Quotes

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"I'm told that Wagner's music is not as bad as it sounds."
"All you need in this life is ignorance and confidence, and then success is sure."
"Humor is mankind's greatest blessing."
--Mark Twain (1835-1910)

"If physics was easy, it'd be your mom."
"My choice early in life was either to be a piano-player in a whorehouse or a politician. And to tell the truth, there's hardly any difference."
"It is amazing what you can accomplish if you do not care who gets the credit."
--Harry S. Truman (1884-1972)

"What disturbs and depresses young people is the hunt for happiness on the firm assumption that it must be met with in life. From this arises constantly deluded hope and also dissatisfaction. Deceptive images of a vague happiness hover before us in our dreams... and we search in vain for their original. Much would have been gained if through timely advice and instruction young people could have had eradicated from their minds the erroneous notion that the world has a great deal to offer them."
"A man's face as a rule says more, and more interesting things, than his mouth, for it is a compendium of everything his mouth will ever say, in that it is the monogram of all this man's thoughts and aspirations."
"Every man takes the limits of his own field of vision for the limits of the world."
"The alchemists, in their search for gold, discovered many other things of greater value."
--Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860)

"How much easier it is to be critical than to be correct."
--Benjamin Disraeli (1804-1881)

"Within me lies infinite power... before me, endless possibilities. Decisions, decisions, decisions..."
--Magneto, Marvel Comics

"When I rule the world, you'll be doing that!"
-- Rob Matunas (1980-)

"Never look at the trombones, it only encourages them."
--Richard Wagner (1813-1883)

"Don't worry, base 8 is just like base 10 really... if you're missing two fingers."
"On my income tax 1040 it says 'Check this box if you are blind.' I wanted to put a check mark about three inches away."
--Tom Lehrer (1928-)

"Don't bother to look, I've composed all this already."
--Gustav Mahler (in speaking to Bruno Walter, who had stopped to admire mountain scenery in rural Austria)

"Dude, your car runs over nuns and children like it was made for it!"
--Chris Farrow (while driving my car) (1977-)

"They who would give up an essential liberty for temporary security, deserve neither liberty or security."
"All wars are follies, very expensive and very mischievous ones."
"Wise men don't need advice. Fools won't take it."
--Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790)

"I do not have a single white note on my piano; my elephant smoked too much."
"Did you know that Mozart had no arms and no legs? I've seen statues of him on people's pianos."
"Flint must be an extremely wealthy town: I see that each of you bought two or three seats." (on playing to a half-filled house in Flint, Michigan)
--Victor Borge (1909-2000)

"That from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion. That we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain. That this nation under God shall have a new birth of freedom and that government of the people, by the people, and for the people shall not perish from the earth."
"As I would not be a slave, so I would not be a master. This expresses my idea of democracy. Whatever differs from this, to the extent of the difference, is no democracy."
"Those who deny freedom to others, deserve it not for themselves; and, under a just God, can not long retain it."
"Labor is prior to, and independent of, capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first existed. Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves much the higher consideration."
"The dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present. The occasion is piled high with difficulty, and we must rise with the occasion. As our case is new, so we must think anew, and act anew. We must disenthrall ourselves, and then we shall save our country."
--Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865)

"Conservatives are not necessarily stupid, but most stupid people are conservatives."
"A person may cause evil to others not only by his actions but by his inaction, and in either case he is justly accountable to them for the injury."
"If mankind minus one were of one opinion, then mankind is no more justified in silencing the one than the one, if he had the power, would be justified in silencing mankind."
"War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse."
--John Stuart Mill (1806-1873)

"...if by a liberal they mean someone who looks ahead and not behind, someone who welcomes new ideas without rigid reactions, someone who cares about the welfare of the people - their health, their housing, their schools, their jobs, their civil rights, their civil liberties - if that is what they mean by a 'liberal,' then I am proud to be a liberal."
--John F. Kennedy (1917-1963)

"A hat should be taken off when you greet a lady and left off for the rest of your life. Nothing looks more stupid than a hat."
"Making fun of born-again Christians is like hunting dairy cows with a high-powered rifle and scope."
"No drug, not even alcohol, causes the fundamental ills of society. If we're looking for the source of our troubles, we shouldn't test people for drugs, we should test them for stupidity, ignorance, greed and love of power."
--P.J. O'Rourke (1947-)

"What most experimenters take for granted before they begin their experiments is infinitely more interesting than any results to which their experiments lead."
"The modern physicist is a quantum theorist on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, and a student of gravitational relativity on Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday. On Sunday, he is praying... that someone will find the reconciliation between the two views."
"The best material model of a cat is another, or preferably the same, cat."
"A professor is one who can speak on any subject - for precisely fifty minutes."
--Norbert Wiener (1894-1964)

"Fear of something is at the root of hate for others, and hate within will eventually destroy the hater."
"Our creator is the same and never changes despite the names given Him by people here and in all parts of the world. Even if we gave Him no name at all, He would still be there, within us, waiting to give us good on this earth."
--George Washington Carver (1864-1943)

"God used beautiful mathematics in creating the world. "
"In science one tries to tell people, in such a way as to be understood by everyone, something that no one ever knew before. But in poetry, it's the exact opposite."
--Paul Dirac (1902-1984)

"What you leave behind is not what is engraved in stone monuments, but what is woven into the lives of others. "
--Pericles (495BC-429BC)