The distinction between Freedom and Liberty is not accurately known; naturalists have been unable to find a living specimen of either.

Delores breezed along the surface of her life like a flat stone forever skipping along smooth water, rippling reality sporadically but oblivious to it consistently, until she finally lost momentum, sank, and due to an overdose of flouride as a child

Eeny, Meeny, Jelly Beanie, the spirits are about to speak!

"World conquerors sometimes become fools, but fools never become world conquerors."

People who develop the habit of thinking of themselves as world citizens are fulfilling the first requirement of sanity in our time.

Being a woman is a terribly difficult trade, since it consists principally of dealings with men.

If any man wishes to be humbled and mortified, let him become president of Harvard.

Plots are like girdles. Hidden, they hold your interest; revealed, they're of no interest except to fetishists. Like girdles, they attempt to contain an uncontainable experience.

Let us never negotiate out of fear, but let us never fear to negotiate.

I have already given two cousins to the war and I stand ready to sacrifice my wife's brother.

Learning French is trivial: the word for horse is cheval, and everything else follows in the same way.

You can observe a lot just by watching.

Unquestionably, there is progress. The average American now pays out twice as much in taxes as he formerly got in wages.

An ounce of hypocrisy is worth a pound of ambition.

Go to the Scriptures... the joyful promises it contains will be a balsam to all your troubles.

When a shepherd goes to kill a wolf, and takes his dog along to see the sport, he should take care to avoid mistakes. The dog has certain relationships to the wolf the shepherd may have forgotten.

The streets are safe in Philadelphia, it's only the people who make them unsafe.

Why be a man when you can be a success?

"The chain which can be yanked is not the eternal chain."

Crime does not pay ... as well as politics.

No-one would remember the Good Samaritan if he had only had good intentions. He had money as well.

There's no trick to being a humorist when you have the whole government working for you.

The greatest griefs are those we cause ourselves.

I used to be disgusted, now I find I'm just amused.

Good government never depends upon laws, but upon the personal qualities of those who govern. The machinery of government is always subordinate to the will of those who administer that machinery. The most important element of government, therefore,

A conservative is a man who is too cowardly to fight and too fat to run.

Some people say a front-engine car handles best. Some people say a rear-engine car handles best. I say a rented car handles best.

Every word is like an unnecessary stain on silence and nothingness.

What a strange game. The only winning move is not to play.

It's very glamorous to raise millions of dollars, until it's time for the venture capitalist to suck your eyeballs out.

Its name is Public Opinion. It is held in reverence. It settles everything. Some think it is the voice of God.

A decade after Vietnam, we still cannot understand why "their" Salvadorans fight better than "our" Salvadorans. It is not a matter of their training or their equipment. It has to do with the quality of the society we are asking them to risk death d

The rights you have are the rights given you by this Committee [the House Un-American Activities Committee]. We will determine what rights you have and what rights you have not got.

It is easier to fight for one's principles than to live up to them.

We cannot put the face of a person on a stamp unless said person is deceased. My suggestion, therefore, is that you drop dead.

Hard reality has a way of cramping your style.

You can never do just one thing.

Luck, that's when preparation and opportunity meet.

Civilization is the limitless multiplication of unnecessary necessities.

Suffering alone exists, none who suffer; The deed there is, but no doer thereof; Nirvana is, but no one is seeking it; The Path there is, but none who travel it.

A real diplomat is one who can cut his neighbor's throat without having his neighbour notice it.

... why should you waste a single moment of *your* life seeming to be something you don't want to be? Lord, that's so simple. If you hate your job, quit it. If your friends are tedious, go out and find new friends. You are queer, you lucky fool, a

Why, every one as they like; as the good woman said when she kissed her cow.

When democracy granted democratic methods to us in times of opposition, this was bound to happen in a democratic system. However, we National Socialists never asserted that we represented a democratic point of view, but we have declared openly that

Anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job.

I remember when legal used to mean lawful, now it means some kind of loophole.

The penalty for laughing in a courtroom is six months in jail; if it were not for this penalty, the jury would never hear the evidence.

If you have seen one city slum you have seen them all.

Delay not, Caesar. Read it instantly.

Ain't no right way to do a wrong thing.

The trouble with superheros is what to do between phone booths.

Know what I hate most? Rhetorical questions.

The major sin is the sin of being born.

Nothing is more admirable than the fortitude with which millionaires tolerate the disadvantages of their wealth.

Mandrell: "You know what I think?" Doctor: "Ah, ah that's a catch question. With a brain your size you don't think, right?"

Take care of the luxuries and the necessities will take care of themselves.

Chance is perhaps the work of God when He did not want to sign.

Receiving a million dollars tax free will make you feel better than being flat broke and having a stomach ache.

The optimum committee has no members.

"Is it just me, or does anyone else read `bible humpers' every time someone writes `bible thumpers?'

No problem is so formidable that you can't just walk away from it.

Inglish Spocken Hier: some mangled translations Sign on a cathedral in Spain: It is forbidden to enter a woman, even a foreigner if dressed as a man. Above the enterance to a Cairo bar: Unaccompanied ladies not admitted unless with husb

There are two ways of disliking art. One is to dislike it. The other is to like it rationally.

Once, I read that a man be never stronger than when he truly realizes how weak he is.

Would that my hand were as swift as my tongue.

In the long run we are all dead.

The Least Successful Police Dogs America has a very strong candidate in "La Dur", a fearsome looking schnauzer hound, who was retired from the Orlando police force in Florida in 1978. He consistently refused to do anything which might ruffle or of

Fortune and love befriend the bold.

"If once a man indulges himself in murder, very soon he comes to think little of robbing; and from robbing he next comes to drinking and Sabbath-breaking, and from that to incivility and procrastination."

Fortune Documents the Great Legal Decisions: We think that we may take judicial notice of the fact that the term "bitch" may imply some feeling of endearment when applied to a female of the canine species but that it is seldom, if ever, so used whe

Certainly the game is rigged. Don't let that stop you; if you don't bet, you can't win.

The marriage of Marxism and feminism has been like the marriage of husband and wife depicted in English common law: Marxism and feminism are one, and that one is marxism.

... indifference is a militant thing ... when it goes away it leaves smoking ruins, where lie citizens bayonetted through the throat. It is not a children's pastime like mere highway robbery.

You'd better smile when they watch you, smile like you're in control.

The longest part of the journey is said to be the passing of the gate.

Lansdale seized on the idea of using Nixon to build support for the [Vietnamese] elections ... really honest elections, this time. "Oh, sure, honest, yes, that's right," Nixon said, "so long as you win!" With that he winked, drove his elbow into La

A thing is not necessarily true because a man dies for it.

Theology is an attempt to explain a subject by men who do not understand it. The intent is not to tell the truth but to satisfy the questioner.

A fake fortuneteller can be tolerated. But an authentic soothsayer should be shot on sight. Cassandra did not get half the kicking around she deserved.

Charity begins at home.

The fact that it works is immaterial.

A Polish worker walks into a bank to deposit his paycheck. He has heard about Poland's economic problems, and he asks what would happen to his money if the bank collapsed. "All of our deposits are guaranteed by the finance ministry, sir," the telle

The first Rotarian was the first man to call John the Baptist "Jack."

The universe is made of stories, not of atoms.

It is the business of the future to be dangerous.

Alea iacta est. [The die is cast]

That Xanthippe's husband should have become so great a philosopher is remarkable. Amid all the scolding, to be able to think! But he could not write: that was impossible. Socrates has not left us a single book.

We are all so much together and yet we are all dying of loneliness.

Gay shlafen: Yiddish for "go to sleep". Now doesn't "gay shlafen" have a softer, more soothing sound than the harsh, staccato "go to sleep"? Listen to the difference: "Go to sleep, you little wretch!" ... "Gay shlafen, darling." Obvious, isn't

A sect or party is an elegant incognito devised to save a man from the vexation of thinking.

Sure there are dishonest men in local government. But there are dishonest men in national government too.

When you jump for joy, beware that no-one moves the ground from beneath your feet.

The Least Successful Executions History has furnished us with two executioners worthy of attention. The first performed in Sydney in Australia. In 1803 three attempts were made to hang a Mr. Joseph Samuels. On the first two of these the rope snap

If atheism is to be used to express the state of mind in which God is identified with the unknowable, and theology is pronounced to be a collection of meaningless words about unintelligible chimeras, then I have no doubt, and I think few people doubt

Progress was all right. Only it went on too long.

For if there is a sin against life, it consists perhaps not so much in despairing of life as in hoping for another life and in eluding the implacable grandeur of this life.

Ninety percent of the politicians give the other ten percent a bad reputation.

If built in great numbers, motels will be used for nothing but illegal purposes.

The worst is not so long as we can say "This is the worst."

The Public is merely a multiplied "me."

We can embody the truth, but we cannot know it.

I have had my television aerials removed. It's the moral equivalent of a prostate operation.

Democracy is the recurrent suspicion that more than half of the people are right more than half of the time.

"Ubi non accusator, ibi non judex." (Where there is no police, there is no speed limit.)

Where you stand depends on where you sit.

For there are moments when one can neither think nor feel. And if one can neither think nor feel, she thought, where is one?

"They make a desert and call it peace."

It is now 10 p.m. Do you know where Henry Kissinger is?

We all declare for liberty, but in using the same word we do not all mean the same thing.

It's always darkest just before the lights go out.

The human instinct to censor thrives, as it always will, living in irrepressible conflict with the human instinct to speak. Outrage, self-righteousness, and paranoia feed the maw of censorship. Squelching speech, however, never reduces society's net

Those who have some means think that the most important thing in the world is love. The poor know that it is money.

The tree in which the sap is stagnant remains fruitless.

Sometimes a man who deserves to be looked down upon because he is a fool is despised only because he is a lawyer.

When you make your mark in the world, watch out for guys with erasers.

The worst sin towards our fellow creatures is not to hate them, but to be indifferent to them; that's the essence of inhumanity.

What makes you think graduate school is supposed to be satisfying?

Man is by nature a political animal.

If I could reach, I'd never leave the house.

If they were so inclined, they could impeach him because they don't like his necktie.

Ten persons who speak make more noise than ten thousand who are silent.

If you pick up a starving dog and make him prosperous, he will not bite you. This is the principal difference between a dog and a man.

The Worst Jury A murder trial at Manitoba in February 1978 was well advanced, when one juror revealed that he was completely deaf and did not have the remotest clue what was happening. The judge, Mr. Justice Solomon, asked him if he had heard any

"Somewhere", said Father Vittorini, "did Blake not speak of the Machineries of Joy? That is, did not God promote environments, then intimidate these Natures by provoking the existence of flesh, toy men and women, such as are we all? And thus happi

A good reputation is more valuable than money.

We are governed not by armies and police but by ideas.

Life is like a sewer. What you get out of it depends on what you put into it.

At ebb tide I wrote a line upon the sand, and gave it all my heart and all my soul. At flood tide I returned to read what I had inscribed and found my ignorance upon the shore.

The USA is so enormous, and so numerous are its schools, colleges and religious seminaries, many devoted to special religious beliefs ranging from the unorthodox to the dotty, that we can hardly wonder at its yielding a more bounteous harvest of gobb

If a fool persists in his folly he shall become wise.

It's all right letting yourself go as long as you can let yourself back.

Ours is a world of nuclear giants and ethical infants.

For some reason a glaze passes over people's faces when you say "Canada". Maybe we should invade South Dakota or something.

The broad mass of a nation... will more easily fall victim to a big lie than to a small one.

If ever the pleasure of one has to be bought by the pain of the other, there better be no trade. A trade by which one gains and the other loses is a fraud.

There is a natural hootchy-kootchy to a goldfish.

Recently deceased blues guitarist Stevie Ray Vaughan "comes to" after his death. He sees Jimi Hendrix sitting next to him, tuning his guitar. "Holy cow," he thinks to himself, "this guy is my idol." Over at the microphone, about to sing, are Jim Mo

God was satisfied with his own work, and that is fatal.

Innovation is hard to schedule.

Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength. War is peace.

The holy passion of Friendship is of so sweet and steady and loyal and enduring a nature that it will last through a whole lifetime, if not asked to lend money.

I was gratified to be able to answer promptly, and I did. I said I didn't know.

If I have to lay an egg for my country, I'll do it.

Usually, when a lot of men get together, it's called a war.

There is perhaps in every thing of any consequence, secret history, which it would be amusing to know, could we have it authentically communicated.

You've always made the mistake of being yourself.

"Rights" is a fictional abstraction. No one has "Rights", neither machines nor flesh-and-blood. Persons... have opportunities, not rights, which they use or do not use.

"I have to convince you, or at least snow you ..."

Imagine me going around with a pot belly. It would mean political ruin.

The plot was designed in a light vein that somehow became varicose.

Nonsense and beauty have close connections.

The United States is like the guy at the party who gives cocaine to everybody and still nobody likes him.

Patriotism is the virtue of the vicious.

He jests at scars who never felt a wound.

"Not Hercules could have knock'd out his brains, for he had none."

If I could drop dead right now, I'd be the happiest man alive!

While we are sleeping, two-thirds of the world is plotting to do us in.

Pilfering Treasury property is paticularly dangerous: big thieves are ruthless in punishing little thieves.

The whole world is a scab. The point is to pick it constructively.

If you can count your money, you don't have a billion dollars.

Life is the childhood of our immortality.

The Worst Car Hire Service When David Schwartz left university in 1972, he set up Rent-a-wreck as a joke. Being a natural prankster, he acquired a fleet of beat-up shabby, wreckages waiting for the scrap heap in California. He put on a cap and lo

When neither their poverty nor their honor is touched, the majority of men live content.

The cable TV sex channels don't expand our horizons, don't make us better people, and don't come in clearly enough.

If you only have a hammer, you tend to see every problem as a nail.

Instead of loving your enemies, treat your friends a little better.

And ever has it been known that love knows not its own depth until the hour of separation.

Murray and Esther, a middle-aged Jewish couple, are touring Chile. Murray just got a new camera and is constantly snapping pictures. One day, without knowing it, he photographs a top-secret military installation. In an instant, armed troops surroun

The Poems, all three hundred of them, may be summed up in one of their phrases: "Let our thoughts be correct".

The Law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich, as well as the poor, to sleep under the bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread.

We lie loudest when we lie to ourselves.

Whatever it is, I fear Greeks even when they bring gifts.

A university is what a college becomes when the faculty loses interest in students.

"Under capitalism, man exploits man. Under Communism, it's just the opposite."

Why was I born with such contemporaries?

Whatever occurs from love is always beyond good and evil.

We ARE as gods and might as well get good at it.

Well, the handwriting is on the floor.

But if you wish at once to do nothing and to be respectable nowdays, the best pretext is to be at work on some profound study.

Canada Post doesn't really charge 32 cents for a stamp. It's 2 cents for postage and 30 cents for storage.

I do not know whether I was then a man dreaming I was a butterfly, or whether I am now a butterfly dreaming I am a man.

Fourteen years in the professor dodge has taught me that one can argue ingeniously on behalf of any theory, applied to any piece of literature. This is rarely harmful, because normally no-one reads such essays.

For years a secret shame destroyed my peace

America may be unique in being a country which has leapt from barbarism to decadence without touching civilization.

A man said to the Universe: "Sir, I exist!" "However," replied the Universe, "the fact has not created in me a sense of obligation."

There are a lot of lies going around.... and half of them are true.

Just because you like my stuff doesn't mean I owe you anything.

Welcome to Lake Wobegon, where all the men are strong, the women are pretty, and the children are above-average.

The pollution's at that awkward stage. Too thick to navigate and too thin to cultivate.

Experience is a good teacher, but she sends in terrific bills.

If a thing's worth having, it's worth cheating for.

Under capitalism, man exploits man. Under communism, it's just the opposite.

France is a country where the money falls apart and you can't tear the toilet paper.

When you are about to die, a wombat is better than no company at all.

"Hi, I'm Preston A. Mantis, president of Consumers Retail Law Outlet. As you can see by my suit and the fact that I have all these books of equal height on the shelves behind me, I am a trained legal attorney. Do you have a car or a job? Do you ever

"It's kind of fun to do the impossible."

XI: If the Earth could be made to rotate twice as fast, managers would get twice as much done. If the Earth could be made to rotate twenty times as fast, everyone else would get twice as much done since all the managers would fly off. XII: I

If you're like most homeowners, you're afraid that many repairs around your home are too difficult to tackle. So, when your furnace explodes, you call in a so-called professional to fix it. The "professional" arrives in a truck with lettering on t

Every cloud engenders not a storm.

Use an accordion. Go to jail.

We could do that, but it would be wrong, that's for sure.

America is a melting pot. You know, where those on the bottom get burned, and the scum rises to the top.

The term "fire" brings up visions of violence and mayhem and the ugly scene of shooting employees who make mistakes. We will now refer to this process as "deleting" an employee (much as a file is deleted from a disk). The employee is simply there o

The problem with any unwritten law is that you don't know where to go to erase it.

If people say that here and there someone has been taken away and maltreated, I can only reply: You can't make an omelette without breaking eggs.

"We should declare war on North Vietnam. We could pave the whole country and put parking strips on it, and still be home by Christmas."

This is the first age that's paid much attention to the future, which is a little ironic since we may not have one.

We should have a Vollyballocracy. We elect a six-pack of presidents. Each one serves until they screw up, at which point they rotate.

A light wife doth make a heavy husband.

He that composes himself is wiser than he that composes a book.

The Least Successful Collector Betsy Baker played a central role in the history of collecting. She was employed as a servant in the house of John Warburton (1682-1759) who had amassed a fine collection of 58 first edition plays, including most of t

They will only cause the lower classes to move about needlessly.

If there is no wind, row.

They can't stop us... we're on a mission from God!

There's such a thing as too much point on a pencil.

The lovely woman-child Kaa was mercilessly chained to the cruel post of the warrior-chief Beast, with his barbarian tribe now stacking wood at her nubile feet, when the strong clear voice of the poetic and heroic Handsomas roared, 'Flick your Bic, cr

True to our past we work with an inherited, observed, and accepted vision of personal futility, and of the beauty of the world.

The way of the world is to praise dead saints and prosecute live ones.

The very remembrance of my former misfortune proves a new one to me.

Maybe ain't ain't so correct, but I notice that lots of folks who ain't using ain't ain't eatin' well.

He knows not how to know who knows not also how to unknow.

I'm not sure I've even got the brains to be President.

Art is a jealous mistress.

When asked by an anthropologist what the Indians called America before the white men came, an Indian said simply "Ours."

Scratch the average female and you'll find a purring bundle... at the ready to love and honor, bake a torte and still produce quintuplets.

America ... just a nation of two hundred million used car salesman with all the money we need to buy guns and no qualms about killing anybody else in the world who tries to make us uncomfortable.

So many men, so many opinions; every one his own way.

Life is too short to be taken seriously.

Our swords shall play the orators for us.

Genius is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration.

... [after the announcement of Vanguard] ... Secretary of Defense Charles Wilson (the same "Engine Charlie" who once told the Senate, "[F]or years I've thought that what was good for our country was good for General Motors, and vice versa," probably

A definition of teaching: casting fake pearls before real swine.

Never appeal to a man's "better nature." He may not have one. Invoking his self-interest gives you more leverage.

God instructs the heart, not by ideas, but by pains and contradictions.

Adhere to your own act, and congratulate yourself if you have done something strange and extravagant, and broken the monotony of a decorous age.

There has been a little distress selling on the stock exchange.