Favourite Quotes
My name is Maximus Decimus Meridius
Commander of the armies of the North
General of the Felix legions
Loyal servant of the true emperor; Marcus Aurelius
Father to a murdered son
Husband to a murdered wife
And I will have my vengeance
In this life or the next - Russell Crowe in "Gladiator"
What are the finest things in life?
To crush your enemies,
see them driven before you,
and hear the lamentation of their women.
- Arnie Scharzeneger in "Conan the Barbarian"
What is it that a man may call the greatest things in
life?
Hot water, good dentrishtry and shoft lavatory paper.- Cohen the
Barbarian in 'The Light Fantastic' by Terry Pratchett
Fanaticism is the child of false zeal and of superstition, the father of intolerance and of persecution.- John William Fletcher (1579 - 1625)
Doubt grows with knowledge - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
If religious beliefs and opinions are found contrary to the standards of science they are mere superstitions and imaginations; for antithesis of knowledge is ignorance, and the child of ignorance is superstition. Unquestionably there must be agreement between true religion and science. - Baha'i writing
I feel that if a person cannot communicate, the very least he can do is shut up. - Tom Lehrer
We learn from experience that we never learn from experience. - George Bernard Shaw
Romani ite domum - Monty Python's "Life of Brian" (Romans go home)
All animals, except man, know that the principal business of life is to enjoy it. - Samuel Butler (1835 - 1902)
All truth passes through three stages: first it is ridiculed; second, it is violently opposed; third, it is accepted as self-evident. - Arthur Schopenhauer
I am but mad north-north-west: when the wind is southerly I know a hawk from a handsaw. - William Shakespeare, Hamlet Act 2 Scene 2
I didn't say it would be easy, I just said it would be the truth. - Morpheus in the film 'The Matrix'
You know, you remind me of a poem I can't remember, and a song that may never have existed, and a place I'm not sure I've ever been to... - Abe Simpson in 'Lady Bouvier's Lover' (The Simpsons)
"Bouncy or coffy, it's all the same at the bottom of the river". - Eeyore in A.A. Milne's "The House at Pooh Corner"
When the state is most corrupt, then the laws are most multiplied. - Tacitus
I returned, and saw under the sun, that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favour to men of skill; but time and chance happeneth to them all. - Ecclesiastes 9:11
Music comes from the mastery of the soul, and the understanding of the spirituality through music, and not through just putting your fingers quickly in the right order on the instrument - Nigel Kennedy
He who possesses art and science has religion; he who does not possess them, needs religion - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Time wounds all heels - Groucho Marx as S. Quentin Quale in the film 'Go West'
When the only tool you own is a hammer, every problem begins to look like a nail. - attributed to Steven Wright
Most of one's life is one prolonged effort to prevent oneself thinking. - Aldous Huxley
It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society - Krishnamurti
Never be surprised at just how stupid people can be - Jason Patel
Life is hard
Then you die
Then they throw dirt in your face
Then the worms eat you
Be grateful it happens in that order - David Gerrold
One of the keys that unlocks a person's soul is the realisation that you are interested enough in him to call him by name - Charles R. Swindoll (Radio preacher, born 1934)
In our age there is no such thing as 'keeping out of politics'. All issues are political issues, and politics itself is a mass of lies, evasions, folly, hatred and schizophrenia. - George Orwell
At fifty everyone has the face he deserves - George Orwell
Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong remedies. - Groucho Marx
I find that alcohol, taken in sufficient quantities, can produce all the effects of drunkenness - Oscar Wilde
We should not pretend to understand the world only by the intellect. The judgement of the intellect is only part of the truth. - Carl Gustav Jung
Even a happy life cannot be without a measure of darkness, and the word happy would lose its meaning if it were not balanced by sadness. It is far better take things as they come along with patience and equanimity. - Carl Gustav Jung
Always be a little kinder than necessary. - James M. Barrie
Those who bring sunshine into the lives of others cannot keep it from themselves. - James M. Barrie
Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try Again. Fail again. Fail better. - Samuel Beckett
The remarkable thing about Shakespeare is that he really is very good, in spite of all the people who say he is very good. - Robert Graves
It is discouraging how many people are shocked by honesty and how few by deceit. - Noël Coward
The day, water, sun, moon, night - I do not have to purchase these things with money. - Plautus
Corruption, the most infallible symptom of constitutional liberty. - Edward Gibbon
History is indeed little more than the register of the crimes, follies, and misfortunes of mankind. - Edward Gibbon
The only good is knowledge, and the only evil is ignorance. - Herodotus
Those most moved to tears by every word of a preacher are generally weak and a rascal when the feelings evaporate. - Sallust
A desire to resist oppression is implanted in the nature of man. - Tacitus
It belongs to human nature to hate those you have injured. - Tacitus
Things forbidden have a secret charm. - Tacitus
The optimist proclaims that we live in the best of all possible worlds, and the pessimist fears this is true. - James Branch Cabell
A man is a very small thing, and the night is very large and full of wonders. - Lord Dunsany
There's no money in poetry, but then there's no poetry in money, either. - Robert Graves
I like long walks, especially when they are taken by people who annoy me. - Noël Coward
When I grow up I want to be a little boy. - Joseph Heller
All gods are homemade, and it is we who pull their strings, and so, give them the power to pull ours. - Aldous Huxley
She was not, herself, hugely in favour of motherhood in general. Obviously it was necessary, but it wasn't exactly difficult. Even cats managed it. But women acted as if they'd been given a medal that entitled them to boss people around. It was as if, just because they'd got the label which said 'mother', everyone else got a tiny part of the label that said 'child' ... Terry Pratchett 'Carpe Jugulum'
I think all foreigners should stop interfering in the internal affairs of Iraq - U.S. Deputy Defence Secretary, Paul Wolfowitz
The Romans brought devastation, but they called it peace. - Tacitus
Our earth is degenerate in these latter days; bribery and corruption are common; children no longer obey their parents; and the end of the world is evidently approaching - Assyrian clay tablet 2800 B.C.
Enjoy what you can, endure what you must - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
I would rather be ashes than dust! I would rather that my spark should burn out in a brilliant blaze than it should be stifled by dry-rot. I would rather be a superb meteor, every atom of me in magnificent glow, than a sleepy and permanent planet. The function of man is to live, not to exist. I shall not waste my days trying to prolong them. I shall use my time. - Jack London
We don't see things as they are, we see things as we are - Anaïs Nin (1903 - 1977)
To conquer fear is the beginning of wisdom - Bertrand Russell
Always do the right thing. This will gratify some people and astonish the rest - Mark Twain
Words are, of course, the most powerful drug used by mankind - Rudyard Kipling
A dwarf standing on the shoulders of a giant may see farther than the giant himself - Didacus Stella (1524 - 1578, Spanish mystic and theologian)
Integrity without knowledge is weak and useless, and knowledge without integrity is dangerous and dreadful - Samuel Johnson
It is with the heart that one sees rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye - 'The Little Prince' Antoine de Saint Exupery
I hear and I forget. I see and I remember. I do and I understand - Confucius
He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you - Nietzsche
A life spent in making mistakes is not only more honourable but more useful than a life spent doing nothing - George Bernard Shaw
Always acknowledge a fault. This will throw those in authority off their guard and give you an opportunity to commit more - Mark Twain
Experience: that most brutal of teachers. But you learn, my God do you learn. - C.S. Lewis
Always do what you are afraid to do - Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803 - 1882, American essayist, philosopher and poet, best remembered for leading the Transcendentalist movement of the mid 19th century)
You can't make people happy by law. If you said to a bunch of average people two hundred years ago "Would you be happy in a world where medical care is widely available, houses are clean, the world's music and sights and foods can be brought into your home at small cost, travelling even 100 miles is easy, childbirth is generally not fatal to mother or child, you don't have to die of dental abscesses and you don't have to do what the squire tells you" they'd think you were talking about the New Jerusalem and say 'yes'. - Terry Pratchett
An idea that is not dangerous is unworthy of being called an idea at all - Oscar Wilde
The only reason for time is so that everything doesn't happen at once - Albert Einstein
If you have much, give of your wealth. If you have little, give of your heart - Arab proverb
I hate to advocate drugs, alcohol, violence, or insanity to anyone, but they've always worked for me - Hunter S. Thompson
The most wasted of all days is one without laughter - e. e. cummings
He who is brave is free - Seneca
To know is to know that you know nothing. That is the meaning of true knowledge - Confucius 551-479 BC
Good turns are pleasing only in so far as they seem repayable. Much beyond that we repay with hatred not gratitude - Tacitus
Those are my principles, and if you don't like them... well, I have others - Groucho Marx
A gentleman is one who never hurts anyone's feelings unintentionally - Oscar Wilde
I find that the further I go back, the better things were, whether they happened or not. - Mark Twain
The true sign of intelligence is not knowledge but imagination - Albert Einstein
It is not the mountain we conquer but ourselves - Edmund Hillary
The road to perdition has ever been accompanied by lip service to an ideal - Albert Einstein
I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work - Thomas Alva Edison
In Europe today, it is xenophobia and the political manipulation of fear of foreigners that pose the greatest threat to democracy, or at least to the quality of democracy - Kofi Annan
There is nothing more dreadful than the habit of doubt. Doubt separates people. It is a poison that disintegrates friendships and breaks up pleasant relations. It is a thorn that irritates and hurts; it is a sword that kills - Buddha. Hindu Prince Gautama Siddharta, the founder of Buddhism, 563-483 B.C.
Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves - Carl Gustav Jung
Those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything - George Bernard Shaw
Our plans miscarry because they have no aim. When a man does not know what harbour he is making for, no wind is the right wind - Seneca
Why are the pretty ones always insane? - Chief Wiggum in "The Simpsons"
Believe those who are seeking the truth. Doubt those who find it - Andre Gide - French writer, humanist and moralist, 1947 Nobel prize for literature, 1869-1951
Some people without brains do an awful lot of talking - Scarecrow in 'The Wizard of Oz'
If you never read rubbish, you don't appreciate the good stuff when you find it - Grainne Tobin
Any man who reads too much and uses his own brain too little falls into lazy habits of thinking - Albert Einstein
The happiest people don't necessarily have the best of everything. They just make the best of everything - anon
Law of Logical Argument: Anything is possible if you don't know what you are talking about. - anon.
The world is a tragedy to those who feel, but a comedy to those who think. - Horace Walpole
A positive attitude may not solve all your problems, but it will annoy enough people to make it worth the effort. - Herm Albright
If you believe everything you read, better not read. - Japanese proverb
It is unwise to be too sure of one's own wisdom. It is healthy to be reminded that the strongest might weaken and the wisest might err. - Mahatma Ghandi
You must not lose faith in humanity. Humanity is an ocean; if a few drops of the ocean are dirty, the ocean does not become dirty. - Mahatma Ghandi
Never ascribe to malice that which may be adequately explained by stupidity. - Mark Twain
Consistency is the last refuge of the unimaginative. - Oscar Wilde
A well asked question contains half the answer. - Socrates
Believe you can and you are halfway there. - Theodore Roosevelt
A dreamer is one who can only find his way by moonlight, and his punishment is that he sees the dawn before the rest of the world. - Oscar Wilde
The oppressed are allowed once every few years to decide which particular representatives of the oppressing class are to represent and repress them. - Karl Marx
Religion is the impotence of the human mind to deal with occurrences it cannot understand - Karl Marx
Anyone who knows anything of history knows that great social changes are impossible without feminine upheaval. Social progress can be measured exactly by the social position of the fair sex, the ugly ones included. - Karl Marx (I would have advised him to leave out that last phrase)
The social principles of Christianity preach cowardice, self-contempt, abasement, submission, humility, in a word all the qualities of the canaille - Karl Marx (canaille = rabble, riff-raff)
The first requisite for the happiness of the people is the abolition of religion - Karl Marx
In ancient times cats were worshipped as gods; they have not forgotten this. - Terry Pratchett
The truth may be out there, but lies are inside your head - Terry Pratchett
It is often said that before you die your life passes before your eyes. It is in fact true. It's called living. - Terry Pratchett
The trouble with having an open mind, of course, is that people will insist on coming along and trying to put things in it - Terry Pratchett
If you have to look along the shaft of an arrow from the wrong end, if a man has you entirely at his mercy, then hope like hell that man is an evil man. Because the evil like power... they will talk, they will gloat. So hope like hell your captor is an evil man. A good man will kill you with hardly a word. - Terry Pratchett
They say a little knowledge is a dangerous thing, but it's not one half so bad as a lot of ignorance. - Terry Pratchett
Cats are nasty cruel bastards but that's because they are cats. As far as we know, they have no grasp of the concept of not being nasty cruel bastards. Humans, on the other hand, do. - Terry Pratchett
Time you enjoy wasting was not wasted. - John Lennon
Some cause happiness wherever they go; others whenever they go - Oscar Wilde
If you don't make mistakes, you aren't really trying - Coleman Hawkings (American Jazz musician)
The greatest barrier to success is the fear of failure - Sven Goran Eriksson
When I look back on all these worries, I remember the story of the old man who said on his deathbed that he had had a lot of trouble in his life, most of which had never happened - Winston Churchill
The man that hath no music in himself,
Nor is not moved with concord of sweet sounds,
Is fit for treasons, stratagems and spoils;
The motions of his spirit are dull as night
And his affections dark as Erebus:
Let no such man be trusted - Lorenzo in 'The Merchant of Venice',
William Shakespeare
If you tell the truth you won't have to remember anything - Mark Twain
Almost every man wastes part of his life in attempts to display qualities which he does not possess - Samuel Johnson
Always forgive your enemies -- nothing annoys them so much - Oscar Wilde
Leadership is a privilege to better the lives of others. It is not an opportunity to satisfy personal greed - Mwai Kibaki (born 1931, Kenya's third president, an economist, and a political leader)
What man is a man that does not make the world better? - William Monahan (Carved on Balian the blacksmith's lintel in the film 'Kingdom of Heaven')
If God is left out of sex, it becomes pornographic; if sex is left out of God, it becomes pious and self-righteous. - Leonard Cohen
I don't think necessity is the mother of invention. Invention, in my opinion, arises directly from idleness, possibly also from laziness. To save oneself trouble. - Agatha Christie
Psychologically we thought we were superior to reality - Kamal Habib, founder member of Islamic Jihad
Freedom is not secured by the fulfilment of people's desires, but by the suppression of desire - Epictetus (c. CE55 - c. 135)
A life that is planned is a closed life. It can be endured, perhaps, it cannot be lived. - from the film "The Inn of the Sixth Happiness"
No man dies for what he knows to be true. Men die for what they want to be true, for what some terror in their hearts tells them is not true. - Oscar Wilde
Conservatives are not necessarily stupid, but most stupid people are conservatives. - John Stuart Mills (1806 - 1873)
It is more difficult to organize a peace than to win a war; but the fruits of victory will be lost if the peace is not organized - Aristotle (384 BCE-322 BCE)
Nobody has a more sacred obligation to obey the law than those who make the law - Sophocles
I cannot say that I do not disagree with you - Groucho Marx (1890 - 1977)
Death is one of the few things that can be done as easily lying down. The difference between sex and death is that with death you can do it alone and no one is going to make fun of you. - Woody Allen
I often think that a slightly exposed shoulder emerging from a long satin nightgown packed more sex than two naked bodies in bed - Bette Davis
Whether exploited by traditional religions or political religions, psychological totalism -- the unquestioning fealty to one God, one truth, and one right, embodied in one faith, one cause, one party -- has everywhere provided the tinder of persecution. - Jack Beatty, "The Tyranny of Belief"
In all ages of the world, priests have been enemies of liberty - David Hume (1711 - 76)
You can be much more alone with other people than you are by yourself - from the film "The Ghost and Mrs Muir"
The world is a stage, but the play is badly cast - Oscar Wilde
Carpe diem! Rejoice while you are alive; enjoy the day; live life to the fullest; make the most of what you have. It is later than you think - Horace 65 BCE-8 BCE
Don't worry about life, you're not going to survive it anyway - Anon.
Life is never fair, and perhaps it is a good thing for most of us that it is not - Oscar Wilde
Your vision will become clear only when you look into your heart. Who looks outside, dreams. Who looks inside, awakens - Carl Gustav Jung
One cannot live without inconsistency - Carl Gustav Jung
Show me a sane man and I will cure him for you - Carl Gustav Jung
Only in our dreams are we free. The rest of the time we need wages - Terry Pratchett
Fantasy is an exercise bicycle for the mind. It might not take you anywhere, but it tones up the muscles that can. Of course, I could be wrong - Terry Pratchett
The madman is not the man who has lost his reason. The madman is the man who has lost everything except his reason - G K Chesterton
As I have not worried to be born, I do not worry to die - Federico Garcia Lorca (1898-1936)
I do not believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use - Galileo Galilei
You would naturally not think so flat a rogue could cozen you. But have a care! These half idiots have a sort of cunning, as the skunk has its stench - Robert Louis Stevenson, “The Master of Ballantrae”
All those who believe in telekinesis raise my hand - Kurt Vonnegut (suggested by Sally-Ann Dwyer - thank you Sal!)
Atheism is life-affirming, in a way that religion could never be - Richard Dawkins
Everybody got to be somewhere! - Eccles
Real freedom is freedom from fear - Aung San Suu Kyi
Rational arguments don't usually work on religious people. Otherwise there wouldn't be religious people - Dr. House
