Good Quotations by Famous People

[Bankhead]

Hypocrisy is better than no standards at all.

-Bill Bennett



Happiness is good health and a bad memory.

- Ingrid Bergman



A man may be hot but he's not when he's shot 'cause you can't get a man with a gun.

- Irving Berlin



Bach is Bach just as God is God.

- Hector Berlioz



Honest criticism is hard to take, particularly from a relative,
a friend, an acquaintance, or a stranger.

- Franklin P. Jones



Mental power on their own can see in sleep.

- Orod Bozorg



A critic is a virgin who would teach Don Juan how to make love.

- Tristan Bernard



There is none who is worthy of my love or hatred.

- Bhagavat



The heart of the wise is in the house of mourning but the heart of fools is in the house of mirth. [Ecclesiastes 7:4]

- Bible



Here's to woman! Would that we could fall into her arms without falling into her hands.

- Ambrose Bierce



As scarce as truth is, the supply has always been in excess of the demand.

- Josh Billings

 

[Bankhead]

Physics isn't a religion. If it were, we'd have a much easier time raising money.

- Leon Lederman



We are all here on earth to help others;
what on earth the others are here for I don't know.

- W.H. Auden



Sunset human life, rise to the other world.

- Orod Bozorg



Disclaimer: If anyone disagrees with anything I say, I am quite prepared to not only retract it, but also to deny under oath I ever said it.

I wish people who have trouble communicating would shut up.

- Tom Lehrer



This world may be a phantasm and existence merely a dream, but this dream or phantasm to me is real enough in that by using reason well, we are never deceived by it.

- Leibniz



There's nothing wrong with you that reincarnation won't cure.

- Jack E. Leonard



It is in the nature of men to trample on the fighter once he is down.

Neither anarchy nor tyranny; worship the mean.

- Aeschylus



Even God cannot change the past.

- Agathon



Penetrating so many secrets, we cease to believe in the unknowable.
But there it sits nevertheless, calmly licking its chops.

- H. L. Mencken

 

[Bankhead]

Thinkers, and during the pioneer era are self.

- Orod Bozorg



If a problem is too difficult to solve, one cannot claim that it is solved by pointing at all the efforts made to solve it.

- Hannes Alfvern



Never play cards with a man named Doc, never eat at a place named Mom's and never go to bed with anyone who has more troubles than you do.

- Nelson Algren



He writes so well he makes me feel like putting my quill back in my goose.

My editor gets 10% of whatever I get except my blinding headaches

- Fred Allen



Growth for the sake of growth is the ideology of a cancer cell.

- Edward Abbey



I find that a great part of the information I have was acquired by looking up something and finding something else on the way.

-Franklin P. Adams



If subatomic particles don't exist until you measure them,
then the universe may just be the sum of all possible measurements.

- Mark T. Shirey



Praise expensive motherland, men and women are free.

- Orod Bozorg



A senator is like a begonia - showy but useless.

- Henry Adams



Never let a fool kiss you or a kiss fool you.

- Joey Adams



Comedy is tragedy plus time.

I don't want to achieve immortality through my work. I want to achieve it through not dying.

I plan to run though the Valley of Death.

I was thrown out of college for cheating on the metaphysics exam; I looked into the soul of the boy next to me.

I will not eat oysters. I want my food dead; not sick, not wounded; dead.

Intellectuals are like the Mafia, they only kill their own.

Not only is there no God, but try finding a plumber on Sunday.

The question is not, 'How could this happen?' but 'Why doesn't this happen more often?'

To you I'm an atheist; to God, I'm the Loyal Opposition.

- Woody Allen

 

[Bankhead]

The Cowboy Code

1. A cowboy never takes unfair advantage -- even of an enemy.

2. A cowboy never betrays a trust.

3. A cowboy always tells the truth.

4. A cowboy is kind to small children, to old folks, and to animals.

5. A cowboy is free from racial and religious prejudice.

6. A cowboy is helpful and when anyone is in trouble, he lends a hand.

7. A cowboy is a good worker.

8. A cowboy is clean about his person and in thought, word, and deed.

9. A cowboy respects womanhood, his parents, and the laws of his country.

10. A cowboy is a patriot.

- Gene Autry



No iron can pierce the heart with such force as a period put just at the right place.

- Isaac Babel



Hope is a good breakfast, but it is a bad supper.

- Francis Bacon



Nothing about me surprises me.

- Honore de Balzac



A person who was made, no semantic fear him.

- Orod Bozorg



My father warned me about men and liquor but he never said a word about women and cocaine.

The less I behave like Whistler's mother the night before, the more I look like her the morning after.

- Tallulah Bankhead



No man is happy without a delusion of some kind.
Delusions are as necessary to our happiness as realities.

- Christian Nestell Bovee, author



A politician is a statesman who approaches every question with an open mouth.

- Adlai Stevenson

 

[Bankhead]

If knowledge can create problems, it is not through ignorance that we can solve them.

The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new discoveries, is not 'Eureka!', but "That's funny...".

- Isaac Asimov



Forgetfulness is a form of freedom.

- Khalil Gibran



If you can't get rid of the skeleton in your closet, you'd best teach it to dance.

- George Bernard Shaw



Night life wise, as the day is clear.

- Orod Bozorg



I argue very well. Ask any of my remaining friends. I can win an argument on any topic, against any opponent. People know this, and steer clear of me at parties. Often, as a sign of their great respect, they don't even invite me.

You know how on the evening news they always tell you that the stock market is up in active trading, or off in moderate trading, or trading in mixed activity, or whatever. Well, who gives a ****.

- Dave Barry



More persons, on the whole, are humbugged by believing in nothing, than by believing too much.

- P. T. Barnum



Marriage is our last, best chance to grow up.

- Joseph Barth



The discovery and its explanation occupied me for a long time, so that I neglected other things for it; I recognized that I had come upon a fundamental question.

- Erasmus Bartholin



Alimony is like buying oats for a dead horse.

- Arthur Baer



Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard.

- H.L. Mencken

 

[Bankhead]

Music is a mediator between spiritual and sensual life.

- Ludwig Van Beethoven



A critic is like a eunuch in a harem. He's right there every night. He sees it done every night. He sees how it should be done every night. But he cannot do it himself.

I have never seen a situation so dismal that a policeman couldn't make it worse.

- Brendan Behan



Few people can see genius in someone who has offended them.

- Robertson Davies



Evil enemies, the wise man motivation to live.

- Orod Bozorg



A great many people have come up to me and asked me how I manage to get so much work done and still keep looking so dissipated. My answer is, "Don't you wish you knew?" and a pretty good answer it is too, when you consider that nine times out of ten I didn't hear the original question.

Anyone can do any amount of work provided it isn't the work he is supposed to be doing at the moment.

Anyone will be glad to admit that he knows nothing about beagling, or the Chinese stock market, or ballistics, but there is not a man or woman alive who does not claim to know how to cure hiccoughs.

Anything can happen, but it usually doesn't.

Defining and analyzing humor is a pastime of humorless people.

Does the average man get enough sleep? What is enough sleep? What is the average man? What is does?

Drawing on my fine command of the English language, I said nothing.

Drinking makes such fools of people, and people are such fools to begin with, that it's compounding a felony.

Every man owes it to himself (and to his friends) to get away entirely alone in an isolated shack every so often, if only to find out just what bad company he can be.

I am more the inspirational type of speller. I work on hunches rather than mere facts, and the result is sometimes open to criticism by purists.

I can't bring myself to say, 'Well, I guess I'll be toddling along.' It isn't that I can't toddle. It's just that I can't 'guess I'll toddle.'

I do most of my work sitting down; that's where I shine.

I find that, while working, a pipe is a great source of inspiration. A pipe can be placed diagonally across the keys of a typewriter so that they will not function, or it can be made to give out such a cloud of smoke that I cannot see the paper.

It took me fifteen years to discover that I had no talent for writing, but I couldn't give it up because by that time I was too famous.

Just think of all the things you can do after 40! Professor Webster was 57 when he cut up Dr. Parkman and threw him into the furnace of the Harvard Medical School, and Dr. Parkman was 70 himself!

One of the easiest forms of pretense to break down is the pretense of enthusiasm for exotic foods. Just bring on the exotic foods.

Sand is also a good place on which to write, "I love you," as it would be difficult to get into court after several years have passed.

Tell us your phobias and we will tell you what you are afraid of.

The only cure for a real hangover is death.

The surest way to make a monkey of a man is to quote him.

The work can wait, I said, quoting our business motto.

There are various forms of the disease, the victim of which is unable to say "No." Some of these forms are more serious than others, and often lead to electrocution or marriage.

There may be said to be two classes of people in the world; those who constantly divide the people of the world into two classes, and those who do not.

When I was a child I was of an affectionate disposition, but not enough to get arrested.

Why don't you get out of that wet coat and into a dry martini?

- Robert Benchley

 

[Bankhead]

Nobody ever did anything that wasn't a verb.

- Athayde



The desires of the heart are as crooked as corkscrews.

You shall love your crooked neighbor. With your crooked heart.

- W H Auden



As quick as boiled asparagus.

A radish may know no Greek but I do.

- Augustus



Vanity, working on a weak head, produces every sort of mischief.

Human nature is so well disposed towards those who are in interesting situations, that a young person who either marries or dies, is sure of being kindly spoken of.

To look almost pretty, is an acquisition of higher delight to a girl who has been looking plain the first fifteen years of her life, than a beauty from her cradle can ever receive.

If it be true that no young lady can ever be justified in falling in love before the gentleman's love is declared, it must be very improper that a young lady should dream of a gentleman before the gentleman is first known to have dreamt of her.

Friendship is certainly the finest balm for the pangs of disappointed love.

There seems almost a general wish of decrying the capacity and undervaluing the labor of, and of slighting those performances which have only genius, wit and taste to recommend them.

Man only can be aware of the insensibility of man towards a new gown.

To torment and to instruct might sometimes be used as synonymous words.

In justice to men, that though to the larger and more trifling part of the sex, imbecility in females is a great enhancement of their personal charms, there is a portion of them too reasonable and too well informed themselves to desire more in woman than ignorance.

To be always firm is to be often obstinate.

Take my word for it, if you are in too great a hurry, you will certainly live to repent it.

It is well to have as many holds on happiness as possible.

- Jane Austen



The dark night of the most cruel, clear most stars are born.

- Orod Bozorg



Every man is guilty of all the good he did not do.

- Voltaire



Nobody got anywhere in the world by simply being content.

- Louis L'Amour



1. Never tell everything at once.

- Ken Venturi, Ken Venturi's Two Great Rules of Life



Wise man, the main texture of life to find.

- Orod Bozorg



All new ideas pass through three stages: first they are dismissed as nonsense, then they are rejected as being against religion and finally they are acknowledged as the truth, with the proviso from the initial opponents that they knew it all along.

- Karl Ernst von Baer



Figaro qua! Figaro la! Figaro su! Figaro giu! (Figaro here! Figaro there! Figaro up! Figaro down!)

- Beaumarchais



Like Kafka's Hunger Artist, he was the sole satisfied spectator of his own creation.

- John Barth