Miscellaneous Quotations

The quotations found in this category do not quite fall into any other.

Showing 1 through 36 of 499 quotations in this category.

"And thus I clothe my naked villany
With odd old ends stol'n forth of holy writ,
And seem a saint when most I play the devil."

-Shakespeare, Richard III

"Fear me not for my insanity, but for the mind which it protects."

-unknown

"He who joyfully marches to music in rank and file has already earned my contempt. He has been given a large brain by mistake, since for him the spinal cord would fully suffice."

-Albert Einstein

"Every normal man must be tempted at times to spit upon his hands, hoist the black flag and begin slitting throats."

-Henry Louis Mencken

"A low self-love in the parent desires that his child should repeat his character and fortune. I suffer whenever I see that common sight of a parent or senior imposing his opinion and way of thinking and being on a young soul to which he is totally unfit. Cannot we let people be themselves and enjoy life in their own way? You are trying to make another you. One's enough."

-Ralph Waldo Emerson

"Once Chuang Chou dreamt he was a butterfly, a butterfly flitting and fluttering around, happy with himself and doing as he pleased. He didn't know he was Chuang Chou. Suddenly he woke up and there he was, solid and unmistakeable Chuang Chou. But he didn't know if he was Chuang Chou who had dreamt he was a butterfly, or a butterfly dreaming he was Chuang Chou."

-Chaung Tzu

"If all mankind minus one were of one opinion, mankind would be no more justified in silencing that one person than he, if he had the power, would be justified in silencing mankind."

-John Stuart Mill

"Human beings are perhaps never more frightening than when they are convinced beyond doubt that they are right."

-Laurens Van der Post

"I have called this principle, by which each slight variation, if useful, is preserved, by the term of Natural Selection."

-Charles Darwin

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

-George Bernard Shaw

"Reality, however utopian, is something from which people feel the need of taking pretty frequent holidays."

-Aldous Huxley

"No one would talk much in society, if he knew how often he misunderstands others."

-Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

"They may forget what you said, but they will never forget how you made them feel."

-Carl W. Buechner

"The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing."

-Edmund Burke

"A man's ethical behavior should be based effectually on sympathy, education, and social ties; no religious basis is necessary. Man would indeeded be in a poor way if he had to be restrained by fear of punishment and hope of reward after death."

-Albert Einstein

"Seek simplicity, and distrust it."

-Alfred North Whitehead

"It is better to be silent, and be thought a fool, than to speak and remove all doubt."

-Silvan Engel

"All my life, affection has been showered upon me, and every forward step I have made has been taken in spite of it."

-George Bernard Shaw

"There's so much comedy on television. Does that cause comedy in the streets?"

-Dick Cavett

"Always forgive your enemies - nothing annoys them so much."

-Oscar Wilde

"I think that, as life is action and passion, it is required of a man that he should share the passion and action of his time at peril of being judged not to have lived."

-Oliver Wendell Holmes

"I always cheer up immensely if an attack is particularly wounding because I think, well, if they attack one personally, it means they have not a single political argument left."

-Margaret Thatcher

"When the missionaries came to Africa they had the Bible and we had the land. They said "Let us pray." We closed our eyes. When we opened them we had the Bible and they had the land."

-Bishop Desmond Tutu

"What's madness but nobility of soul at odds with circumstance?"

-Theodore Roethke

"The object of war is not to die for your country, but to make the other bastard die for his."

-General George S. Patton

"People seem not to see that their opinion of the world is also a confession of character."

-Ralph Waldo Emerson

"The test of our progress is not whether we add to the abundance of those who have much. It is whether we provide enough to those who have little."

-Franklin Delano Roosevelt

"What luck for rulers, that men do not think."

-Adolph Hitler

"If we're going to be damned, let's be damned for who we really are."

-Captain Jean-Luc Picard, Star Trek

"It is amazing what you can accomplish if you do not care who gets the credit."

-Harry S Truman

"Perfection is our goal. Excellence will be tolerated."

-TQM Motto from the International Association of Business Communication

"Popularity is the one insult I have never suffered."

-Oscar Wilde

"Copy from one, it's plagiarism; copy from two, it's research."

-unknown

"I will permit no man to narrow and degrade my soul by making me hate him."

-Booker T. Washington

"I have often wondered how it is that every man loves himself more than all the rest of men, but yet sets less value on his own opinions of himself than on the opinions of others."

-Marcus Aurelius

"And those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the music."

-Friedrich Nietzsche