Quotation Explorer - '--'

Life is not meant to be easy, my child; but take courage -- it can be delightful. - George Bernard Shaw

Love is not patronizing and charity isn't about pity, it is about love. Charity and love are the same -- with charity you give love, so don't just give money but reach out your hand instead. - Mother Teresa

You can't change reality -- only its perception. - Lionel Suggs

I wore black because I liked it. I still do, and wearing it still means something to me. It's still my symbol of rebellion -- against a stagnant status quo, against our hypocritical houses of God, against people whose minds are closed to others' ideas. - Johnny Cash

All government -- indeed, every human benefit and enjoyment, every virtue and every prudent act -- is founded on compromise and barter. - Edmund Burke

The public is a ferocious beast -- one must either chain it up or flee from it. - Voltaire

To know when to be generous and when to be firm -- this is wisdom. - Elbert Hubbard

As he spoke, the wind whistled through the gaps in his teeth, creating an odd musical accompaniment to his words. -- unpublished as of Jan 11 2016, but surely due to appear in one of my works eventually. - Kira Stone

HASH, x. There is no definition for this word -- nobody knows what hash is. - Ambrose Bierce

Beware the pull on your heartstrings -- it's often the pursestrings that are actually being reached for. - Barbara Mikkelson

Eventually you will find yourself preferring to say, 'Prayer happened, and I was there" more than "I prayed today". All you know is that you are being led, being guided, being loved, being used, being prayed through -- and you are no longer in the drivers seat. - John Predmore

Where you come from does matter -- but not nearly as much as where you are headed. - Jodi Picoult

Heart thoughts are profound, hindsight aches and hope is obscure. I'm craving a great adventure -- one that leads me back home. - Donna Lynn Hope

God loves us. He's watching us, he wants us to succeed, and we'll know someday that he has not left one thing undone for the eternal welfare of each of us. If we only knew it, there are heavenly hosts pulling for us -- friends in heaven that we can't rememer now, who yearn for our victory. - Ezra Taft Benson

It does not take a million complicated words to call yourself a writer, it only takes a simple few when they have been placed in the right order. -- - Reed Abbitt Moore

To be able to be caught up into the world of thought -- that is being educated.

I am not concerned that you have fallen -- I am concerned that you arise. - Abraham Lincoln

L I V E or E V I L -- to Live life is to spell forward. To not live life is to spell backwards. - Shannon L. Alder

A recent survey of 2,000 male graduates of Harvard Business Schoolfound that penis length & IQ were equally good predictors of annualincome. -- from "Eugene - Greg Egan

PIGMY, n. One of a tribe of very small men found by ancient travelers in many parts of the world, but by modern in Central Africa only. The Pigmies are so called to distinguish them from the bulkier Caucasians -- who are Hogmies. - Ambrose Bierce

Eating crappy food isn't a reward -- it's a punishment. - Drew Carey

The only way we'll get freedom for ourselves is to identify ourselves with every oppressed people in the world. We are blood brothers to the people of Brazil, Venezuela, Haiti, Cuba -- yes Cuba too. - Malcolm X

The only time you don't fail is the last time you try anything -- and it works.

Most managers were trained to be the thing they most despise -- bureaucrats. - Alvin Toffler

Old books exert a strange fascination for me -- their smell, their feel, their history; wondering who might have owned them, how they lived, what they felt. - Lauren Willig

It has not been a successful life.''No -- it has only been a beautiful one. - Henry James

Don't get suckered in by the comments -- they can be terribly misleading. Debug only code.

In Nature there are no good or bad outcomes -- only consequences. - Dr.Mani

[Jane] Austen was not a novelist for nothing: she knew that our stories are what make us human, and that listening to someone else's stories -- entering into their feelings, validating their experiences -- is the highest way of acknowledging their humanity, the sweetest form of usefulness. - William Deresiewicz

The Soul's sacred ground of being is the foundation for your doing. -- from the book, Doing a 360, page 135 - Nancy Ash

Morality consists in this for each individual: to attempt each time to extend its region of clear expression, to try to augment its amplitude, so as to produce a free act that expresses the most possible in one given condition or another. -- , The Fold: Leibniz and the Baroque, 73 - Gilles Deleuze

PRISON, n. A place of punishments and rewards. The poet assures us that -- "Stone walls do not a prison make," but a combination of the stone wall, the political parasite and the moral instructor is no garden of sweets. - Ambrose Bierce

Accept that all of us can be hurt, that all of us can - - and surely will at times -- fail. I think we should follow a simple rule: if we can take the worst, take the risk. - Dr. Joyce Brothers

If time is analog, then the New Year is an ephemeral event with no time measure at all, not even a nanosecond. It's careening around the world towards you, like some subatomic particle wave. Whoops -- you missed it. - Scott Archer Jones

What you've done becomes the judge of what you're going to do -- especially in other people's minds. When you're traveling, you are what you are right there and then. People don't have your past to hold against you. No yesterdays on the road.

You see, the world is as big as an elephant or small as a grain of sand, depending on you. You can let it stomp you, gore you, swallow you up. Or you can let it slip into your shell and turn into a pearl. -- Benjamin East - Jonathan Freedman

If you really want to be a writer, nobody can stop you -- and if you don't, nobody can help you. - Alma Alexander

I don't have to take this abuse from you -- I've got hundreds of people waiting to abuse me.

The instant is not in time -- time is in the instant. - John Barbour

You actually cannot sell the idea of freedom, democracy, diversity, as if it were a brand attribute and not reality -- not at the same time as you're bombing people, you can't. - Naomi Klein

Thinking it was easy to take a chance on things if you had nothing to lose -- politics, ideas, almost anything in fact; from the bottom of the ladder you could safely risk a fall, but the higher that you climbed the more cautious you must be. - Flavin, Martin

A rule without exceptions is an instrument capable of doing mischief to the innocent and bringing grief -- as well as injustice -- to those who should gain exemptions from the rule's functioning. - Derrick A. Bell

Freedom is not merely the opportunity to do as one pleases; neither is it merely the opportunity to choose between set alternatives. Freedom is, first of all, the chance to formulate the available choices, to argue over them -- and then, the opportunity to choose. - C. Wright Mills

DAY, n. A period of twenty-four hours, mostly misspent. This period is divided into two parts, the day proper and the night, or day improper -- the former devoted to sins of business, the latter consecrated to the other sort. These two kinds of social activity overlap. - Ambrose Bierce

It was almost May. I knew that New York was getting warm now, that London was wet, that Rome was hot -- and I was on Vieques, where it was always hot and where New York and London and Rome were just names on a map. - Hunter S. Thompson

CHILDHOOD, n. The period of human life intermediate between the idiocy of infancy and the folly of youth -- two removes from the sin of manhood and three from the remorse of age. - Ambrose Bierce

No one is an outside observer of nature,We're defined by our environment and our interaction with that environment -- by our ecology. And that ecology is necessarily relative, historical and empirical. - Beau Lotto

It is not always easy. Your successes are unheralded -- your failures are trumpeted. I sometimes have that feeling myself."[Speech at CIA Headquarters, November 28, 1961] - John F. Kennedy

Why, that dog is practically a Phi Beta Kappa. She can sit up and beg, and she can give her paw -- I don't say she will but she can. - Dorothy Parker

I helped with customers who raced through the front door in a mad search for the perfect gift. One that looked as if they'd put hours of thought into their choice. And yes, you're right. They were mostly men." -- Abby Shaw, Sucker Punched - Sammi Carter

He should be most proud that the PMRC wants to put their obscene lyrics sticker on his `Jazz From Hell' -- which is an instrumental album.

The time to relax is -- when you don't have time for it. - Sidney J. Harris

Every day one should at least hear one little song, read one good poem, see one fine painting and -- if at all possible -- speak a few sensible words. - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

It's not how many people you reach -- It's how many people you inspire. - Natalie Carslake

Seen in the light of evolution, biology is, perhaps, intellectually the most satisfying and inspiring science. Without that light it becomes a pile of sundry facts -- some of them interesting or curious but making no meaningful picture as a whole. - Theodosius Dobzhansky

How great are the advantages of solitude! -- How sublime is the silence of nature's ever-active energies? There is something in the very name of wilderness, which charms the ear, and soothes the spirit of man. There is religion in it. - Estwick Evans

As the poet said, 'Only God can make a tree' -- probably because it's so hard to figure out how to get the bark on. - Woody Allen

Four things come not back -- the spoken word, the sped arrow, the past life, and the neglected opportunity.

Clowns to the left of me, jokers to the right, here I am -- not stuck in the middle, but hovering above the entire farcical spectrum, weeping as I behold my fellow man's devotion to political illusion and self-destruction. - Robert Higgs

A woman who gives any advantage to a man may expect a lover -- but will sooner or later find a tyrant. - George Gordon Byron

Men ask for a rainbow in the cloud; but I would ask more from Thee. I would be, in my cloud, myself a rainbow -- a minister to others' joy. My patience will be perfect when it can work in the vineyard - George Matheson

The strongest of all warriors are these two -- Time and Patience. - Leo Tolstoy

The problem with winter sports is that -- follow me closely here -- they generally take place in winter. - Dave Barry

Imperfection doesn’t disqualify you from helping others -- it makes you more qualified to give advice in the area you learned from. - Adam Smith

Man's brain, enlarged fortuitously, invented words in an ambitious effort to learn how to think, only to have them usurped by his emotions. But we still try." -- Nero Wolf in Death of a Dude. - Rex Stout

RED-SKIN, n. A North American Indian, whose skin is not red -- at least not on the outside. - Ambrose Bierce

Oh, they knew it was something, but it couldn't be that -- not that. That was imagination, that was superstition, there was no such thing as that. And before science had caught up with the legend, the legend had swallowed science and everything. - Richard Matheson

...I was shocked and astonished when a daring little girl -- a cousin I think -- having waited under a group of trees in the avenue, where she knew [my grandfather] would pass near four o'clock on the way to his dinner, said to him, 'If I were you and you were a little girl, I would give you a doll. - W.B. Yeats

What it leads to is the mischief of confusing liturgy with magic -- of imagining there are only a handful of properly effective formulas for conjuring up the mystery, when in fact the mystery is always at work, independent of any formula whatsoever. - Robert Farrar Capon

When everything goes to hell, the people who stand by you without flinching -- they are your family. - Jim Butcher

HYPOCHONDRIASIS, n. Depression of one's own spirits. Some heaps of trash upon a vacant lot Where long the village rubbish had been shot Displayed a sign among the stuff and stumps -- "Hypochondriasis." It meant The Dumps. Bogul S. Purvy - Ambrose Bierce

Once you've chosen a man, don't try to change him, I wrote, with more confidence. It can't be done. More important -- don't let him try to change you. He can't do it either, but men always try. - Gabaldon, Diana

Inch by inch it's all a cinch, by the yard it's hard. Go for it -- no matter how slow or long the process seems at first. - Mardi Ballou

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. - E. F. Schumacher

DIGESTION, n. The conversion of victuals into virtues. When the process is imperfect, vices are evolved instead -- a circumstance from which that wicked writer, Dr. Jeremiah Blenn, infers that the ladies are the greater sufferers from dyspepsia. - Ambrose Bierce

We see the world, not as it is, but as we are -- or, as we are conditioned to see it. When we open our mouths to describe what we see, we in effect describe ourselves, our perceptions, our paradigms. - Stephen R. Covey

All of us sport an invisible sign around our necks -- AS IS. It means, take me as I am. I may not become what you want me to be. And I’m far, far from perfect. But I have some great qualities, too, as well as my share of faults. You will have to take me AS IS and I’ll take you that way, too. - Steve Goodier

For me, concept of death works as a liberator from anxiety -- no matter whatever is happening, its all going to end when we die. - Shon Mehta

She'd always been a little excitable, a little more passionate about books than your average person, but she was supposed to be -- she was a librarian, after all. - Sarah Beth Durst

Pablo Picasso resisted school stubbornly and seemed completely unable to learn to read or write. To other students grew used to seeing him come late with his pet pigeon -- and with the paintbrush he always carried as if it were an extension of his own body.

In photography and in life, always look for the light -- if you don't see it, bring it... - John Waire

Although Jesus Christ was Himself the Creative Deity, by whom all things were made, as man He humbled Himself--set aside His divine prerogatives and walked this earth as man -- a perfect demonstration of what God intended man to be--the whole personality yielded to and occupied by God for Himself. - W. Ian Thomas

Creativity is the brain's invisible muscle -- that when used and excercised routinely -- becomes better and stronger. - Ashley Ormon

My God, these folks don't know how to love -- that's why they love so easily. - D.H. Lawrence

Whether a man is burdened by power or enjoys power; whether he is trapped by responsibility or made free by it; whether he is moved by other people and outer forces or moves them -- this is of the essence of leadership.

By means of shrewd lies, unremittingly repeated, it is possible to make people believe that heaven is hell -- and hell heaven. The greater the lie, the more readily it will be believed.

So we went to bed, assaulted by sleep that fumed at us from medicine glasses, or was wielded from small sweet-coated tablets -- dainty bricks of dream wrapped in the silk stockings of oblivion. - Janet Frame

This is the true nature of home -- it is the place of Peace; the shelter, not only from injury, but from all terror, doubt and division. - John Ruskin

I will find a way -- or make one. - Hannibal

You grow up the day you have your first real laugh -- at yourself. - Ethel Barrymore

This is a bitter adventure, if it must end so; and not a mountain of gold can amend it. Yet I am glad that I have shared in your perils -- that has been more than any baggins deserves. - J.R.R. Tolkien

This [ban bossy] campaign is indicative of one of the main problems with feminism today -- the idea that women are victims in need of more and more special protection. - Karin Agness

I have become my own version of an optimist. If I can't makeit through one door, I'll go through another door -- or I'llmake a door. Something terrific will come no matter how darkthe present. - Joan Rivers

Remember, people will judge you by your actions, not your intentions. You may have a heart of gold -- but so does a hard-boiled egg. - Unknown

I think I've discovered the secret of life -- you just hang around until you get used to it. - Charles M. Schulz

This is the real secret of life -- to be completely engaged with what you are doing in the here and now. And instead of calling it work, realize it is play. - Alan W. Watts

Inventions have long-since reached their limit--and I see no hope for further developments." -- , world-famous engineer (Rome, 10 AD) - Julius Frontinus

Hindustan had become free. Pakistan had become independent soon after its inception but man was still slave in both these countries -- slave of prejudice … slave of religious fanaticism … slave of barbarity and inhumanity. - Saadat Hasan Manto

MYRMIDON, n. A follower of Achilles -- particularly when he didn't lead. - Ambrose Bierce

We walk in dark places no others will enter. We stand on the bridge and no one may pass. We live for the One. We die for the One. -- the Ranger oath - J. Michael Straczynski

Therefore from one man (Abraham) ... were born as many as the stars of the sky in multitude -- innumerable as the sand which is by the seashore. - Hebrews 11 12

I believe until fairly recently our destructions of nature were more or less unwitting -- the by-products, so to speak, of our ignorance or weakness or depravity. It is our present principled and elaborately rationalized rape and plunder of the natural world that is a new thing under the sun. - Wendell Berry

A loving relationship is one in which the loved one is free to be himself -- to laugh with me, but never at me; to cry with me, but never because of me; to love life, to love himself, to love being loved. Such a relationship is based upon freedom and can never grow in a jealous heart - Leo Buscaglia

The paperback is very interesting but I find it will never replace the hardcover book -- it makes a very poor doorstop. - Alfred Hitchcock

If you don't like yourself, you can't like other people. -- Lazarus Long. - Robert A. Heinlein

People forget how fast you did a job -- but they remember how well you did it.

Be careful -- with quotations, you can damn anything. - Andre Malraux

There is only one way to hurt someone who has lost everything -- give him back something broken.

Dance like it hurts. Love like you need money. Work when people are watching. -- Dogbert's Motto - Scott Adams

It is of interest to note that while some dolphins are reported to have learned English -- up to fifty words used in correct context -- no human being has been reported to have learned dolphinese. - Carl Sagan

As far as my experience of matrimony goes -- I think it tends to draw you out of, and away from yourself. - Charlotte Brontë

PERIPATETIC, adj. Walking about. Relating to the philosophy of Aristotle, who, while expounding it, moved from place to place in order to avoid his pupil's objections. A needless precaution -- they knew no more of the matter than he. - Ambrose Bierce

QUOTIENT, n. A number showing how many times a sum of money belonging to one person is contained in the pocket of another -- usually about as many times as it can be got there. - Ambrose Bierce

Gospel music is nothing but singing of good tidings -- spreading the good news. It will last as long as any music because it is sung straight from the human heart. - Mahalia Jackson

Human feelings are queer things -- I am much happier -- black-leading the stove's -- making the beds and sweeping the floors at home, than I should be living like a fine lady anywhere else. - Charlotte Brontë

To be a writer you have to write -- and no academic degree is going to do the writing for you. - Michelle Richmond

[T]he success of every novel -- if it's a novel of action -- depends on the high spots. The thing to do is to say to yourself, "What are my big scenes?" and then get every drop of juice out of them."(Interview, The Paris Review, Issue 64, Winter 1975) - P.G. Wodehouse

The processed food industry hijacked our palates by using three highly addictive weapons -- sugar, salt and wheat. - Nancy S. Mure

Number of empty Ben & Jerry's containers: 3 -- two mint chocolate cookie, one plain vanilla. (Who buys plain vanilla ice cream from Ben & Jerry's, anyway? Is there a greater waste?) - Ally Carter

... if you find a person that you've never seen before getting in a crop duster that doesn't belong to you -- report it. - George W. Bush

If you tell a lie -- tell a big one.

My main task as an artist is to show you either what you have never seen before -- or to show you what you have seen countless times, in a way you've never seen it. - Mike Duron

To choose who to love, is a decision no one else can help you with -- you have to decide for yourself. - Auliq Ice

Grey rocks, and greyer sea, And surf along the shore -- And in my heart a name My lips shall speak no more. - Charles G.D. Roberts

Anything designed to be inoffensive isn't worth your time -- life itself is pretty offensive, ending as it does with death. - Holly Lisle

...the opposite of love is not hate -- it's apathy. It's not giving a damn. If somebody hates me, they must "feel" something ... or they couldn't possibly hate. Therefore, there's some way in which I can get to them. - Leo Buscaglia

To be in Christ -- that is redemption; but for Christ to be in you -- that is sanctification! - W. Ian Thomas

My mother loved children -- she would have given anything if I had been one. - Groucho Marx

Learning to draw is really a matter of learning to see -- to see correctly -- and that means a good deal more than merely looking with the eye.

The critical issues here concern what is right, what is just -- not the balancing of benefits. - Carl Cohen

PROSPECT, n. An outlook, usually forbidding. An expectation, usually forbidden. Blow, blow, ye spicy breezes -- O'er Ceylon blow your breath, Where every prospect pleases, Save only that of death. Bishop Sheber - Ambrose Bierce

The world is so empty if one thinks only of mountains, rivers and cities, but to know that there is someone who, though distant, thinks and feels with us -- this makes the earth for us an inhabited garden.

If Music is a Place -- then Jazz is the City, Folk is the Wilderness, Rock is the Road, Classical is a Temple. - Vera Nazarian

For me, all writing -- storytelling and style -- gets back to the Bible, Twain and Hemingway, and not in that order. - Dennis R. Miller

CLIO, n. One of the nine Muses. Clio's function was to preside over history -- which she did with great dignity, many of the prominent citizens of Athens occupying seats on the platform, the meetings being addressed by Messrs. Xenophon, Herodotus and other popular speakers. - Ambrose Bierce

EPITAPH, n. An inscription on a tomb, showing that virtues acquired by death have a retroactive effect. Following is a touching example: Here lie the bones of Parson Platt, Wise, pious, humble and all that, Who showed us life as all should live it; Let that be said -- and God forgive it! - Ambrose Bierce

ILLUMINATI, n. A sect of Spanish heretics of the latter part of the sixteenth century; so called because they were light weights -- _cunctationes illuminati_. - Ambrose Bierce

‎Sincerity is the biggest part of selling anything -- including the Christian plan of salvation. - Billy Graham

To all those women -- strong enough to be heroes; fair enough to be ladies. This song is for you. - Robert Fanney

My first memory is of light -- the brightness of light -- light all around. - Georgia O'Keeffe

The key to wisdom is this -- constant and frequent questioning ... for by doubting we are led to question and by questioning we arrive at the truth. - Pierre Abélard

He drew a circle that shut me out -- Heretic, rebel, a thing to flout. But Love and I had the wit to win: We drew a circle that took him in.

If a thing goes without saying -- let it. - Jacob Braude

I think that wherever your journey takes you, there are new gods waiting there, with divine patience -- and laughter.

There are two levers for moving man -- interest and fear. - Napoléon Bonaparte

I find the great thing in this world is not so much where we stand, as in what direction we are moving -- we must sail sometimes with the wind and sometimes against it -- but we must sail, and not drift, nor lie at anchor. - Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.

Do not try to solve all life's problems at once -- learn to dread each day as it comes.

(musicians always make straight for the piano in anybody’s house, unlike writers, who can ignore a typewriter in the same room forever.) -- margaret case harriman - Margaret Harriman

A successful marriage requires falling in love many times -- always with the same person. - Mignon McLaughlin

In giving freedom to the slave, we assure freedom to the free -- honorable alike in what we give, and what we preserve. We shall nobly save, or meanly lose, the last best hope of earth - Abraham Lincoln

From deep within, our spirits are calling for a new and greater global wholeness, global healing, and global opportunity -- the voice is ours, the time is now, and the resources are what we have. - Laura Teresa Marquez

A word to the wise ain't necessary -- it's the stupid ones that need the advice. - Bill Cosby

How far you go in life depends on your being tender with the young, compassionate with the aged, sympathetic with the striving, and tolerant of the weak and the strong -- because someday you will have been all of these. - George Washington Carver

Story should be a descent -- the feeling that there is an intense gravity to the narrative that draws you down, down, down. - Chuck Wendig

There is one certain means by which I can be sure never to see my country's ruin -- I will die in the last ditch.

Heroism on command, senseless violence, and all the loathsome nonsense that goes by the name of patriotism -- how passionately I hate them! - Albert Einstein

The whole educational and professional training system is a very elaborate filter, which just weeds out people who are too independent, and who think for themselves, and who don't know how to be submissive, and so on -- because they're dysfunctional to the institutions. - Noam Chomsky

Chuck Norris is the only human being to display the Heisenberg uncertainty principle -- you can never know both exactly where and how quickly he will roundhouse kick you in the face. - Oliver Oliver Reed

ICHOR, n. A fluid that serves the gods and goddesses in place of blood. Fair Venus, speared by Diomed, Restrained the raging chief and said: "Behold, rash mortal, whom you've bled -- Your soul's stained white with ichorshed!" Mary Doke - Ambrose Bierce

By trying we can easily learn to endure adversity -- another man's I mean. - Mark Twain

A scientific man ought to have no wishes, no affections, -- a mere heart of stone. - Charles Darwin

And there you sit, gloating over what you have done, as if you were a martyr or a public benefactor -- as complacent and smug and misunderstood as a princess from the moon forced to herd goats! - Hope Mirrlees

The challenge of elucidating living processes -- including consciousness and all its baggage which we bundle together as 'the human spirit' -- is only one example of a challenge where hard work is paying off and science does not need to accept the false explanations peddled by religions. - Peter Atkins

Forgiveness is greater than condemnation, and love stronger than hate. What is there left for us to contemplate? -- - Reed Abbitt Moore

Carbohydrate density is simple to calculate -- just divide the quantity of carbohydrate in food by the weight of the food. The more carbs packed into a given gram of food, the higher its carbohydrate density. - Andrew Weil

In this abundant earth no doubtIs little room for things worn out:Disdain them, break them, throw them by!And if before the days grew roughWe once were lov'd, us'd -- well enough,I think, we've far'd, my heart and I. - Elizabeth Barrett Browning

CLARIONET, n. An instrument of torture operated by a person with cotton in his ears. There are two instruments that are worse than a clarionet -- two clarionets. - Ambrose Bierce

And, therefore, indifference is always the friend of the enemy, for it benefits the aggressor -- never its victim, whose pain is magnified when he or she feels forgotten. - Elie Wiesel

I'll keep it short and sweet -- Family. Religion. Friendship. These are the three demons you must slay if you wish to succeed in business. - Matt Groening

The general rule of law is, that the noblest of human productions -- knowledge, truths ascertained, conceptions, and ideas -- become, after voluntary communication to others, free as the air to common use."~ - Louis D. Brandeis

It was my grandmother who first told me that a woman marries a man in the belief that he'll change but he doesn't -- and a man marries a woman in the belief that she won't change but she does. - James Carlos Blake

Don't refuse to go on an occasional wild goose chase -- that's what wild geese are for. - Anonymous

CAMEL, n. A quadruped (the _Splaypes humpidorsus_) of great value to the show business. There are two kinds of camels -- the camel proper and the camel improper. It is the latter that is always exhibited. - Ambrose Bierce

The only truly secure system is one that is powered off, cast in a block of concrete and sealed in a lead-lined room with armed guards -- and even then I have my doubts.

Weather is a great bluffer. I guess the same is true of our human society -- things can look dark, then a break shows in the clouds, and all is changed. - E. B. White

Trying is something we do when we think we can’t do something. Even if your doing is not as perfect as you would like, decide to do it, and you will. -- Lady Nimrod of Buckmore in The Princelings and the Lost City - Jemima Pett

When the president decides something on Monday, he still believes it on Wednesday -- no matter what happened Tuesday. - Stephen Colbert

It is wise to direct your anger towards problems -- not people; to focus your energies on answers -- not excuses. - William Arthur Ward

OCDD -- Overwhelming Crap and Debris Disorder -- runs deep. - Virginia DeBerry and Donna Grant

Like vanishing dew,a passing apparitionor the sudden flashof lightning -- already gone --thus should one regard one's self. - Ikkyu

FLAG, n. A colored rag borne above troops and hoisted on forts and ships. It appears to serve the same purpose as certain signs that one sees and vacant lots in London -- "Rubbish may be shot here." - Ambrose Bierce

Is it better to be the lover or the loved one? Neither, if your cholesterol is over six hundred. By love, of course, I refer to romantic love -- the love between man and woman, rather than between mother and child, or a boy and his dog, or two headwaiters. - Woody Allen

Any intelligent fool can make things bigger and more complex ... it takes a touch of genius -- and a lot of courage -- to move in the opposite direction. - Albert Einstein

A real writer learns from earlier writers the way a boy learns from an apple orchard -- by stealing what he has a taste for, and can carry off - Archibald MacLeish

The Candle HolderBeauty is in the eye of the beholder, Your light I wish to see.I am the candle holder, reveal yourself to me. -- - Reed Abbitt Moore

I used to be Snow White -- but I drifted. - Mae West

EPAULET, n. An ornamented badge, serving to distinguish a military officer from the enemy -- that is to say, from the officer of lower rank to whom his death would give promotion. - Ambrose Bierce

As his former student Alastair Fowler once remarked, "Lewis seemed always on the verge of hilarity -- between a chuckle and a roar. - Greg Cootsona

PICTURE, n. A representation in two dimensions of something wearisome in three. "Behold great Daubert's picture here on view -- Taken from Life." If that description's true, Grant, heavenly Powers, that I be taken, too. Jali Hane - Ambrose Bierce

When you have truly come to know a person, Nella -- when you see beneath the sweet gestures, the smiles -- when you see the rage and the pitiful fear which each of us hide -- then forgiveness is everything. - Jessie Burton

I have opinions of my own -- strong opinions -- but I don't always agree with them. - George Bush

The human brain is like a railroad freight car -- guaranteed to have a certain capacity but often running empty. - Unknown

The most decisive actions of our life -- I mean those that are most likely to decide the whole course of our future -- are, more often than not, unconsidered. - Andre Gide

She said that my good qualities were my bad qualities -- this I have come to realize is true of everyone. On the one hand, I was game, eager and perfectly ready to see what was in front of me. On the other hand, I had no sense of direction or destiny. - Laurie Colwin

If computers get too powerful, we can organize them into a committee -- that will do them in. - Bradley's Bromide

The greatest happiness of life it the conviction that we are loved -- loved for ourselves, or rather, loved in spite of ourselves. - Victor Hugo

A great book should leave you with many experiences, and slightly exhausted. You should live several lives while reading it." -- (born June 11 1925) - William Styron

If the events of September 11, 2001, have proven anything, it's that the terrorists can attack us, but they can't take away what makes us American -- our freedom, our liberty, our civil rights. No, only Attorney General John Ashcroft can do that. - Jon Stewart

Her grandmother had once told her that one of life's best lessons was not being afraid to look foolish -- to just ask the question. - Melissa Senate

A ship in harbor is safe -- but that is not what ships are built for. - John A. Shedd

If I am to die, this is the week for it. -- John F. Kennedy (to aide John McClone in response to a CIA report about rumours of an assassination plot), June 1962. - John F. Kennedy

Conversationally, we were Fred and Ginger -- spin, slide, shuffle, bend. - Marisa de los Santos

Our lives improve only when we take chances -- and the first and most difficult risk we can take is to be honest with ourselves. - Walter Anderson

BLANK-VERSE, n. Unrhymed iambic pentameters -- the most difficult kind of English verse to write acceptably; a kind, therefore, much affected by those who cannot acceptably write any kind. - Ambrose Bierce

RECRUIT, n. A person distinguishable from a civilian by his uniform and from a soldier by his gait. Fresh from the farm or factory or street, His marching, in pursuit or in retreat, Were an impressive martial spectacle Except for two impediments -- his feet. Thompson Johnson - Ambrose Bierce

The Earth is the Cradle of the Mind -- but one cannot eternally live in a cradle.

Duty has a trick of behaving unexpectedly -- something like a heavy friend whom we have amiably asked to visit us, and who breaks his leg within our gates. - George Eliot

But we don't have to react. That's what I'm saying. A police force, like a government, should be above that. Just because we're provoked doesn't mean we have to act. -- Still Life - Louise Penny

BLACKGUARD, n. A man whose qualities, prepared for display like a box of berries in a market -- the fine ones on top -- have been opened on the wrong side. An inverted gentleman. - Ambrose Bierce

PILLORY, n. A mechanical device for inflicting personal distinction -- prototype of the modern newspaper conducted by persons of austere virtues and blameless lives. - Ambrose Bierce

It is amazing that our souls -- our eternal essences, with all their hopes an dreams and visions of an eternal world -- are contained within these temporal bodies.

Until he had come up with a name, he was too pathetic to look at -- a real idiot. But now that he had some label like graviconcentrate, he thought that he understood everything and life was a breeze. - Arkady Strugatsky

The only thing we have to fear is fear itself -- nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance. - Franklin D. Roosevelt

Feel body as luxury-- as a bird feels when shooting through the air, and as a child does always -- is health - Paramahansa Yogananda

Moreover, if great men are the only hope of the Evolutionary Process, they are morally bound to rule over the masses for their own good -- we are all here on earth to help others: what on earth the others are here for, I don't know -- and the masses have no right whatsoever to resist them. - W.H. Auden

If people become ecstatic the whole society will have to change, because this society is based on misery. If people are blissful you cannot lead them to war -- to Vietnam, or to Egypt, or to Israel. No. Someone who is blissful will just laugh and say: This is nonsense!

It's the same with [my wife] -- when she goes out, guys are macking on her. I'm not worried with the kind of relationship we've got. Most people, they don't leave room for mistakes in their relationship. - Wyclef Jean

You can be happy with money and you can be wretched with it. It depends on what kind of person you are. -- A Prologue to Love - Taylor Caldwell

That's the nature of being a parent, Sabine has discovered. You'll love your children far more than you ever loved your parents, and -- in the recognition that your own children cannot fathom the depth of your love -- you come to understand the tragic, unrequited love of your own parents. - Ursula Hegi

There is no more destructive force in human affairs -- not greed, not hatred -- than the desire to have been right. Non-attachment to possessions is trivial when compared with non-attachment to opinions. - Mark A.R. Kleiman

As Americans, we want peace -- we work and sacrifice for peace. But there can be no peace if our security depends on the will and whims of a ruthless and aggressive dictator. I'm not willing to stake one American life on trusting Saddam Hussein. - George W. Bush

If someone is going to kill me, they are going to kill me. -- John F. Kennedy (to Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr.), 1962.

Political language -- and with variations this is true of all political parties, from Conservatives to Anarchists -- is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind. - George Orwell

I admit that reason is a small and feeble flame, a flickering torch by stumblers carried in the star-less night, -- blown and flared by passion's storm, -- and yet, it is the only light. Extinguish that, and nought remains. - Robert G. Ingersoll

You make me smile like the sun, fall out bed, sing like a bird, dizzy in my head. Spin like a record crazy on a sunday night. You make me dance like a fool, forget how to breath, shine like the sun buzz like a bee, just the thought of you can drive me wild. Oh you make me smile. -- - Uncle Kracker

Humankind spends so much time admiring and ritualizing the inventions of humankind! And yet humankind is such a tiny part of all there is. -- Nigel S. Hey, Wonderment(Matador, 2012) - Nigel Hey

Use the talents you possess -- for the woods would be a very silent place if no birds sang except for the best. - Unknown

ERUDITION, n. Dust shaken out of a book into an empty skull. So wide his erudition's mighty span, He knew Creation's origin and plan And only came by accident to grief -- He thought, poor man, 'twas right to be a thief. Romach Pute - Ambrose Bierce

In an information world where we all seem to have so much to say -- it is important to remember that sometimes we need to listen. - Robert Anthony

Our business in life is not to get ahead of others, but to get ahead of ourselves -- to break our own records, to outstrip our yesterday by our today.

Have no fear of perfection -- you will never reach it. - Salvador Dali

Read, read, read. Read everything -- trash, classics, good and bad, and see how they do it. Just like a carpenter who works as an apprentice and studies the master. Read! You'll absorb it.Then write. If it's good, you'll find out. If it's not, throw it out of the window. - William Faulkner

It is not an easy thing to be a woman and love with the whole heart: which men do not understand -- having many loves, and delighting in danger and war. - M.M. Kaye

I cannot help, but when danger is at hand remember always that I am here to stand -- or fall -- with you. - Harry Stoker

Ducking for apples -- change one letter and it's the story of my life. - Dorothy Parker

In life, it is not what you know or who you know that counts -- it is both!

Smile -- It's the second best thing you can do with your lips. - Unknown

Why is it when we talk to God we're praying -- but when God talks to us, we're schizophrenic? - Lily Tomlin

Truth has not special time of its own. Its hour is now -- always and indeed then most truly when it seems unsuitable to actual circumstances. - Albert Schweitzer

To be nobody-but-yourself -- in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else -- means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight; and never stop fighting. - e e cummings

Sobre a nudez forte da verdade -- o manto diáfono da fantasia. - Eça de Queirós

It's not radical Islam that worries the US -- it's independence - Noam Chomsky

Men fear thought as they fear nothing else on earth -- more than ruin, more even than death. - Bertrand Russell

Happiness is in all of us and it comes from progress. The root cause of a multiplier effect or a destroyer effect lies inside of us. The multiplication of the happiness in us on a daily basis makes us unique and powerful and gives us the reason for our existence." --. - Bimal Shah

Any great work of art . . . revives and readapts time and space, and the measure of its success is the extent to which it makes you an inhabitant of that world -- the extent to which it invites you in and lets you breathe its strange, special air. - Leonard Bernstein

ARCHBISHOP, n. An ecclesiastical dignitary one point holier than a bishop. If I were a jolly archbishop, On Fridays I'd eat all the fish up -- Salmon and flounders and smelts; On other days everything else. Jodo Rem - Ambrose Bierce

I dreamt -- marvellous error! -- that I had a beehive here inside my heart. And the golden bees were making white combs and sweet honey from my old failures. - Antonio Machado

There are three types of lies -- lies, damn lies, and statistics. - Benjamin Disraeli

The very essence of literature is the war between emotion and intellect, between life and death. When literature becomes too intellectual -- when it begins to ignore the passions, the motions -- it becomes sterile, silly, and actually without substance. - Isaac Bashevis Singer

99% of all problems can be solved by money -- and for the other 1% there's alcohol. - Quentin R. Bufogle

Just be yourself -- it's the only way it can work. - Johnny Carson

Our habits are our friends. Even our bad habits." -- Diary of a Country Priest - Georges Bernanos

KEEP, v.t. He willed away his whole estate, And then in death he fell asleep, Murmuring: "Well, at any rate, My name unblemished I shall keep." But when upon the tomb 'twas wrought Whose was it? -- for the dead keep naught. Durang Gophel Arn - Ambrose Bierce

It is important to view knowledge as sort of a semantic tree -- make sure you understand the fundamental principles, ie the trunk and big branches, before you get into the leaves/details or there is nothing for them to hang on to. - Elon Musk

A short story is the ultimate close-up magic trick -- a couple of thousand words to take you around the universe or break your heart. - Neil Gaiman

ENOUGH, pro. All there is in the world if you like it. Enough is as good as a feast -- for that matter Enougher's as good as a feast for the platter. Arbely C. Strunk - Ambrose Bierce

There is more to life than just surviving it. Inside each turbulence there is a calm -- a sliver of light buried in the darkness. - Norman Ollestad

Life is a tale told by an idiot -- full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. - William Shakespeare

I became a writer when I learnt how to read -- how to listen; how to see, smell, touch, and feel. But not everyone who knows these things, not everyone who writes, or publishes, is a writer. Writing is in the soul. - Cindy Aime

I do believe in an everyday sort of magic -- the inexplicable connectedness we sometimes experience with places, people, works of art and the like; the eerie appropriateness of moments of synchronicity; the whispered voice, the hidden presence, when we think we're alone. - Charles de Lint

The Republicans believe in the minimum wage -- the more the minimum, the better. - Harry Truman

People who succeed in business aren't afraid to hear feedback from their customers -- they actually thrive from it. - Adam Smith

When you have knowledge, patience, and passion, and pair those with hard work, you will find success -- but don’t ever forget about kindness. - Adam Smith

The rich and powerful always seem to prefer the tops of buildings. Hasn't anyone ever explained to them that higher just means you have farther to fall? -- Anita Blake - Laurell K. Hamilton

A marvelous feeling -- that you love someone deeply -- and in turn, that person loves you back so sincerely. - David R. Wommack

An income tax form is like a laundry list -- either way you lose your shirt. - Fred Allen

Art is not about thinking something up. It is the opposite -- getting something down. - Julia Cameron

A child's hand in yours -- what tenderness and power it arouses. You are instantly the very touchstone of wisdom and strength.

Immortality -- a fate worse than death.

... and thereof do I repent: I only plucked an occasional flower when I might have gathered an ample harvest of fruit -- such are the just grounds for the regrets I have ...

Who can tell who will be the President a year from now? -- John F. Kennedy, speaking to the president of Harvard about why he did not want to delay signing documents relating to a future JFK Presidential Library, 2 October 1963. - John F. Kennedy

I'd ask [God] why he keeps trying to kill us all with disease, pestilence, and natural disasters. I'd ask why 99% of all species there ever were are now extinct -- if God works in mysterious ways, that way is mysteriously genocidal. - Neil deGrasse Tyson

And so, my fellow Americans, ask not what your country can do for you -- ask what you can do for your country. - John F. Kennedy

Trouble is part of your life -- if you don't share it, you don't give the person who loves you a chance to love you enough. - Dinah Shore

Any fool can criticize, condemn, and complain -- and most fools do. - Dale Carnegie

Give yourself something to work toward -- constantly. - Mary Kay Ash

The only honest art form is laughter, comedy. You can't fake it...try to fake three laughs in an hour -- ha ha ha ha ha -- they'll take you away, man. You can't. - Lenny Bruce

The greatest happiness of life is the conviction that we are loved -- loved for ourselves, or rather, loved in spite of ourselves. - Victor Hugo

Metaphorically, Tom said, if you take knowledge as light, and ignorance as dark, there does sometimes seem to be a real presence to the dark -- to ignorance. Something more tactile and muscley than just lack of knowledge. A sort of will to ignorance. It would explain some politicians. - Elizabeth Moon

Thousands of geniuses live and die undiscovered -- either by themselves or by others. - Unknown

HOMICIDE, n. The slaying of one human being by another. There are four kinds of homocide: felonious, excusable, justifiable, and praiseworthy, but it makes no great difference to the person slain whether he fell by one kind or another -- the classification is for advantage of the lawyers. - Ambrose Bierce

Guilt -- if there was any guilt -- spread out and diffused itself over everybody and everything. . . . Perhaps at some point in time, at some spot in the world, a moment of responsibility existed. - Philip K. Dick

Anyone in this world can have the power of life and death over someone else. It's horrible, but true. All you need to do is take it. And once you have -- there is no going back. (The Killer's Cousin) - Nancy Werlin

Self-discipline is a form of freedom. Freedom from laziness and lethargy, freedom from expectations and demands of others, freedom from weakness and fear -- and doubt. - H.A. Dorfman

If you suffer, thank God! -- it is a sure sign that you are alive. - Elbert Hubbard

FORCE, n. "Force is but might," the teacher said -- "That definition's just." The boy said naught but through instead, Remembering his pounded head: "Force is not might but must!" - Ambrose Bierce

It's only when we truly know and understand that we have a limited time on earth -- and that we have no way of knowing when our time is up -- that we will begin to live each day to the fullest, as if it was the only one we had. - Elisabeth Kubler-Ross

They are a bunch of bastards - and I'm saying this on my own now, not just because my father told it to me. -- [Comment about businessmen in general, made a few days after the newspaperas printed his statement of 10 April 1962 that his father always told him that businessmen were "sons of bitches."]

I am a fashion person, and fashion is not only about clothes -- it's about all kinds of change - Karl Lagerfeld

Individual science fiction stories may seem as trivial as ever to the blinder critics and philosophers of today, but the core of science fiction -- its essence -- has become crucial to our salvation, if we are to be saved at all. - Isaac Asimov

All you need in this life is ignorance and confidence -- and then success is sure. - Mark Twain

Words -- so innocent and powerless as they are, as standing in a dictionary, how potent for good and evil they become in the hands of one who knows how to combine them. - Nathaniel Hawthorne

Baseball is a skilled game. It's America's game -- it, and high taxes. - Will Rogers

I finally realized that being a role model doesn't mean people are encouraged to be like me -- they're encouraged to go out and be more of themselves.

I come from a culture of handwringers, vengeance seekers, people who name children after ancestors by rote -- first child, paternal grandfather, second child, maternal, and on and on and on. - Julia Glass

It turns out that an eerie type of chaos can lurk just behind a facade of order -- and yet, deep inside the chaos lurks an even eerier type of order.

Love is the will to extend one's self for the purpose of nurturing one's own or another's spiritual growth... Love is as love does. Love is an act of will -- namely, both an intention and an action. Will also implies choice. We do not have to love. We choose to love. - M. Scott Peck

EFFECT, n. The second of two phenomena which always occur together in the same order. The first, called a Cause, is said to generate the other -- which is no more sensible than it would be for one who has never seen a dog except in the pursuit of a rabbit to declare the rabbit the cause of a dog. - Ambrose Bierce

EXCOMMUNICATION, n. This "excommunication" is a word In speech ecclesiastical oft heard, And means the damning, with bell, book and candle, Some sinner whose opinions are a scandal -- A rite permitting Satan to enslave him Forever, and forbidding Christ to save him. Gat Huckle - Ambrose Bierce

Jesus is great -- is there a better role model? No. It's religion, it's the people who get in between -- the bureaucracy, you know. ... It's the way people abuse Jesus. Was there ever a greater victim of name dropping? - Bill Maher

Our imagination flies -- we are its shadow on the earth. - Vladimir Nabokov

I'm Godless. And so I've had to make my God, and my God is narrative filmmaking, which is -- ultimately what my God becomes, which is what my mantra becomes, is the theme. - Darren Aronofsky

Women prefer men who have something tender about them -- especially the legal kind.

But the beauty is in the walking -- we are betrayed by destinations. - Gwyn Thomas

I liked this girl in my sixth grade class. I dared her to kiss me -- but she didn't! - Justin Bieber

I just want to tell you if that's what You have planned for me, if I am meant to be an obscure flower in the corner of the expansive garden, I will live there and I will love You and I will bloom just for You -- only, always, ever. - Sarah Thebarge

Enjoy life! Because it sure enjoys you... -- - Reed Abbitt Moore

Atheists are my brothers and sisters of a different faith, and every word they speak speaks of faith. Like me, they go as far as the legs of reason will carry them -- and then they leap. - Yann Martel

From the scientific view, the theory of karma may be a metaphysical assumption -- but it is no more so than the assumption that all of life is material and originated out of pure chance - Dalai Lama XIV

Each man takes care that his neighbor shall not cheat him. But a day comes when he begins to care that he does not cheat his neighbor. Then all goes well -- he has changed his market-cart into a chariot of the sun. - Ralph Waldo Emerson

Life is not a fairground, but a school. -- - Franz Bardon

It is our attitude toward events, not events themselves, which we can control. Nothing is by its own nature calamitous -- even death is terrible only if we fear it. - Epictetus

Nature is not cruel, pitiless, indifferent. This is one of the hardest lessons for humans to learn. We cannot admit that things might be neither good nor evil, neither cruel nor kind, but simply callous -- indifferent to all suffering, lacking all purpose. - Richard Dawkins

My first wife said, 'It's either thatguitar or me,' you know -- and I giveyou three guesses which one went. - Jeff Beck

Me to Comma: I will never get use to you wanting to butt your way into my sentences -- even if you're right. - Buffy Andrews

To stand up -- or be setup? - Marcus Aurelius Antoninus

Fun is closely related to Joy -- a sort of emotional froth arising from the play of instinct. - C.S. Lewis

LINEN, n. "A kind of cloth the making of which, when made of hemp, entails a great waste of hemp." -- Calcraft the Hangman. - Ambrose Bierce

The right to vote is a *consequence*, not a primary cause, of a free social system -- and its value depends on the constitutional structure implementing and strictly delimiting the voters' power; unlimited majority rule is an instance of the principle of tyranny. - Ayn Rand

We needed no Shakespeare to feel -- though, perhaps, like the rest of the world, we needed him to express it. - Inazo Nitobe

If you play "I Don't Want To Know" by Fleetwood Mac loud enough -- you can hear Lindsey Buckingham's fingers sliding down the strings of his acoustic guitar. ...And we were convinced that this was the definitive illustration of what we both loved about music; we loved hearing the INSIDE of a song. - Chuck Klosterman

Art does not exist only to entertain -- but also to challenge one to think, to provoke, even to disturb, in a constant search for the truth. - Barbra Streisand

We are only now on the threshold of knowing the range of the educatability of man -- the perfectibility of man. We have never addressed ourselves to this problem before.

An odd thing about perception is that when we identify some new thing with one or more of our five senses, it is not really, immutably real -- it is a passing will o’ the wisp, an artifact of the senses and the translations of the brain until we get used to it and we give it a home in our hearts - Nigel Hey

Behold, we know not anything;I can but trust that good shall fallAt last -- far off -- at last, to all,And every winter change to spring. - Alfred Tennyson

If we are to go forward, we must go back and rediscover those precious values -- that all reality hinges on moral foundations and that all reality has spiritual control. - Martin Luther King Jr.

There is always an easy solution to every human problem -- neat, plausible, and wrong. - H. L. Mencken

SCCS is the source-code motel -- your code checks in but it never checks out.

Money, power, victory and success fade in the shadows as we take our last breath for the only thing we take with us is the same thing we leave behind -- how we love and we were loved. - Robert Anthony

We live by encouragement and die without it -- slowly, sadly, and angrily. - Celeste Holm

Unless I am what I am and feel what I feel -- as hard as I can and as honestly and truly as I can -- then I am nothing. - Elizabeth Janeway

All worthy work is open to interpretations the author did not intend. Art isn't your pet -- it's your kid. It grows up and talks back to you. - Joss Whedon

ABOUT: KAHLIL GIBRAN "His power came from some great reservoir of spiritual life else it could not have been so universal and so potent, but the majesty and beauty of the language with which he clothed it were all his own." -- - Claude Bragdon

This is the true joy in life -- being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one... - George Bernard Shaw

Television is the first truly democratic culture -- the first culture available to everybody and entirely governed by what the people want. The most terrifying thing is what people do want. - Clive Barnes

I find women with well developed flesh very attractive. The scrawny little things doing commercials on my television set are slightly repulsive -- like famine victims.

What is more important to a library than anything else -- than everything else -- is the fact that it exists."[The Premise Of Meaning, American Scholar; Washington, DC, June 5, 1972] - Archibald MacLeish

LOVE should be the supreme fundamental right in our GLOBAL constitution -- - Swaran Jaggi

YesIsaidyesyesyesyesyes...YesIsaidyes! andagainyesyesyes -- Molly Bloom - James Joyce

When a pebble is thrown into a lake, everything, down to the furthermost depths, moves with it. ... And if, afterwards, everything seems as it was, the level of the lake has none the less been raised by imperceptible, incalculable degree. The old order has been overthrown -- by a pebble. - Théophile Thoré

ELYSIUM, n. An imaginary delightful country which the ancients foolishly believed to be inhabited by the spirits of the good. This ridiculous and mischievous fable was swept off the face of the earth by the early Christians -- may their souls be happy in Heaven! - Ambrose Bierce

A doctor saves lives -- It's up to people to create lives that are worth saving. - Philip Gold

I think Jesus was a compassionate, super-intelligent gay man who understood human problems. On the cross, he forgave the people who crucified him. Jesus wanted us to be loving and forgiving. I don't know what makes people so cruel. Try being a gay woman in the Middle East -- you're as good as dead. - Elton John

One thing I have learned in a long life: that all our science, measured against reality, is primitive and childlike -- and yet it is the most precious thing we have. - Albert Einstein

Alexander Hamilton started the U.S. Treasury with nothing -- and that was the closest our country has ever been to being even. - Will Rogers

Your emotional state has a tremendous amount to do with sickness, health and well-being. For years, my husband and I lived on -- and because of -- hope. Hope continues to give me the mental strength to carry on. - Dana Reeve

Do what is right and what is good." -- Bryeison to Alasdair before going to his death on the battlefield. - Michelle Franklin

Perhaps a better explanation for why it's so difficult to feel our feelings is that ALL emotion, positive or negative, opens the door to the nature of reality. All of us prefer to avoid pain -- but even more, we want to escape reality. - Dan B. Allender

Yes, rules are made to be broken -- but ONLY if you have a damn good reason for doing it. - Kevin Hosey

Feelings of worth can flourish only in an atmosphere where individual differences are appreciated, mistakes are tolerated, communication is open, and rules are flexible -- the kind of atmosphere that is found in a nurturing family. - Virgina Satir

Usability is like oxygen -- you never notice it until it is missing... - Unknown

All we have of freedom -- all we use or know -- This our fathers bought for us, long and long ago.

ARISTOCRACY, n. Government by the best men. (In this sense the word is obsolete; so is that kind of government.) Fellows that wear downy hats and clean shirts -- guilty of education and suspected of bank accounts. - Ambrose Bierce

Peace is not the absence of conflict but the presence of creative alternatives for responding to conflict -- alternatives to passive or aggressive responses, alternatives to violence. - Dorothy Thompson

Never pity missionaries; envy them. They are where the real action is -- where life and death, sin and grace, Heaven and Hell converge. - Robert C. Shannon

If Christ taught us anything it is this -- not to let our fear of death keep us from doing the good thing. - Robert Fanney

Do I contradict myself? Very well, then, I contradict myself; I am large -- I contain multitudes. - Walt Whitman

You can write nothing of value unless you give yourself wholly to the the theme -- and when you so give yourself -- you lose appetite ans sleep -- it cannot be helped -- - Charlotte Brontë

The world is not growing worse and it is not growing better -- it is just turning around as usual. - Finley Peter Dunne

Me And Ocean -- Two Deep Dreams Of God - Prince

I love pop culture -- the Rolling Stones, the Doors, David Lynch, things like that. That's why I said I don't like elitism. - Haruki Murakami

Being dead is highly overrated. It’s no fun at all." -- Mythe: A Fairy Tale - P.J. Gordon

Some say we’re already damned, Nathanial replied coolly, sitting back in his chair. So you’re too late to send him to Hell. -- BLOOD KNOT - Tracy Cooper-Posey

We haven't got the power to destroy the planet -- or to save it. But we might have the power to save ourselves.

Man can live far from God -- not outside God. God is wherever we are. Even in suffering? Even in suffering. - Elie Wiesel

If you're ever feeling a lack of middle-aged white men, just pop into the Capitol. Not so much the House of Representatives, which has a bit more color and texture, but the Senate -- jeez. Yes, let's have more testosterone running the country.Maximum Ride, School's Out--Forever - James Patterson

We take care of our health, we lay up money, we make our roof tight and our clothing sufficient, but who provides wisely that he shall not be wanting the best property of all -- friends? - Ralph Waldo Emerson

The miracles of our dreams lie beneath our foot soles -- in each and every tiny step we take as we journey to the stars… I reckon the destination isn’t the only miracle. - Besa Kosova

Youth is gone -- gone -- and will never come back: can't help it. - Charlotte Brontë

In all things there are three choices: Yes, No & no choice, except in this -- I either choose the truth or I am deceit.

BOTANY, n. The science of vegetables -- those that are not good to eat, as well as those that are. It deals largely with their flowers, which are commonly badly designed, inartistic in color, and ill- smelling. - Ambrose Bierce

Beyond talent lie all the usual words: discipline, love, luck -- but, most of all, endurance. - James Baldwin

Because Dad told you he'd be here forever. Because I thought forever was like Mars -- far away. - Kwame Alexander

Someone smashed a flutterfler and without even thinking she touched her Stone and used Wyrd to piece its broken body back together. She filled its empty vessels with dreams and it became the stuff it used for blood. It brushed her cheek with its wings, then flew off -- dancing in the hot air. - Robert Fanney

Only one man in a thousand is a leader of men -- the other 999 follow women. - Groucho Marx

The point is, every book we had could save us in a different way -- only, we had to open it. We had to drop our eyes to the page and drink in the words that were there. - Nova Ren Suma

-- So this is the measure of your God's Mercy.-- No. This is the measure of Pharaoh's soul. - The NT Translation (Moses)

And is not peace, in the last analysis, basically a matter of human rights -- the right to live out our lives without fear of devastation – the right to breathe air as nature provided it -- the right of future generations to a healthy existence?" (, June 10, 1963, American University speech) - John F. Kennedy

Never ask me to reach for the moon when all I want is to hold your hand." -- Fidelis O Mkparu, author of 'Love's Affliction - Fidelis O. Mkparu

You know how it is -- you get older, you get wiser, you start to ask yourself 'is it any use being able to summon creatures of the nether deeps when I could be watching BBC 4? - Kate Griffin

When you let Soul drive the bus, life flows more effortlessly. -- From the book, Doing a 360, page 8 - Nancy Ash

There are as many violent women as men, but there's a lot of money in hating men, particularly in the United States -- millions of dollars. It isn't a politically good idea to threaten the huge budgets for women's refuges by saying that some of the women who go into them aren't total victims. - Erin Pizzey

The woman is the home. That's where she used to be, and that's where she still is. You might ask me, What if a man tries to be part of the home -- will the woman let him? I answer yes. Because the he becomes one of the children. - Marguerite Duras

Faith is like radar that sees through the fog -- the reality of things at a distance that the human eye cannot see. - Corrie ten Boom

Mr. ***** is blessed with such happy manners as may ensure his making friends -- whether he may be equally capable of retaining them, is less certain. - Jane Austen

Where there is no love, put love -- and you will find love. - San Juan de la Cruz

Don't knock masturbation -- it's sex with someone I love. - Woody Allen

The three dots '...' here suppress a lot of detail -- maybe I should have used four dots. - Donald E. Knuth

The English country gentleman galloping after a fox -- the unspeakable in full pursuit of the uneatable. - Oscar Wilde

To be matter of fact about the world is to blunder into fantasy -- and dull fantasy at that, as the real world is strange and wonderful. - Robert Heinlein

When you do not know what you are doing and what you are doing is the best -- that is inspiration. - Robert Bresson

Evolutionary biology is imperialistic, overtaking entire fields of endeavor simply by attaching the prefix bio – or neuro -- to their names: bioethics, no comics, even, God help us, neurotheology. Its logic is deployed against helpless laymen as a bully's truncheon or an argument stopper. - Andrew Ferguson

Advice is like snow -- the softer it falls, the longer it dwells upon, and the deeper in sinks into the mind. - Samuel Taylor Coleridge

God doesn't send atheists to Hell -- there's no room with all the Christians down there. - Quentin R. Bufogle

There is no telling how many miles you will have to run while chasing a dream. -- Author unknown - Shelley K. Wall

Every man has his follies -- and often they are the most interesting thing he had got. - Josh Billings

Just think -- IBM and DEC in the same room -- and we did it. Makes you feel warm inside.

People walk in the door because they need you to take care of them -- to feed them or fix them. - Wally Lamb

There are essentially two things that will make you wise -- the books you read and the people you meet. - Jack Canfield

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. - Solomon Short

Truth has no special time of its own. Its hour is now -- always. - Albert Schweitzer

Those who do not understand UNIX are condemned to reinvent it -- badly.

You do not lead by hitting people over the head -- that's assault, not leadership. - Dwight D. Eisenhower

Success is that old ABC -- ability, breaks, and courage. - Charles Luckman

Begin -- to begin is half the work, let half still remain; again begin this, and thou wilt have finished. - Ausonius

In addition to my other numerous acquaintances, I have one more intimate confidant. My depression is the most faithful mistress I have known -- no wonder, then, that I return the love. - Soren Kierkegaard

NW" is full of split selves, people alienated from the very things they thought defined them. Their nostalgia -- for old movies, old songs, buses they don't ride anymore -- is less a salve than a form of pain. - Christian Lorentzen

The only means of strengthening one's intellect is to make up one's mindabout nothing -- to let the mind be a thoroughfare for all thoughts. - John Keats

The size of the problem is never the issue -- what matters is the size of you! - T. Harv Eker

Lucretia Jane Price. A sweet name for a sweet lady that smelled of roses, spoke with a sweet drawl, and was surely made of all the sweet country things a man who hadn't eaten a good meal in a long time could imagine -- molasses, sweet peas, sweet corn, freshly churned butter. - Linda Leigh Hargrove

And like tea dissolving in hot water, the sun dissolved in the sky… creating a velvet horizon, announcing for the stars’ night dance with the moon, the awaited joy for the wounded souls. -- From Bali – The Rebirth - Abeer Allan

Define your mantras, your adages, and bear down repetitively -- over and over and over! - David R. Wommack

The best parenting strives to educate their children in HOW TO LIVE LIFE -- competitive, compassionate, void of greed, & striving to make a better world. - David R. Wommack

Truth -- An ingenious compound of desirability and appearance.

You can know the name of a bird in all the languages of the world, but when you're finished, you'll know absolutely nothing whatever about the bird... So let's look at the bird and see what it's doing -- that's what counts. - Richard Feynman

Everything that has ever happened to me that has been important has not been something that I've hoped for, or looked for, or manipulated -- it's all been predicated on my ability to take a new road when it presented itself and to go with it."(On Beauty: , Vogue, January 8, 2016) - Susan Sarandon

AGITATOR, n. A statesman who shakes the fruit trees of his neighbors -- to dislodge the worms. - Ambrose Bierce

Be what you would seem to be -- or, if you'd like it put more simply -- Never imagine yourself not to be otherwise than what it might appear to others that what you were or might have been was not otherwise than what you had been would have appeared to them to be otherwise. - Lewis Carroll

In relationships, always strive to give more than you take -- that's how you make a bigger impact. - Adam Smith

I think it is because I have a habit, when I am bored or disgusted with people of stepping suddenly into my own world and shutting the door. People resent this -- I suppose it is only natural to resent a door being shut in your face. They call it slyness when it is only self-defense. - L.M. Montgomery

Your desire to make art -- beautiful or meaningful or emotive art -- is integral to your sense of who you are. - David Bayles and Ted Orland

In that moment, Dan was reminded why he wanted to write in the first place. It was the same reason anybody does anything -- to impress women.(Jeremy Goodwin, Sports Night) - Aaron Sorkin

I'll never suppress my identity -- that's like filing away your fingerprints so the money can slide into your pockets easier. - Jonathan Heatt

Love is an attachment to another self. Humor is a form of self-detachment -- a way of looking at one's existence, one's misfortune, or one's discomfort. If you really love, if you really know how to laugh, the result is the same: you forget yourself.

So many other planets & stars -- could all those stars set over barren planets, beauty wasted? Or, are sunsets witnessed throughout the universe? - David Self

Theologians and other clerks, You won't understand this book, -- However bright your wits -- If you do not meet it humbly, And in this way, Love and Faith Make you surmount Reason, for They are the protectors of Reason's house. - Marguerite Porete

The Best Music you can ever hear in your Life is Silence -- silence of yourself, silence of your loved ones - Vinay Kumar

Insanity -- a perfectly rational adjustment to an insane world.

That's what this country needs -- more books! - Christopher Morley

The here, the now and the individual have always been the special concern of the saint, the artist, the poet and -- from time immemorial--the woman. - Anne Morrow Lindbergh

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I -- I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference. - Robert Frost

Man is the only animal that blushes -- or needs to. - Mark Twain

The more men I kill, the more far away from home I feel -- Saving Private Ryan - Tom Hanks

Never deprive someone of hope -- it may be all they have. - Unknown

YOKE, n. An implement, madam, to whose Latin name, _jugum_, we owe one of the most illuminating words in our language -- a word that defines the matrimonial situation with precision, point and poignancy. A thousand apologies for withholding it. - Ambrose Bierce

Marriage isn't for life any more -- life is too long. Marriage is for love. Love gladly accepts responsibility. Love wants commitment. Marriage should be celebrated as the optimistic and glorious thing that it is. We can't call it a failure if it doesn't last forever. - Jeanette Winterson

I'm not sure I want popular opinion on my side -- I've noticed those with the most opinions often have the fewest facts. - Bethania McKenstry

You only live once -- but if you work it right, once is enough. - Joe E. Lewis

And now -- now it only remains for me to light a cigarette and go home. Dear God, only now am I remembering that people die. Does that include me?Don't forget, in the meantime, that this is the season for strawberries. Yes. - Clarice Lispector

Every nation ridicules other nations -- and all are right. - Arthur Schopenhauer

You are curious and quick, you have a deft mind, and for some unaccountable reason, people tell you things -- useful things. - Deanna Raybourn

The bassist -- always the bassist. - Rob Sheffield

Love has nothing to do with what you are expecting to get, it's what you are expected to give -- which is everything - Unknown

The two things that many cherish and hold dear that I have found to be of little value or importance in my life would be -- getting credit for and being right. - Robert Anthony

It is not your fault you believe what your parents tell you. It is theirs for telling you unbelievable things. -- ME - Tammy Wooster

People who do not eat butterflies will wear their clothes the wrong way, and people who wear their clothes the wrong way are inviting lemmings inside." -- Muzhduk the Ugli the Third - Alexander Boldizar

I believe Western culture -- rule of law, universal suffrage, etc. -- is preferable to Arab culture: that's why there are millions of Muslims in Scandinavia, and four Scandinavians in Syria. Follow the traffic. I support immigration, but with assimilation. - Mark Steyn

Every single one of us can do things that no one else can do -- can love things that no one else can love. We are like violins. We can be used for doorstops, or we can make music. You know what to do.

Power came the way a child came -- with agony. - Octavia E. Butler

Entre los individuos, como entre las naciones, el respeto al derecho ajeno es la paz -- Among individuals, as among nations, respect for the rights of others is peace. - Benito Juárez

If you think Hollywood is depressing and corrupt, politics is really depressing and corrupt -- and fueled even more than Hollywood by money -- if that's possible. - Ben Affleck

He can smell his cologne, his shampoo, and something else -- he can smell the boy's own scent, something bittersweet. - Lidia Roldán

We feel free when we escape -- even if it be but from the frying pan to the fire. - Eric Hoffer

AIM, n. The task we set our wishes to. "Cheer up! Have you no aim in life?" She tenderly inquired. "An aim? Well, no, I haven't, wife; The fact is -- I have fired." G.J. - Ambrose Bierce

ENTHUSIASM, n. A distemper of youth, curable by small doses of repentance in connection with outward applications of experience. Byron, who recovered long enough to call it "entuzy-muzy," had a relapse, which carried him off -- to Missolonghi. - Ambrose Bierce

My ears are too beeg for my head. My head ees too beeg for my body. I am not a Siamese cat ... I AM A CHIHUAHUA!" -- Skippyjon Jones (In his very best Spanish accent) - Judy Schachner

As my sufferings mounted I soon realized that there were two ways in which I could respond to my situation -- either to react with bitterness or seek to transform the suffering into a creative force. I decided to follow the latter course. - Martin Luther King Jr.

If you choose not to decide -- you still have made a choice!

The great enemy of the truth is very often not the lie -- deliberate, contrived and dishonest, but the myth, persistent, persuasive, and unrealistic. Belief in myths allows the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought. - John F. Kennedy

I am for the largest liberty for the poor man -- for the oppressed. - Lewis Tappan

Science cannot stop while ethics catches up -- and nobody should expect scientists to do all the thinking for the country.

[Advise] the ruler to govern the state as one cooks a small fish -- that is, don't turn it so often in the pan that it disintegrates.

Perhaps his tragedy is that he is the only normal writer left on earth -- and it is this that adds to his isolation and so too his so sense of guilt. - Malcolm Lowry

Of course, there were other sorts of literature -- theoretical, self-referencial, lachrymosely autobiographical -- but they were just dry wanks. - Julian Barnes

When imagination fails, compassion and humaneness dwindle and atrophy along with it. Unleavened by imagination, the variety and richness of life turn into flat abstractions; people become objects to be manipulated -- with the social consequences we know all too well. - Lloyd Alexander

Cogito cogito ergo cogito sum -- I think I think, therefore, I think I am. - Ambrose Bierce

Usenet is like a herd of performing elephants with diarrhea -- massive, difficult to redirect, awe-inspiring, entertaining, and a source of mind- boggling amounts of excrement when you least expect it.

Talking of Pleasure, this moment I was writing with one hand, and with the other holding to my Mouth a Nectarine -- how good how fine. It went down all pulpy, slushy, oozy, all its delicious embonpoint melted down my throat like a large, beautified Strawberry. - John Keats

Mother Teresa didn't walk around complaining about her thighs -- she had shit to do. - Sarah Silverman

The secret to finding your passion is to bring it to everything you do. -- (Yes, even doing the laundry!) - Marie Forleo

This is the funniest book I’ve ever held in my hands. --, Pulitzer Prize winning humorist and author says about Radical Sabbatical - Dave Barry

Nothing contributes so much to tranquilizing the mind as a steady purpose -- a point on which the soul may fix its intellectual eye. - Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

Egotism -- usually just a case of mistaken nonentity.

ACCOUNTABILITY, n. The mother of caution. "My accountability, bear in mind," Said the Grand Vizier: "Yes, yes," Said the Shah: "I do -- 'tis the only kind Of ability you possess." Joram Tate - Ambrose Bierce

my heart has no bones, so, I wonder -- what is it that keeps it from collapsing in on itselfLove -- the same Love the that pulls me out of gentle slumber,calls me into the shape of its desires, and holds me true…. - Kate Mullane Robertson

Reading was a joy, a desperately needed escape -- I didn't read to learn, I was reading to read. - Christian Bauman

We are mosaics - pieces of light, love, history, stars -- glued together with magic and music and words. - Anita Krishan

I was too green to know that all cynicism masks a failure to cope -- an impotence, in short; and that to despise all effort is the greatest effort of all.

If I do the right kind of a job, I don't know whether I am going to be here four years from now. -- John F. Kennedy (to Richard M. Nixon, right after the Bay of Pigs invasion, 1961). - John F. Kennedy

When I die, don't come, I wouldn't want a leafto turn away from the sun -- it loves it there.There's nothing so spiritual about being happybut you can't miss a day of it, because it doesn't last. - Frank O'Hara

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