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

There's nothing to writing. All you do is sit at a typewriter and open a vein.

You can't expect a boy to be vicious till he's been to a good school.

You don't have to think too hard when you talk to teachers.

The future not being born, my friend, we will abstain from baptizing it.

If the colleges were better, if they really had it, you would need to get the police at the gates to keep order in the inrushing multitude. See in college how we thwart the natural love of learning by leaving the natural method of teaching what each

The meeting of two personalities is like the contact of two chemical substances: if there is any reaction, both are transformed.

Democracy is also a form of worship. It is the worship of Jackals by Jackasses.

Sometimes I wonder if I'm in my right mind. Then it passes off and I'm as intelligent as ever.

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.

I place economy among the first and most important virtues, and public debt as the greatest of dangers to be feared. To preserve our independence, we must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt. If we run into such debts, we must be taxed i

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

The executioner is, I hear, very expert, and my neck is very slender.

"I wonder", he said to himself, "what's in a book while it's closed. Oh, I know it's full of letters printed on paper, but all the same, something must be happening, because as soon as I open it, there's a whole story with people I don't know yet

... it still remains true that as a set of cognitive beliefs about the existence of God in any recognizable sense continuous with the great systems of the past, religious doctrines constitute a speculative hypothesis of an extremely low order of prob

It is bad luck to be superstitious.

Traffic signals in New York are just rough guidelines.

I consider a new device or technology to have been culturally accepted when it has been used to commit a murder.

Those who are mentally and emotionally healthy are those who have learned when to say yes, when to say no and when to say whoopee.

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.

We have no scorched earth policy. We have a policy of scorched Communists.

"Every morning, I get up and look through the 'Forbes' list of the richest people in America. If I'm not there, I go to work"

Habit is habit, and not to be flung out of the window by any man, but coaxed down-stairs a step at a time.

Perhaps no person can be a poet, or even enjoy poetry without a certain unsoundness of mind.

The trouble with telling a good story is that it invariably reminds the other fellow of a dull one.

Let us endeavor so to live that when we come to die even the undertaker will be sorry.

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,

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

Naturally the common people don't want war... but after all it is the leaders of a country who determine the policy, and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or

The day will come when the mystical generation of Jesus, by the Supreme Being as his Father, in the womb of a virgin will be classified with the fable of the generation of Minerva in the brain of Jupiter. But we may hope that the dawn of reason and

When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.

Would that my hand were as swift as my tongue.

I just need enough to tide me over until I need more.

Someday we'll look back on this moment and plow into a parked car.

In case of fire, stand in the hall and shout "Fire!"

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

Arrakis teaches the attitude of the knife - chopping off what's incomplete and saying: "Now it's complete because it's ended here."

It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle if it is lightly greased.

A likely impossibility is always preferable to an unconvincing possibility.

Adde parvum parvo manus acervus erit. [Add little to little and there will be a big pile.]

Sensible and responsible women do not want to vote.

There appears to be irrefutable evidence that the mere fact of overcrowding induces violence.

You can never do just one thing.

Why am I so soft in the middle when the rest of my life is so hard?

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

We are all born mad. Some remain so.

Some men are heterosexual, and some are bisexual, and some men don't think about sex at all... they become lawyers.

Well, he thought, since neither Aristotelian Logic nor the disciplines of Science seemed to offer much hope, it's time to go beyond them... Drawing a few deep even breaths, he entered a mental state practiced only by Masters of the Universal Way of

To do two things at once is to do neither.

Dying is easy. Comedy is difficult.

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

She is not refined. She is not unrefined. She keeps a parrot.

"I understand this is your first dead client," Sabian was saying. The absurdity of the statement made me want to laugh but they don't call me Deadpan Allie and lie.

The nice thing about egotists is that they don't talk about other people.

Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.

One of my less pleasant chores when I was young was to read the Bible from one end to the other. Reading the Bible straight through is at least 70 percent discipline, like learning Latin. But the good parts are, of course, simply amazing. God is a

The two party system ... is a triumph of the dialectic. It showed that two could be one and one could be two and had probably been fabricated by Hegel for the American market on a subcontract from General Dynamics.

A prediction is worth twenty explanations.

When I hear a man applauded by the mob I always feel a pang of pity for him. All he has to do to be hissed is to live long enough.

When I have one foot in the grave I will tell the truth about women. I shall tell it, jump into my coffin, pull the lid over me, and say, "Do what you like now."

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

Human resources are human first, and resources second.

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

Let others praise ancient times; I am glad I was born in these.

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

Things past redress and now with me past care.

The trouble with opportunity is that it always comes disguised as hard work.

In America, any boy may become president and I suppose that's just one of the risks he takes.

At twenty-six, Kate, though not promiscuous, had slept with most of the decent men in public life.

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.

Armenians and Azerbaijanis in Stepanakert, capital of the Nagorno-Karabakh autonomous region, rioted over much needed spelling reform in the Soviet Union.

"God gives burdens; also shoulders" Jimmy Carter cited this Jewish saying in his concession speech at the end of the 1980 election. At least he said it was a Jewish saying; I can't find it anywhere. I'm sure he's telling the truth though; why wo

Training is everything. The peach was once a bitter almond; cauliflower is nothing but cabbage with a college education.

Atlee is a very modest man. And with reason.

If one cannot enjoy reading a book over and over again, there is no use in reading it at all.

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

My advice to the women's clubs of America is to raise more hell and fewer dahlias.

HR 3128. Omnibus Budget Reconciliation, Fiscal 1986. Martin, R-Ill., motion that the House recede from its disagreement to the Senate amendment making changes in the bill to reduce fiscal 1986 deficits. The Senate amendment was an amendment to the

When eating an elephant take one bite at a time.

I have a dream. I have a dream that one day, on the red hills of Georgia, the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slaveowners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.

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

If little else, the brain is an educational toy.

Swerve me? The path to my fixed purpose is laid with iron rails, whereon my soul is grooved to run. Over unsounded gorges, through the rifled hearts of mountains, under torrents' beds, unerringly I rush!

Lassie looked brilliant, in part because the farm family she lived with was made up of idiots. Remember? One of them was always getting pinned under the tractor, and Lassie was always rushing back to the farmhouse to alert the other ones. She'd w

I never believed in Santa Claus because I knew no white dude would come into my neighborhood after dark.

To be great is to be misunderstood.

In charity there is no excess.

The intelligence of any discussion diminishes with the square of the number of participants.

Aim for the moon. If you miss, you may hit a star.

Whom the mad would destroy, first they make Gods.

... but as records of courts and justice are admissible, it can easily be proved that powerful and malevolent magicians once existed and were a scourge to mankind. The evidence (including confession) upon which certain women were convicted of witch

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

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

If Christianity was morality, Socrates would be the Saviour.

The adjective is the banana peel of the parts of speech.

Liberty is always dangerous, but it is the safest thing we have.

There is nothing so easy but that it becomes difficult when you do it reluctantly.

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

The major sin is the sin of being born.

It is up to us to produce better-quality movies.

"They make a desert and call it peace."

The closest to perfection a person ever comes is when he fills out a job application form.

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

When alerted to an intrusion by tinkling glass or otherwise, 1) Calm yourself 2) Identify the intruder 3) If hostile, kill him. Step number 3 is of particular importance. If you leave the guy alive out of misguided softheartedness, he will repay y

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 you may be sure of, be sure of this: that you are dreadfully like other people.

If you wish to be happy for one hour, get drunk. If you wish to be happy for three days, get married. If you wish to be happy for a month, kill your pig and eat it. If you wish to be happy forever, learn to fish.

When you are in the middle of a story it isn't a story at all, but only a confusion; a dark roaring, a blindness, a wreckage of shattered glass and splintered wood, like a house in a whirlwind, or else a boat crushed by the icebergs or swept over the

Imagination is the one weapon in the war against reality.

You know it's going to be a long day when you get up, shave and shower, start to get dressed and your shoes are still warm.

My religion consists of a humble admiration of the illimitable superior spirit who reveals himself in the slight details we are able to perceive with our frail and feeble mind.

Art is either plagiarism or revolution.

If the ends don't justify the means, then what does?

He who slings mud generally loses ground.

Lay on, MacDuff, and curs'd be him who first cries, "Hold, enough!".

Education is an admirable thing, but it is well to remember from time to time that nothing that is worth knowing can be taught.

I would like the government to do all it can to mitigate, then, in understanding, in mutuality of interest, in concern for the common good, our tasks will be solved.

Ours is a world of nuclear giants and ethical infants.

Man proposes, God disposes.

If you've seen one redwood, you've seen them all.

The most delightful day after the one on which you buy a cottage in the country is the one on which you resell it.

America is a large, friendly dog in a very small room. Every time it wags its tail, it knocks over a chair.

One big pile is better than two little piles.

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

After the ground war began, captured Iraqi soldiers said any of them caught by superiors wearing a white T-shirt would be executed because of the ease with which the shirts could be used as surrender flags. Some Iraqi soldiers carried bleach with th

Fortune and love befriend the bold.

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

They are ill discoverers that think there is no land, when they can see nothing but sea.

A word to the wise is enough.

Even the clearest and most perfect circumstantial evidence is likely to be at fault, after all, and therefore ought to be received with great caution. Take the case of any pencil, sharpened by any woman; if you have witnesses, you will find she did

I use not only all the brains I have, but all those I can borrow as well.

If you live in a country run by committee, be on the committee.

A snake lurks in the grass.

Words have a longer life than deeds.

Politicians speak for their parties, and parties never are, never have been, and never will be wrong.

The politician is someone who deals in man's problems of adjustment. To ask a politician to lead us is to ask the tail of a dog to lead the dog.

Goals... Plans... they're fantasies, they're part of a dream world...

Have a place for everything and keep the thing somewhere else; this is not advice, it is merely custom.

"Well, it's garish, ugly, and derelicts have used it for a toilet. The rides are dilapidated to the point of being lethal, and could easily maim or kill innocent little children." "Oh, so you don't like it?" "Don't like it? I'm CRAZY for it."

Do not use that foreign word "ideals". We have that excellent native word "lies".

I regret to say that we of the F.B.I. are powerless to act in cases of oral-genital intimacy, unless it has in some way obstructed interstate commerce.

A bank is a place where they lend you an umbrella in fair weather and ask for it back the when it begins to rain.

Maryel brought her bat into Exit once and started whacking people on the dance floor. Now everyone's doing it. It's called grand slam dancing.

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,