Clarence DarrowLeonardo DaVinci
I never wanted to say anyone die, but there are a few obituary
notices I have read with pleasure.
Clarence Darrow
The average sparrow is something of a bore and the trouble is
that all sparrows are average.
Will Cuppy
I have just learned about his illness -- let's hope it is
nothing trivial.
Irving Cobb
A hen is only an egg's way of making another egg.
Samuel Butler
Golf: A game in which a 1 1/2 inch in diameter ball is placed on
a 7,918 mile in diameter ball. The object is to hit the 1 1/2
inch in diameter ball without hitting the 7,918 mile in diameter
ball.
Judge J.J. Burns
How can I die? I'm booked.
George Burns
If animals could reason, they would act jest as ridickerlous as
us menfolks do.
Josh Billings
To be positive: to be mistaken at the top of one's voice.
Ambrose Bierce
He has a face like a wedding cake left out in the rain.
W.H. Auden
Sure, I was once a 97-pound weakling. When I was four years old.
Paul Anderson
If at first you don't succeed, you are running about average.
M.H. Anderson
I don't want to achieve immortality through my work, I want to
achieve it through not dying.
Woody Allen
Death is an acquired trait.
Woody Allen
Dying is a very dull, dreary affair and my advice to you is to
have nothing to do with it.
Somerset Maugham
I'm not afraid to die. I just don't want to be there when it
happens.
Woody Allen
He is one of those fellows who would be greatly improved by
death.
Hector Munro
I hate funerals, and would not attend my own if it could be
avoided.
Robert T. Morris
The idea is to die young as late as possible.
Ashley Montagu
Was she old? When they lit all the candles on her birthday cake,
people were overcome with the heat.
Fred Allen
What's on your mind -- if you'll forgive the overstatement?
Fred Allen
An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure and costs more.
George Ade
We are always doing something for posterity, but I would fain
see posterity do something for us.
Joseph Addison
A clever prophet makes sure of the event first.
Sam Levenson
It is not enough that a thing be possible for it to be believed.
Voltaire
For if whenever I doubt I know that I doubt, then I cannot doubt
whether I doubt, since one cannot doubt what one knows.
Rene Descartes
A little learning is a dangerous thing, but a lot of ignorance
is just as bad.
Bob Edwards
"I rather like bad wine," said Mr. Mountchesney; "one gets so
bored with good wine."
Benjamin Disraeli
Reading National Review is like sex: when it's good it's
terrific; when it's bad it's still pretty good.
M. Stanton Evans
I was hurrying to the florist for a bunch of golden-rod to send
my mother-in-law (the poor dear was suffering with a stubborn
case of hay fever).
W.C. Fields
Do you like children? I do if they're properly looked.
W.C. Fields
There's not a man in America, who at one time or another, has
not had the secret desire to boot a child in the ass.
W.C. Fields
I always keep a supply of stimulant handy in case I see a
snake-- which I also keep handy.
W.C. Fields
One's ability to perform a given task competently decreases in
proportion to the number of people watching.
Mark Frank
Well-washed and well-combed pets grow dull; they miss the
stimulus of fleas.
Francis Galton
Not a shred of evidence exists in favor of the idea that life is
serious.
Brendan Gill
Cut off his tail behind his ears.
Horace Greely,
on how to cure a dog of killing sheep
If one is to be called a liar, one may as well make an effort to
deserve the name.
A.A. Milne
It's far easier to forgive an enemy after you've got even with
him.
Olin Miller
Safe upon the solid rock the ugly houses stand. Come and see my
shining palace built upon the sand!
Edna St. Vincent Millay
The prophesying business is like writing fugues; it is fatal to
everyone save a man of absolute genius.
H.L. Mencken
It is a sin to believe evil in others, but it is seldom a
mistake.
H.L. Mencken
The basic fact about human existence is not that it is a
tragedy, but that it is a bore.
H.L. Mencken
My guess is that well over 80% of the human race goes through
life without having a single original thought. Whenever a new one
appears the average man displays signs of dismay and resentment.
H.L. Mencken
When I went duck hunting with Bear Bryant, he shot at one but it
kept flying. "John," he said, "there flies a dead duck." Now
that's confidence.
John McKay
People who become legends in their own time usually have very
little time left.
John D. McDonald
Decide promptly, but never give any reasons. Your decisions may
be right, but your reasons are sure to be wrong.
Lord Mansfield
The dodo was (perverse distinction)
Immortalized by his extinction.
Edward Lucie-Smith
It is difficult to see why lace should be so expensive; it is
mostly holes.
Mary Wilson Little
Insanity is hereditary -- you can get it from your children.
Sam Levenson
He's a nice guy, even though he's incompetent.
Laslo
Cats seem to go on the principle that it never does any harm to
ask for what you want.
Joseph Wood Krutch
I never made a mistake in my life, at least, never one I
couldn't explain away afterwards.
Rudyard Kipling
My problem, first, last and always is that I'm a beautiful
person.
Jean Kerr
In the fight between you and the world, back the world.
Franz Kafka
Experience enables you to recognize a mistake when you make it
again.
Franklin P. Jones
Adversity is the state in which a man most easily becomes
acquainted with himself, being especially free from admirers
then.
Samuel Johnson
Any solution to a problem changes the problem.
R.W. Johnson
I admire him, I frankly confess it; and when his time comes I
shall buy a piece of the rope as a keepsake.
Mark Twain,
of Cecil Rhodes
To err is human, but when the eraser wears out ahead of the
pencil, you're overdoing it.
J.J. Jenkins
They aren't making mirrors the way they used to. The ones I buy
now are full of wrinkles.
Phyllis Diller
Getting a second opinion is something like switching slot
machines.
Bill Walton
Nothing will dispel enthusiasm like a small admissions fee.
Kin Hubbard
Knowin' all about baseball is about as profitable as bein' a
good whittler.
Kin Hubbard
Your ignorance cramps my conversation.
Anthony Hope
I am hell-bent for the South Pole -- God willing and crevasses
permitting.
Sir Edmund Hillary
He was a self-made man who owed his lack of success to nobody.
Joseph Heller
Don't bite the hand that has your allowance in it.
Paul Dickson
There are moments when everything goes well; don't be
frightened, it won't last.
Jules Renard
Unhappiness is being trapped on a rainy highway with a
slow-moving truck in front of you and a fast-moving truck coming
up behind you.
Ogden Nash
Ordinarily he was insane, but he had lucid moments when he was
merely stupid.
Heinrich Heine
Back of every achievement is a proud wife and a surprised
mother-in-law.
Brooks Hays
Life is a misery if you don't get more than you deserve.
Harry Oppenheimer
I must be getting old because nowadays I find I'm more
interested in the food I eat than in the girl who serves it.
John Steinbeck
What I wouldn't give to be 70 again!
Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.,
at 92, after seeing a pretty girl
Believe only half of what you see and nothing that you hear.
Dinah Murlock Craik
My idea of an agreeable person is a person who agrees with me.
Benjamin Disraeli
The more patience I have, the more people use it.
Anon
Good judgment comes from experience, and experience -- well,
that comes from poor judgment.
Anon
I dislike arguments of any kind. They are always vulgar, and
often convincing.
Oscar Wilde
All arguments about pi are circular.
Judy Bostock
The only difference between caprice and a lifelong passion is
that caprice lasts a little longer.
Oscar Wilde
To lose one parent, Mr. Worthing, may be regarded as a
misfortune; to lose both looks like carelessness.
Oscar Wilde,
The Importance of being Earnest
She is a peacock in everything but beauty.
Oscar Wilde
A mine is a hole in the ground owned by a liar.
Mark Twain
He has been a doctor for a year now and has had two patients --
no, three, I think -- yes, it was three; I attended their
funerals.
Mark Twain
Noise proves nothing. Often a hen who has merely laid an egg
cackles as if she had laid an asteroid.
Mark Twain
Do not go gentle into that good night
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Dylan Thomas
Old men and comets have been reverenced for the same reason;
their long beards, and pretences to foretell events.
Jonathon Swift
When the water reaches the upper deck, follow the rats.
Claude Swanson
I regard you with an indifference closely bordering on aversion.
Robert Louis Stevenson
Anybody who is certain about anything complex is certainly
wrong. I'm certain of that.
Cyril Smith
You can get anywhere in ten minutes if you go fast enough.
John L. Shelton
There is no satisfaction in hanging a man who does not object to
it.
George Bernard Shaw
Nothing is all wrong -- even a clock that doesn't work is right
twice a day.
Salada Tag Line
No man who hates dogs or babies can be all bad.
Leo Rosten,
about W.C. Fields. Commonly attributed
to Fields himself.
Normalcy is a refuge for the weak of mind.
C.H. Reynolds
You can't think rationally on an empty stomach, and a lot of
people can't do it on a full one either.
Lord Reith
What is better than presence of mind in a railway accident?
Absence of body.
Punch
I'm afraid you've got a bad egg, Mr. Jones.
Oh no, My Lord, I assure you. Parts of it are excellent.
Punch
How old would you be if you didn't know how old you was?
Satchel Paige
When you're up to your ass in alligators, it's hard to remember
that your purpose is draining the swamp.
George Napper
Thought suffers when language suffers, and language suffers when
"underprivileged" is used for "poor", when "native American" is
used for "Indian", when "chairperson" is used for "chairman".
Bell Laboratories has developed a computer program, designed to
improve the English of those who use word processors, which would
have removed all references to "man" and "mankind" from the
Declaration of Independence and substituted "humanity", "men and
women" or "we all."
The Economist
Before delivering any humorous remark, double-check it for
sexism, racism, and personal antagonism or lack of feeling toward
lower-echelon employees.
Donald Dunn,
Business Week
After completing that memo or report, substitute each buzz word
with an everyday word. All on distribution will feel
self-congratulatory at having for once understood a piece of
writing in total. You will make friends.
Sal Rosa
Are these receptions significant events for faculty and students
to maximize through interface their interpersonal inputs and
outputs?
Prof. Alan Gaylord
Pictured are foreign students from another country.
Dartmouth College
publication
I smell a weak link in your chain of argument.
The Boston Globe
Nolan Ryan is pitching much better now that he has his curve
ball straightened out.
Joe Garagiola
Smoking kills and if you die you've lost a very important part
of your life.
Brooke Shields
Classified material is considered lost when it cannot be found.
U.S. Navy report
I don't have a very good memory for things in the past.
Alexander Fanelli,
Executive asst. to former Dartmouth President
John Kemeny
These retailers know that good beef is one of the best magnets
for drawing customers into their stores, and they're not sparing
the horses to get it.
Farmer's Digest
I tend to use strong metaphors.
Dartmouth professor
"Shut up!" he explained.
Ring Lardner
Waggish non-Yale men never seem to weary of calling "For God,
for Country, and for Yale," the outstanding single anti-climax in
the English language.
Time
She blushed like a well-trained sunrise.
Margaret Halsey
It is nothing short of genius that uses one word when twenty
will say the same thing.
David Grayson
Only Presidents, editors and people with tapeworms have the
right to use the editorial "we."
Mark Twain
A synonym is a word you use when you can't spell the right one
and therefore you can't find it in the dictionary.
Laurence J. Peter
CONCORD TEST-FLIGHTS COULD LAND IN SUPREME COURT
Headline in the Pasco-Kennewick-Richland Tri-City Herald
MIT women fourth in Head.
Headline in The Tech
It is a mistake to use highfalutin language when you advertise
to uneducated people. I once used the word OBSOLETE in a
headline, only to discover that 43 percent of housewives had no
idea what it meant. In other headline, I used the word INEFFABLE
only to discover that I didn't know what it meant myself.
David Ogilvy
Develolment of hydro power in the desert of North Africa awaits
only the introduction of water.
Nuclear News
He [Spiro Agnew] seemed to have taken the self-help course of
30 Days to a More Powerful Vocabulary and quit on the 26th day.
Martin Nolan
He [William F. Buckley Jr.] does not speak as much as exhale,
and he exhales polysyllabically.
Edwin Newman
