With that in mind, I present here some of my favorite quotations
George W. Bush (2 September, 2005):
"The good news is - and it's hard for some to see it now - that out of this chaos is going to come a fantastic Gulf Coast, like it was before. Out of the rubbles of Trent Lott's house -- he's lost his entire house - there's going to be a fantastic house. And I'm looking forward to sitting on the porch."
Anonymous:
" Obviously crime pays, or there'd be no crime. "
Ludwig van Beethoven:
"Nothing is more intolerable than to have to admit to yourself your own errors."
"Only the pure in heart can make a good soup."
"Recommend virtue to your children; it alone, not money, can make them happy. I speak from experience."
" What you are, you are by accident of birth; what I am, I am by myself. There are and will be a thousand princes; there is only one Beethoven."
Jimmy Carter, Our Endangered Values:
"It is much easier and more convenient to focus on sins of which we are not known to be guilty."
James Madison:
"If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy."
Ben Franklin:
"Those who desire to give up freedom in order to gain security, will not have, nor do they deserve, either one."
Harry Truman:
"If you want a friend in Washington, get a dog."
Will Rogers:
“A feller once said that you oughta keep one eye on your children and the other on the politicians. I guess that’s right. But if only one eye is workin’ and you gotta make a choice, just figure that the children will probably do pretty good by themselves.”
Rod Serling:
"It is difficult to produce a television documentary that is both incisive and probing when every twelve minutes one is interrupted by twelve dancing rabbits singing about toilet paper."
Oh Mr. Serling - now it's pills for erectile dysfunction and it's more like every seven or eight minutes. We've made progress since 1959.
J.D. Salinger (The Catcher in the Rye):
"I am a kind of paranoiac in reverse. I suspect people of plotting to make me happy."
Jay Leno:
"I tell you, first Ashcroft retires, now Arafat dies. This has not been a good week for religious radicals."
Thomas Edison:
"To invent, you need a good imagination and a pile of junk."
F. Scott Fitzgerald:
"What people are ashamed of usually makes a good story."
Dr. Samuel Johnson:
"A man ought to read just as inclination leads him, for what he reads as a task will do him little good."
The Talmud:
"Live well. It is the greatest revenge."
"Who can protest and does not, is an accomplice in the act."
Marlo Morgan:
"Everything in the universe has a purpose. There are no misfits, there are no freaks, there are no accidents. There are only things we don't understand."
Winnie Mandela:
"So far, there is no law against dreaming."
William Gibbs McAdoo:
"It is impossible to defeat an ignorant man in an argument."
Mahatma Gandhi, when asked what he thought of Western civilization:
"I think it would be a good idea.
Aldous Huxley:
"Maybe this world is another planet's Hell."
Abraham Lincoln once said of a political rival:
"He has such a high regard for the truth that he uses it sparingly." (A timely thought)
Dr. Martin Luther King:
I have a dream that my four children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. I have a dream today. ( Many people seem to prefer to ignore the part about the content of their character.)
"Every good Christian should line up and kick Jerry Falwell's ass."
"I don't have any respect for the Religious Right. There is no place in this country for practicing religion in politics. That goes for Falwell, Robertson and all the rest of these political preachers. They are a detriment to the country."
"I am a conservative Republican," he wrote in a 1994 Washington Post essay, "but I believe in democracy and the separation of church and state. The conservative movement is founded on the simple tenet that people have the right to live life as they please as long as they don't hurt anyone else in the process."
George W. Bush:
"Brownie, you're doing a heckuva job"
"In my administration, we will ask not only what is legal but what is right, not just what the lawyers allow but what the public deserves." (Oct. 26, 2000)
"They want the federal government controlling Social Security like it's some kind of federal program." - Nov. 2, 2000
"I am mindful not only of preserving executive powers for myself, but for predecessors as well." - Jan. 29, 2001
"I'm the Commander, see ... I do not need to explain why I say things. That's the interesting thing about being the President ... [I] don't feel like I owe anybody an explanation." - Speaking to the National Security Council
"We cannot let terriers and rogue nations hold this nation hostile" - Sep. 9, 2000
"If most of the breaks go to wealthy people it's because most of the people who pay taxes are wealthy."
"Look, I know what I believe and what I believe is right."
[The Bush family] "aren't serious, studious readers" - ( It shows, GW, it shows )
"I know how hard it is for you to put food on your family."
"Rarely is the question asked: Is our children learning?"
"I didn't -- I swear I didn't -- get into politics to feather my nest or feather my friends' nests."
"Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we. They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we."
William Shakespeare:
"No legacy is so rich as honesty."
"The fool doth think he is wise, but the wise man knows himself to be a fool."
"The devil hath power to assume a pleasing shape."
"There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so."
"He wears his faith but as the fashion of his hat." - ( See the chap above or the one below )
"What's in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet."
"The devil can cite Scripture for his purpose."
"Cursed be he that moves my bones." - Epitaph on his gravestone
Pat Robertson:
God told me to hate you "I think George Bush is going to win in a walk. I really believe that I'm hearing from the Lord it's going to be like a blowout election of 2000. It's shaping up that way. The Lord has just blessed him.... I mean, he could make terrible mistakes and come out of it. It doesn't make any difference what he does, good or bad. God picks him up because he's a man of prayer and God's blessing him." - The 700 Club television program, , January 2, 2000
"There is no such thing as separation of church and state in the Constitution. It is a lie of the Left and we are not going to take it anymore." - Address to his American Center for Law and Justice, November, 1993.
"I would warn Orlando that you're right in the way of some serious hurricanes, and I don't think I'd be waving those flags in God's face if I were you." - Condemning Orlando's Gay Pride festivities. (The first hurricane of the 1998 season struck Virginia Beach, Virginia, home to Robertson's CBN empire.)
Susan B. Anthony:
"I distrust those people who know so well what God wants them to do because I notice it always coincides with their own desires."
W. C. Fields:
"There comes a time in the affairs of men, my dear Blubber, when we must take the bull by the tail.........and face the situation".
"If a thing is worth having it is worth cheating for."
"I never vote for anyone; I always vote against."
"You can't cheat an honest man"
"He accused me of chicanery"
"And if we should ever separate, my little plum, let me give you one little bit of fatherly advice.......never give a sucker an even break"
"All things considered, I'd rather be in Philadelphia" (Contrary to popular belief, this is not written on his tombstone.)
Lily Tomlin:
"Ninety-eight percent of the adults in this country are decent, hard-working, honest Americans. It's the other lousy two percent that get all the publicity. But then--we elected them."
"I am not part of the problem; I am a Republican."
"A low voter turnout is an indication of fewer people going to the polls."
"I love California, I practically grew up in Phoenix."
"If we don't succeed, we run the risk of failure."
"[It's] time for the human race to enter the solar system."
"For NASA, space is still a high priority."
"The Holocaust was an obscene period in our nation's history. I mean in this century's history. But we all lived in this century. I didn't live in this century."
Herman "Fatso" Göring at the Nuremberg trials":
"Of course the people don't want war. But after all, it's the leaders of the country who determine the policy, and it's always a simple matter to drag the people along whether it's a democracy, a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism, and exposing the country to greater danger."
Oscar Wilde:
"When the gods wish to punish us, they answer our prayers."
"I can resist anything but temptation."
Mark Twain:
"Be careful about reading health books. You may die of a misprint."
"It could probably be shown by facts and figures that there is no distinctly American criminal class except Congress."
"It is better to keep your mouth closed and let people think you are a fool than to open it and remove all doubt."
"Let us so live that when we come to die even the undertaker will be sorry."
"Suppose you were an idiot and suppose you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself."
"The man who doesn't read good books has no advantage over the man who can't read them."
"Under certain circumstances, profanity provides a relief denied even to prayer."
"When in doubt, tell the truth."
"The radical invents the views. When he has worn them out the conservative adopts them."
Carl Sagan:
"But the fact that some geniuses were laughed at does not imply that all who are laughed at are geniuses. They laughed at Columbus, they laughed at Fulton, they laughed at the Wright brothers. But they also laughed at Bozo the Clown." - - - And don't forget Dan Quayle.
Ludwig van Beethoven:
(To a lover whose identity History is yet to discover)"My angel, my all, my very self....my thoughts go out to you, my Immortal Beloved, now and then joyfully, then sadly, waiting to learn whether or not fate will hear us - I can only live wholly with you or not at all....Be calm - love me - today - yesterday - what tearful longings for you - you - you - my life - my all - farewell. Oh continue to love - never misjudge the most faithful heart of your beloved.
ever thine
ever mine
ever ours
L"
J.R.R. Tolkein:
"All that is gold does not glitter; not all those that wander are lost."
"Do not meddle in the affairs of wizards, for they are subtle and quick to anger."
"It's a dangerous business going out your front door."
Mae West:
"Your line ain't low enough to trip me."
"A hard man is good to find."
"Too much of a good thing is wonderful."
"Whenever I'm caught between two evils, I take the one I've never tried."
"I generally avoid temptation unless I can't resist it."
"Give a man a free hand... and he'll run it all over you ."
"Good sex is like good Bridge... If you don't have a good partner, you'd better have a good hand."
"Is that a gun in your pocket or are you just happy to see me? "
"It's not the men in my life that counts -- it's the life in my men."
"I used to be Snow White... but I drifted."
"To err is human, but it feels divine."
Stewart L. Udall:
"We have, I fear, confused power with greatness."
Unknown:
"Hold me, lest I flee, and return me to my master Viventius on the estate of Callistus." (ID tag worn by a dog in Rome, 4th century A.D.)
"A friend is someone who will help you move. A real friend is someone who will help you move a body."
"An effective way to deal with predators is to taste terrible."
"Barnum was wrong - it's more like every 30 seconds."
"Cats are intended to teach us that not everything in nature has a function."
"Fools rush in where fools have been before."
"I have not lost my mind - it's backed up on disk somewhere."
"People are more violently opposed to fur than leather because it's safer to harass rich women than motorcycle gangs."
Sir Thomas Beecham:
The English may not like music, but they absolutely love the noise it makes.
Brass bands are all very well in their place - outdoors and several miles away.
If I were a dictator I should make it compulsory for every member of the population between the ages of four and eighty to listen to Mozart for at least a quarter of an hour daily for the coming five years.
Popular Mechanics, March 1949:
"Where a calculator on the ENIAC is equipped with 18,000 vacuum tubes and weighs 30 tons, computers in the future may have only 1,000 vacuum tubes and perhaps weigh 1.5 tons."
