citations

Times are bad, children no longer obey their parents and everyone is writing a book.
-- Marcus Tullius Ciceron

Rudeness is a weak imitation of strength.
-- Eric Hoffer, philosopher and author (1902-1983)

Remember: There's nothing you can't change if you just put your mind to it, and no mind you can't change if you just put your fists to it.
-- The Onion

When times are tough and the world around you seems grim, don't be afraid to turn to religion for a good, hearty laugh.
-- The Onion

When I was a kid I used to pray every night for a new bicycle. Then I realized that the Lord doesn't work that way, so I stole one and asked for forgiveness.
--Emo Philips, comedian (1956- )

He who exercises government by means of his virtue may be compared to the north polar star, which keeps its place and all the stars turn towards it.
--Confucius, philosopher and teacher (c. 551-478 BCE)

It takes two to speak the truth: one to speak, and another to hear.
--Henry David Thoreau, naturalist and author (1817-1862)

Too many people spend money they haven't earned, to buy things they don't want, to impress people they don't like.
--Will Rogers, humorist (1879-1935)

One of my greatest pleasures in writing has come from the thought that perhaps my work might annoy someone of comfortably pretentious position. Then comes the saddening realization that such people rarely read.
--John Kenneth Galbraith, economist (1908-2006)

Fame is a bee. / It has a song / It has a sting / Ah, too, it has a wing.
--Emily Dickinson, poet (1830-1886)

When I was young, I admired clever people. Now that I am old, I admire kind people.
--Abraham Joshua Heschel, theology professor (1907-1972)

There are four ways, and only four ways, in which we have contact with the world. We are evaluated and classified by these four contacts: what we do, how we look, what we say, and how we say it.
-- Dale Carnegie, author and educator (1888-1955)

Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge.
--Charles Darwin, naturalist and author (1809-1882)

I hate mankind, for I think myself one of the best of them, and I know how bad I am.
-- Samuel Johnson, lexicographer

A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines.
--Ralph Waldo Emerson, writer and philosopher (1803-1882)

In Paris they simply stared when I spoke to them in French; I never did succeed in making those idiots understand their language.
-- Mark Twain

To boogie or not to boogie, that is the Christian.
-- John Lennon (1940-1980)

When I was young, I admired clever people. Now that I am old, I admire kind people.
--Abraham Joshua Heschel, theology professor (1907-1972)

You can't do anything about the length of your life, but you can do something about its width and depth.
--H.L. Mencken, writer, editor, and critic (1880-1956)

The voice of conscience is so delicate that it is easy to stifle it; but it is also so clear that it is impossible to mistake it.
--Madame De Stael, writer (1766-1817)

A sneer is the weapon of the weak.
--James Russell Lowell, poet, editor, and diplomat (1819-1891)

You can tell whether a man is clever by his answers. You can tell whether a man is wise by his questions.
--Naguib Mahfouz, writer (1911- )

The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher esteem those who think alike than those who think differently.
-- Friedrich Nietzsche, philosopher (1844-1900)

Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason, than that of blindfolded fear.
--Thomas Jefferson, third US president, architect and author (1743-1826)

L'entreprise ne peut exiger la loyauté de ses salariés: elle doit la mériter.
-- Charles Handy

Un chef se juge à la qualité de son état-major.
-- Louis Lyautey

L'ambition fait préférer une défaite à une victoire qui ternit la renommée du chef.
-- William Shakespeare

Il y a deux sortes de chefs d'orchestre: ceux qui ont la partition dans la tête et ceux qui ont la tête dans la partition.
-- Arturo Toscanini

Je ne connais pas la clé du succès, mais celle de l'échec est d'essayer de plaire à tout le monde.
-- Bill Cosby

Soit vous êtes le meilleur dans ce que vous faites, soit vous ne le faites pas très longtemps.
-- Jack Welsh

If you find education expensive, try ignorance
-- Derek Bok

Les hommes naissent ignorants et non stupides. C'est l'éducation qui les rend stupides.
-- Bertrand Russell

Il y a deux choses que l'expérience doit apprendre: la première c'est qu'il faut beaucoup corriger; la seconde c'est qu'il ne faut pas trop corriger.
-- Delacroix

À l'époque, il était plus sage qu'aujourd'hui; il me demandait souvent mon avis.
-- Winston Churchill

Le vrai secret du succès, c'est l'enthousiasme.
-- Walter Percy Chrysler

Un problème sans solution est un problème mal posé.
-- Albert Einstein

N'expliquez jamais rien — vos amis n'en ont pas besoin et, de toutes façons, vos ennemis ne vous croiront pas.
-- E. B. Hubbard

La forme, c'est le fond qui remonte à la surface.
-- Victor Hugo

Une petite inexactitude économise parfois une tonne d'explications.
-- Hector Munro

Les traductions sont comme les femmes. Lorsqu'elles sont belles elles ne sont pas fidèles, et lorsqu'elles sont fidèles elles ne sont pas belles.

Pour les grands jours, il faut que les sermons soient courts et que les saucisses soient longues.
-- Helmut Kohl

II faut se rappeler qu'il n'y a rien de plus difficile à planifier, de plus délicat à réussir et de plus dangereux à conduire que la création et la mise en place d'un nouveau système. Car l'innovation a pour ennemis tous ceux qui bénéficieraient du maintien des conditions passées et ne reçoit que de tièdes encouragements de la part de ceux qui bénéficieraient des nouvelles.
-- Machiavel

On ne peut marcher en regardant les étoiles lorsqu'on a une pierre dans son soulier.
-- Proverbe chinois

To a man with a hammer, everything looks like a nail
-- proverbe

When you pay peanuts, you get monkeys
-- James Sedwyn, warehouse manager

A stiff apology is a second insult. The injured party does not want to be compensated because he has been wronged; he wants to be healed because he has been hurt.
-- G.K. Chesterton, author (1874-1936)

When one door closes another door opens; but we so often look so long and so regretfully upon the closed door, that we do not see the ones which open for us.
-- Alexander Graham Bell, inventor (1847-1922)

Never tell the truth to people who are not worthy of it.
--Mark Twain

And those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the music.
--Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, philosopher (1844-1900)

Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge.
--Charles Darwin, naturalist and author (1809-1882)

Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored.
--Aldous Huxley, novelist (1894-1963)

I hate mankind, for I think myself one of the best of them, and I know how bad I am.
-- Samuel Johnson, lexicographer

A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines.
--Ralph Waldo Emerson, writer and philosopher (1803-1882)

Where it is a duty to worship the sun, it is pretty sure to be a crime to examine the laws of heat.
--John Morley, statesman and writer (1838-1923)

Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored.
--Aldous Huxley, novelist (1894-1963)

It is only those who have neither fired a shot nor heard the shrieks and groans of the wounded who cry aloud for blood, more vengeance, more desolation. War is hell.
--William Tecumseh Sherman, Union General in the American Civil War (1820-1891)

A great war leaves the country with three armies - an army of cripples, an army of mourners, and an army of thieves.
--German proverb

La volonté peut et doit être un sujet d'orgueil bien plus que le talent.
-- Honoré de Balzac, La Muse du département

Un enfant prodige est un enfant dont les parents ont beaucoup d'imagination.
-- Jean Cocteau

Beauty is the purgation of superfluities.
--Michelangelo Buonarroti, sculptor, painter, architect, and poet (1475-1564)

La première méthode pour estimer l'intelligence d'un chef est de voir les hommes qui l'entoure.
--Niccolo Machiavelli, penseur politique (1469-1527)

The wise are instructed by reason, average minds by experience, the stupid by necessity and the brute by instinct.
- -Marcus Tullius Cicero, statesman, orator and writer (106-43 BCE)

Many highly intelligent people are poor thinkers. Many people of average intelligence are skilled thinkers. The power of the car is separate from the way the car is driven.
- -Edward De Bono, consultant, writer, and speaker (1933- )

The only devils in this world are those running around in our own hearts, and that is where all our battles should be fought.
--Mahatma Gandhi (1869-1948)

A bit of perfume always clings to the hand that gives the rose.
--Chinese proverb

Il faut être économe de son mépris, étant donné le grand nombre de nécessiteux.
-- Chateaubriand

As no roads are so rough as those that have just been mended, so no sinners are so intolerant as those that have just turned saints.
--Charles Caleb Colton, author and clergyman (1780-1832)

Les opportunités, c'est comme les autobus, il y en a toujours un autre qui arrive.
-- Richard Branson

It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it.
-- Upton Sinclair, novelist and reformer (1878-1968)

De tous les plaisirs, quand il n'en reste plus, il reste toujours celui de se lever de table après un repas ennuyeux.
-- Paul Claudel

L'argent aide à supporter la pauvreté.
-- Alphonse Allais

Pourquoi contredire une femme ? Il est tellement plus simple d'attendre qu'elle change d'avis !
-- Jean Anouilh

"Non, non, pas de détails ! Surtout pas de détails ! Une victoire racontée en détail, on ne sait plus ce qui la distingue d'une défaite"
-- Jean-Paul Sartre, Le diable et le Bon Dieu

Il faut faire le sacrifice de ses préférences mais pas celui de ses convictions.
-- René Bazin

Life is like a ten-speed bike. Most of us have gears we never use.
-- Charles Schulz, cartoonist (1922-2000)

La difficulté n'est pas de comprendre les idées nouvelles, mais d'échapper aux idées anciennes.
-- John Maynard Keynes

The best way to predict the future is to invent it.
-- Alan Kay, inventor (1940- )

Men are wise in proportion, not to their experience, but to their capacity for experience.
-- George Bernard Shaw, writer, Nobel laureate (1856-1950)

Qui n'a pas les moyens de ses ambitions a tous les soucis.
-- Talleyrand

En politique, ce qui est cru devient plus important que ce qui est vrai.
-- Talleyrand

Conservatives are not necessarily stupid, but most stupid people are conservatives.
-- John Stuart Mill

They are ill discoverers that think there is no land, when they can see nothing but sea.
--Francis Bacon, essayist, philosopher, and statesman (1561-1626)

Feeling gratitude and not expressing it is like wrapping a present and not giving it.
--William Arthur Ward, college administrator, writer (1921-1994)

Intellectuals solve problems: geniuses prevent them.
--Albert Einstein, physicist, Nobel laureate (1879-1955)

I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free.
--Michelangelo Buonarroti, sculptor, painter, architect, and poet (1475-1564)

At times one remains faithful to a cause only because its opponents do not cease to be insipid.
-- Nietzsche

Tout Français désire bénéficier d'un ou de plusieurs privilèges. C'est sa façon d'affirmer sa passion pour l'égalité.
-- Charles de Gaulle

The great tragedy of science -- the slaying of a beautiful hypothesis by an ugly fact.
--Thomas Huxley, biologist and writer (1825-1895)

First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.
--Mahatma Gandhi

One of the symptoms of an approaching nervous breakdown is the belief that one's work is terribly important.
-- Bertrand Russell

Sacred cows make the best hamburger.
-- Mark Twain

To announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or that we are to stand by the President, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public.
--Theodore Roosevelt, 26th US President (1858-1919)

Creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes. Art is knowing which ones to keep.
--Scott Adams, cartoonist (1957- )

Obstacles are what you see when you take your eyes off your goal.
-- Henry Ford.

You can never solve a problem on the level on which it was created.
--Albert Einstein, physicist, Nobel laureate (1879-1955)

The surest sign that intelligent life exists elsewhere in the universe is that it has never tried to contact us.
-- Bill Watterson, Calvin and Hobbes

The longer I live the more I see that I am never wrong about anything, and that all the pains that I have so humbly taken to verify my notions have only wasted my time.
-- George Bernard Shaw

Many people hear voices when no-one is there. Some of them are called mad and are shut up in rooms where they stare at the walls all day. Others are called writers and they do pretty much the same thing.
-- Margaret Chittenden, writer