Quotes

“Though this be madness, yet there is method in't.”

“The fool doth think he is wise, but the wise man knows himself to be a fool.”

“Love me or hate me, both are in my favor…If you love me, I'll always be in your heart…If you hate me, I'll always be in your mind.”

“This above all: to thine own self be true, And it must follow, as the night the day, Thou canst not then be false to any man.”

“I would challenge you to a battle of wits, but I see you are unarmed!”

“It is not in the stars to hold our destiny but in ourselves.”

“If music be the food of love, play on, Give me excess of it;"

“All the world's a stage, And all the men and women merely players; They have their exits and their entrances; And one man in his time plays many parts, His acts being seven ages.”

“We know what we are, but not what we may be.”

“Cowards die many times before their deaths; The valiant never taste of death but once. Of all the wonders that I yet have heard, It seems to me most strange that men should fear; Seeing that death, a necessary end, Will come when it will come.”

“If you love and get hurt, love more. If you love more and hurt more, love even more."

“The course of true love never did run smooth.”

“Our doubts are traitors, and make us lose the good we oft might win, by fearing to attempt.”

“Sigh no more, ladies, sigh no more, Men were deceivers ever, One foot in sea and one on shore, To one thing constant never.”

“Do you not know I am a woman? When I think, I must speak.”

“In time we hate that which we often fear.”

If you prick us, do we not bleed? If you tickle us, do we not laugh? If you poison us, do we not die?  And if you wrong us, do we not revenge? If we are like you in the rest, we will resemble you in that.”

“To weep is to make less the depth of grief.”

“With mirth and laughter let old wrinkles come.”

“Brevity is the soul of wit.”

“The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers.”

“I like this place and could willingly waste my time in it.”

A thoroughly underrated notion.

It is hard to believe that a man is telling the truth when you know for a fact that you would lie if you were in his place. H.L. Mencken

No man has a good enough memory to make a successful liar.  Abraham Lincoln

Who lies for you will lie against you.  Bosnian Proverb

Make yourself an honest man, and then you may be sure there is one less rascal in the world.  Thomas Carlyle

A half truth is a whole lie.  Yiddish Proverb

A lie will easily get you out of a scrape, and yet, strangely and beautifully, rapture possesses you when you have taken the scrape and left out the lie.  Charles Edward Montague

Those who think it is permissible to tell white lies soon grow color-blind.  Austin O'Malley

A truth that's told with bad intent beats all the lies you can invent.  William Blake

The least initial deviation from the truth is multiplied later a thousand fold.  Aristotle

The most dangerous untruths are truths moderately distorted.  Georg Christoph Lichtenberg

Dare to be true:  nothing can need a lie:  A fault, which needs it most, grows two thereby.  George Herbert

With lies you may get ahead in the world - but you can never go back.  Russian proverb

Honesty is the rarest wealth anyone can possess, and yet all the honesty in the world ain't lawful tender for a loaf of bread.  Josh Billings

A lie has speed, but truth has endurance.  Edgar J. Mohn

When you stretch the truth, watch out for the snapback.  Bill Copeland

Truth is the most valuable thing we have, so I try to conserve it.  Mark Twain

A lie may take care of the present, but it has no future.  Unknown

I never lie because I don't fear anyone.  You only lie when you're afraid.  John Gotti

Truth fears no questions.  Unknown

There are only two ways of telling the complete truth - anonymously and posthumously.  Thomas Sowell

I don't mind lying, but I hate inaccuracy.  Samuel Butler

Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing had happened.  Winston Churchill

If you want to ruin the truth, stretch it.  Unknown

The truth is more important than the facts.  Frank Lloyd Wright

Like all valuable commodities, truth is often counterfeited.  James Cardinal Gibbons

Respect for the truth is an acquired taste.  Mark Van Doren

A lie can travel half way around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes.  Mark Twain

Always telling the truth is no doubt better than always lying, although equally pathological.  Robert Brault

People who are brutally honest get more satisfaction out of the brutality than out of the honesty.  Richard J. Needham

There is always a way to be honest without being brutal.  Arthur Dobrin

Beware of the half truth.  You may have gotten hold of the wrong half.  Unknown

When truth is divided, errors multiply.  Eli Siegel

Honesty pays, but it don't seem to pay enough to suit some people.  Frank McKinney "Kin" Hubbard

Speak the truth, but leave immediately after.  Slovenian Proverb

Always tell the truth.  Even if you have to make it up.  Unknown

The cruelest lies are often told in silence.  Adlai Stevenson

Today I bent the truth to be kind, and I have no regret, for I am far surer of what is kind than I am of what is true.  Robert Brault

The truth needs so little rehearsal.  Barbara Kingsolver

Society can exist only on the basis that there is some amount of polished lying and that no one says exactly what he thinks.  Lin Yutang

A little inaccuracy sometimes saves tons of explanation.  Saki

One of the most striking differences between a cat and a lie is that a cat has only nine lives.  Mark Twain

Someday a computer will give a wrong answer to spare someone's feelings, and man will have invented artificial intelligence.  Robert Brault

It is always the best policy to tell the truth, unless, of course, you are an exceptionally good liar.  Jerome K. Jerome

It takes two to lie.  One to lie and one to listen.  Homer Simpson

A society that gets rid of all its troublemakers goes downhill.

An armed society is a polite society. Manners are good when one may have to back up his acts with his life.

Being right too soon is socially unacceptable.

Don't ever become a pessimist... a pessimist is correct oftener than an optimist, but an optimist has more fun, and neither can stop the march of events.

Don't handicap your children by making their lives easy.

I am free because I know that I alone am morally responsible for everything I do. I am free, no matter what rules surround me. If I find them tolerable, I tolerate them; if I find them too obnoxious, I break them. I am free because I know that I alone am morally responsible for everything I do.

I don't see how an article of clothing can be indecent. A person, yes.

I never learned from a man who agreed with me.

It is a truism that almost any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so.

Love is that condition in which the happiness of another person is essential to your own.

Never insult anyone by accident.

Never underestimate the power of human stupidity.

Never worry about theory as long as the machinery does what it's supposed to do.

No statement should be believed because it is made by an authority.

One could write a history of science in reverse by assembling the solemn pronouncements of highest authority about what could not be done and could never happen.

One man's "magic" is another man's engineering.

One man's theology is another man's belly laugh.

One of the sanest, surest, and most generous joys of life comes from being happy over the good fortune of others.

Political tags - such as royalist, communist, democrat, populist, fascist, liberal, conservative, and so forth - are never basic criteria. The human race divides politically into those who want people to be controlled and those who have no such desire.

Sex without love is merely healthy exercise.

The difference between science and the fuzzy subjects is that science requires reasoning while those other subjects merely require scholarship.

Theology is never any help; it is searching in a dark cellar at midnight for a black cat that isn't there. Theologians can persuade themselves of anything.

They didn't want it good, they wanted it Wednesday.

To be matter-of-fact about the world is to blunder into fantasy - and dull fantasy at that, as the real world is strange and wonderful.

When a place gets crowded enough to require ID's, social collapse is not far away. It is time to go elsewhere.

When any government, or any church for that matter, undertakes to say to its subjects, This you may not read, this you must not see, this you are forbidden to know, the end result is tyranny and oppression no matter how holy the motives.

Women and cats will do as they please, and men and dogs should relax and get used to this idea.

You can have peace. Or you can have freedom. Don't ever count on having both at once.

Yield to temptation. It may not pass your way again.

Absolute faith corrupts as absolutely as absolute power.

Power corrupts the few, while weakness corrupts the many.

Rudeness is the weak man’s imitation of strength.

It still holds true that man is most uniquely human when he turns obstacles into opportunities.

Retribution often means that we eventually do to ourselves what we have done unto others.

We are told that talent creates its own opportunities. But it sometimes seems that intense desire creates not only its own opportunities, but its own talents.

We lie the loudest when we lie to ourselves.

When people are free to do as they please, they usually imitate each other.

You can discover what your enemy fears most by observing the means he uses to frighten you.

It is when power is wedded to chronic fear that it becomes formidable.

We feel free when we escape—even if it be but from the frying pan to the fire.

In a time of drastic change it is the learners who inherit the future. The learned usually find themselves equipped to live in a world that no longer exists.

Passionate hatred can give meaning and purpose to an empty life.

People who bite the hand that feeds them usually lick the boot that kicks them.” 

Irrationality often manifests itself in upholding the word against the evidence of the eyes. 

Every great cause begins as a movement, becomes a business, and eventually degenerates into a racket.” 

Nonconformists travel as a rule in bunches. You rarely find a nonconformist who goes it alone. And woe to him inside a nonconformist clique who does not conform with nonconformity.” 

It is the individual only who is timeless. Societies, cultures, and civilizations -- past and present -- are often incomprehensible to outsiders, but the individual's hungers, anxieties, dreams, and preoccupations have remained unchanged through the millennia.

Far more crucial than what we know or do not know is what we do not want to know.

A man is likely to mind his own business when it is worth minding. When it is not, he takes his mind off his own meaningless affairs by minding other people's business.

An empty head is not really empty; it is stuffed with rubbish. Hence the difficulty of forcing anything into an empty head.

You can never get enough of what you don't need to make you happy.

The greatest weariness comes from work not done.

The hardest arithmetic to master is that which enables us to count our blessings.