, something no one else would be silly enough to do. It is bad for the mind to be always part of unanimity.
Just to be is a blessing. Just to live is holy.
My theory is that if you look confident you can pull off anything - even if you have no clue what you're doing.
Self-reliance is the only road to true freedom, and being one's own person is its ultimate reward.
Make the most of yourself, for that is all there is of you.
Her virtue was that she said what she thought, her vice that what she thought didn't amount to much.
You can make those promises with just as much passion the second time around. Such is the regenerative power of the human heart.
The roots of true achievement lie in the will to become the best that you can become.
The future is uncertain... but this uncertainty is at the very heart of human creativity.
She had a pretty gift for quotation, which is a serviceable substitute for wit.
Just because something doesn't do what you planned it to do doesn't mean it's useless.
Money is the opposite of the weather. Nobody talks about it, but everybody does something about it.
Never fear the want of business. A man who qualifies himself well for his calling, never fails of employment.
Little by little, one travels far.
The real problem is not whether machines think but whether men do.
Flowers never emit so sweet and strong a fragrance as before a storm. When a storm approaches thee, be as fragrant as a sweet-smelling flower.
That's the key to having it all: stop expecting it to look like what you thought it was going to look like.
This time, like all times, is a very good one, if we but know what to do with it.
Some editors are failed writers, but so are most writers.
People who learn to control inner experience will be able to determine the quality of their lives, which is as close as any of us can come to being happy.
My theory is that if you look confident you can pull off anything - even if you have no clue what you're doing.
If we were to care about every person suffering on this planet, life would shut down.
Only exceptionally rational men can afford to be absurd.
Do not speak of repulsive matters at table.
Since we cannot know all that there is to be known about anything, we ought to know a little about everything.
Do not fear to be eccentric in opinion, for every opinion now accepted was once eccentric.
An ostentatious man will rather relate a blunder or an absurdity he has committed, than be debarred from talking of his own dear person.
Men are born to succeed, not fail.
A boy can learn a lot from a dog: obedience, loyalty, and the importance of turning around three times before lying down.
I find that a great part of the information I have was acquired by looking up something and finding something else on the way.
It is better wither to be silent, or to say things of more value than silence. Sooner throw a pearl at hazard than an idle or useless word; and do not say a little in many words, but a great deal in a few.
The noun of self becomes a verb. This flashpoint of creation in the present moment is where work and play merge.
When the politicians complain that TV turns the proceedings into a circus, it should be made clear that the circus was already there, and that TV has merely demonstrated that not all the performers are well trained.
Facts are facts and will not disappear on account of your likes.
Success only hurts the first time.
Underpromise; overdeliver.
We have all a better guide in ourselves, if we would attend to it, than any other person can be.
Bacchus hath drowned more men than Neptune.
People ask for criticism, but they only want praise.
You never know till you try to reach them how accessible men are; but you must approach each man by the right door.
I wanna hang a map of the world in my house. Then I'm gonna put pins into all the locations that I've traveled to. But first, I'm gonna have to travel to the top two corners of the map so it won't fall down.
The point of living and of being an optimist, is to be foolish enough to believe the best is yet to come.
Even the fear of death is nothing compared to the fear of not having lived authentically and fully.
Most men pursue pleasure with such breathless haste that they hurry past it.
You don't have to die in order to make a living.
A good friend can tell you what is the matter with you in a minute. He may not seem such a good friend after telling.
We all need to have a creative outlet - a window, a space - so we don't lose track of ourselves.
Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.
The main things which seem to me important on their own account, and not merely as means to other things, are knowledge, art, instinctive happiness, and relations of friendship or affection.
Do not be too moral. You may cheat yourself out of much life. Aim above morality. Be not simply good; be good for something.
Some people are born on third base and go through life thinking they hit a triple.
Pay no attention to what the critics say... Remember, a statue has never been set up in honor of a critic!
Anger as soon as fed is dead-  'Tis starving makes it fat.
None but a coward dares to boast that he has never known fear.
In those days spirits were brave, the stakes were high, men were real men, women were real women and small furry creatures from Alpha Centauri were real small furry creatures from Alpha Centauri.
It is only possible to live happily ever after on a day-to-day basis.
The greater the ignorance the greater the dogmatism.
An optimist is the human personification of spring.
A verbal contract isn't worth the paper it's written on.
Humor can be dissected as a frog can, but the thing dies in the process and the innards are discouraging to any but the pure scientific mind.
I find television very educating. Every time somebody turns on the set, I go into the other room and read a book.
I will follow the right side even to the fire, but excluding the fire if I can.
Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to a better understanding of ourselves.
The mystery of government is not how Washington works but how to make it stop.
Money's the same, whoever gives it to you. That was the point of money, after all: crisp and clean or wrinkled or disintegrated into quarters - a dollar was always worth a hundred cents.
Work is not always required... there is such a thing as sacred idleness, the cultivation of which is now fearfully neglected.
Politics is not the art of the possible. It consists in choosing between the disastrous and the unpalatable.
It is wise to apply the oil of refined politeness to the mechanisms of friendship.
Anonymity is the truest expression of altruism.
Generosity with strings is not generosity; It is a deal.
The body is shaped, disciplined, honored, and in time, trusted.
Remember that nobody will ever get ahead of you as long as he is kicking you in the seat of the pants.
And I loved the whole idea behind the story, which is that you're beautiful, so don't let other people tell you that you're not just because you don't look like the people in magazines. Or because you're not that weird ideal body image that's out there right now.
I finally figured out the only reason to be alive is to enjoy it.
Nobody has things just as he would like them. The thing to do is to make a success with what material I have. It is a sheer waste of time and soulpower to imagine what I would do if things were different. They are not different.
Real success is finding your lifework in the work that you love.
The best cure for worry, depression, melancholy, brooding, is to go deliberately forth and try to lift with one's sympathy the gloom of somebody else.
Everyone is born with genius, but most people only keep it a few minutes.
Cats regard people as warmblooded furniture.
What is the use of a house if you haven't got a tolerable planet to put it on?
If I had to live my life again, I'd make the same mistakes, only sooner.
How hard it is, sometimes, to trust the evidence of one's senses! How reluctantly the mind consents to reality.
You create your opportunities by asking for them.
It is a fine thing to establish one's own religion in one's heart, not to be dependent on tradition and second-hand ideals. Life will seem to you, later, not a lesser, but a greater thing.
Most of the time I don't have much fun. The rest of the time I don't have any fun at all.
Silly is you in a natural state, and serious is something you have to do until you can get silly again.
Here's a tip to avoid death by celebrity: First off, get a life. They can't touch you if you're out doing something interesting.
I feel about airplanes the way I feel about diets. It seems to me they are wonderful things for other people to go on.
It is a common delusion that you make things better by talking about them.
Too many people think only of their own profit. But business opportunity seldom knocks on the door of self-centered people. No customer ever goes to a store merely to please the storekeeper.
There's no easy way out. If there were, I would have bought it. And believe me, it would be one of my favorite things!
Nothing endures but personal qualities.
Invention is the mother of necessity.
Perhaps in time the so-called Dark Ages will be thought of as including our own.
My life is the story of a man who always wants to carry too much. My spiritual quest is the painful process of learning to let go of things not essential.
I don't have a bank account, because I don't know my mother's maiden name.
I think it's the duty of the comedian to find out where the line is drawn and cross it deliberately.
Fortune can, for her pleasure, fools advance,  And toss them on the wheels of Chance.
Truth is the only safe ground to stand on.
Worries go down better with soup than without.
Unfortunately sometimes one can't do what one thinks is right without making someone else unhappy.
When you get right down to it, what we all need is a place to go... A place where we can escape the noise of our lives and just relax.
Life engenders life. Energy creates energy. It is by spending oneself that one becomes rich.
Dance is the hidden language of the soul.
The only thing that saves us from the bureaucracy is inefficiency. An efficient bureaucracy is the greatest threat to liberty.
That's the key to having it all: stop expecting it to look like what you thought it was going to look like.
You can tell the ideals of a nation by its advertisements.
Thanks to TV and for the convenience of TV, you can only be one of two kinds of human beings, either a liberal or a conservative.
Peace of mind is that mental condition in which you have accepted the worst.
I gotta work out. I keep saying it all the time. I keep saying I gotta start working out. It's been about two months since I've worked out. And I just don't have the time. Which uh..is odd. Because I have the time to go out to dinner. And uh..and watch tv. And get a bone density test. And uh.. try to figure out what my phone number spells in words.
Faith is taking the first step, even when you don't see the whole staircase.
I think people don't place a high enough value on how much they are nurtured by doing whatever it is that totally absorbs them.
This is one of those views which are so absolutely absurd that only very learned men could possibly adopt them.
As scarce as truth is, the supply has always been in excess of the demand.
Happiness is not achieved by the conscious pursuit of happiness; it is generally the by-product of other activities.
What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly.
It is only an auctioneer who can equally and impartially admire all schools of art.
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.
When you are in any contest you should work as if there were - to the very last minute - a chance to lose it.
People who are always making allowances for themselves soon go bankrupt.
If you live long enough, the venerability factor creeps in; first, you get accused of things you never did, and later, credited for virtues you never had.
I was born not knowing and have had only a little time to change that here and there.
I believe that [everyone] is the keeper of a dream - and by tuning into one another's secret hopes, we can become better friends, better partners, better parents, and better lovers.
Take away the miseries and you take away some folks' reason for living.
I've always thought that a big laugh is a really loud noise from the soul saying, "Ain't that the truth."
Learn to see in another's calamity the ills which you should avoid.
A man should not leave this earth with unfinished business. He should live each day as if it was a pre-flight check. He should ask each morning, am I prepared to lift-off?
Try not to become a man of success but rather to become a man of value.
There is only one you... Don't you dare change just because you're outnumbered!
The test of courage comes when we are in the minority. The test of tolerance comes when we are in the majority.
Humor is also a way of saying something serious.
Acting is the most minor of gifts and not a very high-class way to earn a living. After all, Shirley Temple could do it at the age of four.
Acceptance without proof is the fundamental characteristic of Western religion, rejection without proof is the fundamental characteristic of Western science.
Adversity does teach who your real friends are.
It is hard to fight an enemy who has outposts in your head.
All God does is watch us and kill us when we get boring. We must never, ever be boring.
Vote early and vote often.
I grow more intense as I age.
Don't discuss yourself, for you are bound to lose; if you belittle yourself, you are believed; if you praise yourself, you are disbelieved.
All I can say about life is, Oh God, enjoy it!
Get the facts, or the facts will get you. And when you get them, get them right, or they will get you wrong.
Life loves to be taken by the lapel and told, 'I'm with you kid. Let's go.'
I have seen a peaceful expression turn to anger as fast as a whip cracks, and so the look on the face might mean less than what it seems to be.
One man alone can be pretty dumb sometimes, but for real bona fide stupidity, there ain't nothin' can beat teamwork.
Genius is one percent inspiration, ninety-nine percent perspiration.
I think I should have no other mortal wants, if I could always have plenty of music. It seems to infuse strength into my limbs and ideas into my brain. Life seems to go on without effort, when I am filled with music.
Age is no guarantee of maturity.
Cherish your own emotions and never undervalue them.
If there is no God, who pops up the next Kleenex?
You must not think me necessarily foolish because I am facetious, nor will I consider you necessarily wise because you are grave.
Fashion is something that goes in one year and out the other.
I'm going to a special place when I die, but I want to make sure my life is special while I'm here.
Sometimes when you look back on a situation, you realize it wasn't all you thought it was. A beautiful girl walked into your life. You fell in love. Or did you? Maybe it was only a childish infatuation, or maybe just a brief moment of vanity.
The wit makes fun of other persons; the satirist makes fun of the world; the humorist makes fun of himself.
The human heart is a strange vessel. Love and hatred can exist side by side.
A hat should be taken off when you greet a lady and left off for the rest of your life. Nothing looks more stupid than a hat.
Prefer loss to the wealth of dishonest gain; the former vexes you for a time; the latter will bring you lasting remorse.
Think like a man of action, act like a man of thought.
Intimacy is being seen and known as the person you truly are.
It is our responsibilities, not ourselves, that we should take seriously.
Much talking is the cause of danger. Silence is the means of avoiding misfortune. The talkative parrot is shut up in a cage. Other birds, without speech, fly freely about.
You always second guess yourself. Just think of all the time you'd save if you just trusted yourself.
Life is like an ever-shifting kaleidoscope - a slight change, and all patterns alter.
If I have lost confidence in myself, I have the universe against me.
My life is the story of a man who always wants to carry too much. My spiritual quest is the painful process of learning to let go of things not essential.
When I was a boy I was told that anybody could become President. Now I'm beginning to believe it.
I'm not going to quit. Why should I quit? This country is worth fighting for.
Liberty means responsibility. That is why most men dread it.
It was beautiful and simple, as truly great swindles are.
[Television is] the triumph of machine over people.
I am not afraid of the pen, or the scaffold, or the sword. I will tell the truth wherever I please.
The first rule of life is to reveal nothing, to be exceptionally cautious in what you say, in whatever company you may find yourself. If you have a secret, you have only to whisper it to your dearest friend with the strictest injunction that it will go no further, and within half a day the story is all over town, and when you do make what would seem to be a perfectly sensible remark, you will find it reported in the most grotesque form, thus incurring no end of criticism to rebound upon you.
For what do we live, but to make sport for our neighbours, and laugh at them in our turn?
In case you're worried about what's going to become of the younger generation, it's going to grow up and start worrying about the younger generation.
If you have made mistakes, even serious ones, there is always another chance for you. What we call failure is not the falling down but the staying down.
Just to be is a blessing. Just to live is holy.
'Tis an ill wind that blows no minds.
Don't ever take a fence down until you know the reason it was put up.
The right to be heard does not automatically include the right to be taken seriously.
Chase after truth like hell and you'll free yourself, even though you never touch its coat-tails.
I am among those who think that science has great beauty. A scientist in his laboratory is not only a technician: he is also a child placed before natural phenomena which impress him like a fairy tale.
In the end, everything is a gag.
Beware the pull on your heartstrings -- it's often the pursestrings that are actually being reached for.
The universe may have a purpose, but nothing we know suggests that, if so, this purpose has any similarity to ours.
You must dare to disassociate yourself from those who would delay your journey... Leave, depart, if not physically, then mentally. Go your own way, quietly, undramatically, and venture toward trueness at last.
Unquestionably, there is progress. The average American now pays out twice as much in taxes as he formerly got in wages.
It is better to offer no excuse than a bad one.
Remember when life's path is steep to keep your mind even.
He deserves Paradise who makes his companions laugh.
Advertising is a valuable economic factor because it is the cheapest way of selling goods, particularly if the goods are worthless.
Why does the Air Force need expensive new bombers? Have the people we've been bombing over the years been complaining?
One cannot fix one's eyes on the commonest natural production without finding food for a rambling fancy.
Though it sounds absurd, it is true to say I felt younger at sixty than I felt at twenty.
The world is governed more by appearances than realities, so that it is fully as necessary to seem to know something as to know it.
A compliment is a gift, not to be thrown away carelessly, unless you want to hurt the giver.
I row after health like a waterman...
The nice thing about being a celebrity is that when you bore people, they think it's their fault.
Just to be is a blessing. Just to live is holy.
The best way to keep one's word is not to give it.
One doesn't discover new lands without consenting to lose sight of the shore for a very long time.
Calamities are of two kinds: misfortunes to ourselves, and good fortune to others.
They say that God is everywhere, and yet we always think of Him as somewhat of a recluse.
How beggarly appear arguments before a defiant deed!
Red meat is NOT bad for you. Now blue-green meat, THAT'S bad for you!
Behind every great fortune there is a crime.
Givers have to set limits because takers rarely do.
Laughter is by definition healthy.
Do not judge men by mere appearances; for the light laughter that bubbles on the lip often mantles over the depths of sadness, and the serious look may be the sober veil that covers a divine peace and joy.
People are more violently opposed to fur than leather because it's safer to harass rich women than motorcycle gangs.
We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful what we pretend to be.
When we are angry or depressed in our creativity, we have misplaced our power. We have allowed someone else to determine our worth, and then we are angry at being undervalued.
While grief is fresh, every attempt to divert only irritates. You must wait till it be digested, and then amusement will dissipate the remains of it.
Love is not blind - it sees more, not less. But because it sees more, it is willing to see less.
You don't need fancy highbrow traditions or money to really learn. You just need people with the desire to better themselves.
In the beginning there was nothing. God said, 'Let there be light!' And there was light. There was still nothing, but you could see it a whole lot better.
I never saw an ugly thing in my life: for let the form of an object be what it may - light, shade, and perspective will always make it beautiful.
You can cover a great deal of country in books.
He is one of those people who would be enormously improved by death.
For you to be successful, sacrifices must be made. It's better that they are made by others but failing that, you'll have to make them yourself.
Do not spoil what you have by desiring what you have not; but remember that what you now have was once among the things you only hoped for.
Facing a mirror you see merely your own countenance; facing your child you finally understand how everyone else has seen you.
Use your enemy's hand to catch a snake.
Love is an exploding cigar we willingly smoke.
I looked always outside of myself to see what I could make the world give me instead of looking within myself to see what was there.
Thirty-five is a very attractive age. London society is full of women of the very highest birth who have, of their own free choice, remained thirty-five for years.
In science, 'fact' can only mean 'confirmed to such a degree that it would be perverse to withhold provisional assent.' I suppose that apples might start to rise tomorrow, but the possibility does not merit equal time in physics classrooms.
Courage is the price that Life exacts for granting peace.
It's just human. We all have the jungle inside of us. We all have wants and needs and desires, strange as they may seem. If you stop to think about it, we're all pretty creative, cooking up all these fantasies. it's like a kind of poetry.
You couldn't be that good and not know it, somewhere in your secret heart, however much you'd been abused into affecting public humility.
Moral indignation is jealousy with a halo.
Go after a man's weakness, and never, ever, threaten unless you're going to follow through, because if you don't, the next time you won't be taken seriously.
People will buy anything that is one to a customer.
Only the curious will learn and only the resolute overcome the obstacles to learning. The quest quotient has always excited me more than the intelligence quotient.
The man who has nothing to boast of but his illustrious ancestry is like the potato - the best part under ground.
My work is a game, a very serious game.
As I was walking up the stair  I met a man who wasn't there.  He wasn't there again today.  I wish, I wish he'd stay away.
The incognito of lower class employment is an effective cloak for any dagger one might wish to hide.
The only thing I was fit for was to be a writer, and this notion rested solely on my suspicion that I would never be fit for real work, and that writing didn't require any.
Arranging a bowl of flowers in the morning can give a sense of quiet in a crowded day - like writing a poem, or saying a prayer.
Last night I stayed up late playing poker with Tarot cards. I got a full house and four people died.
When you appeal to force, there's one thing you must never do - lose.
We can have facts without thinking but we cannot have thinking without facts.
What happens when the future has come and gone?
Ability will never catch up with the demand for it.
While the fates permit, live happily; life speeds on with hurried step, and with winged days the wheel of the headlong year is turned.
My home is not a place, it is people.
I am where I am because I believe in all possibilities.
If little else, the brain is an educational toy.
Affirmations are like prescriptions for certain aspects of yourself you want to change.
Electricity is actually made up of extremely tiny particles called electrons, that you cannot see with the naked eye unless you have been drinking.
I have an existential map. It has 'You are here' written all over it.
We know what we are, but know not what we may be.
I must take issue with the term 'a mere child,' for it has been my invariable experience that the company of a mere child is infinitely preferable to that of a mere adult.
I grow more intense as I age.
The bravest thing you can do when you are not brave is to profess courage and act accordingly.
I have the heart of a child. I keep it in a jar on my shelf.
The greatest mistake is trying to be more agreeable than you can be.
We can lick gravity, but sometimes the paperwork is overwhelming.
The man who insists on seeing with perfect clearness before he decides, never decides.
The man who has confidence in himself gains the confidence of others.
It has all been very interesting.
The strongest possible piece of advice I would give any young woman is: Don't screw around, and don't smoke.
If we have learned one thing from the history of invention and discovery, it is that, in the long run - and often in the short one - the most daring prophecies seem laughably conservative.
The universe may have a purpose, but nothing we know suggests that, if so, this purpose has any similarity to ours.
To the soul, there is hardly anything more healing than friendship.
We are born charming, fresh and spontaneous and must be civilized before we are fit to participate in society.
The easiest thing in the world to be is you. The most difficult thing to be is what other people want you to be. Don't let them put you in that position.
Honesty is the only way with anyone, when you'll be so close as to be living inside each other's skins.
Experience is that marvelous thing that enables you to recognize a mistake when you make it again.
It is when power is wedded to chronic fear that it becomes formidable.
There is always more misery among the lower classes than there is humanity in the higher.
I want to find a voracious, small-minded predator and name it after the IRS.
I'd give my right arm to be ambidextrous.
They were so strong in their beliefs that there came a time when it hardly mattered what exactly those beliefs were; they all fused into a single stubbornness.
I have too much respect for the idea of God to make it responsible for such an absurd world.
Oh, darling, let your body in, let it tie you in, in comfort.
A sense of humor is part of the art of leadership, of getting along with people, of getting things done.
Be sure that it is not you that is mortal, but only your body. For that man whom your outward form reveals is not yourself; the spirit is the true self, not that physical figure which and be pointed out by your finger.
And that's the world in a nutshell, an appropriate receptacle.
Nobody speaks the truth when there's something they must have.
You can't say that civilization don't advance, however, for in every war they kill you in a new way.
Be open to your dreams, people. Embrace that distant shore. Because our mortal journey is over all too soon.
The intermediate stage between socialism and capitalism is alcoholism.
Sometimes the measure of friendship isn't your ability to not harm but your capacity to forgive the things done to you and ask forgiveness for your own mistakes.
The possession of unlimited power will make a despot of almost any man. There is a possible Nero in the gentlest human creature that walks.
Good food ends with good talk.
You miss 100 percent of the shots you never take.
Mediocrity knows nothing higher than itself, but talent instantly recognizes genius.
Tradition is a guide and not a jailer.
Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius -- and a lot of courage -- to move in the opposite direction.
A person is always startled when he hears himself seriously called an old man for the first time.
Nothing succeeds like the appearance of success.
Nothing is particularly hard if you divide it into small jobs.
Do not think of knocking out another person's brains because he differs in opinion from you. It would be as rational to knock yourself on the head because you differ from yourself ten years ago.
The reward of a thing well done is to have done it.
The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents.
The best defense against the atom bomb is not to be there when it goes off.
Young is the one that plunges in the future and never looks back.
Bear in mind that you should conduct yourself in life as at a feast.
If we take care of the moments, the years will take care of themselves.
The shortest verse in the Bible is 'Jesus wept.' The only thing wrong with it is the past tense.
I cannot and will not cut my conscience to fit this year's fashions.
Writers should be read, but neither seen nor heard.
Mistakes are the portals of discovery.
I am determined that my children shall be brought up in their father's religion, if they can find out what it is.
To follow, without halt, one aim: There's the secret of success.
Some think it's holding on that makes one strong; sometimes it's letting go.
When the gods wish to punish us, they answer our prayers.
Make visible what, without you, might perhaps never have been seen.
Only solitary men know the full joys of frienship. Others have their family; but to a solitary and an exile, his friends are everything.
Be very circumspect in the choice of thy company. In the society of thine equals thou shalt enjoy more pleasure; in the society of thy superiors thou shalt find more profit. To be the best in the company is the way to grow worse.
It is folly to punish your neighbor by fire when you live next door.
The creative person basically has two kinds of jobs: One is the sexy, creative kind. Second is the kind that pays the bills. Sometimes the task in hand covers both bases, but not often. This tense duality will always play center stage. It will never be transcended.
People say to me so often, 'Jane how can you be so peaceful when everywhere around you people want books signed, people are asking these questions and yet you seem peaceful,' and I always answer that it is the peace of the forest that I carry inside.
My education was dismal. I went to a series of schools for mentally disturbed teachers.
The happiest excitement in life is to be convinced that one is fighting for all one is worth on behalf of some clearly seen and deeply felt good.
Keeping score of old scores and scars, getting even and one-upping, always make you less than you are.
The most important thing in life is to see to it that you are never beaten.
They sicken of the calm, who knew the storm.
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.
One thing you will probably remember well is any time you forgive and forget.
What may be done at any time will be done at no time.
You miss 100 percent of the shots you never take.
The secret of all success is to know how to deny yourself. Prove that you can control yourself, and you are an educated man; and without this all other education is good for nothing.
The physician can bury his mistakes, but the architect can only advise his client to plant vines - so they should go as far as possible from home to build their first buildings.
We bear the world and we make it... There was never a great man who had not a great mother - it is hardly an exaggeration.
The only joy in the world is to begin.
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.
When I only begin to read, I forget I'm on this world. It lifts me on wings with high thoughts.
Rudeness is the weak man's imitation of strength.
What is written without effort is in general read without pleasure.
It is true that I was born in Iowa, but I can't speak for my twin sister.
Life is something that everyone should try at least once.
My Karma ran over your dogma.
He played the king as if afraid someone else would play the ace.
You see, wire telegraph is a kind of a very, very long cat. You pull his tail in New York and his head is meowing in Los Angeles. Do you understand this? And radio operates exactly the same way: you send signals here, they receive them there. The only difference is that there is no cat.
Give me the luxuries of life and I will willingly do without the necessities.
The customer doesn't expect everything will go right all the time; the big test is what you do when things go wrong.
My wife and I were happy for twenty years. Then we met.
The thing that I'm always left with is this overwhelming desire for people to be rooted and the only way that they feel rooted is through another person.
Events in the past may be roughly divided into those which probably never happened and those which do not matter.
Any man whose errors take ten years to correct is quite a man.
Slight not what's near, while aiming at what's far.
One of the hardest tasks of leadership is understanding that you are not what you are, but what you're perceived to be by others.
None are so busy as the fool and knave.
You sort of start thinking anything's possible if you've got enough nerve.
Leadership is based on inspiration, not domination; on cooperation, not intimidation.
Truth indeed rather alleviates than hurts, and will always bear up against falsehood, as oil does above water.
To wear your heart on your sleeve isn't a very good plan; you should wear it inside, where it functions best.
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.
The universe may have a purpose, but nothing we know suggests that, if so, this purpose has any similarity to ours.
As I know more of mankind I expect less of them, and am ready now to call a man a good man upon easier terms than I was formerly.
Be courteous to all, but intimate with few, and let those few be well tried before you give them your confidence. True friendship is a plant of slow growth, and must undergo and withstand the shocks of adversity before it is entitled to the appellation.
Acceptance is not submission; it is acknowledgment of the facts of a situation. Then deciding what you're going to do about it.
Change, when it comes, cracks everything open.
There is no shortage of good days. It is good lives that are hard to come by.
The important thing is not to stop questioning.
Trust yourself. Think for yourself. Act for yourself. Speak for yourself. Be yourself. Imitation is suicide.
Do you realize if it weren't for Edison we'd be watching TV by candlelight?
If winning isn't everything, why do they keep score?
The more you find out about the world, the more opportunities there are to laugh at it.
To achieve great things we must live as though we were never going to die.
A celebrity is a person who works hard all his life to become well known, then wears dark glasses to avoid being recognized.
Never judge a book by its movie.
Often we can achieve an even better result when we stumble yet are willing to start over, when we don't give up after a mistake, when something doesn't come easily but we throw ourselves into trying, when we're not afraid to appear less than perfectly polished.
You have to know how to accept rejection and reject acceptance.
Everybody gets so much information all day long that they lose their common sense.
Ninety percent of the politicians give the other ten percent a bad reputation.
The truth is that all of us attain the greatest success and happiness possible in this life whenever we use our native capacities to their greatest extent.
Aspiring to a small business that does what it does very well is a noble pursuit.
Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana.
He can compress the most words into the smallest ideas of any man I ever met.
If you do not wish to be prone to anger, do not feed the habit; give it nothing which may tend to its increase.
Posterity is as likely to be wrong as anyone else.
It's kind of fun to do the impossible.
To see what is right, and not to do it, is want of courage or of principle.
Peace is not a relationship of nations. It is a condition of mind brought about by a serenity of soul. Peace is not merely the absence of war. It is also a state of mind. Lasting peace can come only to peaceful people.
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?
Please do not be cynical. I hate cynicism. For the record, it’s my least favorite quality. It doesn’t lead anywhere.
You can either hold yourself up to the unrealistic standards of others, or ignore them and concentrate on being happy with yourself as you are.
Don't reserve your best behavior for special occasions. You can't have two sets of manners, two social codes - one for those you admire and want to impress, another for those whom you consider unimportant. You must be the same to all people.
Cheese - milk's leap toward immortality.
I have opinions of my own -- strong opinions -- but I don't always agree with them.
Brain: an apparatus with which we think we think.
Everything that I understand, I understand only because I love.
The unspoken word never does harm.
Elections are won by men and women chiefly because most people vote against somebody rather than for somebody.
The English have no respect for their language, and will not teach their children to speak it.
Organized crime in America takes in over forty billion dollars a year and spends very little on office supplies.
A human being must have occupation if he or she is not to become a nuisance to the world.
I don't necessarily agree with everything I say.
Of all afflictions, the worst is self-contempt.
Courage is fear that has said its prayers.
One can always be kind to people about whom one cares nothing.
It's not enough to bash in heads. You've got to bash in minds.
A torn jacket is soon mended; but hard words bruise the heart of a child.
You've got to be original, because if you're like someone else, what do they need you for?
Ask, and it shall be given you; Seek, and ye shall find; Knock, and it shall be opened unto you.
There is no greater joy nor greater reward than to make a fundamental difference in someone's life.
You cannot be really first-rate at your work if your work is all you are.
Perhaps the most valuable result of all education is the ability to make yourself do the thing you have to do, when it ought to be done, whether you like it or not; it is the first lesson that ought to be learned; and however early a man's training begins, it is probably the last lesson that he learns thoroughly.
Politicians should read science fiction, not westerns and detective stories.
Usually, terrible things that are done with the excuse that progress requires them are not really progress at all, but just terrible things.
Ninety percent of everything is crap.
It's a sign of mediocrity when you demonstrate gratitude with moderation.
A signature always reveals a man's character - and sometimes even his name.
It is only necessary to make war with five things; with the maladies of the body, the ignorances of the mind, with the passions of the body, with the seditions of the city and the discords of families.
All the world's a cage.
It was never what I wanted to buy that held my heart's hope. It was what I wanted to be.
A fanatic is one who can't change his mind and won't change the subject.
If you would be wealthy, think of saving as well as getting.
If you don't make mistakes, you're not working on hard enough problems. And that's a big mistake.
Music has charms to soothe the savage breast  To soften rocks, or bend a knotted oak.
The only thing that saves us from the bureaucracy is inefficiency. An efficient bureaucracy is the greatest threat to liberty.
Happiness is an imaginary condition, formerly attributed by the living to the dead, now usually attributed by adults to children, and by children to adults.
Laughing at our mistakes can lengthen our own life. Laughing at someone else's can shorten it.
A synonym is a word you use when you can't spell the word you first thought of.
Do what you love, love what you do, leave the world a better place and don't pick your nose.
Any event, once it has occurred, can be made to appear inevitable by a competent historian.
Anything you fully do is an alone journey.
I say that a man must be certain of his morality for the simple reason that he has to suffer for it.
A man is rich in proportion to the number of things he can afford to let alone.
There is no abstract art. You must always start with something. Afterward you can remove all traces of reality.
I say luck is when an opportunity comes along, and you're prepared for it.
Not everything made you stronger. It was possible to survive, yet still be crippled for your trouble. Sometimes it was okay to run away, to skip the test, to chicken out. Or at least to get some help.
Hope begins in the dark, the stubborn hope that if you just show up and try to do the right thing, the dawn will come. You wait and watch and work: You don't give up.
It is an illusion that youth is happy, an illusion of those who have lost it; but the young know they are wretched for they are full of the truthless ideal which have been instilled into them, and each time they come in contact with the real, they are bruised and wounded.
You can't help someone get up a hill without getting closer to the top yourself.
The point of philosophy is to start with something so simple as not to seem worth stating, and to end with something so paradoxical that no one will believe it.
Success usually comes to those who are too busy to be looking for it.
Forgiveness is the healing of wounds caused by another. You choose to let go of a past wrong and no longer be hurt by it. Forgiveness is a strong move to make, like turning your shoulders sideways to walk quickly on a crowded sidewalk. It's your move.
Costly thy habit [dress] as thy purse can buy; But not expressed in fancy - rich, not gaudy. For the apparel oft proclaims the man.
Before I got married I had six theories about bringing up children; now I have six children and no theories.
The discovery of a new dish does more for human happiness than the discovery of a new star.
Reprove thy friend privately; commend him publicly.
Oh sleep! It is a gentle thing,  Beloved from pole to pole.
What is youth except a man or a woman before it is ready or fit to be seen?
I paint self-portraits because I am so often alone, because I am the person I know best.
Old age is the most unexpected of all the things that happen to a man.
I take it as a man's duty to restrain himself.
Little by little, one travels far.
Change your thoughts and you change your world.
We are all human, and caring about the way something looks and feels does not mean we're superficial--it means we're human. We don't need to exploit sex to recognize that a certain amount of sexiness is both pleasurable and natural.
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?
O Lord, help me to be pure, but not yet.
It is not fair to ask of others what you are unwilling to do yourself.
Better be wise by the misfortunes of others than by your own.
It is always easier to believe than to deny. Our minds are naturally affirmative.
You begin saving the world by saving one man at a time; all else is grandiose romanticism or politics.
My wish is to ride the tempest, tame the waves, kill the sharks. I will not resign myself...
What is a cynic? A man who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing.
Time is the most valuable thing a man can spend.
Do not wait for extraordinary circumstances to do good; try to use ordinary situations.
Maybe our mistakes are what make our fate. Without them, what would shape our lives? Perhaps, if we never veered off course, we wouldn't fall in love or have babies or be who we are.
It's not true that life is one damn thing after another; it is one damn thing over and over.
Science is organized knowledge. Wisdom is organized life.
Mix a little foolishness with your prudence: It's good to be silly at the right moment.
The most important thing in life is to see to it that you are never beaten.
I think I should have no other mortal wants, if I could always have plenty of music. It seems to infuse strength into my limbs and ideas into my brain. Life seems to go on without effort, when I am filled with music.
If all the girls who attended the Yale prom were laid end to end, I wouldn't be a bit surprised.
The poet judges not as a judge judges but as the sun falling around a helpless thing.
I do not want people to be agreeable, as it saves me the trouble of liking them.
True happiness... arises, in the first place, from the enjoyment of one's self.
Do not spoil what you have by desiring what you have not; but remember that what you now have was once among the things you only hoped for.
We seem to believe it is possible to ward off death by following rules of good grooming.
Last year I went fishing with Salvador Dali. He was using a dotted line. He caught every other fish.
I've learned that you can't have everything and do everything at the same time.
You're supposed to trust friends. You have no reason to be his friend? That is part of the pleasure of friendship: trusting without absolute evidence and then being rewarded for that trust.
Do what you feel in your heart to be right - for you'll be criticized anyway. You'll be damned if you do, and damned if you don't.
Eccentricity is not, as dull people would have us believe, a form of madness. It is often a kind of innocent pride, and the man of genius and the aristocrat are frequently regarded as eccentrics because genius and aristocrat are entirely unafraid of and uninfluenced by the opinions and vagaries of the crowd.
Works of art, in my opinion, are the only objects in the material universe to possess internal order, and that is why, though I don't believe that only art matters, I do believe in Art for Art's sake.
The most beautiful adventures are not those we go to seek.
I shall not pretend that I do not prefer to have people adore me rather than revile me, but I have always found that it was far easier for me to suffer the disapprobation of others than to amend my behaviour in order to find favour with them.
Never face facts; if you do, you'll never get up in the morning.
Water, taken in moderation, cannot hurt anybody.
You always pass failure on the way to success.
I'm worried that the universe will soon need replacing. It's not holding a charge.
The ancestor of every action is a thought.
A national debt, if it is not excessive, will be to us a national blessing.
The human mind treats a new idea the same way the body treats a strange protein; it rejects it.
On the Internet, nobody knows you're a dog.
There’s so much comedy on television. Does that cause comedy in the streets?
Every man serves a useful purpose: A miser, for example, makes a wonderful ancestor.
To me, boxing is like a ballet, except there's no music, no choreography, and the dancers hit each other.
The past is not dead. In fact, it's not even past.
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.
If I have lost confidence in myself, I have the universe against me.
I always wanted to be somebody, but I should have been more specific.
That which we persist in doing becomes easier, not that the task itself has become easier, but that our ability to perform it has improved.
Fall seven times, stand up eight.
Your life story would not make a good book. Don't even try.
When you make a mistake, there are only three things you should ever do about it: admit it, learn from it, and don't repeat it.
I never lecture, not because I am shy or a bad speaker, but simply because I detest the sort of people who go to lectures and don't want to meet them.
I felt like poisoning a monk.
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 end result of kindness is that it draws people to you.
You don’t need to win every medal to be successful.
Having a baby's sweet face so close to your own, for so long a time as it takes to nurse 'em, is a great tonic for a sad soul.
He can make me love something just by showing me the energy with which he loves it.
When you relinquish the desire to control your future, you can have more happiness.
Experience is that marvelous thing that enables you to recognize a mistake when you make it again.
I am not dying, not anymore than any of us are at any moment. We run, hopefully as fast as we can, and then everyone must stop. We can only choose how we handle the race.
Facts are stubborn things, but statistics are more pliable.
By desiring little, a poor man makes himself rich.
The most dangerous strategy is to jump a chasm in two leaps.
He who wrestles with us strengthens our nerves and sharpens our skill. Our antagonist is our helper.
One's first book, kiss, home run, is always the best.
Thanks to the Interstate Highway System, it is now possible to travel from coast to coast without seeing anything.
If you want to tell people the truth, make them laugh, otherwise they'll kill you.
Prove all things; hold fast that which is good.
Drive-in banks were established so most of the cars today could see their real owners.
His lack of education is more than compensated for by his keenly developed moral bankruptcy.
I have been through some terrible things in my life, some of which actually happened.
Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.
A man who doesn't trust himself can never truly trust anyone else.
Prosperity is only an instrument to be used, not a deity to be worshipped.
The arts must be considered an essential element of education... They are tools for living life reflectively, joyfully and with the ability to shape the future.
The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function.
The statistics on sanity are that one out of every four Americans is suffering from some form of mental illness. Think of your three best friends. If they're okay, then it's you.
The cost of living is going up and the chance of living is going down.
Democracy means government by discussion, but it is only effective if you can stop people talking.
'Whom are you?' he asked, for he had attended business college.
Nothing is too small to know, and nothing is too big to attempt.
The great secret that all old people share is that you really haven't changed in 70 or 80 years. Your body changes, but you don't change at all.
The gods too are fond of a joke.
I like to believe that people in the long run are going to do more to promote peace than our governments. Indeed, I think that people want peace so much that one of these days governments had better get out of the way and let them have it.
A censor is a man who knows more than he thinks you ought to.
A person reveals his character by nothing so clearly as the joke he resents.
I was so naive as a kid I used to sneak behind the barn and do nothing.
If Pac-Man had affected us as kids, we'd all be running around in dark rooms, munching pills and listening to repetitive electronic music.
A celebrity is one who is known to many persons he is glad he doesn't know.
I have learned that to be with those I like is enough.
When you're eighteen your emotions are violent, but they're not durable.
Ever heard Victoria's REAL secret? Too much support hurts.
A bird does not sing because it has an answer. It sings because it has a song.
Every day holds the possibility of a miracle.
I am interested in the homeless, but they're a symptom. You're treating a symptom and the disease rages on and consumes the human race. I'm talking about an overhaul of the system: putting power in different hands.
Are you going to come quietly, or do I have to use earplugs?
Be not ashamed of thy virtues; honor's a good brooch to wear in a man's hat at all times.
I am careful not to confuse excellence with perfection. Excellence, I can reach for; perfection is God's business.
The moral virtues, then, are produced in us neither by nature nor against nature. Nature, indeed, prepares in us the ground for their reception, but their complete formation is the product of habit.
The architect should strive continually to simplify; the ensemble of the rooms should then be carefully considered that comfort and utility may go hand in hand with beauty.
Charm is a way of getting the answer yes without asking a clear question.
But all endings are also beginnings. We just don't know it at the time.
It is the nature of all greatness not to be exact.
The art of dining well is no slight art, the pleasure not a slight pleasure.
The reason we all like to think so well of others is that we are all afraid for ourselves. The basis of optimism is sheer terror.
Half of the American people have never read a newspaper. Half never voted for President. One hopes it is the same half.
If we have learned one thing from the history of invention and discovery, it is that, in the long run - and often in the short one - the most daring prophecies seem laughably conservative.
She had learned the self-deprecating ways of the woman who does not want to be thought hard and grasping, but her artifices could not always cover the nakedness of her need to excel.
Insane people are always sure that they are fine. It is only the sane people who are willing to admit that they are crazy.
A doctor saves lives -- It's up to people to create lives that are worth saving.
I used to work in a fire hydrant factory. You couldn't park anywhere near the place.
Many a man who falls in love with a dimple make the mistake of marrying the whole girl.
It's not the voting that's democracy, it's the counting.
No matter where you live, brothers are brothers and sisters are sisters. The bonds that keep family close are the same no matter where you are.
I have never made but one prayer to God, a very short one: 'O Lord, make my enemies ridiculous.' And God granted it.
To fulfill a dream, to be allowed to sweat over lonely labor, to be given the chance to create, is the meat and potatoes of life. The money is the gravy. As everyone else, I love to dunk my crust in it. But alone, it is not a diet designed to keep body and soul together.
I never did give anybody hell. I just told the truth, and they thought it was hell.
Think not those faithful who praise all thy words and actions; but those who kindly reprove thy faults.
The inner fire is the most important thing mankind possesses.
To want to be what one can be is purpose in life.
Love is an act of endless forgiveness, a tender look which becomes a habit.
Associate yourself with men of good quality if you esteem your own reputation, for 'tis better to be alone than in bad company.
As if a woman ever loved a man for his virtue.
Cogito cogito ergo cogito sum (I think that I think, therefore I think that I am.)
Man is only miserable so far as he thinks himself so.
Do not anticipate trouble, or worry about what may never happen. Keep in the sunlight.
It is easier to fight for one's principles than to live up to them.
Any woman who thinks the way to a man's heart is through his stomach is aiming about 10 inches too high.
Let us have a care not to disclose our hearts to those who shut up theirs against us.
Blaze with the fire that is never extinguished.
An alcoholic is someone you don't like who drinks as much as you do.
America is the only country that went from barbarism to decadence without civilization in between.
Education is when you read the fine print. Experience is what you get if you don't.
Real integrity is doing the right thing, knowing that nobody's going to know whether you did it or not.
Even the fear of death is nothing compared to the fear of not having lived authentically and fully.
In literature as in love, we are astonished at what is chosen by others.
It is possible to be below flattery as well as above it.
The public does not like you to mislead or represent yourself to be something you're not. And the other thing that the public really does like is the self-examination to say, you know, I'm not perfect. I'm just like you. They don't ask their public officials to be perfect. They just ask them to be smart, truthful, honest, and show a modicum of good sense.
The art of life lies in a constant readjustment to our surroundings.
The direct use of force is such a poor solution to any problem, it is generally employed only by small children and large nations.
I have failed many times, and that's why I am a success.
In battling evil, excess is good; for he who is moderate in announcing the truth is presenting half-truth. He conceals the other half out of fear of the people's wrath.
I was thrown out of college for cheating on the metaphysics exam; I looked into the soul of the boy sitting next to me.
To be always intending to make a new and better life but never to find time to set about it is as to put off eating and drinking and sleeping from one day to the next until you're dead.
The time is now, the place is here. Stay in the present. You can do nothing to change the past, and the future will never come exactly as you plan or hope for.
No one can have a higher opinion of him than I have, and I think he's a dirty little beast.
Fathers send their sons to college either because they went to college or because they didn't.
We are who people think we are.
Anger repressed can poison a relationship as surely as the cruelest words.
Like an ability or a muscle, hearing your inner wisdom is strengthened by doing it.
It is better to die on your feet than live on your knees.
If you tell the truth you don't have to remember anything.
Maybe our mistakes are what make our fate. Without them, what would shape our lives? Perhaps, if we never veered off course, we wouldn't fall in love or have babies or be who we are.
We're actors - we're the opposite of people.
If you wish your merit to be known, acknowledge that of other people.
Men are born with two eyes, but only one tongue, in order that they should see twice as much as they say.
Never marry but for love; but see that thou lovest what is lovely.
Only sick music makes money today.
The world is my country, all mankind are my brethren, and to do good is my religion.
There's only one corner of the universe you can be certain of improving, and that's your own self.
I never lecture, not because I am shy or a bad speaker, but simply because I detest the sort of people who go to lectures and don't want to meet them.
You miss 100 percent of the shots you never take.
So this is how liberty dies. With thunderous applause.
Facing it, always facing it, that's the way to get through. Face it.
Vegetarianism is harmless enough, though it is apt to fill a man with wind and self-righteousness.
Let us hope that we are all preceded in this world by a love story.
Desire is the most important factor in the success of any athlete.
A kleptomaniac is a person who helps himself because he can't help himself.
While there's life, there's hope.
There is no reciprocity. Men love women, women love children, children love hamsters.
Mortal lovers must not try to remain at the first step; for lasting passion is the dream of a harlot and from it we wake in despair.
No one travelling on a business trip would be missed if he failed to arrive.
Our scientific power has outrun our spiritual power. We have guided missiles and misguided men.
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.'
I have a rock garden. Last week three of them died.
A bookstore is one of the only pieces of evidence we have that people are still thinking.
The chief value of money lies in the fact that one lives in a world in which it is overestimated.
Goodness is the only investment that never fails.
When you understand that what you're telling is just a story. It isn't happening anymore. When you realize the story you're telling is just words, when you can just crumble it up and throw your past in the trashcan, then we'll figure out who you're going to be.
Defining and analyzing humor is a pastime of humorless people.
How little a thing can make us happy when we feel that we have earned it.
The most important thing in communication is to hear what isn't being said.
Like its politicians and its wars, society has the teenagers it deserves.
It seems the misfortune of one can plow a deeper furrow in the heart than the misfortune of millions.
If all economists were laid end to end, they would not reach a conclusion.
We strain to renew our capacity for wonder, to shock ourselves into astonishment once again.
Military intelligence is a contradiction in terms.
When you're a team of one, you're always captain.
In life we don’t get what we want, we get in life what we are. If we want more we have to be able to be more, in order to be more you have to face rejection.
There is an alchemy in sorrow. It can be transmuted into wisdom, which, if it does not bring joy, can yet bring happiness.
The golden rule is that there are no golden rules.
Cocooned inside our private dramas we often don’t realize life is rolling by us like it should.
Blessed is the man that endureth temptation: for when he is tried, he shall receive the crown of life.
All successful newspapers are ceaselessly querulous and bellicose. They never defend anyone or anything if they can help it; if the job is forced on them, they tackle it by denouncing someone or something else.
The truth is not simply what you think it is; it is also the circumstances in which it is said, and to whom, why and how it is said.
If grass can grow through cement, love can find you at every time in your life.
Wisdom doesn't automatically come with old age. Nothing does - except wrinkles. It's true, some wines improve with age. But only if the grapes were good in the first place.
Deeds, not words shall speak me.
Man is equally incapable of seeing the nothingness from which he emerges and the infinity in which he is engulfed.
Subdue your appetites, my dears, and you've conquered human nature.
The only way most people recognize their limits is by trespassing on them.
Thankfully, beauty is easier to remove than apply, and a swipe of demaquillage in the right direction and you are you once again.
You can take from every experience what it has to offer you. And you cannot be defeated if you just keep taking one breath followed by another.
The only thing to do with good advice is pass it on. It is never any use to oneself.
An optimist stays up to see the New Year in. A pessimist waits to make sure the old one leaves.
War is much too serious a matter to be entrusted to the military.
Democracy is the recurrent suspicion that more than half of the people are right more than half the time.
The man of knowledge must be able not only to love his enemies but also to hate his friends.
In times like these, it helps to recall that there have always been times like these.
Too much of a good thing is wonderful.
Why is this thus? What is the reason for this thusness?
Be life long or short, its completeness depends on what it was lived for.
If I knew I was going to live this long, I'd have taken better care of myself.
Do the one thing you think you cannot do. Fail at it. Try again. Do better the second time. The only people who never tumble are those who never mount the high wire. This is your moment. Own it.
Who begins too much accomplishes little.
One single grateful thought raised to heaven is the most perfect prayer.
It's very strange when the life you never had flashes before your eyes.
Moral indignation is jealousy with a halo.
Maps encourage boldness. They're like cryptic love letters. They make anything seem possible.
Because he has never forgiven himself any fault, he can forgive no one else's.
Always aim at complete harmony of thought and word and deed. Always aim at purifying your thoughts and everything will be well.
Getting caught is the mother of invention.
If you would be wealthy, think of saving as well as getting.
There will be little rubs and disappointments everywhere, and we are all apt to expect too much; but then, if one scheme of happiness fails, human nature turns to another; if the first calculation is wrong, we make a second better: we find comfort somewhere.
Look well into thyself; there is a source of strength which will always spring up if thou wilt always look there.
The conventional view serves to protect us from the painful job of thinking.
Personally I have struggled massively with the dilemma of talent vs desire. Choosing desire may not always be the easiest thing to do. It may seem a waste to leave those natural talents behind and strike out in a new direction. But at least you’ll feel alive.
How we remember, what we remember and why we remember form the most personal map of our individuality.
Do not worry about your difficulties in Mathematics. I can assure you mine are still greater.
When we ask for advice, we are usually looking for an accomplice.
The trouble with the rat race is that even if you win, you're still a rat.
One must know oneself, if this does not serve to discover truth, it at least serves as a rule of life and there is nothing better.
There are people who think that everything one does with a serious face is sensible.
Art is the desire of a man to express himself, to record the reactions of his personality to the world he lives in.
Oh, what a tangled web we weave when first we practice to believe.
The passions are the seeds of vices as well as of virtues, from which either may spring, accordingly as they are nurtured. Unhappy they who have never been taught the art to govern them!
Genius is one percent inspiration, ninety-nine percent perspiration.
Anger makes dull men witty, but it keeps them poor.
Autobiography is an unrivaled vehicle for telling the truth about other people.
When I'm trusting and being myself... everything in my life reflects this by falling into place easily, often miraculously.
I don't have a bank account, because I don't know my mother's maiden name.
Sometimes I worry about being a success in a mediocre world.
You have to find a way of working that makes it dead easy to take full advantage of your inspired moments. They never hit at a convenient time, nor do they last long.
The covers of this book are too far apart.
Learning to love yourself is the greatest love of all.
Nothing shocks me. I'm a scientist.
Always be nice to those younger than you, because they are the ones who will be writing about you.
By prizing heartfulness above faultlessness, we may reap more from our effort because we're more likely to be changed by it.
Choose the life that is most useful, and habit will make it the most agreeable.
Dreams that do come true can be as unsettling as those that don't.
Life is an escalator: You can move forward or backward; you can not remain still.
Enquire not what boils in another's pot.
People fail forward to success.
It takes a great deal of courage to stand up to your enemies, but even more to stand up to your friends.
The more I want to get something done, the less I call it work.
If you would not step into the harlot's house, do not go by the harlot's door.
Not to be absolutely certain is, I think, one of the essential things in rationality.
Don't reserve your best behavior for special occasions. You can't have two sets of manners, two social codes - one for those you admire and want to impress, another for those whom you consider unimportant. You must be the same to all people.
Beware of undertaking too much at the start. Be content with quite a little. Allow for accidents. Allow for human nature, especially your own.
One thing you will probably remember well is any time you forgive and forget.
All these years I've been feeling like I was growing into myself. Finally, I feel grown.
The reason there are two senators for each state is so that one can be the designated driver.
The only limit to our realization of tomorrow will be our doubts of today. Let us move forward with strong and active faith.
You risk tears if you let yourself be tamed.
If it weren't for baseball, many kids wouldn't know what a millionaire looked like.
When we are angry or depressed in our creativity, we have misplaced our power. We have allowed someone else to determine our worth, and then we are angry at being undervalued.
There are more pleasant things to do than beat up people.
Don't ever confuse the two, your life and your work. That's what I have to say. The second is only a part of the first.
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.
It is not much for its beauty that makes a claim upon men's hearts, as for that subtle something, that quality of air that emanates from old trees, that so wonderfully changes and renews a weary spirit.
Life isn't fair. It's just fairer than death, that's all.
A man can sleep around, no questions asked, but if a woman makes nineteen or twenty mistakes she's a tramp.
Each problem that I solved became a rule which served afterwards to solve other problems.
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.
Just the knowledge that a good book is awaiting one at the end of a long day makes that day happier.
Hail to you gods, on that day of the great reckoning. Behold me, I have come to you, without sin, without guilt, without evil, without a witness against me, without one whom I have wronged. I am one pure of mouth, pure of hands.
The advice of friends must be received with a judicious reserve; we must not give ourselves up to it and follow it blindly, whether right or wrong.
No matter how cynical you get, it is impossible to keep up.
[Abstract art is] a product of the untalented, sold by the unprincipled to the utterly bewildered.
But what is the difference between literature and journalism? ...Journalism is unreadable and literature is not read. That is all.
Holding on to anger, resentment and hurt only gives you tense muscles, a headache and a sore jaw from clenching your teeth. Forgiveness gives you back the laughter and the lightness in your life.
Man forgives woman anything save the wit to outwit him.
It is only an auctioneer who can equally and impartially admire all schools of art.
A positive attitude may not solve all your problems, but it will annoy enough people to make it worth the effort.
When you jump for joy, beware that no one moves the ground from beneath your feet.
The mint makes it first, it is up to you to make it last.
A committee is a cul-de-sac down which ideas are lured and then quietly strangled.
Music makes one feel so romantic - at least it always gets on one's nerves - which is the same thing nowadays.
Get all the fools on your side and you can be elected to anything.
The entire economy of the Western world is built on things that cause cancer.
All married couples should learn the art of battle as they should learn the art of making love. Good battle is objective and honest - never vicious or cruel. Good battle is healthy and constructive, and brings to a marriage the principle of equal partnership.
Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it whether it exists or not, diagnosing it incorrectly, and applying the wrong remedy.
Sometimes it's hard to avoid the happiness of others.
If men could only know each other, they would neither idolize nor hate.
Man is what he eats.
In the end, we decide if we're remembered for what happened to us or for what we did with it.
Speak clearly, if you speak at all; carve every word before you let it fall.
No one is useless in this world who lightens the burdens of another.
Philosophers say a great deal about what is absolutely necessary for science, and it is always, so far as one can see, rather naive, and probably wrong.
Before you begin a thing, remind yourself that difficulties and delays quite impossible to foresee are ahead. If you could see them clearly, naturally you could do a great deal to get rid of them but you can't. You can only see one thing clearly and that is your goal. Form a mental vision of that and cling to it through thick and thin.
Give me the luxuries of life and I will willingly do without the necessities.
Space isn't remote at all. It's only an hour's drive away if your car could go straight upwards.
Men are like steel. When they lose their temper, they lose their worth.
If God had really intended men to fly, he'd make it easier to get to the airport.
Famous I don't know about. It's hard to be famous and alive. I just want to play music every day and hear someone say, 'Thanks, that was great, here's some money, same time tomorrow, okay?'
Where we have strong emotions, we're liable to fool ourselves.
A man who doesn't trust himself can never truly trust anyone else.
It is best to do things systematically, since we are only human, and disorder is our worst enemy.
Train yourself to let go of the things you fear to lose.
Every man serves a useful purpose: A miser, for example, makes a wonderful ancestor.
Health nuts are going to feel stupid someday, lying in hospitals dying of nothing.
We make a living by what we get, we make a life by what we give.
Anything looked at closely becomes wonderful.
I grew up in Europe, where the history comes from.
Dignity comes not from control, but from understanding who you are and taking your rightful place in the world.
I felt like poisoning a monk.
It's all right letting yourself go as long as you can let yourself back.
Some prices are just too high, no matter how much you may want the prize. The one thing you can't trade for your heart's desire is your heart.
Good men must be affectionate men.
In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is stoned to death.
We do on stage things that are supposed to happen off. Which is a kind of integrity, if you look on every exit as being an entrance somewhere else.
It is always easier to believe than to deny. Our minds are naturally affirmative.
The golden rule is that there are no golden rules.
Derive happiness in oneself from a good day's work, from illuminating the fog that surrounds us.
It is cruel to discover one's mediocrity only when it is too late.
We learn and grow and are transformed not so much by what we do but by why and how we do it.
There is no law of progress. Our future is in our own hands, to make or to mar. It will be an uphill fight to the end, and would we have it otherwise? Let no one suppose that evolution will ever exempt us from struggles. 'You forget,' said the Devil, with a chuckle, 'that I have been evolving too.'
To avoid situations in which you might make mistakes may be the biggest mistake of all.
Recommend to your children virtue; that alone can make them happy, not gold.
The deeper sorrow carves into your being the more joy you can contain.
When you are kind to someone in trouble, you hope they'll remember and be kind to someone else. And it'll become like a wildfire.
The past is a source of knowledge, and the future is a source of hope. Love of the past implies faith in the future.
The good or ill of a man lies within his own will.
There is no security on this earth, there is only opportunity.
The excellence of a gift lies in its appropriateness rather than in its value.
You will find that the State is the kind of organization which, though it does big things badly, does small things badly, too.
There's no point in being grown up if you can't be childish sometimes.
Part of being a Master is learning how to sing in nobody else's voice but your own.
Children might or might not be a blessing, but to create them and then fail them was surely damnation.
A poem is never finished, only abandoned.
Jealousy is all the fun you think they had.
Look in the mirror. The face that pins you with its double gaze reveals a chastening secret.
I know just how frustrating it can be when you're tired and exhausted, but you still want to draw something.
He deserves Paradise who makes his companions laugh.
The capacity of human beings to bore one another seems to be vastly greater than that of any other animal.
I need no warrant for being, and no word of sanction upon my being. I am the warrant and the sanction.
I only know two pieces; one is 'Clair de Lune' and the other one isn't.
Be neither too remote nor too familiar.
The average Ph.D. thesis is nothing but a transference of bones from one graveyard to another.
It never hurts to ask. Unless you ask for hurt.
The only paradise is paradise lost.
Look not mournfully into the past. It comes not back again. Wisely improve the present. It is thine. Go forth to meet the shadowy future, without fear.
If power was an illusion, wasn't weakness necessarily one also?
There is surely a piece of divinity in us, something that was before the elements, and owes no homage unto the sun.
The secret of greatness is simple: do better work than any other man in your field - and keep on doing it.
Use your enemy's hand to catch a snake.
Use soft words and hard arguments.
Forsake not an old friend; for the new is not comparable to him: a new friend is as new wine; when it is old, thou shalt drink it with pleasure.
You know what's interesting about Washington? It's the kind of place where second-guessing has become second nature.
Life is like a game of cards. The hand that is dealt you is determinism; the way you play it is free will.
Jealousy is the tribute mediocrity pays to genius.
Nothing is so awesomely unfamiliar as the familiar that discloses itself at the end of a journey.
In the depth of winter, I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible summer.
There's nothing that keeps its youth, So far as I know, but a tree and truth.
Actions lie louder than words.
There are no secrets to success. It is the result of preparation, hard work, and learning from failure.
There is nothing like dream to create the future. Utopia to-day, flesh and blood tomorrow.
Nancy Reagan fell down and broke her hair.
Life is divided into the horrible and the miserable.
To invent, you need a good imagination and a pile of junk.
Misogynist: A man who hates women as much as women hate one another.
When the conduct of men is designed to be influenced, persuasion, kind unassuming persuasion, should ever be adopted. It is an old and true maxim that 'a drop of honey catches more flies than a gallon of gall.' So with men. If you would win a man to your cause, first convince him that you are his sincere friend. Therein is a drop of honey that catches his heart, which, say what he will, is the great highroad to his reason, and which, once gained, you will find but little trouble in convincing him of the justice of your cause, if indeed that cause is really a good one.
Think of all the beauty still left around you and be happy.
The strongest man in the world is he who stands alone.
Don't aim at success - the more you aim at it and make it a target, the more you are going to miss it. For success, like happiness, cannot be pursued; it must ensue... as the unintended side-effect of one's personal dedication to a course greater than oneself.
Few things are more satisfying than seeing your own children have teenagers of their own.
Don't look for more honor than your learning merits.
Sometimes the lies you tell are less frightening than the loneliness you might feel if you stopped telling them.
The big thieves hang the little ones.
By the time a man realizes that maybe his father was right, he usually has a son who thinks he's wrong.
Dwelling on the negative simply contributes to its power.
One man practicing sportsmanship is better than a hundred teaching it.
A child becomes an adult when he realizes that he has a right not only to be right but also to be wrong.
The report of my death was an exaggeration.
Setting a good example for children takes all the fun out of middle age.
Love isn't a decision. It's a feeling. If we could decide who we loved, it would be much simpler, but much less magical.
He who would leap high must take a long run.
Men are not prisoners of fate, but only prisoners of their own minds.
Fish and visitors smell in three days.
A celebrity is a person who works hard all his life to become well known, then wears dark glasses to avoid being recognized.
Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius -- and a lot of courage -- to move in the opposite direction.
One man alone can be pretty dumb sometimes, but for real bona fide stupidity, there ain't nothin' can beat teamwork.
Autumn is the bite of the harvest apple.
We bear the world and we make it... There was never a great man who had not a great mother - it is hardly an exaggeration.
If I was more complacent and I let things slide, my life would be easier, but you all wouldn't be as entertained. My misery is your pleasure.
Life only demands from you the strength you possess. Only one feat is possible - not to have run away.
Our remedies oft in ourselves do lie.
There are only two kinds of scholars; those who love ideas and those who hate them.
I dream, therefore I become.
We improve ourselves by victories over ourself. There must be contests, and you must win.
Success is a lousy teacher. It seduces smart people into thinking they can't lose.
Anger is a signal, and one worth listening to.
Any war that requires the suspension of reason as a necessity for support is a bad war.
Honest differences are often a healthy sign of progress.
The trouble with lies was that once started, the fiction had to be continued, and it was hard always to be remembering details that you had made up upon the spur of the moment.
Almost everything--all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure--these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.
He who can, does. He who cannot, teaches.
Resolve to be thyself: and know, that he who finds himself, loses his misery.
You can't be angry with God and not believe in him at the same time.
Die? I should say not, dear fellow. No Barrymore would allow such a conventional thing to happen to him.
Isn't everyone a part of everyone else?
A timid person is frightened before a danger, a coward during the time, and a courageous person afterward.
The graveyards are full of indispensable men.
Some things have to be believed to be seen.
The function of socialism is to raise suffering to a higher level.
I'm convinced there's a small room in the attic of the Foreign Office where future diplomats are taught to stammer.
Even in the darkness, every color can be found. And every day of rain brings water flowing to things growing in the ground.
It's all knowing what to start with. If you start in the right place and follow all the steps, you will get to the right end.
Do not pursue what is illusory - property and position: all that is gained at the expense of your nerves decade after decade and can be confiscated in one fell night. Live with a steady superiority over life - don't be afraid of misfortune, and do not yearn after happiness; it is after all, all the same: the bitter doesn't last forever, and the sweet never fills the cup to overflowing.
There is no monument dedicated to the memory of a committee.
Wear the old coat and buy the new book.
To err is human, but to really foul things up requires a computer.
It has been my experience that folks who have no vices have very few virtues.
I’m searching through all that has ever been hoped, in praise of what can never be known.
A friend is a second self.
Sometimes in life you don't always feel like a winner, but that doesn't mean you're not a winner.
There are some men who lift the age they inhabit, till all men walk on higher ground in that lifetime.
It has always been the prerogative of children and half-wits to point out that the emperor has no clothes. But the half-wit remains a half-wit, and the emperor remains an emperor.
Sometimes when we are generous in small, barely detectable ways it can change someone else's life forever.
I'm just a person trapped inside a woman's body.
Nothing of me is original. I am the combined effort of everybody I've ever known.
Girls are always running through my mind. They don't dare walk.
It's very hard to take yourself too seriously when you look at the world from outer space.
What else is love but understanding and rejoicing in the fact that another person lives, acts, and experiences otherwise than we do…?
You must lose a fly to catch a trout.
Be careful that victories do not carry the seed of future defeats.
A book burrows into your life in a very profound way because the experience of reading is not passive.
The idea of an election is much more interesting to me than the election itself...The act of voting is in itself the defining moment.
Marriage is a great institution, but I'm not ready for an institution yet.
The fact that a great many people believe something is no guarantee of its truth.
Take a two-mile walk every morning before breakfast.
No animal should ever jump up on the dining-room furniture unless absolutely certain that he can hold his own in the conversation.
At the worst, a house unkept cannot be so distressing as a life unlived.
My problem lies in reconciling my gross habits with my net income.
A good hockey player plays where the puck is. A great hockey player plays where the puck is going to be.
The reward of one duty is the power to fulfill another.
Attempt easy tasks as if they were difficult, and difficult as if they were easy; in the one case that confidence may not fall asleep, in the other that it may not be dismayed.
If you refuse to be made straight when you are green, you will not be made straight when you are dry.
Rage is the only quality which has kept me, or anybody I have ever studied, writing columns for newspapers.
I feel good about taking things to Goodwill and actually, I do like shopping at Goodwill. It's so cheap that it feels like a library where I am just checking things out for awhile until I decide to take them back.
The human race has one really effective weapon, and that is laughter.
As you become more clear about who you really are, you'll be better able to decide what is best for you - the first time around.
The best ideas come as jokes. Make your thinking as funny as possible.
The significance of man is that he is insignificant and is aware of it.
'Tis an ill wind that blows no minds.
Learn the art of patience. Apply discipline to your thoughts when they become anxious over the outcome of a goal. Impatience breeds anxiety, fear, discouragement and failure. Patience creates confidence, decisiveness, and a rational outlook, which eventually leads to success.
The family is the country of the heart.
If you would win a man to your cause, first convince him that you are his sincere friend.
Propriety was a rigid master, but one that must be obeyed if one wanted to keep a sterling reputation.
The goal of all inanimate objects is to resist man and ultimately defeat him.
The days of the digital watch are numbered.
The good or ill of a man lies within his own will.
Once we believe in ourselves, we can risk curiosity, wonder, spontaneous delight, or any experience that reveals the human spirit.
The trouble about trying to make yourself stupider than you really are is that you very often succeed.
He who undervalues himself is justly undervalued by others.
Nothing gives one person so much advantage over another as to remain always cool and unruffled under all circumstances.
I'm a great believer in luck, and I find the harder I work the more I have of it.
Discretion in speech is more than eloquence.
The strongest is never strong enough to be always the master, unless he transforms strength into right, and obedience into duty.
I have not lost my mind - it's backed up on disk somewhere.
I merely took the energy it takes to pout and wrote some blues.
Nobody sees a flower - really - it is so small it takes time - we haven't time - and to see takes time, like to have a friend takes time.
The men the American public admire most extravagantly are the most daring liars; the men they detest most violently are those who try to tell them the truth.
True humor is fun - it does not put down, kid, or mock. It makes people feel wonderful, not separate, different, and cut off. True humor has beneath it the understanding that we are all in this together.
Memories can be sad, but sometimes they can also save you.
You pile up enough tomorrows and you'll be left with nothing but a bunch of empty yesterdays. I don't know about you, but I'd like to make today worth remembering.
I have noticed that the people who are late are often so much jollier than the people who have to wait for them.
The trouble with our times is that the future is not what it used to be.
When I pass, speak freely of my shortcomings and my flaws. Learn from them, for I'll have no ego to injure.
Machines take me by surprise with great frequency.
The excellence of a gift lies in its appropriateness rather than in its value.
Much of the social history of the Western world over the past three decades has involved replacing what worked with what sounded good.
Democracy substitutes election by the incompetent many for appointment by the corrupt few.
If you wish in this world to advance, your merits you're bound to enhance; You must stir it and stump it, and blow your own trumpet, or trust me, you haven't a chance.
Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want and deserve to get it good and hard.
It is through creating, not possessing, that life is revealed.
I am certain there is too much certainty in the world.
Every man is guilty of all the good he didn't do.
Almost everything--all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure--these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.
Rather than love, than money, than fame, give me truth.
Abuse a man unjustly, and you will make friends for him.
You have not converted a man because you have silenced him.
Better by far you should forget and smile than you should remember and be sad.
Underneath this flabby exterior is an enormous lack of character.
The coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco.
Travel is only glamorous in retrospect.
Mathematics may be defined as the subject in which we never know what we are talking about, nor whether what we are saying is true.
Her virtue was that she said what she thought, her vice that what she thought didn't amount to much.
What if everything is an illusion and nothing exists? In that case, I definitely overpaid for my carpet.
If I make a record I love, then somebody will like it. Maybe not everybody, but that won't matter.
You better live your best and act your best and think your best today, for today is the sure preparation for tomorrow and all the other tomorrows that follow.
All the arts we practice are apprenticeship. The big art is our life.
Live neither in the past nor in the future, but let each day's work absorb your entire energies, and satisfy your widest ambition.
It's noble to want to confess, but if the results are just damage and pain, that's not noble. It's selfish.
Put more trust in nobility of character than in an oath.
There smites nothing so sharp, nor smelleth so sour as shame.
I do not want people to be agreeable, as it saves me the trouble of liking them.
In the right light, at the right time, everything is extraordinary.
An ounce of action is worth a ton of theory.
Habit is habit and not to be flung out of the window by any man, but coaxed downstairs a step at a time.
Think of what would happen to us in America if there were no humorists; life would be one long Congressional Record.
When you are right you cannot be too radical; when you are wrong, you cannot be too conservative.
Learning to dislike children at an early age saves a lot of expense and aggravation later in life.
The world stands aside to let anyone pass who knows where he is going.
We should be eternally vigilant against attempts to check the expression of opinions that we loathe.
Don't be afraid to take a big step if one is indicated. You can't cross a chasm in two small jumps.
Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.
Go often to the house of thy friend; for weeds soon choke up the unused path.
Always bear in mind that your own resolution to succeed is more important than any one thing.
Politics, n. Strife of interests masquerading as a contest of principles.
History is the version of past events that people have decided to agree upon.
Never express yourself more clearly than you are able to think.
We need a president who's fluent in at least one language.
If you really want something, and really work hard, and take advantage of opportunities, and never give up, you will find a way.
A minute's success pays the failure of years.
When it is not necessary to make a decision, it is necessary not to make a decision.
Do not be awe struck by other people and try to copy them. Nobody can be you as efficiently as you can.
Humility is the embarrassment you feel when you tell people how wonderful you are.
Remember that there is nothing stable in human affairs; therefore avoid undue elation in prosperity, or undue depression in adversity.
The best and safest thing is to keep a balance in your life, acknowledge the great powers around us and in us. If you can do that, and live that way, you are really a wise man.
It is your work in life that is the ultimate seduction.
They used to photograph Shirley Temple through gauze.  They should photograph me through linoleum.
Not a shred of evidence exists in favor of the idea that life is serious.
I haven't spoken to my wife in years. I didn't want to interrupt her.
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.
If all else fails, immortality can always be assured by spectacular error.
If I had my life to live over... I'd dare to make more mistakes next time.
Be not afraid of greatness: some men are born great, some achieve greatness and some have greatness thrust upon them.
When you're a teenager and you're in love, it's obvious to everyone but you and the person you're in love with.
The only reason for being a professional writer is that you can't help it.
I have come to believe that the whole world is an enigma, a harmless enigma that is made terrible by our own mad attempt to interpret it as though it had an underlying truth.
The real art of conversation is not only to say the right thing at the right place but to leave unsaid the wrong thing at the tempting moment.
Don't use a big word where a diminutive one will suffice.
Take calculated risks. That is quite different from being rash.
It is a great ability to be able to conceal one's ability.
Never pretend to a love which you do not actually feel, for love is not ours to command.
Perhaps in time the so-called Dark Ages will be thought of as including our own.
Though it sounds absurd, it is true to say I felt younger at sixty than I felt at twenty.
Times have not become more violent. They have just become more televised.
There is no revenge so complete as forgiveness.
The family is changing not disappearing. We have to broaden our understanding of it, look for the new metaphors.
Hold a book in your hand and you're a pilgrim at the gates of a new city.
I have enough money to last me the rest of my life, unless I buy something.
I feel like a tiny bird with a big song!
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.
Underneath this flabby exterior is an enormous lack of character.
Make it a rule of life never to regret and never to look back. Regret is an appalling waste of energy; you can't build on it; it's only for wallowing in.
The architect should strive continually to simplify; the ensemble of the rooms should then be carefully considered that comfort and utility may go hand in hand with beauty.
After you've been in a place for a while, everything starts to look... I won't say better, there's no need to go to extremes...but your everyday life does start to become...familiar.
Wear the old coat and buy the new book.
I can't listen to that much Wagner. I start getting the urge to conquer Poland.
I like living. I have sometimes been wildly, despairingly, acutely miserable, racked with sorrow, but through it all I still know quite certainly that just to be alive is a grand thing.
Don't flatter yourself that friendship authorizes you to say disagreeable things to your intimates. The nearer you come into relation with a person, the more necessary do tact and courtesy become. Except in cases of necessity, which are rare, leave your friend to learn unpleasant things from his enemies; they are ready enough to tell them.
Why is it that our memory is good enough to retain the least triviality that happens to us, and yet not good enough to recollect how often we have told it to the same person?
Idleness is not doing nothing. Idleness is being free to do anything.
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.
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.
I hope that when I die, people say about me, 'Boy, that guy sure owed me a lot of money.'
Drive-in banks were established so most of the cars today could see their real owners.
Life itself is a quotation.
Happiness arises in a state of peace, not of tumult.
Most of you have been where I am tonight. The crash site of unrequited love. You ask yourself, How did I get here? What was it about? Was it her smile? Was it the way she crossed her legs, the turn of her ankle, the poignant vulnerability of her slender wrists? What are these elusive and ephemeral things that ignite passion in the human heart? That's an age-old question. It's perfect food for thought on a bright midsummer's night.
A bully is not reasonable - he is persuaded only by threats.
Do something. If it doesn't work, do something else. No idea is too crazy.
Water is the most neglected nutrient in your diet but one of the most vital.
Nothing of me is original. I am the combined effort of everybody I've ever known.
Gardens and flowers have a way of bringing people together, drawing them from their homes.
When a man takes one step toward God, God takes more steps toward that man than there are sands in the worlds of time.
The shortest route to getting things done is just do it.
Discovery consists of seeing what everybody has seen and thinking what nobody has thought.
Take the attitude of a student, never be too big to ask questions, never know too much to learn something new.
You can't wait for inspiration. You have to go after it with a club.
Tomorrow is the most important thing in life. Comes into us at midnight very clean. It's perfect when it arrives and it puts itself in our hands. It hopes we've learned something from yesterday.
Get the facts, or the facts will get you. And when you get them, get them right, or they will get you wrong.
Sometimes the lies you tell are less frightening than the loneliness you might feel if you stopped telling them.
A writer is a person for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people.
Too many people think only of their own profit. But business opportunity seldom knocks on the door of self-centered people. No customer ever goes to a store merely to please the storekeeper.
The reason grandparents and grandchildren get along so well is that they have a common enemy.