I have always liked good quotes. So here are some of my favorites, categorized for ease of navigation.
topThese are at least amusing, if not just funny. Most of the people quoted here are known for their humor.
Television: A medium. So called because it's neither rare nor well done.
- Ernie Kovacs
Some people think of the glass as half full. Some people think of the glass as half empty. I think of the glass as too big.
- George Carlin
I have an existential map; it has 'you are here' written all over it.
- Steven Wright
The trouble with being punctual is that nobody's there to appreciate it.
- Franklin P. Jones
A word to the wise ain't necessary. It's the stupid ones who need the advice.
- Bill Cosby
I don't make jokes. I just watch the government and report the facts.
- Will Rogers
Camping is nature's way of promoting the motel business.
- Dave Barry
I went to a general store. They wouldn't let me buy anything specifically.
- Steven Wright
Outside of a dog, a book is a man's best friend. Inside of a dog, it's too dark to read.
- Groucho Marx
Predictions are hard, especially about the future.
- Niels Bohr
Whenever I hear about a 'peacekeeping force," I wonder: If they're so interested in peace, why do they use force?
- George Carlin
Crime does not pay ... as well as politics.
- Alfred E. Newman
A common mistake that people make when trying to design something completely foolproof is to underestimate the ingenuity of complete fools.
- Douglas Adams
They say all sheep are alike - actually they have mutton in common.
- Art Moger
The statistics on sanity are that one out of every four Americans is suffering from some form of mental illness. Think of your three best friends. If they are okay, then it's you.
- Rita Mae Brown
TV evangelists say they don't favor any particular denomination, but I think we've all seen their eyes light up at tens and twenties.
- Dennis Miller
Never hit a man with glasses. Hit him with something much bigger and heavier.
- Anonymous
Most people work just hard enough not to get fired and get paid just enough not to quit.
- George Carlin
I stayed up all night playing poker with tarot cards. I got a full house and four people died.
- Steven Wright
There's one thing about being a president - nobody can tell you when to sit down.
- Dwight D. Eisenhower
Honestly must be the best policy, but it's important to remember that apparently, by elimination, dishonesty is the second best policy.
- George Carlin
Is intelligence a liability nowadays? I think we can answer that with one word: Duh.
- Dennis Miller
We've heard that a million monkeys at a million keyboards could produce the Complete Works of Shakespeare; now, thanks to the Internet, we know this is not true.
- Robert Wilensky, University of California
Nuclear physics is much easier than tax law. It's rational and always works the same way.
- Jerold Rochwald
A lot of people are afraid of heights. Not me - I am afraid of widths.
- Steven Wright
If you ever reach total enlightenment while drinking beer, I bet it makes beer shoot out your nose.
- Deep Thought, Jack Handy
Live in such a way that you would not be ashamed to sell your parrot to the town gossip.
- Will Rogers
Excuses are like armpits, they both stink!
- Raychil Mishler
It doesn't matter what temperature the room is, it's always room temperature.
- Steven Wright
It's a strange world of language in which skating on thin ice can get you into hot water.
- Franklin P. Jones
I knew we were in for a long season when we lined up for the national anthem on opening day and one of my players said, 'Every time I hear that song I have a bad game.'
- Jim Leyland, former MLB manager
A lady came up to me on the street and pointed at my suede jacket. 'You know a cow was murdered for that jacket?' she sneered. I replied in a psychotic tone, 'I didn't know there were any witnesses. Now I'll have to kill you too.
- Jake Johansen
I went to a bookstore and asked the saleswoman, 'Where's the self-help section?' She said if she told me, it would defeat the purpose.
- George Carlin
You've got to be very careful if you don't know where you're going, because you might not get there.
- Yogi Berra
If the shoe fits, get another one just like it.
- George Carlin
Lawyer: What happened then? Witness: He told me, he says, "I have to kill you because you can identify me!" Lawyer: Did he kill you?
- Court Records
Why is it, 'A penny for your thoughts,' but, 'you have to put your two cents in?' Somebody's making a penny.
- George Carlin
A man should stand up for his rights, but not in the middle of an intersection.
- unknown
Age is not a particularly interesting subject. Anyone can get old. All you have to do is live long enough.
- Groucho Marx
I just bought a microwave fireplace...You can spend an entire evening in front of it in only eight minutes.
- Steven Wright
If a mute swears, does his mother wash his hands with soap?
- George Carlin
A computer lets you make more mistakes faster than any invention in human history -- with the possible exceptions of handguns and tequila.
- Mitch Ratliffe
By the time you're eighty years old you've learned every-thing. You only have to remember it.
- George Burns
Our bombs are smarter than the average high school student. At least they can find Kuwait.
- A. Whitney Brown
Programming today is a race between software engineers striving to build bigger and better idiot-proof programs, and the Universe trying to produce bigger and better idiots. So far, the Universe is winning.
- Rich Cook
What's another word for thesaurus?
- Steven Wright
The secret of life is honesty and fair dealing. If you can fake that, you got it made.
- Groucho Marx
I'm a lumberjack and I'm ok. I sleep all night and I work all day.
- Monty Python's Big Red Book
Don't panic.
- Douglas Adams, 'Hitchhiker's Guide to the Universe'
All I need now is a computer. And a ten-year-old kid to teach me how to use it.
- Fletch (Chevy Chase) in Fletch Lives
And of course, with the birth of the artist came the inevitable afterbirth - the critic.
- Narrator in 'History of the World: Part I' (1981)
Chaos Theory is a new theory invented by scientists panicked by the thought that the public were beginning to understand the old ones.
- Mike Barfiel
I once heard two ladies going on and on about the pains of childbirth and how men don't seem to know what real pain is. I asked if either of them ever got themselves caught in a zipper.
- Emo Philips
Not all chemicals are bad. Without chemicals such as hydrogen and oxygen, for example, there would be no way to make water, a vital ingredient in beer.
- Dave Barry
Time heals all wounds, unless you pick at them.
- Shawn Alexander
I used to think that the brain was the most wonderful organ in my body. Then I realized who was telling me this.
- Emo Phillips
Do you think that when they asked George Washington for ID that he just whipped out a quarter?
- Steven Wright
Technology is constantly improving our lives. Look at the cellular telephone. Just ten years ago, virtually nobody was able to get into a car crash caused by trying to steer and dial at the same time; today, people do this all the time.
- Dave Barry
Is sloppiness in speech caused by ignorance or apathy? I don't know and I don't care.
- William Safire
In my opinion, we don't devote nearly enough scientific research to finding a cure for jerks.
- Calvin and Hobbes
I know the difference between sadist and masochist... but you're going to have to beat it out of me.
- Scott Leiter
If people behaved like governments, you'd call the cops.
- Kelvin Throop
I don't think I'm ever more 'aware' than I am right after I hit my thumb with a hammer.
- Jack Handey
Procrastination is the art of keeping up with yesterday.
- George Carlin
I have enough money to last me the rest of my life unless I buy something.
- Unknown
I put instant coffee in a microwave and almost went back in time.
- Steven Wright
Have you ever noticed that they put advertisements in with your bills now? Like bills aren't distasteful enough, they have to stuff junk mail in there with them. I get back at them. I put garbage in with my check when I mail it in. Coffee grinds, banana peels ... I write, 'Could you throw this away for me? Thank You.'
- Andy Rooney
I am not the boss of my house. I don't know how I lost it. I don't know when I lost it. I don't think I ever had it. But I've seen the boss's job and I don't want it.
- Bill Cosby
Everbody wants to save the earth - nobody wants to help Mom to do the dishes.
- P. J. O'Rourke
Build a man a fire and he'll be warm for a day. Set a man on fire and he'll be warm for the rest of his life
- Terry Pratchett
Weaseling out of things is important to learn. It's what separates us from the animals...except the weasel.
- Homer Simpson
Why don't they pass a constitutional amendment prohibiting anybody from learning anything? If it works as well as prohibition did, in five years Americans would be the smartest race of people on Earth.
- Will Rogers
You have to have Soul. But if you don't have Soul, Halibut will do.
- The Muppets
If advertisers spent the same amount of money on improving their products as they do on advertising then they wouldn't have to advertise them.
- Will Rogers
Don't squat with your spurs on.
- Will Rogers
Good judgment comes from experience, and a lot of that comes from bad judgment.
- Will Rogers
Lettin' the cat outta the bag is a whole lot easier 'n puttin' it back in.
- Will Rogers
If you're ridin' ahead of the herd, take a look back every now and then to make sure it's still there.
- Will Rogers
Never kick a cow chip on a hot day.
- Will Rogers
There's two theories to arguin' with a woman. Neither one works.
- Will Rogers
My mother's menu consisted of two choices: Take it or leave it.
- Buddy Hackett
It don't take a genius to spot a goat in a flock of sheep.
- Will Rogers
Never slap a man who's chewin' tobacco.
- Will Rogers
Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition!top
- Monty Python
These quotes are just that; a profound thought or two contained in each, hopefully.
Rifles, muskets, long-bows and hand-grenades are inherently democratic weapons. ...A simple weapon -- so long as there is no answer to it -- gives claws to the weak.
- George Orwell (1903-1950), British author.
Personally I'm always ready to learn, although I do not always like being taught.
- Sir Winston Churchill (1874-1965)
To err is human--and to blame it on a computer is even more so.
- Robert Orben (1927-)
Even if you're on the right track, you'll get run over if you just sit there.
- Will Rogers
The difference between truth and fiction: Fiction has to make sense.
- Mark Twain
If there hadn't been women we'd still be squatting in a cave eating raw meat, because we made civilization in order to impress our girl friends.
- Orson Welles
Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.
- Benjamin Franklin, 1755
The man who views the world at 50 the same as he did at 20 has wasted 30 years of his life.
- Muhammad Ali
Human history becomes more and more a race between education and catastrophe.
- H.G. Wells
The probability that we may fail in the struggle ought not to deter us from the support of a cause we believe to be just.
- Abraham Lincoln
The advertisement is the most truthful part of a newspaper.
- Thomas Jefferson
People can be divided into two classes: those who go ahead and do something, and those who sit still and inquire, 'Why wasn't it done the other way?'
- Oliver Wendell Holmes
We have met the enemy and he is us.
- Walt Kelly (1913-1973), American cartoonist and social commentator
My advice to you is get married: if you find a good wife you'll be happy; if not, you'll become a philosopher.
- Socrates
In three words I can sum up everything I've learned about life: it goes on.
- Robert Frost
Any system that depends on reliability is unreliable.
- Nogg's Postulate
If you're playing a poker game and you look around the table and and can't tell who the sucker is, it's you.
- Paul Newman
She had lost the art of conversation but not, unfortunately, the power of speech.
- George Barnard Shaw
Clothes make the man. Naked people have little or no influence on society.
- Mark Twain
You know that children are growing up when they start asking questions that have answers.
- John J. Plomp
Good judgment comes from experience. Most experience comes from bad judgment.
- Bill O'Conner
You see things; and you say, 'Why?' But I dream things that never were; and I say, 'Why not?'
- George Bernard Shaw, Back to Methuselah
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
Life is 10% what you make it, and 90% how you take it.
- Irving Berlin
Seriousness is stupidity sent to college.
- P.J. O'Rourke
The mechanical university study deprives us of the desire for originality. Years of memorizing cause a fatigue of the mind that makes most of us fit for the clerical work.
- Mahatma Gandhi
Fools and wise men are equally harmless. It is the half fools and the half wise who are dangerous.
- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
You do not lead by hitting people over the head - that's assault, not leadership.
- Dwight D. Eisenhower
In youth we learn; in age we understand.
- Maria Ebner-Eschenbach
An intellectual is a man who takes more words that necessary to tell more than he knows.
- Dwight D. Eisenhower
Wise men don't need advise. Fools don't take it.
- Benjamin Franklin
In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice, there is.
- unknown
Attitude is the difference between Ordeal and Adventure
- unknown
College: $100 for a book, $300 to prove you read it.
- Unknown
Men are like steel. When they lose their temper, they lose their worth.
- Chuck Norris
The first sign of maturity is the discovery that the volume knob also turns to the left.
- "Smile" Zingers
If the English language made any sense, lackadaisical would have something to do with a shortage of flowers.
- Doug Larson
With new technologies, we've tended to do the same things more efficiently when what we need to do is different things more effectively.
- Christopher Dede
Experience is that marvellous thing that enables you recognize a mistake when you make it again.
- F. P. Jones
A conclusion is simply the place where someone got tired of thinking.
- Arthur Block
There is absolutely no substitute for a genuine lack of preparation.
- unknown
Half the world is composed of people who have something to say and can't, and the other half who have nothing to say and keep on saying it.
- Robert Frost
The society which scorns excellence in plumbing as a humble activity and tolerates shoddiness in philosophy because it is an exalted activity will have neither good plumbing nor good philosophy: neither its pipes nor its theories will hold water.
- John W. Gardner
Life does not cease to be funny when people die any more than it ceases to be serious when people laugh.
- George Bernard Shaw
When I was a boy of fourteen, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be twenty-one, I was astonished by how much he'd learned in seven years.
- Mark Twain
Democracy means simply the bludgeoning of the people by the people for the people.
- Oscar Wilde
Reality is that which when you stop believing in it doesn't go away.
- Philip K. Dick
The fact that some geniuses were laughed at does not imply that all who are laughed at are geniuses. They laughed at the Wright brothers. But they also laughed at Bozo the Clown.
- Carl Sagan
The secret of creativity is knowing how to hide your sources.
- Albert Einstein
Things which matter most should never be at the mercy of things which matter least.
- Johann von Goethe
It takes considerable knowledge just to realize the extent of your own ignorance.
- Thomas Sowell
Courage is the price that life exacts for granting peace.
- Amelia Earhart
Prosperity is a great teacher; adversity a greater.
- William Hazlitt
I wash my hands of those who imagine chattering to be knowledge, silence to be ignorance, and affection to be art.
- Kahlil Gibran
The price of greatness is responsibility.
- Sir Winston Churchill
In America, we tax work, investment, employment, savings, and production, while we subsidize non-work, consumption, and debt. It's time we reverse this trend.
- Jack Kemp
The only thing you can do easily is be wrong, and that's hardly worth the effort.
- The Phantom Tollbooth, by Norton Juster
Honest criticism is hard to take, particularly from a relative, a friend, an acquaintance or a stranger.
- Franklin Jones
Every problem has a gift for you in its hands.
- Richard Bach
The best way to escape from a problem is to solve it.
- Alan Saporta
Regret for the things we did can be tempered by time; it is regret for the things we did not do that is inconsolable.
- Sydney J. Harris
As scarce as truth is, the supply has always been in excess of the demand.
- Josh Billings
Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing happened.
- Winston Chuchill
It requires wisdom to understand wisdom: the music is nothing if the audience is deaf.
- Walter Lippman
Let him who would enjoy a good future waste none of his present.
- Roger Babson
Great minds discuss ideas, average minds discuss events, small minds discuss people.
- Admiral Hyman Rickover
To fail to prepare is to prepare to fail.
- Unknown
Nothing remains interesting where anything may happen.
- H.G. Wells
Hope is the thing with feathers that perches in the soul, And sings the tune without the words, and never stops at all.
- Emily Dickinson
Solitude never hurt anyone. Emily Dickinson lived alone, and she wrote some of the most beautiful poetry the world has ever known...then went crazy as a loon.
- Lisa Simpson
An object in possession seldom retains the same charm that it had in pursuit.
- Gaius Plinius (c. 61 - 112 A.D.)
The highest reward for a man's toil is not what he gets for it but what he becomes by it.
- John Ruskin
Ability is what you're capable of doing. Motivation determines what you do. Attitude determines how well you do it.
- Anonymous
It is easy to be brave from a safe distance.
- Aesop
A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.
- Sir Winston Churchill
Optimism: The doctrine or belief that everything is beautiful, including what is ugly.
- Ambrose Bierce
It's taken me all my life to learn what not to play.
- Dizzy Gillespie
All change is not growth, all movement is not forward.
- Ellen Glasgow
The secret of getting ahead is getting started. The secret of getting started is breaking your complex overwhelming tasks into small manageable tasks, and then starting on the first one.
- Mark Twain
If you think education is expensive, try ignorance.
- Derek Bok
Never offend people with style when you can offend them with substance.
- Sam Brown
First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they attack you, then you win.
- Mahatma Gandhi
I am looking for a lot of men who have infinite capacity to not know what can't be done.top
- Henry Ford
By Religious, I mean the concept stated is, or is proverbial in nature, or the person quoted is a religous figure. At some future date, I may go back through these and add Biblical references that compare and/or contrast to these statements.
A complete relationship with God needs both intellect and emotion. "Knowledge of God without feeling" leaves a person disconnected and out of touch with his convictions. "Feeling without knowledge," on the other hand, is the basis for every cult, nationalistic ideology, and charismatic movement in history.
- by Marshall Roth
An insincere and evil friend is more to be feared than a wild beast; a wild beast may wound your body, but an evil friend will wound your mind.
- Buddha
We ought to do good to others as simply as a horse runs, or a bee makes honey, or a vine bears grapes season after season without thinking of the grapes it has borne.
- Marcus Aurelius
An educated mind is useless without a focused will, and dangerous without a loving heart.
- W.M. Deijmann
Some minds are like concrete, thoroughly mixed up and permanently set.
- Rev. Denny Brake
How foolish it is to strive after worldly things. It is a great deal wiser to simply present yourself honestly and faithfully to the gods, in perfect simplicity.
- Marcus Aurelius
Human beings, who are almost unique in having the ability to learn from the experience of others, are also remarkable for their apparent disinclination to do so.
- Douglas Adams
Without a struggle, there can be no progress.
- Frederick Douglass
Live as if your were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever.
- Mahatma Gandhi
There are no mistakes, no coincidences. All events are blessings given to us to learn from.
- Elizabeth Kubler-Ross
Man must not allow the clock and the calendar to blind him to the fact that each moment of his life is a miracle and a mystery.
- H. G. Wells
The last of the human freedoms is to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way.
- Viktor Frankl, M.D., Holocaust survivor
Once stretched by a new idea, man's mind never returns to its original dimensions.
- Oliver Wendell Holmes
If you are patient in one moment of anger, you will avoid a hundred days of sorrow.
- Tibetan proverb
It's hard to be religious when certain people are never incinerated by bolts of lightning.
- Calvin
He who asks a question is a fool for five minutes; he who does not ask a question remains a fool forever.
- Chinese Proverb
I hear and I forget. I see and I remember. I do and I understand.
- Confucius
Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and consciencious stupidity.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
A big mountain of sugar is too much for one man. I can see now why God portions it out in those little packets.
- Homer, from "The Simpsons"
The journey is the reward.
- Taoist saying
The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious.
- Albert Einstein
Most people are bothered by those passages of Scripture they do not understand, but the passages that bother me are those I do understand.
- Mark Twain
If I had no sense of humor, I would long ago have committed suicide.
- Mahatma Gandhi
If my stories are complete it is because I see everything beginning with original sin, taking in the Redemption and reckoning on a final judgement.
- Flannery O'Connor
After a concert, a fan rushed up to famed violinist Fritz Kreisler and gushed, "I'd give up my whole life to play as beautifully as you do."
Kreisler replied, "I did."
- source unknown
Only when you can be extremely pliable and soft can you be extremely hard and strong.
- Zen proverb
To stumble twice against the same stone is a proverbial disgrace.
- Cicero
With calm eyes gauge your fellow men; with a calm heart deal with all matters; with a calm mind find the reason in things.
- Hong Yingming
A smooth sea never made a skilled mariner.
- English Proverb
Reflect upon your present blessings, of which every man has plenty; not on your past misfortunes of which all men have some.
- Charles Dickens
When I stand before God at the end of my life, I would hope that I would not have a single bit of talent left, and could say, 'I used everything you gave me...'
- Erma Bombeck
When a man begins to reason, he ceases to feel.
- French proverb
A word said is a shot fired.
- Uzbek proverb
No one becomes depraved all at once.
- Juvenal
He who accepts evil without protesting against it is really cooperating with it.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
No other two races have set such a mark upon the world. Each of them from angles so different have left us with the inheritance of its genius and wisdom. No two cities have counted more with mankind than Athens and Jerusalem. Personally, I have always been on the side of both.
- Sir Winston Churchill
Because all people are created in the image of God, how we treat them is a reflection of our respect and love for Him; therefore, true piety cannot exist apart from human decency.
- http://www.hashivenu.org/core_values.htm
Maturation requires a humble openness to new ideas within the context of firmly held convictions.top
- http://www.hashivenu.org/core_values.htm
Theses are the quotes that did not fit in the other categories.
Computers in the future may weigh no more than 1.5 tons.
- POPULAR MECHANICS article forecasting the relentless march of science, 1949
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
I won't be wronged, I won't be insulted, and I won't be laid a hand on. I don't do these things to other people, and I require the same from them.
- John Bernard Books (John Wayne), The Shootist
Do or do not; there is no try.
- Yoda, Stars Wars: The Empire Strikes Back
The definition of a consultant: Someone who borrows your watch, tells you the time and then charges you for the privilege.
- letter in the Times newspaper
It's 106 miles to Chicago, we got a full tank of gas, half a pack of cigarettes, it's dark and we're wearing sunglasses. Hit it.
- The Blues Brothers
To err is human; to blame it on somebody else is even more human.
- John Nadeau, Medford, Massachusetts
Never insult seven men if you're only carrying a six shooter.
- Harry Morgan
Had they but courage equal to desire.
- W. B. Yeats
I haven't committed a crime. What I did was fail to comply with the law.
- David Dinkins, New York City Mayor
If everything seems under control, you're just not going fast enough.
- Mario Andretti
When you say you agree to a thing in principle you mean that you have not the slightest intention of carrying it out in practice.
- Otto Von Bismark
Laughter is the shortest distance between two people.
- Victor Borge
There are more pleasant things to do than beat up people.
- Muhammad Ali
Nothing is particularly hard if you divide it into small jobs.
- Henry Ford
Few things help an individual more than to place responsibility upon him and to let him know that you trust him.
- Booker T. Washington
Knowledge speaks, but wisdom listens.
- Jimi Hendrix
I understand the words, but not the sentences.
- Albert Einstein's wife, when asked if she understood the papers that her husband had published.
Never tell people how to do things. Tell them what to do and they will surprise you with their ingenuity.
- General George S. Patton, Jr.
In matters of style, swim with the current; in matters of principle, stand like a rock.
- Thomas Jefferson
You cannot imagine how it spoils one to have been a child prodigy.
- Franz Liszt
One more such victory and we are lost.
- Phyrrhus, on beating the Romans at the Battle of the Asculum
Some people think it's holding on that makes one strong; sometimes it's letting go.
- Sylvia Robinson
If at first the idea is not absurd, then there is no hope for it.
- Albert Einstein
Blessed indeed is the man who hears many gentle voices call him father!
- Lydia M. Child (1802-1880)
Oh yeah, we know each other real well -- although I don't think we've ever fleshmet.
- Howard Rheingold, apostle of technology and pioneer of virtual communities
Law means good order.
- Aristotle
We are not hypocrites in our sleep.
- William Hazlitt
In violence, we forget who we are.
- Mary McCarthy
A hungry man is not a free man.
- Adlai Stevenson
Because television can make so much money doing its worst, it often cannot afford to do its best.
- Fred W. Friendly
Nothing is more powerful than habit.
- Ovid