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Sunday, June 12, 2011

Favorite Quotes from the Past Year or So

Below are some of my favorite quotes collected from various bits of reading over the past year. Quotations also have the Source and Author because I don't want anyone thinking they're just made up.


Fran Lebowitz (1950 - ) US writer and humorist. Found this on a desk calendar and am still chuckling:  "All God's children are not beautiful. Most of God's children are, in fact, barely presentable."


G. H. Hardy English mathematician (1877 - 1947). A quip from an essay about democracy I was reading on Wikipedia. Sometimes humor points out the flaws in a concept to quickly:
"It is not worth an intelligent man's time to be in the majority. By definition, there are already enough people to do that."


Oscar Wilde always good but this one is like a sharp pin: "Always forgive your enemies; nothing annoys them so much."


H. L. Mencken US editor (1880 - 1956) "All men are frauds. The only difference between them is that some admit it. I myself deny it."


Anatole France  "To be willing to die for an idea is to set a rather high price on conjecture."


Kurt Herbert Alder "Tradition is what you resort to when you don't have the time or the money to do it right."


Robert Pirsig, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance "There is an evil tendency underlying all our technology - the tendency to do what is reasonable even when it isn't any good."


Orson Welles from a biography in an online movie Database: "My doctor told me to stop having intimate dinners for four. Unless there are three other people."


George Bernard Shaw "Martyrdom is the only way in which a man can become famous without ability."


British actor Peter Ustinov "It is our responsibilities, not ourselves, that we should take seriously."


Doris Egan "Rational arguments don't usually work on religious people. Otherwise, there wouldn't be religious people."


Capt Jack Harkness last episode of Torchwood "The end is where we start!"


Kurt Vonnegut in an Encyclopedia of ScFi "One of the few good things about modern times: If you die horribly on television, you will not have died in vain. You will have entertained us."


William James (not a Dons Party quote) "A great many people think they are thinking when they are actually rearranging their prejudices."  


Quotes are quite collectible. I like new ones so let me know of any worth chasing up.

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