September 2013 Quotations (60)

"Women who seek to be equal with men lack ambition."
~~ Dr. Timothy Leary [1920-96]

"Science is what we do to keep from lying to ourselves."
~~ Richard P. Feynman [1918-88]

"Whoever would overthrow the liberty of a nation must begin by subduing the freedom of speech."
~~ Benjamin Franklin [1706-90], in 1722

"First man take drink, then drink take drink, then drink take man."
~~ old Chinese saying

"Arriving at one goal is the starting point to another."
~~ John Dewey [1859-1952]

[re: parenthood] "You get a lot of tension, you get a lot of headaches. I do what it says on the aspirin bottle: Take two and keep away from children."
~~ Roseanne Barr

"Everyone has a photographic memory. Some just don't have film."
~~ comedian Steven Wright

“The class warfare that is being waged by the great rich against the greater majority is not just a slogan. It is as heartless as terrorism, as real as death, and expanding in scope day by day.”
~~ Owen Williamson

“Writing is an exploration. You start from nothing and learn as you go.”
~~ E.L. Doctorow

"The truth is so top secret / It only stands to reason / That anyone exposing it / Is culpable of treason."
~~ lyric by Yip Harburg [1896-1981]

"Where we love is home - home that our feet may leave but not our hearts."
~~ Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. [1809-94]

"We've all heard that a million monkeys banging on a million typewriters will eventually reproduce the entire works of Shakespeare. Now, thanks to the Internet, we know this is not true."
~~ Robert Wilensky

"It doesn't matter how beautiful your theory is, it doesn't matter how smart you are. If it doesn't agree with experiment, it's wrong."
~~ Richard P. Feynman [1918-88]

"The general root of superstition is that men observe when things hit, and not when they miss, and commit to memory the one, and pass over the other."
~~ Sir Francis Bacon [1561-1626]

"When a whole nation is roaring Patriotism at the top of its voice, I am fain to explore the cleanness of its hands and purity of its heart."
~~ Ralph Waldo Emerson [1803-82]

"A casual stroll through the lunatic asylum shows that faith does not prove anything."
~~ Friedrich Nietzsche [1844-1900]

"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."
~~ Adlai E. Stevenson II [1900-65]

"We give our highest rewards to those who convincingly disprove established beliefs."
~~ Carl Sagan [1934-96]

"We are all atheists about most of the gods that societies have ever believed in. Some of us just go one god further."
~~ Richard Dawkins

"To kill a man is not to defend a doctrine, but to kill a man."
~~ Michael Servetus [1509?-1553], burned at the stake as a heretic

"Democracy is not about majority rule; it is about minority rights. If there is no culture of not simply tolerating minorities, but actually treating them with equal rights, real democracy cannot take root."
~~ Thomas L. Friedman

"It may be true that the law cannot make a man love me, but it can stop him from lynching me, and I think that's pretty important."
~~ Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. [1929-68]

"The deepest sin against the human mind is to believe things without evidence. Science is simply common sense at its best - that is, rigidly accurate in observation, and merciless to fallacy in logic."
~~ Thomas Henry Huxley [1825-95]

"There is no absurdity so obvious that it cannot be firmly planted in the human head if you only begin to impose it before the age of five, by constantly repeating it with an air of great solemnity."
~~ Arthur Schopenhauer [1788-1860]

"We have always known that heedless self-interest was bad morals; we know now that it is bad economics."
~~ President Franklin Delano Roosevelt [1882-1945]

"In this world of sin and sorrow there is always something to be thankful for; as for me, I rejoice that I am not a Republican."
~~ H.L. Mencken [1880-1956]

"Life is trouble. Only death is not. To be alive is to undo your belt and look for trouble."
~~ the character Alexis Zorba

"A film is never really good unless the camera is an eye in the head of a poet."
~~ Orson Welles [1915-85]

"The average Hollywood film star's ambition is to be admired by an American, courted by an Italian, married to an Englishman, and have a French boyfriend."
~~ Katharine Hepburn [1907-2003]

"In any war there are heroes on both sides . . ."
~~ title card at beginning of "Jet Li's Hero" feature film [2002]

"Imagination is but another name for super intelligence."
~~ Edgar Rice Burroughs [1875-1950]

"Life is hard; it's harder if you're stupid."
~~ John Wayne [1907-79]

"I have wondered at times about what the Ten Commandments would have looked like if Moses had run them through the U.S. Congress."
~~ Ronald Reagan [1911-2004]

"You're braver than you believe, and stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think."
~~ A.A. Milne [1882-1956], in "Winnie The Pooh", 1926

"Notoriety is often mistaken for fame."
~~ Aesop [620–564 B.C.E.]

"But all the magic I have known, I've had to make myself."
~~ Shel Silverstein [1930-99], in "Where The Sidewalk Ends", 1974

"After all, what's life, anyway? We're born, we live a little while, we die."
~~ E.B. White [1899-1985], in "Charlotte's Web", 1952

"Today is your day! Your mountain is waiting. So . . . Get on your way!"
~~ Dr. Seuss, in "Oh, The Places You'll Go", 1990

"Anyone who participates in the Trans-Pacific Partnership is an enemy of the United States of America. Any American who participates in the Trans-Pacific Partnership is a traitor."
~~ G.E. Nordell

"Like a boil that must be opened with all its ugliness to the natural medicines of air and light, injustice must be exposed to the light of human conscience before it can be cured."
~~ Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. [1929-68]

"Flattery is like chewing gum. Enjoy it but don't swallow it."
~~ cartoonist Hank Ketcham [1920-2001]

"People striving for approval from others become phony."
~~ baseball player Ichiro Suzuki

"Money is a protection, a cloak; it can buy one quiet and some sort of dignity."
~~ Willa Cather [1873-1947]

"There is one other reason for dressing well, namely that dogs respect it, and will not attack you in good clothes."
~~ Ralph Waldo Emerson [1803-82]

"A right is a responsibility in reverse."
~~ E.B. White [1899-1985]

"An empty man is full of himself."
~~ Edward Abbey [1927-89]

"Stupidity is the same as evil, if you judge by the results."
~~ Margaret Atwood

"It takes twenty years to build a reputation, and five minutes to ruin it."
~~ capitalist Warren Buffett

"The most futile thing in this world is any attempt at exact definition of character. All individuals are a bundle of contradictions."
~~ Theodore Dreiser [1871-1945]

"The essence of immorality is the tendency to make an exception of one's self."
~~ activist Jane Addams [1860-1935]

"A goal is a dream with a deadline."
~~ Napoleon Hill [1883-1970]

"Your life does not get better by chance. It gets better by change."
~~ motivational speaker Jim Rohn [1930-2009]

"I am a sort of preacher. I like to talk to people and get them to change their views when I think their views are wrong. Why else would anyone write a book?"
~~ sci-fi author Frederik Pohl [1919-2013]

"The inhabitants of the earth are of two sorts: those with brains, but no religion, and those with religion, but no brains."
~~ Abul Ala Al-Ma’arri [973-1057]

{last words} “Get out of here and leave me alone. Last words are for fools who haven't said enough already.”
~~ Karl Marx [1818-83]

"Whenever you write, whatever you write, never make the mistake of assuming [that] the audience is any less intelligent than you are."
~~ Rod Serling [1924-75]

"Imagination is the highest kite [that] one can fly."
~~ Lauren Bacall

"There is more to life than increasing its speed."
~~ Mahatma Gandhi [1869-1948]

"Speak a new language so that the world will be a new world."
~~ Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Balkhi, known as Rumi [1207-73]

“Beauty is in the eye of the beholder and it may be necessary from time to time to give a stupid or misinformed beholder a black eye.”
~~ Jim Henson ]1936-90]

"It's not your abilities that show who you are, it's your choices."
~~ character Professor Dumbeldore, in ""Harry Potter" and The Chamber of Secrets", 1998

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