The Quote File

Bertrand Russell

2009-02-08T08:51:00.000-08:00

"The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, but wiser people so full of doubts."

H. H. Williams

2009-02-06T08:27:00.000-08:00

"Furious activity is no substitute for understanding."

George Orwell

2009-01-30T08:12:00.000-08:00

"Every generation imagines itself to be more intelligent than the one that went before it, and wiser than the one that comes after it."

Isaac Asimov

2009-01-11T08:51:00.000-08:00

"Never let your sense of morals get in the way of doing what's right."

Sir William Drummond

2009-01-10T08:43:00.001-08:00

"He who will not reason is a bigot; he who cannot is a fool; and he who dares not is a slave."

Saki

2008-11-28T07:44:00.000-08:00

"A little inaccuracy sometimes saves tons of explanation." [Quotes of the Day]

Fred Hoyle

2008-11-28T07:43:00.001-08:00

"Space isn't remote at all. It's only an hour's drive away if your car could go straight upwards."
[Quotes of the Day]

Sir Francis Bacon

2008-09-13T12:29:00.001-07:00

"If a man will begin with certainties, he shall end in doubts; but if he will be content to begin with doubts he shall end in certainties." [Quotes of the Day]

Thomas H. Huxley

2008-09-01T08:55:00.000-07:00

"Try to learn something about everything and everything about something." [Quotes of the Day]

Kurt Vonnegut

2008-08-19T08:01:00.001-07:00

"Thanks to TV and for the convenience of TV, you can only be one of two kinds of human beings, either a liberal or a conservative." [Quotes of the Day]

George Carlin

2008-08-17T09:11:00.001-07:00

"Well, if crime fighters fight crime and fire fighters fight fire, what do freedom fighters fight? They never mention that part to us, do they?" [Quotes of the Day]

Samuel Johnson

2008-08-02T09:44:00.001-07:00

"There will always be a part, and always a very large part of every community, that have no care but for themselves, and whose care for themselves reaches little further than impatience of immediate pain, and eagerness for the nearest good." [Quotes of the Day]

Arlo Guthrie

2008-07-24T08:09:00.000-07:00

"You can't have a light without a dark to stick it in." [Quotes of the Day]

Walter Lippmann

2008-07-18T15:15:00.001-07:00

"Where all think alike, no one thinks very much." [Quotes of the Day]

Jean Cocteau

2008-07-15T08:56:00.000-07:00

"Art is science made clear." [Quotes of the Day]

Will Durant

2008-03-20T07:23:00.001-07:00

"Education is a progressive discovery of our own ignorance." [Quotes of the Day]

Laurence J. Peter

2008-03-20T07:22:00.000-07:00

"Against logic there is no armor like ignorance." [Quotes of the Day]

Cato the Elder

2008-03-14T07:59:00.002-07:00

"After I'm dead I'd rather have people ask why I have no monument than why I have one." [Quotes of the Day]

Andre Gide

2008-03-14T07:59:00.001-07:00

"Believe those who are seeking the truth. Doubt those who find it." [Quotes of the Day]

Robert Jackson

2008-03-13T08:01:00.001-07:00

"The price of freedom of religion, or of speech, or of the press, is that we must put up with a good deal of rubbish." [Quotes of the Day]

John F. Kennedy

2008-02-20T21:21:00.001-08:00

"Liberty without learning is always in peril; learning without liberty is always in vain." [Quotes of the Day]

John Maynard Keynes

2008-02-10T07:58:00.001-08:00

"I do not know which makes a man more conservative? to know nothing but the present, or nothing but the past." [Quotes of the Day]

C. P. Snow

2008-02-07T19:19:00.000-08:00

"When you think of the long and gloomy history of man, you will find more hideous crimes have been committed in the name of obedience than have ever been committed in the name of rebellion." [Quotes of the Day]

Sir Francis Bacon

2008-02-07T19:18:00.000-08:00

"If a man will begin with certainties, he shall end in doubts; but if he will be content to begin with doubts he shall end in certainties." [Quotes of the Day]

Ben Hecht

2008-01-18T08:18:00.000-08:00

"Trying to determine what is going on in the world by reading newspapers is like trying to tell the time by watching the second hand of a clock." [Quotes of the Day]

Robert Orben

2008-01-16T08:15:00.001-08:00

"Illegal aliens have always been a problem in the United States. Ask any Indian." [Quotes of the Day]

Ernest Hemingway

2008-01-13T08:55:00.000-08:00

"Never confuse movement with action." [Quotes of the Day]

Friedrich Nietzsche

2007-12-26T08:41:00.001-08:00

"A thinker sees his own actions as experiments and questions--as attempts to find out something. Success and failure are for him answers above all." [Quotes of the Day]

Dave Barry

2007-12-21T07:57:00.001-08:00

"What I look forward to is continued immaturity followed by death." [Quotes of the Day]

Vicomte de Chateaubriand

2007-12-20T08:45:00.000-08:00

"You are not superior just because you see the world in an odious light." [Quotes of the Day]

George Bernard Shaw

2007-12-19T10:03:00.000-08:00

"One man that has a mind and knows it can always beat ten men who haven't and don't." [Quotes of the Day]

Daniel Webster

2007-12-15T08:00:00.001-08:00

"A strong conviction that something must be done is the parent of many bad measures." [Quotes of the Day]

Antoine de Saint-Exupery

2007-12-13T07:59:00.001-08:00

"Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away." [Quotes of the Day]

John Kenneth Galbraith

2007-12-12T07:57:00.000-08:00

"The conventional view serves to protect us from the painful job of thinking." [Quotes of the Day]

Alfred North Whitehead

2007-12-10T20:30:00.000-08:00

"Seek simplicity, and distrust it." [Quotes of the Day]

Edgar Allan Poe

2007-12-07T15:29:00.001-08:00

"Those who dream by day are cognizant of many things which escape those who dream only by night." [Quotes of the Day]

James Thurber

2007-12-04T07:56:00.000-08:00

"Nowadays men lead lives of noisy desperation." [Quotes of the Day]

Matt Frewer

2007-12-04T07:55:00.000-08:00

"Never knock on Death's door: ring the bell and run away! Death really hates that!" [Quotes of the Day]

George Bush

2007-11-30T08:07:00.001-08:00

"I have opinions of my own -- strong opinions -- but I don't always agree with them." [Quotes of the Day]

Herman Melville

2007-11-29T08:22:00.001-08:00

"Of all the preposterous assumptions of humanity over humanity, nothing exceeds most of the criticisms made on the habits of the poor by the well-housed, well- warmed, and well-fed." [Quotes of the Day]

George Santayana

2007-11-22T07:34:00.000-08:00

"Those who speak most of progress measure it by quantity and not by quality."
[Quotes of the Day]

Robertson Davies

2007-11-07T08:23:00.001-08:00

"A truly great book should be read in youth, again in maturity and once more in old age, as a fine building should be seen by morning light, at noon and by moonlight. "
[Quotes of the Day]

Jeannette Rankin

2007-10-25T07:35:00.000-07:00

"You can no more win a war than you can win an earthquake."
[Quotes of the Day]

James F. Byrnes

2007-10-05T08:43:00.001-07:00

"Too many people are thinking of security instead of opportunity. They seem more afraid of life than death."
[Quotes of the Day]

Elbert Hubbard

2007-10-04T12:20:00.000-07:00

"Genius may have its limitations, but stupidity is not thus handicapped."
[Quotes of the Day]

Robert Frost

2007-09-28T19:16:00.001-07:00

"Happiness makes up in height for what it lacks in length."
[Quotes of the Day]

George W. Bush

2007-09-27T14:51:00.000-07:00

Answering his own rhetorical question, "Is our children learning?", the President says, "Childrens do learn."

Malcolm Forbes

2007-09-26T06:57:00.000-07:00

"Education's purpose is to replace an empty mind with an open one."
[Quotes of the Day]

Roberta Smith

2007-09-23T08:23:00.001-07:00

"Never underestimate the amount of resentment and hostility we harbor toward artists. It springs largely from envy. They can behave quite badly, but mainly they operate with a kind of freedom and courage that other people don’t risk or enjoy. And it can lead to wondrous things." - From a New York Times Article: Is It Art Yet? And Who Decides?

Oscar Wilde

2007-09-21T08:30:00.000-07:00

"Disobedience, in the eyes of anyone who has read history, is man's original virtue. It is through disobedience and rebellion that progress has been made."
[Quotes of the Day]

Fran Lebowitz

2007-09-19T20:30:00.000-07:00

"In real life, I assure you, there is no such thing as algebra."
[Quotes of the Day]

Eric Hoffer

2007-09-17T08:10:00.000-07:00

"When people are free to do as they please, they usually imitate each other."
[Quotes of the Day]

Adolf Hitler

2007-09-16T10:11:00.000-07:00

"What luck for rulers that men do not think."
[Quotes of the Day]

Bertrand Russell

2007-09-08T10:01:00.000-07:00

"If a man is offered a fact which goes against his instincts, he will scrutinize it closely, and unless the evidence is overwhelming, he will refuse to believe it. If, on the other hand, he is offered something which affords a reason for acting in accordance to his instincts, he will accept it even on the slightest evidence. The origin of myths is explained in this way."
[Quotes of the Day]

A. A. Milne

2007-09-07T08:29:00.000-07:00

"The third-rate mind is only happy when it is thinking with the majority. The second-rate mind is only happy when it is thinking with the minority. The first-rate mind is only happy when it is thinking."
[Quotes of the Day]

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

2007-09-06T08:45:00.001-07:00

"There is nothing more dreadful than imagination without taste."
[Quotes of the Day

Albert Einstein

2007-09-05T11:36:00.001-07:00

"The important thing is not to stop questioning." [Quotes of the Day]

George Santayana

2007-09-05T11:33:00.000-07:00

"Music is essentially useless, as life is."
[Quotes of the Day]

Douglas Adams

2007-08-25T07:41:00.000-07:00

"I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I needed to be."
[Quotes of the Day]

Jack London

2007-08-23T09:18:00.000-07:00

"You can't wait for inspiration. You have to go after it with a club." [Quotes of the Day]

Herbert Henry Asquith

2007-08-03T08:44:00.001-07:00

"Youth would be an ideal state if it came a little later in life."
[Quotes of the Day]

Penn Jillette

2007-07-16T08:32:00.000-07:00

"Technology adds nothing to art. Two thousand years ago, I could tell you a story, and at any point during the story I could stop, and ask, Now do you want the hero to be kidnapped, or not? But that would, of course, have ruined the story. Part of the experience of being entertained is sitting back and plugging into someone else's vision." [Quotes of the Day]

Don Marquis

2007-07-16T08:31:00.000-07:00

"If you make people think they're thinking, they'll love you; But if you really make them think, they'll hate you." [Quotes of the Day]

Bertrand Russell

2007-07-16T08:30:00.001-07:00

"Everything is vague to a degree you do not realize till you have tried to make it precise." [Quotes of the Day]

W. H. Auden

2007-07-08T07:53:00.000-07:00

"Among those whom I like or admire, I can find no common denominator, but among those whom I love, I can: all of them make me laugh." [Quotes of the Day]

R. Buckminster Fuller

2007-07-07T08:13:00.000-07:00

"Sometimes I think we're alone. Sometimes I think we're not. In either case, the thought is staggering."
[Quotes of the Day]

Vicomte de Chateaubriand

2007-06-26T06:15:00.000-07:00

"You are not superior just because you see the world in an odious light." [Quotes of the Day]

R. Buckminster Fuller

2007-06-24T21:27:00.000-07:00

"Nature is trying very hard to make us succeed, but nature does not depend on us. We are not the only experiment."
[Quotes of the Day]

Henry David Thoreau

2007-06-21T17:15:00.000-07:00

“The question is not what you look at but what you see."

Henry David Thoreau

2007-06-19T06:23:00.001-07:00

"Beware of all enterprises that require new clothes."
[Quotes of the Day]

Mahatma Gandhi

2007-06-18T12:23:00.001-07:00

"Whatever you do will be insignificant, but it is very important that you do it."
[Quotes of the Day]

Thomas Babington Macaulay

2007-06-15T05:52:00.000-07:00

"It is possible to be below flattery as well as above it."
[Quotes of the Day]

Colin Fletcher

2007-06-14T09:01:00.001-07:00

"I was gently accused of escapism during a TV interview about a book I had written on my length-of-California walk. Frankly, I fail to see how going for a six-month, thousand-mile walk through deserts and mountains can be judged less real than spending six months working eight hours a day, five days a week, in order to earn enough money to be able to come back home to a comfortable home in the evening and sit in front of a TV screen and watch the two-dimensional image of some guy talking about a book he has written on a six-month, thousand-mile walk through deserts and mountains."

Author ("The Complete Walker") and outdoorsman Colin Fletcher passed away today in Monterey, California.

George Santayana

2007-06-08T06:30:00.001-07:00

"Skepticism, like chastity, should not be relinquished too readily." [Quotes of the Day]

Artur Schnabel

2007-06-06T21:07:00.000-07:00

"Cheap music set to noble words exposes the cheapness of the music; beautiful and profound music set to insignificant words still communicates the beauty of the music." [oboeinsight]

Hubert H. Humphrey

2007-06-06T07:38:00.001-07:00

"The right to be heard does not automatically include the right to be taken seriously." [Quotes of the Day]

Diane Feinstein

2007-06-04T07:04:00.000-07:00

"Winning may not be everything, but losing has little to recommend it."
[Quotes of the Day]

George F. Will

2007-06-01T07:00:00.000-07:00

"Football is a mistake. It combines the two worst elements of American life. Violence and committee meetings." [Quotes of the Day]

Allen Ginsberg

2007-05-25T11:19:00.000-07:00

"Fortunately, art is a community effort - a small but select community living in a spiritualized world, endeavoring to interpret the wars and the solitudes of the flesh." [Seen at The Nocturnes.]

Brenda Ueland

2007-05-24T16:30:00.000-07:00

"I learned... that inspiration does not come like a bolt, nor is it kinetic, energetic striving, but it comes into us slowly and quietly and all the time, though we must regularly and every day give it a little chance to start flowing, prime it with a little solitude and idleness."

Mark Twain

2007-05-23T05:20:00.000-07:00

"You cannot depend on your eyes when your imagination is out of focus." [Quotes of the Day]

Johann Sebastian Bach

2007-05-22T07:12:00.000-07:00

"Ceaseless work, analysis, reflection, writing much, endless self-correction, that is my secret." [oboeinsight]

Rene Descartes

2007-05-19T13:37:00.000-07:00

"If you would be a real seeker after truth, it is necessary that at least once in your life you doubt, as far as possible, all things." [Quotes of the Day]

Edward Abbey

2007-05-19T13:36:00.000-07:00

"One man alone can be pretty dumb sometimes, but for real bona fide stupidity, there ain't nothin' can beat teamwork." [Quotes of the Day]

Voltaire

2007-05-18T21:09:00.000-07:00

"Anything too stupid to be said is sung." [Quotes of the Day]

Francis Bacon

2007-05-13T11:35:00.001-07:00

"There is no excellent beauty that hath not some strangeness in the proportion." [Quotes of the Day]

Glenn Gould

2007-05-12T07:08:00.000-07:00

"The purpose of art is not the momentary ejection of adrenaline, but rather the lifelong construction of a state of wonder and serenity." [oboeinsight]