Favorite quotes

Life is a tragedy for those who feel, and a comedy for those who think. -Jean de la Bruyere, essayist and moralist (1645-1696)

 

When you want to fool the world, tell the truth. -Otto von Bismarck, statesman (1815-1898

 

The desire of knowledge, like the thirst of riches, increases ever with the acquisition of it. -Laurence Sterne, novelist and clergyman (1713-1768)

 

A cult is a religion with no political power. -Tom Wolfe, author and journalist (b. 1931)

 

If you have a weak candidate and a weak platform, wrap yourself up in the American flag and talk about the Constitution. -Matthew Stanley Quay, senator (1833-1904)

 

Taxes are the price we pay for a civilized society. -Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., US Supreme Court Justice (1841-1935)

 

Clear thinking requires courage rather than intelligence. -Thomas Szasz, author, professor of psychiatry (b. 1920)

 

Religious freedom should work two ways: we should be free to practice the religion of our choice, but we must also be free from having someone else's religion practiced on us. -John Irving, novelist (b. 1942)

 

There are stars whose radiance is visible on Earth though they have long been extinct. There are people whose brilliance continues to light the world though they are no longer among the living. These lights are particularly bright when the night is dark. They light the way for humankind. -Hannah Senesh, poet, playwright, and paratrooper (1921-1944

 

Ideas that enter the mind under fire remain there securely and for ever. -Leon Trotsky, revolutionary and writer (1879-1940)

 

The tax which will be paid for the purpose of education is not more than the thousandth part of what will be paid to kings, priests, and nobles who will rise up among us if we leave the people in ignorance. -Thomas Jefferson, third US president, architect and author (1743-1826)

 

Out of the quarrel with others we make rhetoric; out of the quarrel with ourselves we make poetry. -William Butler Yeats, writer, Nobel laureate (1865-1939)

 

In Science we have finally come back to the pre-Socratic philosopher Heraclitus, who said everything is flow, flux, process. There are no "things." NOTHINGNESS in Eastern language is "no-thingness." We in the West think of nothingness as a void, an emptiness, an nonexistence. In Eastern philosophy and modern physical science, nothingness — no-thingness — is a form of process, ever moving- Bruce Lee

 

Iron rusts from disuse; stagnant water loses its purity and in cold weather becomes frozen; even so does inaction sap the vigor of the mind.- Leonardo Da Vinci

 

In this world, you must be a bit too kind to be kind enough. -Pierre Carlet de Chamblain de Marivaux, dramatist and novelist (1688-1763)

 

"A close friend can become a close enemy." -Ethiopian proverb

 

"Racist people are like cassette players, when I see one I'm like... they still make you??" -Kuji Muto

 

Some tortures are physical / And some are mental, / But the one that is both / Is dental. -Ogden Nash, poet (1902-1971)

 

Prayers are to men as dolls are to children. They are not without use and comfort, but it is not easy to take them very seriously. -Samuel Butler, poet (1612-1680)

 

"Between true friends, even water drank together is sweet enough." -Zimbabwean Proverb