March 2010 Quotations

"You should never wear your best trousers when you go out to fight for freedom and truth."
~~ Henrik Ibsen [1928-1906], in "An Enemy of The People" (1888)

"The next step [in a Fascist movement] is to fascinate fools and muzzle the intelligent, by emotional excitement on the one hand and terrorism on the other."
~~ Bertrand Russell [1872-1970]

"Since Ronald Reagan's presidency, Americans have consumed more than we produced and have made up the difference by borrowing."
~~ Fareed Zakaria

"All those who believe in psychokinesis, raise my hand."
~~ comedian Steven Wright

"Thinking begins only when we have come to know that reason, glorified for centuries, is the stiff-necked adversary of thought."
~~ Martin Heidegger [1889-1976]

"The purpose of life is not to be happy. It is to be useful, to be honorable, to be compassionate, to have it make some difference that you have lived and lived well."
~~ Ralph Waldo Emerson [1803-82]

"Scientists dream about doing great things. Engineers do them."
~~ James A. Michener [1907-97]

"The only rules comedy can tolerate are those of taste, and the only limitations those of libel."
~~ James Thurber [1894-1961]

"Sell a man a fish, he eats for a day. Teach a man to fish, you ruin a wonderful business opportunity."
~~ Karl Marx [1818-83]

"About half the practice of a decent lawyer consists in telling would-be clients that they are damned fools and should stop."
~~ Elihu Root [1845-1937]

"I ain't Martin Luther King. I don't need a dream. I have a plan."
~~ filmmaker Spike Lee

"The Buddhist approach is 'Don't just do something, sit there'."
~~ cartoonist Brian Crane

"Ruin in its worst form is inevitable if our national life brings us nothing better than swollen fortunes for the few and the triumph in both politics and business of a sordid and selfish materialism."
~~ former U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt [1858-1919], in August 1910 speech

"The wastebasket is a writer's best friend"
~~ Isaac Bashevis Singer [1902-91]

"It's a writer's job to carve with language, to hew close to the bone."
~~ Stephen King

"If you tell the truth you don't have to remember anything."
~~ Mark Twain [1835-1910]

"Barbarism is the natural state of mankind. Civilization is unnatural. It is a whim of circumstance. And barbarism must always ultimately triumph."
~~ Robert E. Howard [1906-36], in "Beyond The Black River"

"it is the chief value of legend to mix up the centuries while preserving the sentiment."
~~ G.K. Chesterton [1874-1936], in "The Ballad of The White Horse"

“The Revolution is never over, the Class War is perpetual – which side are you on?”
~~ G.E. Nordell

"A nation without the means of reform is without means of survival."
~~ Edmund Burke [1729-1797]

"I believe ... that all the measures of the Government are directed to the purpose of making the rich richer and the poor poorer."
~~ U.S. President William Henry Harrison [1773-1841], on 10 October 1840

"Understanding is the booby prize."
~~ Werner Erhard

"Here's the best truth [that] I know for certain: Never attribute to 'evil' that which you can chalk up to ineptitude."
~~ author Harlan Ellison

"All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make the better."
~~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

"I returned, and saw under the sun, that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favor to men of skill; but time and chance happen to them all."
~~ Judeo-Christian Bible, Ecclesiastes 9:11

"It may be that the race is not always to the swift, nor the battle to the strong – but that is the way to bet."
~~ Damon Runyon [1880-1946]

"Invention, my dear friends, is 93% perspiration, 6% electricity, 4% evaporation, and 2% butterscotch ripple."
~~ Willy Wonka (character created by Roald Dahl [1916-90])

"When you cannot make up your mind which of two evenly balanced courses of action you should take, choose the bolder."
~~ William Joseph Slim [1891-1970]

"Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them."
~~ Wm. Shakespeare [1564-1616], in "Twelfth Night" (Act II, Scene 5)

"The wise make proverbs and fools repeat them."
~~ Isaac D'Israeli [1766-1848]

"The gods too are fond of a joke."
~~ Aristotle [384-322 B.C.E.]

{each set of posted quotations are then posted at the Working Minds website, alphabetical by author}