Any man who hates dogs and
loves whiskey can't be all bad.
-- W. C. Fields
A man's women folk, whatever their outward show of respect for his
merit and authority, always regard him secretly as an ass, and with
something akin to pity. His most gaudy sayings and doings seldom
deceive them; they see the actual man within, and know him for a
shallow and pathetic fellow. In this fact, perhaps, lies one of the
best proofs of feminine intelligence, or, as the common phase makes
it, feminine intuition.
--- H.L. Mencken
"Faced with
the choice between changing one's mind and proving that there
is no need to do so, almost everyone gets busy on the proof."
-- John Kenneth Galbraith
"Every normal man must be tempted at times to spit on his hands, hoist
the black flag, and begin slitting throats."
-- H. L. Mencken (1880-1956)
"But the fact that some geniuses were laughed at does not imply that
all who are laughed at are geniuses. They laughed at Columbus, they
laughed at Fulton, they laughed at the Wright brothers. But they also
laughed at Bozo the Clown."
-- Carl Sagan
"Well, there were sixty-eight people there, and sixty-two of them had no
more desire to throw a stone than you had."
"Satan!"
"Oh, it's true. I know your race. It is made up of sheep. It is governed
by minorities, seldom or never by majorities. It suppresses its feelings and
its beliefs and follows the handful that makes the most noise. Sometimes the
noisy handful is right, sometimes wrong; but no matter, the crowd follows it.
The vast majority of the race, whether savage or civilized, are secretly
kindhearted and shrink from inflicting pain, but in the presence of the
aggressive and pitiless minority they don't dare to assert themselves. Think
of it! One kind-hearted creature spies upon another, and sees to it that he
loyally helps in iniquities which revolt both of them. Speaking as an expert,
I know that ninety-nine out of a hundred of your race were strongly against
the killing of witches when that foolishness was first agitated by a handful
of pious lunatics in the long ago. And I know that even to-day, after ages of
transmitted prejudice and silly teaching, only one person in twenty puts any
real heart into the harrying of a witch. And yet apparently everybody hates
witches and wants them killed. Some day a handful will rise up on the other
side and make the most noise -- perhaps even a single daring man with a big
voice and a determined front will do it -- and in a week all the sheep will
wheel and follow him, and witch-hunting will come to a sudden end."
-- Mark Twain (1835-1910), "The Mysterious Stranger"
Any discovery is more likely to be exploited by the wicked than applied
by the virtuous.
-- Marion J. Levy, Jr.
Any coward can fight a battle when he is sure of winning; but give me
the man who has pluck to fight when he's sure of losing. That's my way,
sir; and there are many victories worse than a defeat.
-- George Eliot
And it does matter. An honest man or woman is an honest man or woman more
because he or she is honest in the small, everyday things that "don't matter"
individually, but which make up a well-lived life, than because of some single
great temptation that was passed. A person who is concerned about individual
rights or about individual dignity makes his or her difference not because of
any sweeping great statement or action, but because of the accretion of small,
individually seemingly insignificant acts that spread that dignity and confirm
those rights through every action they take. It matters because every action
you take, and every action I take is an expression of the human spirit.
-- William Oliver (oliver@uncmed.med.unc.edu)
Always the dullness of the fool is the whetstone of the wits.
-- William Shakespeare, "As You Like It"
All men can be lead to believe the lie they want to believe.
-- Italo Bombolini
All life evolves by the differential survival of replicating entities.
-- Dawkins
Alcohol, hashish, prussic acid, strychnine are weak dilutions.
The surest poison is time.
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882), "Society and Solitude"
After the game the king and the pawn go in the same box.
-- Italian proverb
Advertising may be described as the science of arresting the human
intelligence long enough to get money from it.
-- Stephen Butler Leacock
Adam was but human -- this explains it all. He did not want the apple for
the apple's sake, he wanted it only because it was forbidden.
-- Mark Twain (1835-1910), "The Tragedy of Pudd'nhead Wilson"
Abstainer: A weak person who yields to the temptation of denying himself
a pleasure. A total abstainer is one who abstains from everything but
abstention, and especially from inactivity in the affairs of others.
-- Ambrose Bierce (1842-1914), "The Devil's Dictionary", 1911
Acquaintance, n.:
A person whom we know well enough to borrow from, but not well
enough to lend to.
-- Ambrose Bierce (1842-1914), "The Devil's Dictionary", 1911
"You can fool too many of the people too much of the time."
-- James Thurber (1894-1961), "The Thurber Carnival", 1945
"Treat your guest as a guest for two days; on the third day, give him a
hoe."
-- Swahili proverb
A person is just about as big as the things that make them angry.
A man would still do something out of sheer perversity - he would create
destruction and chaos - just to gain his point...and if all this could in
turn be analyzed and prevented by predicting that it would occur, then man
would deliberately go mad to prove his point.
-- Feodor Dostoevsky, "Notes From the Underground"
A bore is a man who deprives you of solitude without providing you with
company.
-- Gian Vincenzo Gravina
A light supper, a good night's sleep and a fine morning have often made
a hero out of the same man, who, by indigestion, a restless night and a
rainy morning would have proved a coward.
-- Chesterfield
A man should be careful never to tell tales of himself to his own
disadvantage; people may be amused, and laugh at the time, but they will
be remembered, and brought up against him upon some subsequent
occasion.
-- Johnson