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

Not all who own a harp are harpers.

"... gentlemen do not read each other's mail."

When you are at Rome live in the Roman style; when you are elsewhere live as they live elsewhere.

Authors (and perhaps columnists) eventually rise to the top of whatever depths they were once able to plumb.

The human race has one really effective weapon, and that is laughter.

Mothers all want their sons to grow up to be President, but they don't want them to become politicians in the process.

You mentioned your name as if I should recognize it, but beyond the obvious facts that you are a bachelor, a solicitor, a freemason, and an asthmatic, I know nothing whatever about you.

Another day, another dollar.

The fashion wears out more apparel than the man.

Destiny is a good thing to accept when it's going your way. When it isn't, don't call it destiny; call it injustice, treachery, or simple bad luck.

When in doubt, have a man come through the door with a gun in his hand.

In my experience, if you have to keep the lavatory door shut by extending your left leg, it's modern architecture.

Everybody likes a kidder, but nobody lends him money.

Having nothing, nothing can he lose.

With Congress, every time they make a joke it's a law; and every time they make a law it's a joke.

I go on working for the same reason a hen goes on laying eggs.

A society in which women are taught anything but the management of a family, the care of men, and the creation of the future generation is a society which is on its way out.

I have defined the hundred per cent American as ninety-nine per cent an idiot.

It were not best that we should all think alike; it is difference of opinion that makes horse-races.

Too many people are thinking of security instead of opportunity. They seem more afraid of life than death.

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

God shows his contempt for wealth by the kind of person he selects to receive it.

The degree of civilization in a society can be judged by entering its prisons.

Liberty don't work as good in practice as it does in speeches.

Si jeunesse savait, si vieillesse pouvait. [If youth but knew, if old age but could.]

Religion has done love a great service by making it a sin.

Kindness is the beginning of cruelty.

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

Prosperity makes friends, adversity tries them.

To be patriotic, hate all nations but your own; to be religious, all sects but your own; to be moral, all pretenses but your own.

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.

The chief enemy of creativity is "good" sense

No bird soars too high if he soars with his own wings.

A group of politicians deciding to dump a President because his morals are bad is like the Mafia getting together to bump off the Godfather for not going to church on Sunday.

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

If you aren't rich you should always look useful.

Nasrudin returned to his village from the imperial capital, and the villagers gathered around to hear what had passed. "At this time," said Nasrudin, "I only want to say that the King spoke to me." All the villagers but the stupidest ran off to spr

She cried, and the judge wiped her tears with my checkbook.

It is Mr. Mellon's credo that $200,000,000 can do no wrong. Our offense consists in doubting it.

The whole earth is in jail and we're plotting this incredible jailbreak.

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.

Judges, as a class, display, in the matter of arranging alimony, that reckless generosity which is found only in men who are giving away someone else's cash.

Whatever is not nailed down is mine. Whatever I can pry up is not nailed down.

Hark ye, Clinker, you are a most notorious offender. You stand convicted of sickness, hunger, wretchedness, and want.

Money can't buy happiness, but it can make you awfully comfortable while you're being miserable.

"What was the worst thing you've ever done?" "I won't tell you that, but I'll tell you the worst thing that ever happened to me... the most dreadful thing."

To lead people, you must follow behind.

A banker is a fellow who lends you his umbrella when the sun is shining and wants it back the minute it begins to rain.

The only thing that experience teaches us is that experience teaches us nothing.

Eggheads unite! You have nothing to lose but your yolks.

I value kindness to human beings first of all, and kindness to animals. I don't respect the law; I have a total irreverence for anything connected with society except that which makes the roads safer, the beer stronger, the food cheaper, and old men

Exxon's 'Universe of Energy' tends to the peculiar rather than the humorous ... After [an incomprehensible film montage about wind and sun and rain and strip mines and] two or three minutes of mechanical confusion, the seats locomote through a short

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

The control of the production of wealth is the control of human life itself.

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

Happiness is having a scratch for every itch.

A little inaccuracy saves a world of explanation.

It is like saying that for the cause of peace, God and the Devil will have a high-level meeting.

If I had a formula for bypassing trouble, I would not pass it around. Trouble creates a capacity to handle it. I don't say embrace trouble; that's as bad as treating it as an enemy. But I do say meet it as a friend, for you'll see a lot of it and y

The bone-chilling scream split the warm summer night in two, the first half being before the scream when it was fairly balmy and calm and pleasant, the second half still balmy and quite pleasant for those who hadn't heard the scream at all, but not c

If any demonstrator ever lays down in front of my car, it'll be the last car he ever lays down in front of.

If you want to understand your government, don't begin by reading the Constitution. It conveys precious little of the flavor of today's statecraft. Instead, read selected portions of the Washington telephone directory containing listings for all th

Neckties strangle clear thinking.

Mr. Salter's side of the conversation was limited to expressions of assent. When Lord Copper was right he said "Definitely, Lord Copper"; when he was wrong, "Up to a point." "Let me see, what's the name of the place I mean? Capital of Japan? Yokoh

If a shameless woman expects to be defiled and then dies of her fierce love because you do not consent, will chastity also be homicide?

We'll try to cooperate fully with the IRS, because, as citizens, we feel a strong patriotic duty not to go to jail.

I am a deeply superficial person.

I never made a mistake in my life. I thought I did once, but I was wrong.

A full belly makes a dull brain.

Persons attempting to find a motive in this narrative will be prosecuted; persons attempting to find a moral in it will be banished; persons attempting to find a plot in it will be shot. By Order of the Author

If I had a plantation in Georgia and a home in Hell, I'd sell the plantation and go home.

Interesting poll results reported in today's New York Post: people on the street in midtown Manhattan were asked whether they approved of the US invasion of Grenada. Fifty-three percent said yes; 39 percent said no; and 8 percent said "Gimme a quart

Indiana is a state dedicated to basketball. Basketball, soybeans, hogs and basketball. Berkeley, needless to say, is not nearly as athletic. Berkeley is dedicated to coffee, angst, potholes and coffee.

This wasn't just plain terrible, this was fancy terrible. This was terrible with raisins in it.

The most difficult thing in the world is to know how to do a thing and to watch someone else doing it wrong, without commenting.

Our parents were of Midwestern stock and very strict. They didn't want us to grow up to be spoiled and rich. If we left our tennis racquets in the rain, we were punished.

Events are not affected, they develop.

Never tell people how to do things. Tell them WHAT to do and they will surprise you with their ingenuity.

You're all clear now, kid. Now blow this thing so we can all go home.

Cutting the space budget really restores my faith in humanity. It eliminates dreams, goals, and ideals and lets us get straight to the business of hate, debauchery, and self-annihilation."

If I were a grave-digger or even a hangman, there are some people I could work for with a great deal of enjoyment.

He who writes with no misspelled words has prevented a first suspicion on the limits of his scholarship or, in the social world, of his general education and culture.

Always the dullness of the fool is the whetstone of the wits.

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

I've touch'd the highest point of all my greatness; And from that full meridian of my glory I haste now to my setting. I shall fall, Like a bright exhalation in the evening And no man see me more.

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

The so-called lessons of history are for the most part the rationalizations of the victors. History is written by the survivors.

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

The secret source of humor is not joy but sorrow; there is no humor in Heaven.

Many enraged psychiatrists are inciting a weary butcher. The butcher is weary and tired because he has cut meat and steak and lamb for hours and weeks. He does not desire to chant about anything with raving psychiatrists, but he sings about his gin

Nothing recedes like success.

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.

All diplomacy is a continuation of war by other means.

Thank God I've always avoided persecuting my enemies.

... [concerning quotation marks] even if we *___did* quote anybody in this business, it probably would be gibberish.

If a thing's worth doing, it is worth doing badly.

I had another dream the other day about music critics. They were small and rodent-like with padlocked ears, as if they had stepped out of a painting by Goya.

I belong to no organized party. I am a Democrat.

Since a politician never believes what he says, he is surprised when others believe him.

Just as most issues are seldom black or white, so are most good solutions seldom black or white. Beware of the solution that requires one side to be totally the loser and the other side to be totally the winner. The reason there are two sides to be

Drop the vase and it will become a Ming of the past.

Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent.

Life is one long struggle in the dark.

A "No" uttered from deepest conviction is better and greater than a "Yes" merely uttered to please, or what is worse, to avoid trouble.

There is no comfort without pain; thus we define salvation through suffering.

Ed Sullivan will be around as long as someone else has talent.

If a man stay away from his wife for seven years, the law presumes the separation to have killed him; yet according to our daily experience, it might well prolong his life.

Just remember, wherever you go, there you are.

We have art that we do not die of the truth.

He that bringeth a present, findeth the door open.

Clothes make the man. Naked people have little or no influence on society.

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

A drama critic is a person who surprises a playwright by informing him what he meant.

The old complaint that mass culture is designed for eleven-year-olds is of course a shameful canard. The key age has traditionally been more like fourteen.

People in general do not willingly read if they have anything else to amuse them.

The profession of book writing makes horse racing seem like a solid, stable business.

Paradise is exactly like where you are right now ... only much, much better.

An older student came to Otis and said, "I have been to see a great number of teachers and I have given up a great number of pleasures. I have fasted, been celibate and stayed awake nights seeking enlightenment. I have given up everything I was aske

In this world, nothing is certain but death and taxes.

If Jesus Christ were to come today, people would not even crucify him. They would ask him to dinner, and hear what he had to say, and make fun of it.

I have discovered the art of deceiving diplomats. I tell them the truth and they never believe me.

We rarely find anyone who can say he has lived a happy life, and who, content with his life, can retire from the world like a satisfied guest.

Campus sidewalks never exist as the straightest line between two points.

Somewhat alarmed at the continued growth of the number of employees on the Department of Agriculture payroll in 1962, Michigan Republican Robert Griffin proposed an amendment to the farm bill so that "the total number of employees in the Department

I have a very strange feeling about this...

When you have to kill a man it costs nothing to be polite.

Consider the postage stamp: its usefulness consists in the ability to stick to one thing till it gets there.

The illegal we do immediately. The unconstitutional takes a little longer.

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

It is wise to keep in mind that neither success nor failure is ever final.

Let's remind ourselves that last year's fresh idea is today's cliche.

When the ax entered the forest, the trees said, "The handle is one of us!"

I see a good deal of talk from Washington about lowering taxes. I hope they do get 'em lowered down enough so people can afford to pay 'em.

The past always looks better than it was. It's only pleasant because it isn't here.

Suspicion always haunts the guilty mind.

Tom Hayden is the kind of politician who gives opportunism a bad name.

Any philosophy that can be put "in a nutshell" belongs there.

Being a miner, as soon as you're too old and tired and sick and stupid to do your job properly, you have to go, where the very opposite applies with the judges.

The Priest's grey nimbus in a niche where he dressed discreetly. I will not sleep here tonight. Home also I cannot go. A voice, sweetened and sustained, called to him from the sea. Turning the curve he waved his hand. A sleek brown head, a seal's,

God helps them that help themselves.

If the path be beautiful, let us not ask where it leads.

CF&C stole it, fair and square.

It is the business of the future to be dangerous.