Some great quotes i found – ideal for speakers and teachers

Here you can browse the collection of best quotes I’ve been gathering for more than a decade (current total of over 500). There’s also a downloadable CSV file (58 KB) available.

• For a selection of the best famous quotes, check ’60 Selected Best Famous Quotes’, Part I and Part II.
• If you’re interested in starting your own quote collection, check ‘5 Reasons to Collect Favorite Quotes‘.

 

 

The third-rate mind is only happy when it is thinking with the majority. The second-rate mind is only happy when it is thinking with the minority. The first-rate mind is only happy when it is thinking.

A. A. Milne

History teaches us that men and nations behave wisely once they have exhausted all other alternatives.

Abba Eban

How many legs does a dog have, if you call the tail a leg? Four. Calling a tail a leg doesn’t make it a leg.

Abraham Lincoln

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

Abraham Lincoln

When I do good, I feel good; when I do bad, I feel bad, and that is my religion.

Abraham Lincoln

Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt.

Abraham Lincoln

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.

Abraham Lincoln

To the man who only has a hammer, everything he encounters begins to look like a nail.

Abraham Maslow

My definition of a free society is a society where it is safe to be unpopular.

Adlai E. Stevenson Jr.

I use emotion for the many and reserve reason for the few.

Adolf Hitler

It is always more difficult to fight against faith than against knowledge.

Adolf Hitler

Do not look where you fell, but where you slipped.

African proverb

Do you realize if it weren’t for Edison we’d be watching TV by candlelight?

Al Boliska

Any company large enough to have a research lab is too large to listen to it.

Alan Kay

Education is what remains after one has forgotten what one has learned in school.

Albert Einstein

Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

Albert Einstein

Logic will get you from A to B. Imagination will take you everywhere.

Albert Einstein

Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted.

Albert Einstein

A clever person solves a problem. A wise person avoids it.

Albert Einstein

Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited to all we now know and understand, while imagination embraces the entire world, and all there ever will be to know and understand.

Albert Einstein

When you look at yourself from a universal standpoint, something inside always reminds or informs you that there are bigger and better things to worry about.

Albert Einstein

The only thing that interferes with my learning is my education.

Albert Einstein

The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits.

Albert Einstein

The person who reads too much and uses his brain too little will fall into lazy habits of thinking.

Albert Einstein

Time and space are modes by which we think and not conditions in which we live.

Albert Einstein

When you sit with a nice girl for two hours, you think it’s only a minute. But when you sit on a hot stove for a minute, you think it’s two hours. That’s relativity.

Albert Einstein

There are people who, instead of listening to what is being said to them, are already listening to what they are going to say themselves.

Albert Guinon

When everyone is against you, it means that you are absolutely wrong– or absolutely right.

Albert Guinon

An intellectual is a person who has discovered something more interesting than sex.

Aldous Huxley

Blessed is he who expects nothing, for he shall never be disappointed.

Alexander Pope

Do not confuse motion and progress. A rocking horse keeps moving but does not make any progress.

Alfred A. Montapert

It is easier to fight for one’s principles than to live up to them.

Alfred Adler

The point of quotations is that one can use another’s words to be insulting.

Amanda Cross

Acquaintance, n.: A person whom we know well enough to borrow from, but not well enough to lend to.

Ambrose Bierce

Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the judgement that something else is more important than fear.

Ambrose Redmoon

We don’t see things as they are. We see things as we are.

Anais Nin

It is better to fail at your own life than to succeed at someone else’s.

André Gide

People cannot discover new lands until they have the courage to lose sight of the shore.

André Gide

Believe those who are seeking the truth. Doubt those who find it.

André Gide

It is bad luck to be superstitious.

Andrew W. Mathis

If the lessons of history teach us anything it is that nobody learns the lessons that history teaches us.

Anon

Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.

Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

What lies in our power to do, lies in our power not to do.

Aristotle

It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.

Aristotle

We are what we repeatedly do; excellence, then, is not an act but a habit.

Aristotle

Talent hits a target no one else can hit; Genius hits a target no one else can see.

Arthur Schopenhauer

All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident.

Arthur Schopenhauer

Every nation ridicules other nations, and all are right.

Arthur Schopenhauer

I’d rather live with a good question than a bad answer.

Aryeh Frimer

The Argument from Intimidation is a confession of intellectual impotence.

Ayn Rand

The real problem is not whether machines think but whether men do.

B. F. Skinner

A wise man gets more use from his enemies than a fool from his friends.

Baltasar Gracian

Good judgment comes from experience, and experience comes from bad judgment.

Barry LePatner

A government that is big enough to give you all you want is big enough to take it all away.

Thomas Jefferson

Do not seek to follow in the footsteps of the men of old; seek what they sought.

Basho

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.

Ben Hecht

Never apologize for showing feeling. When you do so, you apologize for truth.

Benjamin Disraeli

Either write something worth reading or do something worth writing.

Benjamin Franklin

The tragedy of life doesn’t lie in not reaching your goal. The tragedy lies in having no goals to reach.

Benjamin Mays

What happens to the hole when the cheese is gone?

Bertolt Brecht

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

Bertrand Russell

No one gossips about other people’s secret virtues.

Bertrand Russell

If a man is offered a fact which goes against his instincts, he will scrutinize it closely, and unless the evidence is overwhelming, he will refuse to believe it. If, on the other hand, he is offered something which affords a reason for acting in accordance to his instincts, he will accept it even on the slightest evidence. The origin of myths is explained in this way.

Bertrand Russell

The greatest challenge to any thinker is stating the problem in a way that will allow a solution.

Bertrand Russell

I don’t know the key to success, but the key to failure is trying to please everybody.

Bill Cosby

If at first you don’t succeed, find out if the loser gets anything.

Bill Lyon

Thought is useful when it motivates for action, and a hindrance when it substitutes for action.

Bill Raeder

An optimist stays up to see the New Year in. A pessimist waits to make sure the old one leaves.

Bill Vaughan

We learn something every day, and lots of times it’s that what we learned the day before was wrong.

Bill Vaughan

Careful. We don’t want to learn from this.

Bill Watterson

I really wish I was less of a thinking man and more of a fool not afraid of rejection.

Billy Joel

I have made this letter longer than usual because I lack the time to make it shorter.

Blaise Pascal

A single question can be more influential than a thousand statements.

Bo Bennett

A bank is a place that will lend you money if you can prove that you don’t need it.

Bob Hope

The less you know, the more you believe.

Bono

When the student is ready the teacher will appear.

Buddhist Proverb

Don’t ever wrestle with a pig. You’ll both get dirty, but the pig will enjoy it.

Cale Yarborough

The most remarkable thing about my mother is that for thirty years she served the family nothing but leftovers. The original meal has never been found.

Calvin Trillin

Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves.

Carl Jung

Just the fact that some geniuses were laughed at does not imply that all who are laughed at are geniuses. They laughed at Columbus, they laughed at Fulton, they laughed at the Wright brothers. But they also laughed at Bozo the Clown.

Carl Sagan

Some people make things happen, some people watch things happen, and some ask what happened.

Casey Stengel

If you can’t be a good example, then you’ll just have to be a horrible warning.

Catherine Aird

You don’t get anything clean without getting something else dirty.

Cecil Baxter

Happiness is the absence of striving for happiness.

Chang-Tzu

Fight for your opinions, but do not believe that they contain the whole truth, or the only truth.

Charles A. Dana

The difference between a democracy and a dictatorship is that in a democracy you vote first and take orders later; in a dictatorship you don’t have to waste your time voting.

Charles Bukowski

An inventor is simply a fellow who doesn’t take his education too seriously.

Charles F. Kettering

Bureaucrats write memoranda both because they appear to be busy when they are writing and because the memos, once written, immediately become proof that they were busy.

Charles Peters

By the time a man realizes that maybe his father was right, he usually has a son who thinks he’s wrong.

Charles Wadsworth

He who asks is a fool for five minutes, but he who does not ask remains a fool forever.

Chinese Proverb

One dog barks at something. And a hundred dogs bark at the sound.

Chinese Proverb

I hear: I forget / I see: I remember / I do: I understand

Chinese Proverb

Asking a working writer what he thinks about critics is like asking a lamppost how it feels about dogs.

Christopher Hampton

There is only one success – to be able to spend your life in your own way.

Christopher Morley

Inspiration is for amateurs. I just get to work.

Chuck Close

In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice; In practice, there is.

Chuck Reid

When I was a boy I was told that anybody could become President. Now I’m beginning to believe it.

Clarence Darrow

Laughing at our mistakes can lengthen our own life. Laughing at someone else’s can shorten it.

Cullen Hightower

There are many who dare not kill themselves for fear of what the neighbors will say.

Cyril Connolly

Better to write for yourself and have no public, than to write for the public and have no self.

Cyril Connolly

Success is getting what you want. Happiness is wanting what you get.

Dale Carnegie

Never be afraid to laugh at yourself, after all, you could be missing out on the joke of the century.

Dame Edna Everage

Do not condemn the judgement of another because it differs from your own. You may both be wrong.

Dandemis

The greatest obstacle to discovery is not ignorance – it is the illusion of knowledge.

Daniel J. Boorstin

Procastination is not about not doing is about not doing and feeling crappy.

David Allen

You can do anything, but not everything.

David Allen

It is said that power corrupts, but actually it’s more true that power attracts the corruptible. The sane are usually attracted by other things than power.

David Brin

A committee can make a decision that is dumber than any of its members.

David Cobitz

The direct use of force is such a poor solution to any problem, it is generally employed only by small children and large nations.

David Friedman

Television enables you to be entertained in your home by people you wouldn’t have in your home.

David Frost

Don’t be afraid to take a big step if one is indicated. You can’t cross a chasm in two small jumps.

David Lloyd George

The tooth fairy teaches children that they can sell body parts for money.

David Richerby

The more you know, the more you realise how much you don’t know — the less you know, the more you think you know.

David T. Freeman

Simple, clear purpose and principles give rise to complex and intelligent behavior. Complex rules and regulations give rise to simple and stupid behavior.

Dee Hock

The first step toward success will be the biggest one.

Dennis Waitley

There’s so much comedy on television. Does that cause comedy in the streets?

Dick Cavett

It’s a rare person who wants to hear what he doesn’t want to hear.

Dick Cavett

If your parents never had children, chances are you won’t, either.

Dick Cavett

There is nobody so irritating as somebody with less intelligence and more sense than we have.

Don Herold

Procrastination is the art of keeping up with yesterday.

Don Marquis

If you are not criticized, you may not be doing much.

Donald H. Rumsfeld

The art of simplicity is a puzzle of complexity.

Doug Horton

Instead of giving a politician the keys to the city, it might be better to change the locks.

Doug Larson

I love deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly by.

Douglas Adams

Hofstadter’s Law: It always takes longer than you expect, even when you take into account Hofstadter’s Law.

Douglas Hofstadter

In God we trust; all others bring data.

Dr. Edwards Deming

Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don’t matter and those who matter don’t mind.

Dr. Seuss

The best car safety device is a rear-view mirror with a cop in it.

Dudley Moore

In preparing for battle I have always found that plans are useless, but planning is indispensable.

Dwight D. Eisenhower

I arise in the morning torn between a desire to improve (or save) the world and a desire to enjoy (or savor) the world. This makes it hard to plan the day.

E. B. White

Computer Science is no more about computers than astronomy is about telescopes.

E. W. Dijkstra

I am patient with stupidity but not with those who are proud of it.

Edith Sitwell

If only we’d stop trying to be happy we could have a pretty good time.

Edith Wharton

Talent does what it can; genius does what it must.

Edward Bulwer-Lytton

Just because your voice reaches halfway around the world doesn’t mean you are wiser than when it reached only to the end of the bar.

Edward R. Murrow

The skill of writing is to create a context in which other people can think.

Edwin Schlossberg

No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.

Eleanor Roosevelt

Normal is getting dressed in clothes that you buy for work and driving through traffic in a car that you are still paying for – in order to get to the job you need to pay for the clothes and the car, and the house you leave vacant all day so you can afford to live in it.

Ellen Goodman

The cure for boredom is curiosity. There is no cure for curiosity.

Ellen Parr

I don’t know anything about music. In my line you don’t have to.

Elvis Presley

If the human mind was simple enough to understand, we’d be too simple to understand it.

Emerson Pugh

If voting changed anything, they’d make it illegal.

Emma Goldman

There is only one way to happiness and that is to cease worrying about things which are beyond the power of our will.

Epitectus

You can discover what your enemy fears most by observing the means he uses to frighten you.

Eric Hoffer

When people are free to do as they please, they usually imitate each other.

Eric Hoffer

The opposite of the religious fanatic is not the fanatical atheist but the gentle cynic who cares not whether there is a god or not.

Eric Hoffer

Advice is what we ask for when we already know the answer but wish we didn’t.

Erica Jong

Courage is grace under pressure.

Ernest Hemingway

You can’t get away from yourself by moving from one place to another. There’s nothing to that.

Ernest Hemingway

A happy life is just a string of happy moments. But most people don’t allow the happy moment, because they’re so busy trying to get a happy life.

Esther Hicks

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.

Eugene McCarthy

Character is what you have left when you’ve lost everything you can lose.

Evan Esar

America believes in education: the average professor earns more money in a year than a professional athlete earns in a whole week.

Evan Esar

We confess our little faults to persuade people that we have no large ones.

Francois de La Rochefoucauld

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

Lao Tze

We should be taught not to wait for inspiration to start a thing. Action always generates inspiration. Inspiration seldom generates action.

Frank Tibolt

Writing about music is like dancing about architecture.

Frank Zappa

The trouble with being punctual is that nobody’s there to appreciate it.

Franklin P. Jones

Experience is that marvelous thing that enables you to recognize a mistake when you make it again.

Franklin P. Jones

A celebrity is a person who works hard all his life to become well known, then wears dark glasses to avoid being recognized.

Fred Allen

Insanity in individuals is something rare – but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule.

Friedrich Nietzsche

The man of knowledge must be able not only to love his enemies but also to hate his friends.

Friedrich Nietzsche

Education… has produced a vast population able to read but unable to distinguish what is worth reading.

G. M. Trevelyan

I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use.

Galileo Galilei

I have never met a man so ignorant that I couldn’t learn something from him.

Galileo Galilei

You must be the change you wish to see in the world.

Gandhi

My friends tell me I have an intimacy problem. But they don’t really know me.

Garry Shandling

I’ve been trying for some time to develop a lifestyle that doesn’t require my presence.

Gary Trudeau

Everyone is a genius at least once a year. The real geniuses simply have their bright ideas closer together.

Georg Christoph Lichtenberg

My way of joking is to tell the truth. It is the funniest joke in the world.

George Bernard Shaw

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.

George Bernard Shaw

Patriotism is your conviction that this country is superior to all other countries because you were born in it.

George Bernard Shaw

Too bad the only people who know how to run the country are busy driving cabs and cutting hair.

George Burns

You know you’re getting old when you stop to tie your shoelaces and wonder what else you could do while you’re down there.

George Burns

It takes only one drink to get me drunk. The trouble is, I can’t remember if it’s the thirteenth or the fourteenth.

George Burns

Are people more violently opposed to fur rather than leather because its much easier to harass rich women than motorcycle gangs?

George Carlin

The nice part about being a pessimist is that you are constantly being either proven right or pleasantly surprised.

George F. Will

All animals are equal but some animals are more equal than others.

George Orwell

Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.

George Santayana

A physicist is an atom’s way of knowing about atoms.

George Wald

I have too much respect for the idea of God to make it responsible for such an absurd world.

Georges Duhamel

Some people like my advice so much that they frame it upon the wall instead of using it.

Gordon R. Dickson

2 is not equal to 3, not even for large values of 2.

Grabel’s Law

Those are my principles. If you don’t like them I have others.

Groucho Marx

A child of five would understand this. Send someone to fetch a child of five.

Groucho Marx

There is no truth. There is only perception.

Gustave Flaubert

All men are frauds. The only difference between them is that some admit it. I myself deny it.

H. L. Mencken

There is a great difference between worry and concern. A worried person sees a problem, and a concerned person solves a problem.

Harold Stephens

I once wanted to become an atheist, but I gave up – they have no holidays.

Henny Youngman

My Grandmother is over eighty and still doesn’t need glasses. Drinks right out of the bottle.

Henny Youngman

Think like a man of action, act like a man of thought.

Henri Bergson

Science is facts; just as houses are made of stones, so is science made of facts; but a pile of stones is not a house and a collection of facts is not necessarily science.

Henri Poincare

Truly great madness cannot be achieved without significant intelligence.

Henrik Tikkanen

Every generation laughs at the old fashions, but follows religiously the new.

Henry David Thoreau

A man is rich in proportion to the number of things he can afford to let alone.

Henry David Thoreau

Whether you think you can or think you can’t — you are right.

Henry Ford

Writing is good, thinking is better. Cleverness is good, patience is better

Hermann Hesse

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.

Hermann Hesse

The whole secret of life is to be interested in one thing profoundly and in a thousand things well.

Horace Walpole

Science is organized knowledge. Wisdom is organized life.

Immanuel Kant

If the doctor told me I had six minutes to live, I’d type a little faster.

Isaac Asimov

Part of the inhumanity of the computer is that, once it is competently programmed and working smoothly, it is completely honest.

Isaac Asimov

If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.

Isaac Newton

Once the game is over, the King and the pawn go back in the same box.

Italian Proverb

I don’t deserve this award, but I have arthritis and I don’t deserve that either.

Jack Benny

I have enough money to last me the rest of my life, unless I buy something.

Jackie Mason

It’s no longer a question of staying healthy. It’s a question of finding a sickness you like.

Jackie Mason

The world can only be grasped by action, not by contemplation.

Jacob Bronowski

Dream as if you’ll live forever. Live as if you’ll die today.

James Dean

Too many people are thinking of security instead of opportunity. They seem more afraid of life than death.

James F. Byrnes

A myth is a religion in which no one any longer believes.

James Feibleman

It is better to know some of the questions than all of the answers.

James Thurber

He knows all about art, but he doesn’t know what he likes.

James Thurber

No matter what side of the argument you are on, you always find people on your side that you wish were on the other.

Jascha Heifetz

Life is like a game of cards. The hand that is dealt you is determinism; the way you play it is free will.

Jawaharlal Nehru

Only the mediocre are always at their best.

Jean Giraudoux

A timid person is frightened before a danger, a coward during the time, and a courageous person afterward.

Jean Paul Richter

My pessimism extends to the point of even suspecting the sincerity of the pessimists.

Jean Rostand

A good tool improves the way you work. A great tool improves the way you think.

Jeff Duntemann

A person who trusts no one can’t be trusted.

Jerome Blattner

I like work: it fascinates me. I can sit and look at it for hours.

Jerome K. Jerome

Sometimes the road less traveled is less traveled for a reason.

Jerry Seinfeld

If God lived on earth, people would break his windows.

Jewish Proverb

If the phone doesn’t ring, it’s me.

Jimmy Buffet

We are the people our parents warned us about.

Jimmy Buffett

The only normal people are the ones you don’t know very well.

Joe Ancis

If it weren’t for my lawyer, I’d still be in prison. It went a lot faster with two people digging.

Joe Martin

It is in self-limitation that a master first shows himself.

Johann Goethe

Mistrust the man who finds everything good, the man who finds everything evil and still more the man who is indifferent to everything.

Johann K. Lavater

In mathematics you don’t understand things. You just get used to them.

Johann von Neumann

The intelligent man finds almost everything ridiculous, the sensible man hardly anything.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

The only function of economic forecasting is to make astrology look respectable.

John Kenneth Galbraith

A man always has two reasons for what he does-a good one, and the real one.

John Pierpont Morgan

What we think, or what we know, or what we believe is, in the end, of little consequence. The only consequence is what we do.

John Ruskin

We are continually faced with a series of great opportunities brilliantly disguised as insoluble problems.

John W. Gardner

Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is I don’t know which half.

John Wanamaker

Before I got married I had six theories about bringing up children; now I have six children and no theories.

John Wilmot

No wise man ever wished to be younger.

Jonathan Swift

Man has to suffer. When he has no real afflictions, he invents some.

Jose Marti

I hate mankind, for I think myself one of the best of them, and I know how bad I am.

Joseph Baretti

A fine quotation is a diamond on the finger of a man of wit, and a pebble in the hand of a fool.

Joseph Roux

A single death is a tragedy; a million deaths is a statistic.

Joseph Stalin

Always be a first-rate version of yourself, instead of a second-rate version of someone else.

Judy Garland

Imagination is the one weapon in the war against reality.

Jules de Gaultier

Laziness is nothing more than the habit of resting before you get tired.

Jules Renard

It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society.

Krishnamurti

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

Kurt Lewin

Those who believe in telekinetics, raise my hand.

Kurt Vonnegut

Another flaw in the human character is that everybody wants to build and nobody wants to do maintenance.

Kurt Vonnegut

A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.

Lao Tzu

Truth over Harmony.

Larry Bossidy

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

Laurence J. Peter

Any event, once it has occurred, can be made to appear inevitable by a competent historian.

Lee Simonson

Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself.

Leo Tolstoy

Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.

Leonardo da Vinci

Besides the noble art of getting things done, there is the noble art of leaving things undone. The wisdom of life consists in the elimination of nonessentials.

Lian Yutang

Sometimes I worry about being a success in a mediocre world.

Lily Tomlin

The trouble with the rat race is that even if you win, you’re still a rat.

Lily Tomlin

I always wanted to be somebody, but now I realize I should have been more specific.

Lily Tomlin

When hungry, eat your rice; when tired, close your eyes. Fools may laugh at me, but wise men will know what I mean.

Lin-Chi

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

Linus Pauling

The highest proof of virtue is to possess boundless power without abusing it.

Lord Macaulay

Life is ten percent what happens to you and ninety percent how you respond to it.

Lou Holtz

Love thy neighbour as yourself, but choose your neighbourhood.

Louise Beal

Wisdom is knowing the right path to take… Integrity is taking it.

M. H. McKee

It is more important to know where you are going than to get there quickly.

Mabel Newcomber

The difference between what we do and what we are capable of doing would solve most the worlds problems.

Gandhi

An eye for eye only ends up making the whole world blind.

Gandhi

God has no religion.

Gandhi

Education’s purpose is to replace an empty mind with an open one.

Malcolm Forbes

The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new lands but seeing with new eyes.

Marcel Proust

Most conversations are simply monologues delivered in the presence of witnesses.

Margaret Millar

Times have not become more violent. They have just become more televised.

Marilyn Manson

To acquire knowledge, one must study; but to acquire wisdom, one must observe.

Marilyn vos Savant

If everything’s under control, you’re going too slow.

Mario Andretti

It is surprinsingly how easy it is to forget that the way to get things done is to do them.

Mark Forster

The difference between the right word and the almost right word is the difference between lightning and a lightning bug.

Mark Twain

Never argue with a fool, onlookers may not be able to tell the difference.

Mark Twain

Most people are bothered by those passages of Scripture they do not understand, but the passages that bother me are those I do understand.

Mark Twain

To cease smoking is the easiest thing I ever did; I ought to know because I’ve done it a thousand times.

Mark Twain

A lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes.

Mark Twain

If you eat a frog first thing in the morning, the rest of your day will be wonderful.

Mark Twain

If you have to eat a frog, don’t look at it for too long.

Mark Twain

If you tell the truth you don’t have to remember anything.

Mark Twain

It is by the goodness of God that in our country we have those three unspeakably precious things: freedom of speech, freedom of conscience, and the prudence never to practice either of them.

Mark Twain

Never put off until tomorrow, what you can put off until the day after tomorrow.

Mark Twain

Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it’s time to pause and reflect.

Mark Twain

When a thought is too weak to be expressed simply, simply drop it.

Marquis de Vauvenargues

I don’t necessarily agree with everything I say.

Marshall McLuhan

There is no pleasure in having nothing to do; the fun is in having lots to do and not doing it.

Mary Wilson Little

If God wanted us to fly, He would have given us tickets.

Mel Brooks

The coward dies a thousand deaths, the brave man…only five hundred.

Meredith Willson

I can accept failure, but I can’t accept not trying.

Michael Jordan

The more you can dream, the more you can do.

Michael Korda

You don’t stop laughing because you grow old. You grow old because you stop laughing.

Michael Pritchard

Arithmetic is being able to count up to twenty without taking off your shoes.

Mickey Mouse

A man who fears suffering is already suffering from what he fears.

Montaigne

We can do no great things, only small things with great love.

Mother Teresa

A complex system that does not work is invariably found to have evolved from a simpler system that worked just fine.

Murphy’s Law of Computing

Never ascribe to malice, that which can be explained by incompetence.

Napoleon (Hanlon’s Razor)

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

Napoleon Bonaparte

Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake.

Napoleon Bonaparte

I’ve gone into hundreds of [fortune-teller’s parlors], and have been told thousands of things, but nobody ever told me I was a policewoman getting ready to arrest her.

New York City detective

The opposite of a correct statement is a false statement. But the opposite of a profound truth may well be another profound truth.

Niels Bohr

I like long walks, especially when they are taken by people who annoy me.

Noel Coward

Insane people are always sure that they are fine. It is only the sane people who are willing to admit that they are crazy.

Nora Ephron

When you go into court you are putting your fate into the hands of twelve people who weren’t smart enough to get out of jury duty.

Norm Crosby

There is no greater impotence in all the world like knowing you are right and that the wave of the world is wrong, yet the wave crashes upon you.

Norman Mailer

Heroism consists of hanging on one minute longer.

Norwegian saying

You probably wouldn’t worry about what people think of you if you could know how seldom they do.

Olin Miller

The little I know I owe to my ignorance.

Orville Mars

What the world needs is more geniuses with humility, there are so few of us left.

Oscar Levant

Always forgive your enemies; nothing annoys them so much.

Oscar Wilde

True friends stab you in the front.

Oscar Wilde

Be yourself; everyone else is already taken.

Oscar Wilde

I am not young enough to know everything.

Oscar Wilde

Truth, in matters of religion, is simply the opinion that has survived.

Oscar Wilde

Every saint has a past, and every sinner has a future.

Oscar Wilde

There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book. Books are well written or badly written.

Oscar Wilde

Imagination was given to man to compensate him for what he is not, and a sense of humor was provided to console him for what he is.

Oscar Wilde

Laws are like sausages. It’s better not to see them being made.

Otto von Bismarck

Action is the foundational key to all success.

Pablo Picasso

Computers are useless. They can only give you answers.

Pablo Picasso

The best way to make your dreams come true is to wake up.

Paul Valery

There is nothing so useless as doing efficiently that which should not be done at all.

Peter F. Drucker

Some people have so much respect for their superiors they have none left for themselves.

Peter McArthur

Wise men talk because they have something to say; fools, because they have to say something.

Plato

Write drunk, revise sober.

Poet’s Motto

I have yet to see any problem, however complicated, which, when you looked at it in the right way, did not become still more complicated.

Poul Anderson

Technology is dominated by two types of people: those who understand what they do not manage, and those who manage what they do not understand.

Putt’s Law

Some things have to be believed to be seen.

Ralph Hodgson

The test of courage comes when we are in the minority. The test of tolerance comes when we are in the majority.

Ralph W. Sockman

I hate quotations. Tell me what you know.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

You have to know how to accept rejection and reject acceptance.

Ray Bradbury

A pessimist is one who makes difficulties of his opportunities; an optimist is one who makes opportunities of his difficulties.

Reginald B. Mansell

Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change thing I can, and wisdom to know the difference.

Reinhold Niebuhr

Each problem that I solved became a rule which served afterwards to solve other problems.

Rene Descartes

Programming today is a race between software engineers striving to build bigger and better idiot-proof programs, and the Universe trying to produce bigger and better idiots. So far, the Universe is winning.

Rich Cook

I quit therapy because my analyst was trying to help me behind my back.

Richard Lewis

One of the keys to happiness is a bad memory.

Rita Mae Brown

An undefined problem has an infinite number of solutions.

Robert A. Humphrey

Understanding is simple. Knowing is complicated.

Robert Fripp

A jury consists of twelve persons chosen to decide who has the better lawyer.

Robert Frost

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I–/ I took the one less traveled by, / And that has made all the difference.

Robert Frost

While I am opposed to all orthodox creeds, I have a creed myself; and my creed is this. Happiness is the only good. The time to be happy is now. The place to be happy is here. The way to be happy is to make others so. This creed is somewhat short, but it is long enough for this life, strong enough for this world. If there is another world, when we get there we can make another creed.

Robert Green Ingersoll

Progress isn’t made by early risers. It’s made by lazy men trying to find easier ways to do something.

Robert Heinlein

The only Zen you find on the tops of mountains is the Zen you bring up there.

Robert M. Pirsig

It is a puzzling thing. The truth knocks on the door and you say, ‘Go away, I’m looking for the truth.’ and so it goes away. Puzzling.

Robert M. Pirsig

When one person suffers from a delusion It is called insanity. When many people suffer from a delusion It is called Religion.

Robert M. Pirsig

There’s so much pollution in the air now that if it weren’t for our lungs there’d be no place to put it all.

Robert Orben

We’ve heard that a million monkeys at a million keyboards could produce the complete works of Shakespeare; now, thanks to the Internet, we know that is not true.

Robert Wilensky

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.

Robert X. Cringely

I haven’t spoken to my wife in years. I didn’t want to interrupt her.

Rodney Dangerfield

My wife and I were happy for twenty years. Then we met.

Rodney Dangerfield

If there’s only one answer, then this must not be a very interesting topic.

Ron Jeffries

Nobody believes the official spokesman… but everybody trusts an unidentified source.

Ron Nesen

Abortion is advocated only by persons who have themselves been born.

Ronald Reagan

After twelve years of therapy my psychiatrist said something that brought tears to my eyes. He said, ‘No hablo ingles.’

Ronnie Shakes

Inanimate objects are classified scientifically into three major categories – those that don’t work, those that break down and those that get lost.

Russell Baker

O Lord, help me to be pure, but not yet.

Saint Augustine

There are more tears shed over answered prayers than over unanswered prayers.

Saint Theresa of Jesus

You almost never get the pleasure of seeing that you won the argument in real time. People just don’t like to publicly change their minds. They change their minds in private.

Sam Harris

What shapes our lives are the questions we ask, refuse to ask, or never think to ask.

Sam Keen

Somewhere on this globe, every ten seconds, there is a woman giving birth to a child. She must be found and stopped.

Sam Levenson

It’s so simple to be wise. Just think of something stupid to say and then don’t say it.

Sam Levenson

What is written without effort is in general read without pleasure.

Samuel Johnson

Your manuscript is both good and original, but the part that is good is not original and the part that is original is not good.

Samuel Johnson

If there are no stupid questions, then what kind of questions do stupid people ask? Do they get smart just in time to ask questions?

Scott Adams

If you can eliminate all the other choices, the remaining choice, no matter how improbable, is the answer.

Sherlock Holmes

In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities, but in the expert’s there are few.

Shunryu Suzuki

An honest politician is one who, when he is bought, will stay bought.

Simon Cameron

An honest politician is one who, when he is bought, will stay bought.

Simon Cameron

Not only is the universe stranger than we imagine, it is stranger than we can imagine.

Sir Arthur Eddington

I don’t mind what language an opera is sung in so long as it is a language I don’t understand.

Sir Edward Appleton

By all means marry. If you get a good wife, you’ll be happy. If you get a bad one, you’ll become a philosopher… and that is a good thing for any man.

Socrates

The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing.

Socrates

The unexamined life is not worth living.

Socrates

True wisdom comes to each of us when we realize how little we understand about life, ourselves, and the world around us.

Socrates

To a brave man, good and bad luck are like his left and right hand. He uses both.

St Catherine of Siena

When you’re young, you look at television and think, There’s a conspiracy. The networks have conspired to dumb us down. But when you get a little older, you realize that’s not true. The networks are in business to give people exactly what they want. That’s a far more depressing thought. Conspiracy is optimistic! You can shoot the bastards!

Steve Jobs

Failure to plan ahead on your part does not create an emergency on my part.

Steven Dutch

With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion.

Steven Weinberg

Millions long for immortality who do not know what to do with themselves on a rainy Sunday afternoon.

Susan Erz

Fortune does not change men, it unmasks them.

Suzanne Necker

When I hear somebody sigh, ‘Life is hard,’ I am always tempted to ask, ‘Compared to what?’

Sydney J. Harris

Have the courage to be ignorant of a great number of things, in order to avoid the calamity of being ignorant of everything.

Sydney Smith

If I had to live my life again, I’d make the same mistakes, only sooner.

Tallulah Bankhead

We don’t see the things the way they are. We see things the way WE are.

Talmund

If I only had a little humility, I’d be perfect.

Ted Turner

There is nothing so easy but that it becomes difficult when you do it reluctantly.

Terence

Every great advance in natural knowledge has involved the absolute rejection of authority.

Thomas H. Huxley

Try to learn something about everything and everything about something.

Thomas H. Huxley

The way to succeed is to double your error rate.

Thomas J. Watson

In archaeology you uncover the unknown. In diplomacy you cover the known.

Thomas Pickering

When a person can no longer laugh at himself, it is time for others to laugh at him.

Thomas Szasz

Invention is the mother of necessity.

Thorstein Veblen

I have such a high regard for the truth that I use it sparingly.

Timothy Connor

Women who seek to be equal with men lack ambition.

Timothy Leary

A cult is a religion with no political power.

Tom Wolfe

The best way to get a better answer is to start asking a better question.

Tony Robbins

The things you own end up owning you.

Tyler Durden, in Fight Club

The real hero is always a hero by mistake; he dreams of being an honest coward like everybody else.

Umberto Eco

Nobody knows the age of the human race, but everybody agrees that it is old enough to know better.

Unknown Author

Learn from the mistakes of others, because you can’t live long enough to make them all yourself.

Unknown Author

Opportunity may knock only once, but temptation leans on the doorbell.

Unknown Author

Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum sonatur. (Whatever is said in Latin sounds profound.)

Unknown Author

I wish I was as certain about anything, as he is about everything.

Unknown Author

Management works within the system. Leadership works on the system.

Unknown Author

There are 10 types of people in the world: those who understand binary, and those who don’t.

Unknown Author

I would love to change the world, but they won’t give me the source code.

Unknown Author

If you don’t know where you’re going, you don’t know when you’re lost.

Unknown Author

Be kind to unkind people – they need it the most.

Unknown Author

It takes about ten years to get used to how old you are.

Unknown Author

To fight a bull when you are not scared is nothing. And to not fight a bull when you are scared is nothing. But to fight a bull when you are scared is something.

Unknown Author

Some people have nothing very well organized. And some people have nothing, very well organized.

Unknown Author

What if this weren’t a hypothetical question?

Unknown Author

The fact that no one understands you doesn’t mean you’re an artist.

Unknown Author

Tell a man there are 300 Billion stars in the universe and he’ll believe you. Tell him a bench has wet paint on it and he’ll have to touch to be sure.

Unknown Author

A wise man can see more from the bottom of a well than a fool can from a mountain top.

Unknown Author

Discipline is just choosing between what you want now and what you want most.

Unknown Author

When an ordinary man attains knowledge he is a sage; when a sage attains understanding he is an ordinary man.

Unknown author

Never try to please everyone. Your goal should be to become the hated enemy of certain kinds of people.

Unknown Author

Everyone is entitled to be stupid, but some abuse the privilege.

Unknown Author

The richest man is not he who has the most, but he who needs the least.

Unknown Author

Work like you don’t need money, love like you’ve never been hurt, and dance like no one’s watching

Unknown Author

Experience is a hard teacher because she gives the test first, the lesson afterwards.

Vernon Sanders Law

Laughter is the shortest distance between two people.

Victor Borge

I don’t mind what Congress does, as long as they don’t do it in the streets and frighten the horses.

Victor Hugo

Try a thing you haven’t done three times. Once, to get over the fear of doing it. Twice, to learn how to do it. And a third time, to figure out whether you like it or not.

Virgil Garnett Thomson

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.

W. H. Auden

The very best thing you can do for the whole world is to make the most of yourself.

Wallace Wattles

You’ve achieved success in your field when you don’t know whether what you’re doing is work or play.

Warren Beatty

It makes more sense to buy a wonderful business at a fair price than it does to buy a fair business at a wonderful price.

Warren Buffet

You miss 100 percent of the shots you never take.

Wayne Gretzky

Always and never are two words you should always remember never to use.

Wendell Johnson

Research is what I’m doing when I don’t know what I’m doing.

Wernher von Braun

The truth is that there is nothing noble in being superior to somebody else. The only real nobility is in being superior to your former self.

Whitney Young

Even if you’re on the right track, you’ll get run over if you just sit there.

Will Rogers

The trouble with being poor is that it takes up all of your time.

Willem de Kooning

The pessimist complains about the wind; the optimist expects it to change; the realist adjusts the sails.

William Arthur Ward

It is easier to forgive an enemy than to forgive a friend.

William Blake

It is impossible to defeat an ignorant man in argument.

William G. McAdoo

The future is here. It’s just not widely distributed yet.

William Gibson

I feel like a fugitive from the law of averages.

William H. Mauldin

After one look at this planet any visitor from outer space would say I want to see the manager.

William S. Burroughs

When two men in business always agree, one of them is unnecessary.

William Wrigley Jr.

I respect faith, but doubt is what gets you an education.

Wilson Mizner

Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm.

Winston Churchill

A fanatic is one who can’t change his mind and won’t change the subject.

Winston Churchill

I took a speed reading course and read ‘War and Peace’ in twenty minutes. It involves Russia.

Woody Allen

If you’re not failing every now and again, it’s a sign you’re not doing anything very innovative.

Woody Allen

No one goes there nowadays, it’s too crowded.

Yogi Berra

Before enlightnment, chop wood, carry water. After enlightnment, chop wood, carry water.

Zen proverb

People often say that motivation doesn’t last. Well, neither does bathing – that’s why we recommend it daily.

Zig Ziglar

When I read about the evils of drinking, I gave up reading.

Henny Youngman

It’s no wonder that truth is stranger than fiction. Fiction has to make sense.

Mark Twain

When your friends begin to flatter you on how young you look, it’s a sure sign you’re getting old.

Mark Twain

Sometimes when reading Goethe I have the paralyzing suspision that he is trying to be funny.

Guy Davenport

Seriousness is the only refuge of the shallow.

Oscar Wilde

Honest criticism is hard to take, particularly from a relative, a friend, an acquaintance, or a stranger.

Franklin P. Jones

A conclusion is the place where you got tired thinking.

Martin H. Fischer

Never believe anything until it has been officially denied.

Claud Cockburn

I’ve done the calculation and your chances of winning the lottery are identical whether you play or not.

Fran Lebowitz

First we make our habits, then our habits make us.

Charles C. Noble

The true measure of a man is how he treats someone who can do him absolutely no good.

Samuel Johnson

Until you’ve lost your reputation, you never realize what a burden it was.

Margaret Mitchell

A writer is someone for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people.

Thomas Manne

I never apologize. I’m sorry, but that’s just the way I am.

Homer Simpson

The secret of life is honesty and fair dealing. If you can fake that, you’ve got it made.

Groucho Marx

Never try and teach a pig to think … It doesn’t work, and will only upset the pig.

Unknown Author

A genius! For 37 years I’ve practised fourteen hours a day, and now they call me a genius!

Pablo Sarasate (Spanish Violinist)

If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put foundations under them.

Henry David Thoreau

The nice thing about standards is that there are so many of them to choose from.

Andrew S. Tanenbaum

Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes.

Carl Jung

My definition of an expert in any field is a person who knows enough about what’s really going on to be scared.

P. J. Plauger

Eighty percent of success is showing up.

Woody Allen

‘Someday’ is the day after you die.

Steve Pavlina

I can’t understand why a person will take a year to write a novel when he can easily buy one for a few dollars.

Fred Allen

Time flies like an arrow; fruit flies like a banana.

Groucho Marx

You will not be punished for your anger, you will be punished by your anger.

Buddha

Who is wise? He who learns from all men.

Ben Zoma

Dream is not the thing what you see in sleep, dream is the thing that does not let you sleep.

Adbul Kalam

If people knew how hard I had to work to gain my mastery, it wouldn’t seem so wonderful at all.

Michelangelo

When I was young, I observed that nine out of ten things I did were failures. So I did ten times more work.

George Bernard Shaw

There are only two ways of telling the complete truth–anonymously and posthumously.

Thomas Sowell

When a thing is funny, search it carefully for a hidden truth.

George Bernard Shaw

Don’t worry about the world coming to an end today. It’s already tomorrow in Australia.

Charles M. Schulz

Tomorrow is often the busiest day of the week.

Spanish Proverb

When I’m working on a problem, I never think about beauty. I think only how to solve the problem. But when I have finished, if the solution is not beautiful, I know it is wrong.

R. Buckminster Fuller

Life is based on perception,
Perception is based on opinion,
Opinion is based on thought,
Thought comes from the mind.
Change your mind , change your life.

Unknown Author

You can never get enough of what you don’t really need.

Eric Hoffer

Time is that quality of nature which keeps events from happening all at once. Lately it doesn’t seem to be working

Unknown Author

An incompetent attorney can delay a trial for months or years. A competent attorney can delay one even longer.

Evelle J. Younger

I’d rather be hated for who I am, than loved for who I am not.

Kurt Cobain

Practice doesn’t make perfect. Perfect practice makes perfect.

Vince Lombardi

Never judge a book by its movie.

J. W. Eagan

The more things a man is ashamed of, the more respectable he is.

George Bernard Shaw

I can picture in my mind a world without war, a world without hate. And I can picture us attacking that world, because they’d never expect it.

Jack Handey

A man is but the product of his thoughts; what he thinks, he becomes.

Gandhi

Why does the Air Force need expensive new bombers? Have the people we’ve been bombing over the years been complaining?

George Wallace

Before you go and criticize the younger generation, just remember who raised them.

Unknown Author

It’s not that I’m so smart, it’s just that I stay with problems longer.

Albert Einstein

I have been through some terrible things in my life, some of which actually happened.

Mark Twain

Time is the stuff life is made of.

Benjamin Franklin

Even a stopped clock is right twice a day.

Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach

Time you enjoy wasting is not wasted.

John Lennon

I hope that while so many people are out smelling the flowers, someone is taking the time to plant some.

Herbert Rappaport

When a stupid man is doing something he is ashamed of, he always declares that it is his duty.

George Bernard Shaw

Silence is so accurate.

Mark Rothko

Money doesn’t change you; it reveals who you are when you no longer have to be nice.

Unknown Author

Quiet is the absence of sound. Silence is the presence of silence.

Robert Fripp

Love is the triumph of imagination over intelligence.

H. L. Mencken

If you don’t make mistakes, you’re not working on hard enough problems. And that’s a big mistake.

Frank Wilczek

The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.

George Bernard Shaw

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

Harry Truman

I don’t care what is written about me so long as it isn’t true.

Dorothy Parker

I don’t know if God exists, but it would be better for His reputation if He didn’t.

Jules Renard

The bad news is time flies. The good news is you’re the pilot.

Michael Althsuler

The art of progress is to preserve order amid change and to preserve change amid order.

Alfred North Whitehead

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

Naguib Mahfouz

The difference between death and taxes is death doesn’t get worse every time Congress meets.

Will Rogers