Quotes are sorted by who said them, alphabetically. Quotes are occasionally thematic, usually inspired by something in that day's update, but often just whatever catches my eye as I'm scanning my quotes page for a new one. BlackChampagne.com does not necessarily agree with or endorse the messages in the quotes of the day, and in fact it's often exactly the opposite. I frequently select quite a quote to illustrate an opinion or deed I find abhorrent. If you want to know my opinion a given quote, feel free to ask.

If you have a quote you think I might like, feel free to send it in, with a link for attribution, please.

  A ¤ B ¤ C ¤ D ¤ E ¤ F ¤ G ¤ H ¤ I ¤ J ¤ K ¤ L ¤ M
N ¤ O ¤ P ¤ Q ¤ R ¤ S ¤ T ¤ U ¤ V ¤ W ¤ X ¤ Y ¤ Z

C Quotes

¤ "The original pledge was written in 1892 by a Baptist socialist minister, Francis Bellamy, and was first published in a magazine called the Youth's Companion. The magazine's editor had hired Bellamy after the latter had been sacked by his church for delivering controversial socialist statements from the pulpit. Bellamy had even considered including the word "equality" in the pledge but knew that the state superintendents of education would be unwilling to endorse something that hinted at equal rights for women and blacks.

It was more than 60 years later, in 1954, that Congress, at the height of the anticommunist McCarthy period, added the words "under God" following a campaign by a rightwing Catholic organization, the Knights of Columbus. Bellamy's grand-daughter later said that Bellamy would have resented the words being added, not least because at the end of his life he had become disenchanted with organized religion and had stopped attending church in Florida because of racial bigotry."
-- Duncan Campbell

¤ "Work -- other people's work -- is an intolerable idea to a cat. Can you picture cats herding sheep or agreeing to pull a cart? They will not inconvenience themselves to the slightest degree."
--Dr. Louis J. Camuti

¤ "You can get much farther with a kind word and a gun than you can with a kind word alone."
-- Al Capone

¤ "Failure is the condiment that gives success its flavor."
--Truman Capote

¤ "Whenever I watch TV and see those poor starving kids all over the world, I can't help but cry. I mean I'd love to be skinny like that, but not with all those flies and death and stuff."
--Mariah Carey (This has been debunked/she didn't actually say it, but it's such a great quote I can't resist including it.)

¤ "The first 90 percent of the code accounts for the first 90 percent of the development time...The remaining 10 percent of the code accounts for the other 90 percent of the development time."
--Tom Cargill

Dale Carnegie
¤ "You can make more friends in two months by becoming interested in other people than you can in two years by trying to get other people interested in you."
--Dale Carnegie

¤ "Be more concerned with your character than with your reputation. Your character is what you really are while your reputation is merely what others think you are."
--Dale Carnegie

¤ "Did you ever see an unhappy horse? Did you ever see a bird that has the blues? One reason why birds and horses are not unhappy is because they are not trying to impress other birds and horses."
--Dale Carnegie

¤ "Any fool can criticize, condemn, and complain; and most fools do."
-- Dale Carnegie

¤ "He couldn't ad-lib a fart after a baked-bean dinner."
-- Johnny Carson (about Chevy Chase)

¤ "In time of war the first casualty is truth."
-- Boake Carter

¤ "I personally feel the bible says all people are equal in the eyes of God.  I personally feel that women should play an absolutely equal role in service of Christ in the church."
-- Jimmy Carter, announcing that he is cutting ties with the Southern Baptist Convention over it's treatment of the "lesser gender", AKA women.

¤ "Never, in times so complex and chaotic as these, have we faced two contenders who are so boring and insipid."
-- Fidel Castro, on Gore and Bush

¤ "As long as people will accept crap, it will be financially profitable to dispense it."
-Dick Cavett

¤ "If the Democratic policies had been pursued over the last two or three years, the kind of tax increases that both Kerry and Edwards have talked about, we would not have had the kind of job growth that we've had."
-- VP Dick Cheney, March 2004, showing uncharacteristic (and accidental) candor after 3 years of steady job loss, nationwide.

¤ "Sex: The pleasure is momentary, the position ridiculous, and the expense damnable."
-- Lord Chesterfield

¤ "Be wiser than other people if you can; but do not tell them so."
-- Lord Chesterfield

¤ "Art, like morality, consists of drawing the line somewhere."
--G.K. Chesterton

¤ "It is the test of a good religion whether you can joke about it."
--G. K. Chesterton

Winston Churchill
¤ "A modest little person, with much to be modest about."
-- Winston Churchill

¤ "A fanatic is one who can't change his mind and won't change the subject."
 -- Winston Churchill

¤ "Although prepared for martyrdom, I preferred that it be postponed."
-- Winston Churchill

¤ "You must sleep some time between lunch and dinner, and no half-way measures. Take off your clothes and get into bed. That’s what I always do. Don’t think you will be doing less work because you sleep during the day. That’s a foolish notion held by people who have no imagination. You will be able to accomplish more. You get two days in one-well, at least one and a half, I'm sure. When the war started, I had to sleep during the day because that was the only way I could cope with my responsibilities. Later, when I became Prime Minister my burdens were, of course, even greater. Often I was obliged to work far into the night. I had to see reports, take decisions and issue instructions that could not wait until the next day. And at night I'd also dictate minutes requesting information which my staff could assemble for me in the morning—and place before me when I woke up."
-- Winston Churchill, explaining how he was able to accomplish such an amazing amount of work

¤ "It shows that if you get into a war it is supremely important to win it. You and I would be in a pretty pickle if we had lost."
-- Winston Churchill, commenting to a friend on the Nuremberg trials

¤ "There is nothing more exhilarating than to be shot at without result."
-- Winston Churchill

¤ "When you have to kill a man, it costs nothing to be polite."
-- Winston Churchill

¤ "Man will occasionally stumble over the truth, but most times he will pick himself up and carry on."
-- Winston Churchill

¤ "Their insatiable lust for power is only equaled by their incurable impotence in exercising it."
-- Winston Churchill, speaking of the opposition party after WWII (he was not re-elected)

¤ "In wartime, truth is so precious that she should always be attended by a bodyguard of lies."
-- Winston Churchill

¤ "Saving is a very fine thing, especially when your parents have done it for you."
-- Winston Churchill

¤ "On a visit to the United States, Winston Churchill attended a luncheon where fried chicken was served.  When he politely asked the hostess, 'May I have more breast?' she scolded him: 'Mr. Churchill, in America we say 'white meat' or 'dark meat.'' The next day Churchill sent the woman an orchid with the following note: 'Madam, I would be much obliged if you would pin this on your white meat.'"

¤ "The difference between fiction and reality? Fiction has to make sense."
-- Tom Clancy

Arthur C. Clarke:
¤ "Chemistry is a trade for people without enough imagination to be physicists."
--Arthur C. Clarke

¤ "I don't pretend we have all the answers. But the questions are certainly worth thinking about."
--Arthur C. Clarke

¤ "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."
--Arthur C. Clarke

¤ "A faith that cannot survive collision with the truth is not worth many regrets."
--Arthur C. Clarke

¤ "It may be that our role on this planet is not to worship God, but to create him."
-- Arthur C. Clarke

Clemenceau
¤ "War is too important to trust to generals."
-- Georges Clemenceau

¤ "America is the only nation in history which miraculously has gone directly from barbarism to degeneration without the usual interval of civilization."
-- Georges Clemenceau

Bill Clinton
¤ "When our memories outweigh our dreams, we have grown old."
--Bill Clinton

¤ "If the parties do not seize this moment, if they cannot make progress now, there will be more hostility and more bitterness perhaps even more violence."
-- Bill Clinton at Camp David Middle East peace meetings, July 2000

¤ "I've just learned of his illness.  Let's hope it's nothing trivial."
-- Irvin S. Cobb

¤ "Art produces ugly things which frequently become beautiful with time. Fashion, on the other hand, produces beautiful things which always become ugly with time."
--Jean Cocteau. French poet, novelist, director

¤ "The great are great to us only because we are on our knees. Let us arise."
--Robert Collier

¤ "Applause is the spur of noble minds, the end and aim of weak ones."
--Charles Caleb Colton

Confucius
¤ "To put the world right in order, we must first put the nation in order; to put the nation in order, we must first put the family in order; to put the family in order, we must first cultivate our personal life; we must first set our hearts right."
--Confucius

¤ "Our greatest glory is not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall."
-- Confucius

¤ "By three methods we may learn wisdom: First, by reflection, which is noblest; Second, by imitation, which is easiest; and third by experience, which is the bitterest."
-- Confucius

¤ "In the sex-war, thoughtlessness is the weapon of the male, vindictiveness of the female."
-- Cyril Connolly

¤ "I'm just glad it'll be Clark Gable who's falling on his face, not Gary Cooper."
-- Gary Cooper about his decision not to take the lead role in Gone with the Wind

¤ "Never drink black coffee at lunch; it will keep you awake in the afternoon."
-- Jilly Cooper

¤ "Talent is what you possess; genius is what possesses you."
--Malcolm Cowley

¤ "I think women see me on the cover of magazines and think I never have a pimple or bags under my eyes. You have to realize that's after two hours of hair and makeup, plus retouching. Even I don't wake up looking like Cindy Crawford."
--Cindy Crawford

¤ "These chinamen can grow to over five feet tall, and in a fight, are known to kick with their legs. Let's see if we can get in for a closer look."
-- Russell Crowe on South Park

¤ "What is life? It is the flash of a firefly in the night. It is the breath of a buffalo in the wintertime. It is the little shadow which runs across the grass and loses itself in the sunset."
-- Crowfoot (Blackfoot warrior and orator)

¤ "There are, of course, several things in Ontario that are more dangerous than wolves. For instance, the step-ladder."
-- J.W. Curran

D Quotes

¤ "Dec 23 1888 - After an argument with fellow painter Paul Gauguin, Vincent Van Gogh takes a razor and removes a portion of his left ear. Their quarrel regarded the prostitutes in Arles who seemed to prefer Gauging over Van Gogh; the painter delivered his ear to one Rachel, who preferred Van Gogh. She fainted."
 -- Daily Rotten

¤ "The problem is not with people or churches that are politically active. It is with a party that has gone so far in adopting a sectarian agenda that it has become the political extension of a religious movement.

When government becomes the means of carrying out a religious program, it raises obvious questions under the First Amendment. But even in the absence of constitutional issues, a political party should resist identification with a religious movement. While religions are free to advocate for their own sectarian causes, the work of government and those who engage in it is to hold together as one people a very diverse country. At its best, religion can be a uniting influence, but in practice, nothing is more divisive. For politicians to advance the cause of one religious group is often to oppose the cause of another."
-- former Senator John C. Danforth (R), in a 2005 NYT OpEd

¤ "When I was a boy I was told that anybody could become president; I'm beginning to believe it."
-- Clarence Darrow

¤ "I have never killed a man, but I have read many obituaries with great pleasure."
-- Clarence Darrow

¤ "With me the horrid doubt always arises, whether the convictions of man's mind, which has been developed from the mind of the lower animals, are of any value or at all trustworthy. Would any one trust in the convictions of a monkey's mind?"
--Charles Darwin

Deep Thoughts
¤ "As the light changed from red to green to yellow and back to red again, I sat there thinking about life. Was it nothing more than a bunch of honking and yelling? Sometimes it seemed that way."
--Jack Handy Deep Thoughts

¤ "I can picture in my mind a world without war, a world without hate. And I can picture us attacking that world, because they'd never expect it."
--Jack Handy Deep Thoughts

¤ "I think a good product would be 'Baby Duck Hat.' It's a fake baby duck, which you strap on top of your head. Then you go swimming underwater until you find a mommy duck and her babies, and you join them. Then all of the sudden, you stand up out of the water and roar like Godzilla. Man those ducks really take off! Also Baby Duck Hat is good for parties."
--Jack Handy Deep Thoughts

¤ "We intend to take every single asset from the Aryan Nations now and forever.  We intend to even take the name Aryan Nations."
-- Morris Dees of the SPLC, after winning $6.3million from the neo-Nazi's in an Idaho lawsuit that found them responsible for the 1988 beating of a mother and son

¤ "I have been thinking of the freshness of memories and of their power to lend enchantment to the distant past, and I have been marveling at the way in which our minds involuntarily suppress and brush aside anything that spoiled the charm of those happy moments when we were actually living them.  I have been comparing this kind of idealization, for such it is, with the effect that great works of art have on the imagination.  A great painter concentrates the interest by suppressing details that are useless, offensive or foolish; his might hand orders and prescribes, adding to or taking away from the objects in his pictures..."
-- Eugene Delacroix, April 28, 1854

¤ "It's a lot like Kournikova at a Grand Slam tournament: she arrives with great fanfare, attracts lots of attention, and then does nothing."
-- Michelle Delio, Wired News writer on the Kournikova computer virus

¤ "I get my exercise acting as a pallbearer to my friends who exercise."
-- Chauncey Depew

¤ "I pretty much try to stay in a constant state of confusion just because of the expression it leaves on my face."
-- Johnny Depp

¤ "A lot of people don't like to look at themselves on the screen. But I've got an ego you can't fit in this room. so, since I love me so much, I can tolerate even my worst work."
-- Danny Devito

¤ "Alas.  How terrible is wisdom when it brings no profit to the wise?"
-- Robert DeNiro in Angelheart

¤  "I don't practice what I preach because I'm not the kind of person I'm preaching to."
--J.R. "Bob" Dobbs

¤ "I do not think Cary Grant was a homosexual or bisexual. He just got carried away at those orgies."
--US congressman Bob Dornan, speaking on the House floor

¤ "We are the caretakers of God's creation. We have a moral obligation to treat them humanely, and when we do slaughter them, to do so in a painless manner."
--Burger King spokesman Bob Doughty

¤ "The whole history of the progress of human liberty shows that all concessions yet made to her august claims have been born of earnest struggle. If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet deprecate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground, they want rain without thunder and lightning. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its many waters."
--Frederick Douglass

¤ "If the only tool you've got is a hammer, every problem begins to look like a nail."
-- Terry Driebel, National War College strategist

Kevin Drum
¤ "As opposed to, say, George Bush, who strikes me as little more than a vacant, backslapping mediocrity -- a type I've had dinner with all too many times. I just never thought one of them would become president."
-- Kevin Drum, explaining why he'd rather eat dinner with a true believer like Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld than with the commander in chief

¤ "And please don't bother emailing to say either (a) the Bible is against it, or (b) what happens if everyone does it? The Bible isn't against it, and everyone won't do it. So where's the harm?"
-- Kevin Drum (speaking about cloning, but this applies to pretty much everything.)

¤ "Everything that can be invented has been invented."
-- Charles H. Duell, Commissioner, US Office of Patents, 1899

¤ "Air resistance is related to surface area and varies as the square of size. Objects falling through the air eventually reach a terminal velocity (for skydivers it is about 200 km/hr.) As organisms get smaller, their mass goes down as the cube of their size but air resistance as the square. Thus, a rat 1/10 as big as a human has 1/1000 the mass, but 1/100 the air resistance. In other words, in proportion to its size, a rat encounters ten times as much air resistance. Small organisms encounter such large air resistance that they can easily survive a fall that would kill a human."
-- What good is half a wing? by Professor Dutch

E Quotes

¤ "Science is not a sacred cow. Science is a horse. Don't worship it. Feed it."
--Aubrey Eben

Roger Ebert
¤ "By moving Einstein to Australia, he was able to set up comic situations that appeal to the vast and inexhaustible fascination the Australians have about their own isolation and gawky charm."
--Roger Ebert, from his Young Einstein Review

¤ "Willard is a remake of the 1971 film, which was a surprise hit at the box office. My explanation at the time: People had been waiting a long time to see Ernest Borgnine eaten by rats and weren't about to miss the opportunity."
-- Roger Ebert

¤ "Thirty minutes into the screening, the film got stuck in the projector and caught fire.  That was the good part."
-- Roger Ebert on The Hot Chick

¤ "I don't even have an e-mail address. I have reached an age where my main purpose is not to receive messages."
-- Umberto Eco

¤ "Just because something doesn't do what you planned it to do doesn't mean it's useless."
-- Thomas Edison

¤ "When you watch television, you never see people watching television. We love television because it brings us a world in which television does not exist."
-- Barbara Ehrenreich

¤ "The work ethic is not a traditional value. It is a Johnny-come-lately idea. In ancient times, work was considered a disgrace inflicted on those who had failed to amass a nest egg through imperial conquest, profitable marriage, or in forms of organized looting."
--Barbara Ehrenreich

Albert Einstein
¤ "I hate crowds and making speeches. I hate facing cameras and having to answer to a crossfire of questions. Why popular fancy should seize upon me, a scientist, dealing in abstract things and happy if left alone, is a manifestation of mass psychology that is beyond me."
--Albert Einstein

¤ "Great spirits have always found violent opposition from mediocre minds. The latter cannot understand it when a [person] does not thoughtlessly submit to hereditary prejudices but honestly and courageously uses their intelligence."
--Albert Einstein

¤ "Scientists were rated as great heretics by the church, but they were truly religious men because of their faith in the orderliness of the universe."
--Albert Einstein

¤ "Any intelligent fool can make things bigger and more complex... It takes a touch of genius --- and a lot of courage to move in the opposite direction."
--Albert Einstein

¤ "Put your hand on a hot stove for a minute, and it seems like an hour. Sit with a pretty girl for an hour, and it seems like a minute. That's relativity."
--Albert Einstein

¤ "If they want to see me, here I am. If they want to see my clothes, open my closet and show them my suits."
--Albert Einstein, when his wife asked him to change clothes to greet the German Ambassador

¤ "As punishment for my contempt for authority, Fate has made me an authority myself."
--Albert Einstein

¤ "Problems cannot be solved at the same level of awareness that created them."
--Albert Einstein

¤ "Reading, after a certain age, diverts the mind too much from its creative pursuits. Any man who read too much and uses his own brain too little falls into lazy habits of thinking."
--Albert Einstein

¤ "We are in the position of a little child entering a huge library filled with books in many different languages. The child knows someone must have written those books . It does not know how. It does not understand the languages in which they are written. The child dimly suspects a mysterious order in the arrangement of the books but doesn't know what it is. That, it seems to me, is the attitude of even the most intelligent human being toward God. We see a universe marvelously arranges and obeying certain laws, but only dimly understand these laws. Our limited minds cannot grasp the mysterious force that moves the constellations."
--Albert Einstein

¤ "The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a faithful servant. We have created a society that honors the servant and has forgotten the gift."
--Albert Einstein

¤ "With fame I become more and more stupid, which of course is a very common phenomenon."
--Albert Einstein

¤ "If my theory of relativity is proven successful, Germany will claim me as a German and France will declare that I am a citizen of the world. Should my theory prove untrue, France will say that I am a German, and Germany will declare that I am a Jew."
-- Albert Einstein

¤ "Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. This is not a way of life at all in any true sense. Under the clouds of war, it is humanity hanging on a cross of iron."
--Dwight Eisenhower 1953 speech

¤ "I like not only to be loved, but also to be told that I am loved. I am not sure that you are of the same mind. But the realm of silence is large enough beyond the grave. This is the world of light and speech, and I shall take leave to tell you that you are very dear."
--George Eliot

¤ "The place where optimism flourishes most is the insane asylum."
-- Havelock Ellis

Ralph Waldo Emerson
¤ "I hate quotations. Tell me what you know."
--Ralph Waldo Emerson

¤ "Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could; some blunders and absurdities have crept in; forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day; you shall begin it serenely and with too high a spirit to be encumbered with your old nonsense."
--Ralph Waldo Emerson

¤ "The god of the cannibals will be a cannibal, of the crusaders a crusader, of the merchants a merchant."
--Ralph Waldo Emerson

¤ "The louder he talked of his honor, the faster we counted our spoons."
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson

¤ "When it is dark enough, one can see the stars."
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson

¤ "In the late 1970s, the Census Bureau discovered that the aggregated data from the 1960s Census could be read only using an UNIVAC Type II-A tape drive. At the time, there were only two of those in existence: one in Japan, and one in the Smithsonian Museum."
-- Emma

¤ "Traditionally, most of Australia's imports come from overseas."
-- Keppel Enderbery

¤ "All men and women are born, live, suffer, and die; what distinguishes us one from another is our dreams, whether they be dreams about worldly or unworldly things, and what we do to make them come about... We do not choose to be born. We do not choose our parents. We do not choose our historical epoch, the country of our birth, or the immediate circumstances of our upbringing. We do not, most of us, choose to die; nor do we choose the time and conditions of our death. But within this realm of choicelessness, we do choose how we live."
--Joseph Epstein

¤ "Millions long for immortality who do not know what to do with themselves on a rainy Sunday afternoon."
-- Susan Ertz

Antoine de Saint-Exupery
¤ "Life has taught us that love does not consist in gazing at each other but in looking outward together in the same direction."
--Antoine de Saint-Exupery

¤ "For true love is inexhaustible; the more you give, the more you have. And if you go to draw at the true fountainhead, the more water you draw, the more abundant is its flow."
--Antoine de Saint-Exupery

¤ "When the body sinks into death, the essence of man is revealed. Man is a knot, a web, a mesh into which relationships are tied. Only those relationships matter. The body is an old crock that nobody will miss. I have never known a man to think of himself when dying. Never."
--Antoine de Saint-Exupery

F Quotes

¤ "To feel at home, stay at home.  A foreign country is not designed to make you comfortable.  It's designed to make its own people comfortable."
-- Clifton Fadiman

Jerry Falwell
¤ "I really believe that the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People for the American Way -- all of them who have tried to secularize America -- I point the finger in their face and say, 'You helped this happen.'"
 -- Jerry Falwell, explaining the events of 9/11

¤ "He is purple -- the gay pride color: and his antenna is shaped like a triangle -- the gay pride symbol."
-- Jerry Falwell, speaking about Tinky Winky, the Teletubby

¤ "Even Osama Bin Laden's soul could be saved if he converted to Christianity, but he would still deserve to be killed."
-- Jerry Falwell

¤ "Southern California, where the American dream came too true."
-- Lawrence Ferlinghetti

W. C. Fields
¤ "I like children. If they're properly cooked."
-- W. C. Fields

¤ "Women are like elephants to me; I like to look at 'em, but I wouldn't want to own one."
-- W. C. Fields

¤ "Few things in life are more embarrassing than having to inform an old friend you just have just got engaged to his fiancée."
-- W. C. Fields

¤ "I never vote for anyone.  I always vote against."
-- W. C. Fields

¤ "You can't find true closeness in Hollywood.  Everyone does the fake closeness so well."
-- Carrie Fisher

¤ "Half of the modern drugs could well be thrown out of the window, except that the birds might eat them."
-- Martin Henry Fischer

F. Scott Fitzgerald
¤ "Always willing to lend a helping hand to the one above him."
-- F. Scott Fitzgerald (about Ernest Hemingway)

¤ "The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function. One should, for example, be able to see that things are hopeless and yet be determined to make them otherwise."
-- F. Scott Fitzgerald

¤ "There are reminders to all Americans that they need to watch what they say, watch what they do, and this is not a time for remarks like that; there never is."
-- Bush Press Secretary Ari Fleischer, on Bill Maher's logical, but ill-advised remarks about the US being more cowardly than terrorists by pushing a button to fire a missile from 1000 miles away, vs. actually going down with the plane

¤ "Health nuts are going to feel stupid someday, lying in hospitals dying of nothing."
-- Redd Foxx

¤ "It is only the poor who are forbidden to beg."
-- Anatole France

¤ "It is human nature to think wisely and act foolishly."
-- Anatole France

Benjamin Franklin
¤ "Money never made a man happy yet, nor will it. There is nothing in its nature to produce happiness. The more a man has, the more he wants. Instead of filling a vacuum, it makes one."
--Benjamin Franklin

¤ "He that lives upon hope will die fasting."
--Benjamin Franklin

¤ "Whatever is begun in anger ends in shame."
--Benjamin Franklin

¤ "Hide not your talents, they for use were made. What's a sundial in the shade?"
--Benjamin Franklin

¤ "There are no bigger liars than quacks — except for their patients."
-- Benjamin Franklin, 1780

¤ "They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
-- Benjamin Franklin 

¤ "If you would be loved, love and be lovable."
--Benjamin Franklin

¤ "The debt of gratitude we owe our mother and father goes forward, not backward. What we owe our parents is the bill presented to us by our children."
--Nancy Friday

¤ "Television is an invention that permits you to be entertained in your living room by people you wouldn't have in your home."
-- David Frost

¤ "A bank is a place where they lend you an umbrella in fair weather and ask for it back when it begins to rain."
--Robert Frost

¤ "I want everybody in the United States to to be very highly educated, to have super taste.  I mean, people say, "But aren't you an elitist?" and I say, "Yes, but I want everybody to be an elitist."
-- Paul Fussell

G Quotes

¤ "I am a marvelous housekeeper. Every time I leave a man I keep his house."
--Zsa Zsa Gabor

¤ "No one can be as calculatedly rude as the British, which amazes Americans, who do not understand studied insult and can only offer abuse as a substitute."
-- Paul Gallico

Galileo Galilei
¤ "I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use."
--Galileo Galilei

¤ "All truths are easy to understand once they are discovered; the point is to discover them."
--Galileo Galilei

¤ "I abjure with a sincere heart and unfeigned faith these errors and heresies, and I curse and detest them as well as any other error, heresy or sect contrary to the Holy Catholic Church."
-- Galileo Galilei, recanting his heliocentric view of the solar system per the orders of Rome's Holy Office, 1633.

¤ "Idealism increases in direct proportion to one's distance from the problem."
-- John Galsworthy

¤ "Hollywood is a strange place when you're in trouble. Everybody is afraid it's contagious."
-- Judy Garland

¤ "You know what's good about these Dixie Chicks burnings or bashings? It's a wonderful, wonderful way for really stupid people to hook up.  They meet, they throw some things on the fire, they talk about Vin Diesel."
-- Janeane Garofalo

¤ "640K ought to be enough for anybody."
-- Bill Gates

Charles De Gaulle:
¤ "The graveyards are full of indispensable men."
--Charles De Gaulle

¤ "In politics it is necessary to betray one's country or the electorate.  I prefer to betray the electorate."
-- Charles De Gaulle

¤ "Patriotism is when love of your own people comes first; nationalism, when hate for people other than your own comes first."
--Charles De Gaulle

¤ "Since a politician never believes what he says, he is surprised when others believe him."
--Charles De Gaulle

¤ "You can only unite the French through fear.  You can not simply bring together a country that has 246 different kinds of cheese."
-- Charles De Gaulle

¤ "Every Frenchman wants to enjoy one or more privileges; that's the way he shows his passion for equality."
-- Charles De Gaulle

¤ "It is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy or a fascist dictatorship or a Parliament or a Communist dictatorship... voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger."
-- Hermann Goering, Nazi Reichsmarshall and Luftwaffe-Chief

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
¤ "Whoever wishes to keep a secret must hide the fact that he possesses one."
--Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

¤ "Each indecision brings its own delays and days are lost lamenting over lost days...What you can do or think you can do, begin it. For boldness has magic, power, and genius in it."
--Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

¤ "The world is so empty if one thinks only of mountains, rivers and cities; but to know someone here and there who thinks and feels with us, and though distant, is close to us in spirit - this makes the earth for us an inhabited garden."
-- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

¤ "Why should people go out and pay money to see bad films when they can stay home and see bad television for nothing?"
-- Samuel Goldwyn

¤ "Religious factions will go on imposing their will on others unless the decent people connected to them recognize that religion has no place in public policy. They must learn to make their views known without trying to make their views the only alternative."
--Barry Goldwater

¤ "My job is to defend the Constitution from its enemies. Its main enemies right now are the Justice Department and the White House."
-- Bill Goodman, legal director Center for Constitutional Rights

Al Gore
¤ "When the law is on your side, argue the law. When the facts are on your side, argue the facts. When either the facts nor the law are on your side, holler."
 -- Al Gore (This quote is from years before the 2000 election.)

¤ "I just have no firsthand experience."
-- Al Gore, when asked if young women today are too promiscuous

¤ "If high heels were so wonderful, men would still be wearing them."
--Sue Grafton

¤ "I only know two tunes.  One of them is Yankee Doodle and the other isn't."
-- Ulysses S. Grant

¤ "Don't ask the barber whether you need a haircut."
-- Daniel S. Greenberg

¤ "If I had a cock for one day I would get myself pregnant."
-- Germaine Greer

¤ "I come from a big family. As a matter of fact, I never got to sleep alone until I was married."
-- Lewis Grizzard

¤ "Propaganda is that branch of the art of lying which consists of very nearly deceiving your friends without quite deceiving your enemies."
-- Ted Gup

H Quotes

Harpers' Index
¤ Percentage of Americans who believe that the theory of human evolution is "probably" or "definitely" not true: 47
Percentage who believe that the tenets of of Astrology "probably" or "definitely" have some scientific truth: 48 -- Harper's Index
(Percentage by which these two groups overlap: 99% -- Flux, speaking from his arse.)

¤ "Number of the 10 amendments in the Bill of Rights that are violated by the USA Patriot Act, according to the ACLU: 5"
-- Harper's Index

¤ "Ratio of the number of U.S. Soldiers killed by hostile fire since 1990 to the number who have committed suicide: 1:5"
-- Harper's Index (As of 2002.)

¤ "Year in which Christmas celebrations, plum pudding, and mince pie were outlawed in England: 1647"
-- Harper's Index

¤ "Chance that a legal antidepressant will alleviate severe depression: 1 in 2
Chance that a placebo will: 1 in 2"
-- Harper's Index, May 1999

¤ "In the past few centuries, Poland has become known as 'the airplane lavatory of Europe' -- dirty, subject to turbulence, and almost constantly occupied."
-- Chris Harris

¤ "Taken to extremes, grade inflation could lead to the son of a powerful man graduating from an Ivy League school in spite of serious academic weaknesses, possibly even rising to a position of nation influence. But that's just a worst case scenario. I wouldn't worry."
-- Bob Harris

¤ "I would like to thank the honorable police and judges and all those who worked to arrest dog lovers."
-- Cleric Gholamreza Hassani, on Iran's crackdown on dogs, which are (rightfully) considered filthy by Islamic law

¤ "About 287 million people live in the United States today, and about 187 million people lived in Europe around 1800. About 1,320,000 people live within Phoenix's city limits today, and about 500,000 people lived in Paris around 1800. There are about 243 cities in the U.S. today with a population of more than 100,000. In Europe around 1800, there were about 20 cities of this size."
-- Kieran Healy

¤ "Trying to be a first-rate reporter on the average American newspaper is like trying to play Bach's St. Matthew's Passion on a ukulele.  The instrument is too crude for the work, for the audience, and for the performer."
-- Ben Hecht

¤ "The rule in the art world is: you cater to the masses or you kowtow to the elite; you can't have both."
-- Ben Hecht

¤ "I occasionally play works by contemporary composers... for two reasons.  First to discourage the composer from writing any more and secondly to remind myself how much I appreciate Beethoven."
-- Jascha Heifetz

¤ "Women will forgive anything. Otherwise, the race would have died out long ago."
--Robert A. Heinlein

¤ "Some men are born mediocre, some men achieve mediocrity, and some men have mediocrity thrust upon them."
-- Joseph Heller Catch-22

Ernest Hemingway
¤ "Cowardice, as distinguished from panic, is almost always simply a lack of ability to suspend the functioning of the imagination."
--Ernest Hemingway

¤ "A man can be destroyed but not defeated."
--Ernest Hemingway

¤ "Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know."
--Ernest Hemingway

¤ "Always do sober what you said you'd do drunk. That will teach you to keep your mouth shut."
--Ernest Hemingway

¤ "Survival, with honor, that outmoded and all-important word, is as difficult as ever and as all-important to a writer. Those who do not last are always more beloved since no one has to see them in their long, dull, unrelenting, no-quarter-given-and-no-quarter-received, fights that they make to do something as they believe it should be done before they die. Those who die or quit early and easy and with every good reason are preferred because they are understandable and human. Failure and well-disguised cowardice are more human and more beloved."
--Ernest Hemingway

¤ "If you want to sacrifice the admiration of many men for the criticism of one, go ahead, get married."
-- Katherine Hepburn

¤ "It was never about money.  No money would pay you for having sleepless nights with the pain."
-- Barbara Hewson, a Virgin Atlantic passenger who was awarded $20,000 for injuries she suffered while being squeezed next to an obese passenger

¤ "Be kind and considerate to others, depending somewhat on who they are."
-- Don Herold

¤ "The day of Southern guilt is over -- THE SOUTH WAS RIGHT -- and let us not forget that salient fact. NO APOLOGIES FOR SLAVERY should be made. In both the Old and New Testaments slavery is sanctioned and regulated according to God's word. Thus, when practiced in accord with Holy Scripture, it is NOT A SIN. Our ancestors were not evil men because they held slaves. This issue is our Achilles Heel, and the only way to deal with it is to confront our accusers boldly and without guilt. After all, what we are really upholding is GOD'S WORD. Let us fear Him, and we'll fear no man."
-- Michael Hill, president of the League of the South (often attributed to Stacy McCain, Associate National Editor of the Washington Times).

¤ "I spent most of my money on women and drink and like a fool I squandered the rest."
-- Benny Hill

Alfred Hitchcock
¤ "I understand that the inventor of the bagpipes was inspired when he saw a man carrying an indignant, asthmatic pig under his arm. Unfortunately, the man-made sound never quite equaled the purity of the sound achieved by the pig."
-- Alfred Hitchcock

¤ "There's nothing to winning really.  That is, if you happen to be blessed with a keen eye, an agile mind, and no scruples whatsoever."
-- Alfred Hitchcock

¤ "When people are free to do as they please, they usually imitate each other."
--Eric Hoffer

¤ "Justice is incidental to law and order."
-- J. Edgar Hoover

Elbert Hubbard
¤ "So long as governments set the example of killing their enemies, private individuals will occasionally kill theirs."
--Elbert Hubbard

¤ "The world is moving so fast now-a-days that the man who says it can't be done is generally interrupted by someone doing it."
--Elbert Hubbard

¤ "Many a man's reputation would not know his character if they met on the street."
--Elbert Hubbard

¤ "Parties who want milk should not seat themselves on a stool in the middle of the field in the hope that the cow will back up to them."
--Elbert Hubbard

¤ "Honesty pays, but it doesn't seem to pay enough to suit some people."
--F. M. Hubbard

¤ "Never get married while you're going to college; it's hard to get a start if a prospective employer finds you've already made one mistake."
-- Kin Hubbard

¤ "How [might] Americans react in six years [at the 2008 Beijing games] if China's head of state decides to stand in the midst of his nation's Olympic team, declaring how the indomitable will of the Chinese nation has brought the games to the world?"
-- Ed Hula, the editor of Around The Rings, an American newsletter covering Olympic politics.

¤ "The West won the world not by the superiority of its ideas or values or religion but rather by its superiority in applying organized violence. Westerners often forget this fact, non-Westerners never do."
-- Samuel P. Huntington

¤ "A bit of lusting after someone does wonders for you and is good for your skin."
-- Elizabeth Hurley

¤ "We can put television in its proper light by supposing that Gutenberg's great invention had been directed at printing only comic books."
-- Robert Hutchins

Aldous Huxley:
¤ "The secret of genius is to carry the spirit of childhood into maturity."
--Thomas Henry Huxley

¤ "Experience is not what happens to a man; it is what a man does with what happens to him."
--Aldous Huxley

¤ "To his dog, every man is Napoleon; hence the constant popularity of dogs."
--Aldous Huxley

¤ "Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored."
--Aldous Huxley

¤ "You never seen animals going through the absurd and often horrible fooleries of magic and religion.  Only man behaves with such gratuitous folly.  It is the price he has to pay for being intelligent but not, as yet, quite intelligent enough."
-- Aldous Huxley

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